Teamsters + SEIU - AFL-CIO = ???? your thoughts on the big union split, 2005

who the fuck could say that with a straight face.

i think that's part of it; the idea that unions have a lower-/working-class vibe to them, which many white collar folks wouldn't necessarily want to identify with(assuming they thought of it at all).

one startling thing that i found out in my latest job is that being the wiring support tech, where you go into the server closet to rig around cables and phone connections, is a union job. Coming from Michigan, white-collar unions seemed so stranged.

i mean, shit; the only high-visibility unions for not-working-class gigs are players unions for pro-sports and stuff like the Screen Actors Guild...

this is true, but remember, in america, honest discussions of class on any sort of national level are very few and far between. We still hold to the myth/narrative of The American Dream, which has among its consequences the idea that class over here doesn't exist.

Of course, study after study have shown that your station in life and how far you can advance has more to do with who yer daddy is than any inherent characteristic in you, which is something that american conservatives tend to ignore. There are no social causes, everything in your life is the result of your conscious choice, etc etc etc.

but hell, this is all more the territory of somebody like George Lakoff, in terms of how do you change the conversation.

I think Andrew Stern and the others are right in identifying some of the problems. Whether they actually have any idea what to do or how to do it remains to be seen, but I think the split is a good thing overall.

either rebirth or deathknell, but we shall see.

What the fuck are "unions" doing splitting up???? It makes no fucking sense. It is the stupidest thing I may have ever seen the labor movement do, in a long line of stupid things.

"The parties involved" = every working person in America, citizen and non-citizen, legal and illegal.

Unfortunately, Hoffa and Stern have imagined themselves to be the most important parties involved.

When you actually crunch the numbers, after Sweeney bent to their demands, the differences in their positions were zero.

I think this is largely about egos. Hoffa and Stern have huge personalities and, as is evident now, such overweening arrogance that they are willing to shoot themselves and the rank and file they represent in the foot, in the paycheck and in the benefits package.

In the short-to-medium term, the AFL-CIO loses an unbelievable amount of money.

It's a chicken and egg dispute: Sweeney says that lobbying and politics are the most important things to do: use union dues to try and change the political climate of the country to make the laws align more closely with working peoples' interests. This means contributions to political campaigns, this means lobbying efforts.

Stern and Hoffa say no, the most important thing is recruitment. We have to get more people in unions. They say that the political climate won't change until a higher proportion of workers are unionized. So now they've taken their money and they're going to pour it into recruitment.

It's a silly argument, because both sides are obviously right -- both prongs need to be there.

The consequences will be devastating, and not just financially. Look at every level of union leadership -- the Central Labor Councils dotted throughout the country, for instance. Many important posts i.e. directors etc. are filled by SEIU people and Teamsters. All these people are leaving.

The CIO was born out of a fundamental dispute within the U.S. labor movement over whether and how to organize industrial workers. Those who favored craft unionism believed that the most effective way to represent workers was to defend the advantages they had secured through their skills. In the case of skilled workers, such as carpenters, lithographers, and railroad engineers, this meant maintaining as much control as possible over the work their members did through enforcement of work rules, zealous defense of their jurisdiction to certain types of work, control over apprenticeship programs and exclusion of less skilled workers from membership.

Craft unionists were therefore opposed to organizing workers on an industrial basis, i.e., into unions that represented all of the production workers in a particular enterprise, rather than in separate units divided along craft lines. Many of the opponents of industrial unionism were also motivated by a general disdain for industrial workers, whom they considered unorganizable, and for the foreign-born and racial minorities who made up a large number of their ranks.

The proponents of industrial unionism, on the other hand, generally believed that these craft distinctions may have been appropriate in those industries in which craft unions had flourished, such as construction or printing, but that they were unworkable in industries such as steel or auto production. In their view, dividing workers in a single plant into a number of different crafts represented by separate organizations, each with its own agenda, would weaken those workers’ bargaining power and leave the majority of them, who had few traditional craft skills, completely unrepresented. ...

The AFL did, in fact, respond, but with very halting steps. The AFL had long permitted the formation of “federal” unions, which were affiliated directly with the AFL; in 1933 it proposed to use these to organize workers on an industrial basis. The AFL did not, however, promise to allow those unions to maintain a separate identity indefinitely, meaning that these unions might be broken up later in order to distribute their members among the craft unions that claimed jurisdiction over their work. The AFL, in fact, dissolved hundreds of these federal unions in late 1934 and early 1935.

