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Troublemakers Are Great—But Are They Enough?

By David Moberg

While worker actions in solidarity on the job are essential, much of the battle for workers in the United States must be political.

Greg Shotwell—a man of small stature and biting wit—is a troublemaker, a thorn in the side of his employer, Delphi Corporation, as it tries to slash wages, benefits and jobs, and degrade working conditions. Through meetings around the upper Midwest where the company’s factories are located and his lively e-mail commentaries—titled “Live Bait & Ammo”—Shotwell has organized a grassroots network of Delphi’s UAW workers into a group called “Soldiers of Solidarity” (SOS).

SOS builds resistance to concessions and demands that General Motors assume responsibility for Delphi—its former subsidiary—and its workers. Shotwell also argues for resistance on the shop floor. That means working to rule (effectively slowing down work) and calling strategic, short strikes to fight Delphi’s use of bankruptcy proceedings to break the union contract.

Yet, as much as his organizing has strengthened the UAW’s hand as it brandishes its overwhelming vote on May 16 to authorize a strike, Shotwell also causes trouble for his union’s leaders by raising questions about their strategy. And he hopes SOS will mean trouble for more than Delphi and GM.

“Our goal in SOS is long term and far broader than one plant or one union,” he recently said. “This is not just about Delphi. Delphi is the harbinger. The vulture capitalists want to steal pensions, cut wages, slash benefits and bust unions everywhere. … Delphi is just a doughnut shop on the highway to Armageddon.”

The audience of nearly 1,000 labor activists gathered in early May in Dearborn, Michigan, cheered lustily at his remarks. They were largely fellow troublemakers at their own workplaces, gathered for the biennial conference sponsored by the monthly newsletter, Labor Notes, which recently published a second edition of its definitive how-to guide, A Troublemaker’s Handbook.

Shotwell’s organizing was a bright spot for these advocates of rank-and-file-oriented, democratic unionism, but his situation—Delphi’s assault on working people—indicates just how bleak the environment is today. “Face it,” Labor Notes writer Marsha Niemeijer told the opening session, “we are getting our butts kicked now.”

Yet they did have some grassroots victories to savor. Since the conference last met two years ago, largely immigrant workers at Republic Windows in Chicago had thrown out a mobbed-up union and put in its place a militant United Electrical Workers local; reformers had won elections in the Los Angeles teachers union; large numbers of U.S. Labor Against the War supporters turned out for the April 29 protest in New York; and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers forced Taco Bell to pay more to the migrant workers who pick its tomatoes (and are now targeting McDonald’s to do the same).

Tom Leedham, a local union president running against incumbent Teamster president Jim Hoffa, sounded the theme that united most of these militants from dozens of unions: “The fight for power on the job is where unionism begins. It’s where it must begin to rebuild the labor movement.” But, he also argued, “we have to have democracy in the labor movement, and it starts at the top.”

Samuel Gompers famously said the labor movement wants “more,” going on to explain that he meant more schoolhouses, books, learning, leisure, justice and “more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.” To that list, most of the labor militants at the conference would add more democracy, more rank-and-file education and involvement, and more solidarity among workers at all levels, including internationally. All of that is critical to making the labor movement stronger, but it is not enough.

Although recent Labor Notes conferences have given increased attention to organizing new members, this movement within the labor movement is still primarily focused on union members doing battle with their employers more effectively. But with labor’s ranks dwindling and fewer non-union workers sensing that they benefit from the fights undertaken by organized labor, clearly more organizing is essential for building the solidarity labor needs. Even if many critics at the conference faulted some of the internal practices of the Services Employees (SEIU), such as establishing giant local unions with hundreds of thousands of members, the labor movement is obviously greatly strengthened by its big and strategic organizing victories, such as the very successful, ongoing campaign to organize California hospital workers. It represents a “renewed form of industrial unionism,” argued Glenn Goldstein, lead organizer for the California campaign, that aims to organize the unorganized, build industry standards for workers, develop inter-union solidarity and mobilize community support.

