Labor Split a Mixed Bag

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• Reader Comments (26)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  It seems to me that labor has to forge a consensus alliance if it is to survive. The political climate towards unions is very negative, rivaling the pre-depression years. The best thing for big bidness is to see a cracked front in the existing union alliance. I am not advocating untiy at the expense of good and democratic policy; rather I am urging the existing alliances to try to find a way of solving their problems that avoid disintegration. The government and its corporate counterparts have been chipping away at union participation rates for the last 60 years, and they may be preparing for their death blow if AFL-CIO unity appears to be on the verge of collapse.

  Posted by Liberal on Jul 24, 2005 at 2:25 PM

  The Federal Labor Relations Act is all that unions have to enforce their right to exist really.  It’s up to the courts to force business to bargain in good faith.  The courts have consistently failed in this duty since . . . to my recollection, since Ronald the Raygun started appointing federal judges to the bench in the 80’s.

  Posted by Lefty on Jul 24, 2005 at 3:55 PM

  When I say government I mean the Taft-Hartley Act and the spineless National Labor Relations Board that has not upheld the Wagner Act of 1935. But you are right that the federal bench is the biggest enforcer of union rights, however those judges are just an extension of the chief executive and the Congress that approves them.

  Posted by Liberal on Jul 24, 2005 at 4:12 PM

  The problem with union rights requiring judges and courts to uphold them is that they ossify and become the target of lawyers and others who wish to destroy them. In Australia over 100 years of union organisation and award rights is about to be torn up by the current conservative government. In my view the rights and powers that unions stand for have now been decisively rejected by the political class in both the US and here in OZ. This means that we are facing a situation unprecedented since the 1920s in your country, and since the 1850s in mine. The question is, are the old ways of doing business still good enough. I don’t think so. The issues are complex but in my mind the focus of union activity has to be to knit together the political and industrial diemsions of how power is deployed. I agree with much of what the change to wim people seem to be saying about the need to organise in industries with a strategy of building leverage and power over the labour market. That is Organising 101. Large general unions lacking any specific focus let down both their members and the general working class. However the issue is not just srtucture or rules. It is a wider issue of unions breaking out of the stright jacket of being purely ‘industrial’ and looking to do other things that organise working people even when they are not at work. Examples might be rent strikes, or campaigning against a major polluter, or organising assistance for immigrants who are in the uS without papers etc; There is nothing wrong with having a bit of messiness in the coverage of unions,and structures and bargaining units aren’t everything (although they are important), the main thing is that unions practice what they preach. If you can’t cooperate in the face of this unprecedented assault on working people’s living standards and democratic rights, then it doesn’t matter what the rules say, or what structures are in place. We have had mandated coverage in this counrty for 100 years and the government is going to tear up the rule book soon. We will be required to practice what we preach and ensure that unions do not go after each others’ members! This will be a test. Working people al over the world need a strong militant US union movement. Make no mistake-peopel understand very clearly the diferecne between ordinary US working people and the crooks that curently run your country. But the US working class movement needs to ensure that its vision is as large as the vision of its own ruling class. In other words, it would be good to see a vision for working peole that reached beyond the cliches mouthed by the usual suspects, and which offered a new deal based on mutual respect for differences and complete solidarity with movements of people struggling to overcome poverty, oppression and dictatorship, even when those dictators are friends of the US ruling class! Good luck with oyur struggle-we sure have our plates full as well.

  Posted by Jane Doe on Jul 24, 2005 at 7:13 PM

  Jane Doe- I was under the impression that Australians were more progressive than their counterparts here in the U.S. Is the populace taking kindly to this brazen use of political force to attack labor unions? Is the situation in Australia really as bad as it is in the U.S? America ranks last among the industrialized nations in terms of access to healthcare, infant mortality rate, workers’ protections, and income ditribution. In addition, recent reporting in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal indicate one has a better chance of moving up the economic ladder in Britain or France than America. I know John Howard is a turd but can he be as bad as George W. Bush, the worst leader in western history?