The AFL also authorized organizing drives in the automobile, rubber and steel industries at its convention in 1934, but gave little financial support or effective leadership to those unions. The AFL’s timidity only succeeded in making it less credible among the workers it was supposedly trying to organize, particularly in those industries, such as auto and rubber, in which workers had already achieved some organizing success at great personal risk.

This dispute came to a head at the AFL’s convention in Atlantic City in 1935, when William Hutcheson, the President of the Carpenters, made a slighting comment about a rubber worker delivering an organizing report. Lewis responded that Hutcheson’s comment was “small potatoes,” to which Hutcheson replied “I was raised on small potatoes, that is why I am so small.” After some more words Lewis punched Hutcheson, knocking him to the ground; Lewis then relit his cigar and returned to the rostrum. The incident – which was also “small potatoes,” but very memorable – helped cement Lewis’ image in the public eye as someone willing to fight for workers’ right to organize. ...

At least Stern hasn't socked anyone.

Like I said up above, I have no idea if Stern and the Teamsters really have any good ideas about organizing and galvanizing the movement. But they can't do any worse, and the AFL-CIO leadership is totally out of steam.

I suppose that SEIU and Teamsters' move could be interpreted as abandoning the Democrats. And it is, in a way. There are lots of networks that dry up and die as a result of a move like this.

Yeah, I thought the same thing. When was the last time anybody gave a shit what happened at an AFL-CIO convention?

But I don't think the splinter group is going to abandon the Democrats, they're just talking about putting less money into politics (which hasn't been paying off) and more into organizing. And right, Stern and Hoffa aren't radicals (and Hoffa in particular I don't trust, but that could be just because he's named Hoffa), but the basic fight here is, give more money to the locals or give more money to the chiefs to funnel to Washington. Option B hasn't been doing anybody a lot of good. Union membership kept on dropping right through the Clinton era. So try Option A. The old-guard guys are fighting to hang onto whatever they can for their current members, which is fine, but none of that stuff is sustainable for the next generation, not the pensions, not the healthcare, not any of it. So I think it's good to have some people out there thinking about what happens next and trying some new things. This could turn out to be important, or it could be one more death rattle for American labor as we know it. If it's the latter, it's just one of many.

By the way, it's worth noting that the SEIU and Teamsters organize jobs that are much harder to move overseas, which gives them a big advantage.

the cio had actually been doing a totally different type (i.e. industrial) of organizing for some time before the split and it was truly the result of irreconcilable differences that arose over conflicts in jurisdiction.

the stern/hoffa proposals are mainly shuffling deck chairs except for this big reorganization they propose which doesn't seem to be along any logical lines at all. also, with industrial organizing, the logic was if you want to stop the plant you need everyone to strike at once.

stern/hoffa don't seem to be threatening any more strikes and workplace actions tho? & the structure they propose wouldn't facilitate such especially anyway.

http://www.labornotes.org/nupdiscussion/index.html

Sterling, Hoffa and Stern have this "core industry" line they've been peddling, which is horseshit as far as it being something radically difft from Sweeney's vision. The point Sweeney makes over and over is that the AFL-CIO isn't a national union. It's a confederation. Organizing entire industries is a worthy goal, but not at the expense of losing the particular identities and energies of individual workplaces. The "core industry" thing seems mainly to me as a way to get to their hilarious "rebate" proposal, in which anyone who "focused on organizing their core industry" could keep 50% of their AFL-CIO dues.

Before Sweeney, the AFL-CIO didn't have any overarching recruitment program at all. He started one. Before Sweeney, there was no grassroots political organization to mobilize voters. Now there is, and it's arguably the most substantial mobilization org in the country after the Democrats and the Republicans.

Are you aware of this? If so, what are you talking about? Specifically?

"The 50 percent 'rebate' is about encouraging organizing and providing incentives for local unions to do it rather than just dumping more money in D.C. slush funds."

D.C. slush funds? What are you talking about? Are you talking about Jobs With Justice? Are you talking about the Union Community Fund? If you imagine all lobbying and political work as "slush funds" I think you're making a mistake. Do you have something specific in mind, something to warrant this seamy word?

