(JAI: Until the unions want for all workers what they want for themselves
labor will continue to dwindle towards insignificance. The unions must
represent and serve not only their members but th epeople whom their
workers serve, e.g. students and parents in school; patients and their
relatives and friends. But more than just that. In advocating for the
rights, working conditions and wages they must begin to represent the
interests of the community in which they live and work: th ebarely-, the
under- and the unemployed. Any union that seeks community support and
demonstrate that their interests are identical with those they serve will
gather support. Any union that does not, in my opinion, does not deserve
that support. In order to get, one must give. In order to have, one must
share. In order to teach, one must learn. In order to succeed, one must
lift with ones' self. And in order to do that, one must assist those who
society has condemned to be failures.
"...thousands of normal, apolitical,
non-confrontational people working in public-sector jobs did go out on
mass strikes."
It can happen again. But when that time comes, it will only happen with
community support. Community support that union bureaucrats are unable to
inspire.
Down with the bureaucrats! Up with the Working Class!
JAI
RAC-LA )
On Left Anti-Unionism and the Reason We Lost Wisconsin By shrinking away
from direct action and organizing, labor lost the ability to harness the
people power that occupied the state capitol. By Mike Elk on June 28, 2012
As a labor reporter, I was dismayed to see Gordon Lafers "Left
Anti-Unionism?"<http://www.thenation.com/blog/168435/opinionnation-labors-bad-recall>that
begins this forum. In his first post, Lafer attacked pro-union writers
for critiquing labor leaders in the wake of the Wisconsin recall election.
He went on to write, "The only serious choices we have are to keep fighting
even though times are hard, or to give up, or to enjoy the momentary rush
of being on the same side as power and join in the anti-union attack."
While Lafer has apologized for the remarks and said he made them in a
moment of anger, variations of the term left anti-union are often
thrown around to silence critics of union leaders. For example, a recent *Wall
Street Journal*
article<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303296604577454823411436702.html>highlighted
how AFSCMEs outgoing President Gerald McEntee spent $325,000
on charter jet flights since 2010, instead of flying coach the way most of
the workers he represents do. AFSCMEs response was to blast the report for
being published by the mouthpiece of right-wing, corporate America.
Incoming AFSCME President Lee Saunders went on to
say<http://www.afscmetogether.com/2012/06/some-very-disturbing-news/>that
those within the union who leaked the information knowingly gave
ammunition to the unions enemies at a time when the right-wing media want
nothing more than to destroy the labor movement.
In the wake of the Wisconsin defeat, there has been far too little concrete
criticism of why organized labor lost. The analysis pushed by unions has
relied on claiming that Walker outspent his opponent by a margin of 8-to-1.
However, the great champion of labor, Paul Wellstone, was outspent 7-to-1
in his first election for Senate right next door in Minnesota, and he still
managed to beat an incumbent senator. Strong, organized labor candidates
have always been outspent, but they are able to win by harnessing people
power the way Wellstone did.
At the height of the occupation, when 100,000 protesters were occupying the
capitol, polls showed Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett beating Governor Scott
Walker
52-45<http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/poll-wisconsin-voters-woudlnt-elect-gov-walker-in-do-over.php?ref=fpa>.
The key question is how did the movement in Wisconsin lose this people
power?
Quite simply, union leaders have just not invested their members with that
much people powerbefore or after the Wisconsin recall. In February 2011,
two union leadersMarty Beil, one of AFSCME Wisconsins Executive
Directors, and Mary Bell of the Wisconsin Education Association
Councilagreed to across the board wage cuts averaging $4,400 a
year<http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/128192473.html>for
their members. They did so without even taking a vote from their
members. You can argue that agreeing to the concessions was a smart
strategic move to win public support for collective bargaining rights, but
shouldnt unions let their own members make that decision? How do unions
distinguish themselves from corporate America if they dont allow their own
members to even vote on whether or not to accept a $4,400 wage cut?
Once Walkers bill passed and the drastic wage cuts went into effect, the
avenues of protest for union supporters were limited. And by failing to
show that they would fight for workers in their day-to-day struggles
through direct action, unions lost not just public support, but support
from their own membership. After Walkers anti-union bill went into effect
outlawing automatic collection of dues, the majority of AFSCMEs members in
Wisconsin chose to leave their union. Membership in AFSCME
declined<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304821304577436462413999718.html>from
62,818 in March 2011 to less than half of that just 28,745 in
February of 2012. A majority of AFSCME members decided *not* to renew their
membership in AFSCMEnot exactly a vote of confidence for the union.
In right-to-work states where members can opt out of unions anytime, like
public employees can do now in Wisconsin, unions have to maintain their
organizational and financial strength through strong, non-stop internal
organizing drives, encouragement of collective action on the job and the
development of rank-and-file leadership that's very sensitive to the
concerns of members. Had AFSCME engaged in a strategy of direct action in
the workplace, similar in spirit to the capitol occupation, things might
have gone differently.
The momentum of such a movement could have forced candidates like Tom
Barrett to be more adamantly pro-union, like the fourteen Democratic state
Senators who fled the state and became much stauncher union supporters.
That would most likely have attracted more Wisconsin voters. Instead of
engaging in direct action in the workplace, revitalizing their unions and
changing the political terrain in Wisconsin, the states labor leadership
backed two Democrats, one in the primary and another in the general
election, both of whom bragged in their public appearances about forcing
concessions from public workers in the past.