  Posted by Liberal on Jul 24, 2005 at 8:21 PM

  No,
  John Howard is not worse than George Bush, because he has less power, not because he is a nicer guy! His whole career has been built on ‘kiss up, kick down’ politics ever since he left his father’s service station in a suburb of Sydney, did law, and decided to spend the rest of his life helping those that have more, get more! Back to your question. Australians have had the good fortune to have a more social democratic polity than the US, and as a consequence, we have far more social and economic equality here than you guys have-up until now. We have universal single payer health care, and unitl now a system of awards which underpin collective bargaining.The Australian people are not taking these plans lying down. In fact the government took a 10% drop in approval ratings once their plans became known. In addition, the ACTU (our version of the AFL-CIO) kicked off a great media and information campaign alerting people to what is at stake. People are simply gob smacked with the plans once the detail is spelt out. Active unions are going out into all their workplaces to educate the members about the changes and we are asking our mebers to attend community meetings in order to build community resistance to the plans. The ideas underpinning the Australian changes are based on the ususal nonesense peddled by free market mullahs about the sanctity of individual contract and the right of employers to do what they like, when they like to anyone they like. Fortunately in this country the sanctitiy of free contract and property rights in human beings is more lightly held than in the US. Most people, irresepctive of their views on other issues have a healthy scepticism about the ‘win win’ nature of corporate control of the workplace and evey other damned thing.

  In my view and the views of others the government has made a fundamental error, based on the fact that they now have control of both houses of Parliament, much like Republican control of both the Reps and the Senate in the US. However nothing can be taken for granted. The union movement here is as united as I have ever seen it. No doubt about it everyone knows that what is at stake is not union rights, but the rights of ordinary working people whether they are in unions or not, to go about their business with some security, dignity and decent conditions at work. This ‘let it rip’ version of capitalism doesn’t play so well down under, so we are very sure that we are on firmer cultural ground than our opposition. The trouble is, power has its own logic, and we have to fight on a number of fronts if we are going to teach these people a lesson.

  I hope that the US movement can rebuild itself around a progressive program of rights at work for every working person, whether they are US citizens or not, and I hope that the democratic forces within the US can reach out to other cultures which are just as rich as their own, in order to build enduring alliances from below, rather than the ones the US ruling class imposes through its allies in other countries like ours. It would be great to have visiting union leaders from the US warning working people in other countries about their future, if they let their own ruling class do to them, what the US ruling class has done to US working and middle class people. Good luck with everything, and keep up the good fight!

  Posted by Jane Doe on Jul 24, 2005 at 9:02 PM

  I appreciate your response. It seems that the progressive movement in Australia has its sh*t together much more than us Americans do. Just check out the thread under the story “Democratic Dos and Dont’s.” I am going at it with another democrat like you wouldn’t believe. Anyways, it sounds like the Aussies have a much better grasp on democracy than the country that first used it in the post-Renaissance period. It is quite a shame to see our democratic-capitalist society turn into an autocratic-fascist one. Money and power corrupt the mind don’t they. Your response gives me hope because you have an engaged citizenry that won’t take Howard’s changes lying down. In America the corporate influence is amazing in our democratic system. There is a street in Washington D.C., K Street, that is lined with lobbying groups’ offices, and most of them represent a particular industry.
  I wonder, do corporations in Australia have the same constitutional rights as an individual? They do here which has unleashed a whole can of worms onto our fragile society. I just hope I can get Australian citizenship easily because I do not want to be in the U.S when it all hits the fan.