But neither greater numbers nor greater democracy will be enough. Both the mainstream labor movement and the insurgent critics gathered in Michigan often lack a larger vision of what workers and their unions should be fighting to achieve, as well as a discussion of the longer-range strategy needed. While worker actions in solidarity on the job are essential, much of the battle for workers in the United States must be political. Solutions to many key worker issues—from health care to pension security—increasingly can only be won through politics, not collective bargaining. And the usual facile left-wing appeals for general strikes and labor parties don’t amount to a strategy.

It would be easy for some labor officials to get the feeling that they’re the enemy in this gathering of troublemakers. So it was to the credit of both the organizers and leaders of some unions that significant officials from the AFL-CIO and SEIU took part in discussions at the conference. It would be good for both sides if there were even more such exchanges. Quite appropriately, there are profound strategic differences within the embattled labor movement. But there aren’t enough opportunities—and weren’t during labor’s big split last year—to seriously engage those differences.

David Moberg, a senior editor of In These Times, has been on the staff of the magazine since it began publishing. Before joining In These Times, he completed his work for a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Chicago and worked for Newsweek. Recently he has received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nation Institute for research on the new global economy.

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  • Reader Comments

    Until the fight is taken out form the workplaces and into the streets worker solidarity on the job (although very important) won’t be enough to win in the war that is being unleashed everywhere against working people.  The right to organise on the job is a concession that must be won all oveer again, and nothing is ever given away for free. We must make the political classes of every country in the OECD fearful for their priveleges if we are going to win rights that have been taken away everywhere. What we had was fought for and won, because the powerful feared the powerless,and because of teh ‘spectre’ of communism.
    Now that spectre has seemingly been laid to rest, the powerful believe they can act with impunity. Until they inderstand there will be consequences, we will never win.

    Isolated workers in industries and workplaces don’t make anyone frightened. Masses of people on the streets threatening civil mayhem will. It is as simple as that.

    Posted by Jane Doe on May 25, 2006 at 7:25 PM

    Political action is, indeed, needed. I have argued for years that labor unions are limited by National Labor Relations Board legislation.  The laws permitting labor unions are based on the idea of large workplaces, with standard manufacturing lines, and life-long careers spent at one location.  From my own personal experiences, I have found it more necessary to have a union that will work as a human resource department beholden to the workers, not to management.  Most of the very bad work experiences I have had over twenty years of working relate to situations where HR staff agree there are major problems in a department, but since HR staff owe their jobs and salary to the same people causing the abusive, money-losing, and otherwise undesireable environments in which I have worked, the HR staff are very limited in how much they can help workers.  It is this disconnect between what unions can offer and what I need that makes me cringe whenever I hear politicians or political commentators note how much Labor and Democrats are joined.  One of the main reasons I will occasionally court the Green Party, as a voter, is because the party is less beholden to Labor and is more willing to look at the need of the workers.

    Posted by SillyLeftist on May 26, 2006 at 5:42 AM

    Surprising that G. Shotwell and others are still referred to as “troublemakers “ by people otherwise sympathetic to rank & filers who are reluctant to quietly shuffle off the cliff into post-union oblivion .

    While “troublemakers” as an ironic self-reference may have served as a kind of friendly handshake during the bunker/ incubator days of Labor’s latest creative upwelling 20 or so years ago...things have changed a little. Shotwell & others are publicly engaging in a tussle where actions have at least as much significance as provocative rhetoric.  “Troublemaker “ is not only wildly inaccurate , it signifies a certain sardonic distance from the actual situation faced by union members.

    That distance may be an unintended consequence of a kind of cynical protective armor once needed by outnumbered union dissidents...but it unwittingly sends many people a signal that “troublemakers” may not be dealt all the way in for the hand that has to be played by everybody else.

    In Shotwell’s case that would be precisely the wrong inference. Shotwell certainly brings as much or more to the table than many of the “significant officials” mentioned in Mr. Moberg’s article.  He doesn’t cede an ounce of gravity, insight , or resolve to any Labor leader out there.  Neither is he looking in on the storm from a well-stocked shelter.  As a participant he has taken his lumps & will undoubtedly be in line for more.

    You don’t have to be classified as “ skilled trades “ or “journalist “ to notice that it may be past time for “Troubleshooter “ to replace the misnomer “troublemaker” when it comes to branding engaged union members.

    - John A. Joslin ( IBEW Local # 58- Detroit )

    Posted by John A. Joslin on Jun 10, 2006 at 8:22 AM

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