Lafer dismisses the possibility of a direct workplace action, arguing that
its too difficult for normal, apolitical, noncon-frontational people to
engage in workplace actions against their employers. He ignores, however,
the fact that in response to Walkers bill, thousands of normal,
apolitical, non-confrontational people working in public-sector jobs did
go out on mass strikes. Thousands of teachers in numerous school districts
across Wisconsin, including in Milwaukee and Madison, went on illegal,
three-day sick-out strikes to protest Walkers bill. The illegal sick-out
strikes swelled the size of the crowd then occupying the capitol to nearly
100,000.
Anyone who has ever been around a strike or union organizing drive knows
that often in the course of being engaged in a labor struggle, people get
inspired out of a sense of solidarity to do things that they never would
have thought possible. Sure, these kinds of actions are tough to initiate,
but Wisconsin labor leaders could have at least tried to motivate workers
in their workplace. Instead, Wisconsin Executive Council 48 Director Rich
Abelson came out
saying<http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/milwaukee-afscme-leader-union-to-redirect-efforts-to-recalls----and-no-talk-of-strikes.php>,
there has been no talk of a general strike, there has been no talk of
targeted strikes, or job actions or anything else. Our dispute is not with
our employers. Our dispute is with the Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate,
the Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly and Governor Walker.
Lafer then dismisses claims that unions were unable to fight in Wisconsin
because they were saddled with overpaid union bureaucrats and were
unwilling to take on the Democrats. In a factually inaccurate statement, he
claims that a union like United Electrical workersunburdened by highly
paid staff or Democratic politicsshould be meeting greater success in
organizing. But, of course, they are not. The problem is not what unions
are doing; its the coercive power of employers.
But the United Electrical Workers (UE), which caps its leaders salaries at
$56,000 and does not typically endorse Democrats, is indeed growing in
states where collective bargaining for public employees is outlawed states
with Democratic governors like West Virginia and North Carolina. On the
other hand, AFSCME, who reportedly pledged to spend $100 million to
re-elect Obama and whose outgoing president Gerry McEntee made a salary of
$387,000<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303296604577454823411436702.html>(nearly
seven times that of UEs president), has lost union members in
those same states, according to UE Political Action Director Chris Townsend.
As AFSCME has seen its ranks dwindle in West Virginia, UE has become the
biggest public-sector union in the state. Despite lacking collective
bargaining rights in West Virginia, UE has been able to win small wage
increases and grievances for its members by providing very intensive
education to a network of shop stewards who then train their own union
members in how to be militants.
Instead of building a rank-and-file system of strong shop stewards who
could mobilize their members, AFSCME chose to continue giving money to the
Democrats in West Virginia in the hope that these Democrats will come to
their rescue. AFSCME continues to give to them despite the fact that the
Democrats have controlled both the governors house and the state
legislature for the last twelve years, but refuse to grant collective
bargaining rights to public employees in West Virginia. In the past, AFSCME
has also given money to Democratic Governors in Virginia and North Carolina
who also refused to grant collective bargaining rights. AFSCME saw their
union ranks dwindle while the shop-floor-oriented UE surpassed AFSCMEs
membership in those states, according to Townsend.
Is UE successful because they cap their union organizers salaries at
$56,000? I would say yes. People often ignore the importance of capping
union leaders salaries in their conversations about union reform. In the
1930s, UE Organizing Director James Matles said that maintaining salaries
for union leaders similar to the workers they represent is important
because union leaders should feel like their members, not for their
members. Union organizers feel like their members when they make
comparable salaries and live in the same neighborhoods; they have a greater
sense of urgency about fighting for their members as a result. (Full
disclosure: my father has worked as a union organizer for UE for
thirty-five years and makes $50,000 a year).
It also makes sense from a practical financial standpoint. Why pay one
union leader a $387,000 salary when you can employ seven full-time union
organizers for the same cost? A study of Department of Labor Records done
by *Labor Notes* in 2010 showed that if you capped the salaries of nearly
10,000 union leaders or staffers making above $100,000 to that amount, you
would save $294 million
dollars<http://labornotes.org/2010/02/unions-top-heavy-salaries-drag-organizing>a
year that could be spent on organizing. Post-
*Citizens United*, when corporations can spend all the money in the world
to attack workers, the labor movement simply cannot afford to be paying
union leaders more than $100,000 a year.
Instead of trimming executive salaries, perks and maybe scaling back on
AFSCMEs pledge to spend $100 million on the re-election of President
Obama, AFSCME laid off half of its organizers in Wisconsin, according to
AFSCME Wisconsin Council 40 organizer Edward A. Sadlowski, at a time when
they should have been hiring more organizers in order to stop their
membership losses and fight back against concessions.
Organized labors current approach is not working, and we need all the
critiques of labor leaders and organizing approaches in order to save the
labor movement. As a labor movement, would we rather have a few union
leaders embarrassed by how much they make, or do we want a serious
discussions about how we revive the movement. Accusing pro-union people,
who raise serious questions about the strategy, finances and political
orientation of unions in effort to save unions of giving ammunition to
unions enemies or being left anti-union is more than just absurd. It
could kill the labor movement.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/168435/opinionnation-labors-bad-recall#
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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