  Posted by Liberal on Jul 24, 2005 at 9:17 PM

  Liberal,
  Don’t be downhearted. I know a little about what has happended in the US, and it sure is a shame. But when has the media anywhere ever supported working people’s aspirations? The fact is that that the ruling classes everywhere have become emboldened in the post cold era. We have to rebuild a new progressive movement which takes on their power with as much tenacity and fight as the movement which imposed some control on the bastards after the great Depression and the second world war. I know it stinks, believe me-it is unbelievable what they think they can get away with now. But I am optimistic. It is simply not possible for a ruling class to ‘hide’ the reality of deteriorating living standards and democratic rights forever, even if they succeed for a time in convincing people that the number one issue is gay marriage or some other clap trap. The fact is IMO, the US ruling class is petrified about what has been unleashed in the Middle East, and will find it impossible to deliver both guns and butter in sufficient quantities to impose much order either at home or abroad.
  In Australia corporations law is similar to the US, but I don’t think they have quite the immunities they have over there. But it doesn’t matter in a sense. It is not the law which holds these people to account-it is popular power. The law follows the capacity of people to hold them to account politically and socially. If we can’t do that, we can forget laws of any kind!
  If the US people raise sufficient hell at home about declining living standards and democratic rights, and the middle east continues to refuse pacification at the end of a gun, I believe that 2008 will make 1968 look like a minor tiff. IMO, that is what sections of the more thoughful of the uS ruling class are beginning to see, but I think your system is too constipated to be able to save itself. Unfortunately before things get better, they get worse, and the only people who suffer are the powerless and the poor. But that is the point really. Since when have the powerful and rich ever done anything unless they are forced by overwhelming power to do something?

  Posted by Jane Doe on Jul 24, 2005 at 9:35 PM

  I appreciate your insights Jane Doe. It does get worse before it gets better, but maybe America will come out of the dark tunnel of corporate power and political influence for the better in the end. Perhaps the consequences of living in a quasi-fascist society will make skeptics out of the American people for the next few generations.

  Posted by Liberal on Jul 25, 2005 at 9:53 AM

  Disunity in the current US labor movement may not necessarily be a bad thing.  It could create different poles of political orientation and influence and serve as a mode of testing alternative methods of organizing drives and collective bargaining.  The US has always seemed to have greater labor unity for its relatively proportionately smaller labor movement than other industrial capitalist countries where there is greater ideological factionalism.  Still many of these countries’ labor movements have more power in general. The US labor movement not only needs to build a much bigger base but become much more politicized beyond the business unionism model that has prevailed since the 1955 AFL-CIO merger and which the AFL-CIO has actively promoted.  Greater militancy on political issues, more effort on public political education in general, and the taking of public stands on such key issues as the War in Iraq and Bush’s tax cuts and the total dismantaling of the social safty net is essential for the future success and the growth of the US labor movement.  Only then can the US labor movement become a mobilizing organ for the left on vital social issues and at election time.

  Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jul 25, 2005 at 5:11 PM

  cabdriverinchicago
  You may be right about the current split in the US labor movement, but nevertheless I am sad that it has come to this.  In Australia I suspect there is a greater ideological convergence in the movement than in the US, simply because it is a more ideologically united country overall. I am not underplaying the very real differences that exist here-particularly between the labour movement and our opponents, and our levels of migration since ww2 have been even larger (proportionately) than even the US. This has provided the labour movement with a rich addition of labour movement heritages and traditions from all over the world. We have always had a robust left movement (albeit struggling at the moment)within the trade union movement. Interestingly, the end of the cold war in OZ has assisted in convergence in the trade union movement rather than splintering it further.

  What interests me is the issue in the US of the great reliance of many workers on the military for jobs in armaments as well as the army generally for training and education. It seems to me that the US labor movement is a bit like the UK labour movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the issue of empire was a tangible issue in that it provided sections of the working class with certain privileges and perks that otherwise would not be the case. In the US there sems to be a reluctance for the labor movement to face up to the effect that the military and its traditions can have on the movement. I heard from a friend who attended the AFLCIO convention that they had two marines go on to the stage and salute the flag etc; Such a display would be unthinkable in Australia, as would be the conga line of politicians that apparently addressed the convention. It seems that the labor movment lacks a bit of capacity for independent action and thinking, and is terrified of being labelled ‘unpatriotic’. In this country the labor movement believes deep down that they are the real patriots, and our opponents are imposters, always jumping to do someone else’s bidding-either the uK as in the past, or the US as now.

