Teamsters for a Democratic Union and the New Labor Insurgency
The Teamster rank-and-file movement is spreading worker power and making the most of labor’s movement moment, writes longtime Teamsters for a Democratic Union organizer Ken Paff. By Ken Paff/Jacobin/April 15, 2024 Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), the forty-seven-year-old rank-and-file organization within one of the country’s largest and most important unions, is having a “movement moment.” TDU, where I worked as an organizer for many years, is helping propel Teamster militancy and a broader labor insurgency. TDU’s theory of change is that reforms that open up the labor movement to member involvement build worker power. It’s a participatory democracy model that has sometimes been a hard sell both with workers and on the Left. But now this model is spreading. In 2021, United Auto Worker (UAW) militants took a page from the TDU playbook. In the wake of a major corruption scandal among union leaders, UAW members won the right to vote for their leaders, elected new leadership, and took on the Big Three automakers <https://jacobin.com/series/us-autoworkers-on-strike> . UAW president Shawn Fain <https://jacobin.com/author/shawn-fain> told the TDU Convention <https://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2024/0124eidlin.html> in November 2023, “There is no stand-up strike without TDU.” In March, TDU members launched a campaign to win direct elections <https://www.tdu.org/bmwed-campaign> in the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (BMWE) in the rail industry. United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) members are planning <https://portside.org/2024-04-13/can-grocery-workers-take-back-their-union> to launch <https://portside.org/2024-04-13/can-grocery-workers-take-back-their-union> a similar drive <https://portside.org/2024-04-13/can-grocery-workers-take-back-their-union> . TDU won the right to vote for top union officers in 1989, and we have used it twice to join a coalition and successfully elect new leadership in the 1.3 million–member Teamsters: first in 1991, with the victory of Ron Carey in the first-ever one-member-one-vote election, then again in 2021, with the election <https://jacobin.com/2021/11/teamsters-united-democratic-union-ibt-election> of the Teamsters United slate headed by Sean O’Brien and Fred Zuckerman. But TDU is not primarily about electing top leaders, cheering them on, or criticizing them. TDU is fundamentally an independent movement that builds worker power from the bottom up by opening up the union to member participation, developing organizers and leaders, and organizing grassroots campaigns. We call this approach rank-and-file power. In 2021, we won structural changes to the Teamster Constitution that open up the union, including: * Majority rule on contracts. Previously, Teamster officials had the power to impose concessionary contracts unless they were rejected by two-thirds of the members. Now a simple majority’s vote against a contract is enough for it to be rejected. * Rank-and-file members on all contract bargaining committees. This reform helps end back-door deals and opens up contract negotiations to the members. * Higher strike benefits. Members formerly had to wait until their eighth day on strike to receive strike pay. Now strike benefits are paid on day one. This reform spread to the UAW. TDU has fought for these reforms for years. It took the support of a broad coalition led by O’Brien and Zuckerman to finally get them passed. Full at: https://jacobin.com/2024/04/tdu-teamsters-union-rank-and-file-organizing -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29927): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29927 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/105549671/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