  I guess it is complicated when you are trying to rebuild a movement within a country that is an empire in its own right.

  Posted by Jane Doe on Jul 25, 2005 at 5:53 PM

  I agree with Cabdriver’s and Jane Doe’s comments. The union movement must become more politically engaged and take stands against the war in Iraq and Bush’s Social Security privatization scheme. The unions must reach out to the inner city workers and develop a strong influence on the streets before tackling Capitol Hill. Only with a large and involved base can the unions get the attention of Congress.
  Jane Doe makes a keen observation in noting how afraid the AFL-CIO is of appearing unpatriotic. I admire the approach the Aussie unions have toward patriotism. They have a spine and have enough confidence to know THEY are the true patriots. If American unions cannot strike a divergent path from Bush/Cheney’s faux patriotism then they will never reclaim their past glory. You have to stick up for yourself and NEVER give in to your enemy!!

  Posted by Liberal on Jul 25, 2005 at 7:14 PM

  The US labor movement faces many difficult challenges at the moment. The minimum wage is probably at its historic lowest real level-at about 61% of the poverty level for a family of four at full time employment! Over 10 million manufacturing jobs have been shipped abroad in the past 30 years and now that the rate has slowed white collar service jobs are increasingly being outsourced to other countries. The challenge faced by labor is daunting.  Health insurance is increasingly out of the reach of more and more people as health care corporations collude to monopolize services and available staff in a given area to boost costs and bully insurers who also profit from the higher premiums/subscriber and lower administrative costs with fewer subscribers! The labor movement’s political clout is waning with most red states having right to work laws that effectively ban unions. I have always suspected that anti-union people are being sent into strongly pro-union blue states to infiltrate union workplaces where the union is vulnerable, especially in healthcare and other places where there are difficulties, and agitate against the union and try to vote them out in a decertification drive.  This seems to have happened in a Chicago area hospital although I don’t know more details. If this is occuring it is disgusting and insideous.  I would appreciate information on such activities because they need to be fought!  The key seems to be political strength and getting Americans to understand that Unions are not just another “special interest” but rather the mainstay of most people’s democratic rights in a society that is increasingly class polarized by capital’s class war and where people have fewer and fewer options for coping with their rapidly declining living standards. The very existence of the US as a democratic society is at stake not just union organizations as entities.  The people need to struggle to keep unions around because of the democratic and humane values they represent and because of the stability and civility they insure by creating greater equality.

  Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jul 26, 2005 at 12:23 PM

  Amen to that, cabdriverinchicago. Now if we could only get the rest of middle America to realize unions are in their own best economic interest....

  Posted by Liberal on Jul 26, 2005 at 3:46 PM

  Liberal wrote: “Now if we could only get the rest of middle America to realize unions are in their own best economic interest....”

  This is why I’m hopeful about the union squabble. I think the Change to Win coalition’s complaints against the AFL-CIO are legitimate.

  Specifically, why hasn’t there been an organized strike against non-unionized groceries? I was so amazed when last summer the unions here were planning to strike at the only three grocers that are unionized… look guys, if you want better wages, you have to educate people who are shopping at Wal-mart about the impact that has on their wages.

  I think labor also has to look at a broader definition of membership. Fast Food Nation documents how McDonald’s keeps defeating organizers. But what if kids joined the union through their high school, and then call a strike across a city. What would happen to the financials is every working teen refuse to eat at the target restaurant?

  Posted by Anne S. on Jul 27, 2005 at 1:29 PM

  I think all this publicity over the issue is fantastic and can only generate more interest in unions but we need to remember the bottom line is that the AFL-CIO is a farce. It has no real power and no authority over its member unions. And the unions that remain part of it are doomed to face ever-dwindling memberships and loose any remaining relevancy they may still have.  Meanwhile the AFL will continue to waste millions on spinless democrats who, if they manage to get elected, promptly stab working people in the back by reneging on all their pro-labor campaign rhetoric and pandering to big business as whole-heartedly as any republican.
  Organize them and they will fight for themselves!

  Posted by jon t on Jul 28, 2005 at 10:10 PM

  Asplit in the US Labor movement only helps Bush, Free Traders and the Right.  The AFL-CIO does not need this split.  It is the worst time.

  Posted by hurd on Jul 29, 2005 at 12:28 PM

  I see the split positively.

  One of the biggest mistakes american labor ever did was the so called to two party solution. Rather than fight for a labor party of its own it decided its strategy would be to play the two corporate parties off of each other. The AFL-CIO played a central role in this policy.

  Most of labors money at present should go to organizing. Any electoral money should be clear and specific. Candidate A supports universal healthcare, living wage, fair trade, overturning anti union legislation etc. Labor refuses to endorse any candidate who will not stand on those issues.

  Posted by n*t* on Jul 30, 2005 at 6:30 PM

  An organisational split is not as disastrous as you might think hurd. IMO, new ideas and new ways of working can often bloom in a situation where the some poeple feel freer to do their own thing. The rela test is to ensure that organisational split at the top doesnt ranslate into splitting and wrecking at the grass roots. There is a real need it seems to me for goodwill, recognition of honest diffrences, and collaboration rather than competition between unions in the various indsutries. If that can be achieved, and if the coalition that left behaves in a principled fashion, along with those who stayed, them it might turn out to be a positive thing. After all hurd, the CIO split with the AFL in the 1930s and initiated some of the most aggressive and successful organising drives ever seen.

  BTW, I don’t agree that what is needed is another political party per se. What is needed is for the mass movement to take the political party that they have and build such power that they ‘capture’ the party for the people, rather than the way it is now, where the people are ‘owned’ by the party. In any case, parties don’t make mass movements, mass movements make parties. That’s the trick IMO.

  Posted by Jane Doe on Jul 30, 2005 at 11:59 PM

  The Democratic Party is not nor has ever been a labor party. Jane Doe, it sounds as if you’d like the same 2 party solution that got the AFL-CIO into the bind it is in know.

  Jane Doe, masses taking over party is never that simple. The religious right taking over the Republicans needed to give up any conception of ecomonic populism. Not a fair trade IMHO

  My point is labor should not support the demopublican party as a whole, but rather support candidates that will adhere to a clear and specific labor platform. Labor would not compete directly against the current duopoly, but within it. Any candidate that receives support is held accountable for their votes.

  But, electoral strategy should be a small portion of capital. The vast majority of funds should be spent on unionizing the private sector. The slogan could be Leave No Business Behind.

  Posted by n*t* on Jul 31, 2005 at 6:40 AM

  n*t*,
  I agree that money needs to be poured into organising, rather than donating to a political party. I also agree with your point about supporting good candidates rather than simply a party per se. However, it is not an either or question. Whether or not the Dempcrats have ever been a labor party seems to me to be irrelevant. The ALP in Ausrtalia has been a labour party, and it is struggling to define itself against the current neoliberal assault as well, although it is not as bad as the Democrats - yet. My point is that building another party, is a big task, and it seems to me if you have the organising strength and moxie to make a differecne to the way politics is done in hundreds of small places, the effects will be felt in big places as well. This will in turn change the nature of the party that you have the most chance of influencing. I am sceptical of solutions like building an alternative political party, that promise relief from difficult situations, when the problem at hand is the inability of the movement to influence or change that which already exists.
  I am not hostile to new parties BTW, but I am hostile to projects which have little or nothing to do with the main game - which is to build social and economic clout, that can be translated into political power. To me, building a new party misses the point.

  Posted by Jane Doe on Jul 31, 2005 at 6:25 PM

  It seems to me there are pleanty enough parties already. The task is to see what we can do to nurture them. The saddest moment of the 2004 election to me was having several thousands of voters cheering on Kerry. It was such a waste, so many good soul, wasted on someone who didn’t stand for anything. 

  What I think is needed is a system where there are multi-parties that do not directly compete with each other. A system where there are dual party affiliations for those candidates who really care about progressive issues. For such a system to be successful candidates must be held accountable for their actions.

  I for example simply refuse to vote Demopublican in national elections. I will locally if they hold my values. I absolutely refuse to throw away my vote to those whose values are contrary to mine. I resent that my union supported FrankenKerry over 3rd party candidates that had much better labor records. Our values must stand for something.

  It was very clear from this past election that the ABBers just pushed the politics to the right. Instead of having the needed debate on healthcare Kerry puts forward Bushes 2002 Healthcare plan, and then Bush calls it socialized medicine.

  I think Democracy is not possible in this country until we have a system where 3rd parties can flourish. I would say multi-parties is a good measurement of a healthy democracy. What we may agree on is creating a system where multiple parties can flourish in an unfractured left. It still would be a stretch in my view to include national Democrats as part of the left.

  Posted by n*t* on Aug 1, 2005 at 9:59 PM

  All of you wanting to build a third party are screaming at the wind.  It has failed every time it is tempted.  A whole change in governance in the county will need to be done to give 3rd Parties a chance to have an impact.  Do not jump on a third party just for the sake of a different party.  Well thought out plans need developing.  A Parliamentary system would help but not within the confines of the present two party system.  The unions that left, I would like to know exactly how many the Teamsters was part of the AFL-CIO.  I know they joined nationally, but really what have they done.  They had not joined the state organizations.  So what did they do to make them leave?

  Posted by hurd on Aug 3, 2005 at 3:15 PM

  A wonderful argument. We have a corupt system that discourages 3rd parties, as a result 3rd parties fail, so we should put our energy into the one party system.

  What this misses is the New Deal was a third party platform not the Dems. Roosevelt had no support from “liberals” in getting this passed in 1932, but it came from labor and the socialists.

  Here are few simple things that can be done;

  1.States deal out electoral votes proportionally rather than winner take all.

  2. Third parties do not have to fulfill greater requirements than the state sanctioned parties.

  3. A majority of popular vote is needed to take office. If no one gets over 50% then a run off is required. Or better yet instant run off voting where if favorite candidate is disqualified then 2nd choice is counted.

  The point is this would be good for ABBers and thirds parties. It would keep the Dems from moving so far toward the right since they’ll want the left third party votes. They will also not have the fear that third parties could sway the election to Bush or the right. The Dems also would have to honestly engage those to their left. With such a system we would be much better off than a Gore or Kerry today.

  We cannot continue to call ourselves a democracy when we have a one party system.

  Posted by n*t* on Aug 3, 2005 at 3:48 PM

  My point is, at the risk of repeating myself, that any goal which seeks to change the way political business is done anywhere, requires a mass base of support to make the changes. Build the mass base, (organising, creative campaigns etc;) and you will be in a position to demand changes that are in your interests. Again, what I see here, is avoidance of the hard questions.
  What is to be done about building a mass base which has the capacity to challenge power as it is now constituted in the US? Political parties are merely expressions of a base, they do not a mass make. And neither, by the way, does supporting the status quo. IMO, the status quo in the US is profoundly hostile to the interestes of ordinary working people, and it is irrelevent in those circumstances, to reccomend striving harder within the status quo - ie; to keep on supporting the Democrats in an institutional sense. But it is relevant IMO, to build local power based on working people, and to support whatever local political group will further progresive aims. That does not mean alliances bereft of principle. It does not mean suporting a local Republican. It does mean building coalitions and alliances which are progressive in local areas. Eventually, you will have a sufficient mass, that turns quantity into quality.

  I don’t know how else people have ever changed anything, faced as you are, as we all are, with such a concentration of economic, political and social power.

  Posted by Jane Doe on Aug 3, 2005 at 8:01 PM

  I am in full agreement. Thanks for the clarification.

  Posted by n*t* on Aug 3, 2005 at 8:31 PM

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