An underlying issue with Sweeney's leadership that could be addressed is his reluctance to force member unions to adhere to a stricter program. There is a lot of duplicated effort in both recruiting and lobbying. But Sweeney feels that members unions need to control their own destinies. Stern and Hoffa are actually advocating MORE centralized control, more streamlining.

That’s part of it. The strategy on the AFL side is to keep labor markets small and therefore maintain high wages for its members. This hasn’t taken into account immigrant labor, however, which is truly the “new face” of the American worker.

But, you absolutely cannot discount politics – we haven’t had an honestly labor-friendly president in office since Jimmy Freaking Carter. The NLRB is a complete joke now. The Supreme Court even made a decision in Hoffman Plastics that said undocumented workers are not eligible for the NLRA remedy of back wages when they are fired for union organizing – basically, it’s okay to retaliate against undocumented workers for organizing. So as much as the unions themselves are to blame, the general political shift in this country has been from supporting workers to supporting big business and this is reflected in the policies of the administration.

What the fuck are "unions" doing splitting up???? It makes no fucking sense. It is the stupidest thing I may have ever seen the labor movement do, in a long line of stupid things.

I could not disagree more. At this point in our country we are at 8% labor density. A split might, what, take that down to 6%? Some unions are never going to go away. The traditional blue collar unions, like cops, firefighters, and then unions like teachers unions, pharmacists unions. So my first point is that labor is already hurt so badly in this country that a split can't hurt it more.

Second, this split puts the AFL-CIO and the "dissident" coalition in competition with each other. They now have a driving force to get out there and recruit new members and lead successful organizing drives. And with Stern and co. free to pursue more aggressive organizing campaigns in the service industry, which is ready for labor support in a big way, I think the result will be a higher labor density, not a further weakening of organized labor.

Spending more money on membership makes sense, given the way politicians, both democratic and republican, have treated labor since the 70s. Just take a peak at US labor and employment law and that will tell you how much political support workers have in this country right there.

I admit that when I first heard about the split I was rather alarmed about it. But I really feel like legislative and political lobbying, at least on a national level, is a dead end right now. The pres, the house, and the senate are replicans and openly hostile to labor and the Supreme Court is openly hostile to labor... I think the split will increase membership (although we disagree on this point so the rest of my argument probably won't resonate), and that through this increased membership labor will have more voting power and be able to hit politicians where it counts - with votes.

Anti-labor/big business lobbying power is massive right now and I really don't think an undivided AFL-CIO has the resources to fight it. Therefore I think this sort of a wake up call will mobilize membership, which I think is the best way to stop the decline of the labor movement.

I work "on the ground" with low wage and mostly immigrant workers who are organizing campaigns, and this split also seems like a good way to harness some of the leadership potential there. These folks are fighters. It's really cool.

I don't know if "competition" per se is the issue. They're not going to be recruiting each other's workers, right? And if one or the other does a better job at organizing and recruiting new workers, then good. With some changes of leadership, they can always reunite down the line. I just don't see the downside of this. (And fwiw, since the comparison was made, while I don't support school vouchers, the public school system really needs major structural overhauls too. But that's a different thread.)

Top 10 Problems with the Current Debate in the Labor
Movement
By Rose Ann DeMoro
July 21, 2005 --- Submitted to Portside

1. There are no real ideological disputes, in part
because the current AFL-CIO leadership and programs
were, mostly, put in place by those now challenging
them. It appears to be more about egos and an effort by
specific unions to anoint themselves as the group who
should control the AFL-CIO.

2. No workers or rank and file union members are
involved, and it is their labor movement. Much of the
discussion is based on recommendations of consultants
and Madison Avenue approaches such as branding, polling
and focus groups, and scripted blogs, rather than
engaging the membership and the public on helping shape
the future of the labor movement.

3. No issues affecting the majority of working
Americans are being debated - declining real wages, the
health care crisis, the continued erosion of democracy
in the workplace, outsourcing of jobs across the skill
and pay spectrum, a deteriorating social safety net,
declining support for public education, environmental
degradation, social justice and ongoing racial and
gender inequality, alienation and disaffection from the
political process.

4. No real solutions to these problems are being
proposed - curbing corporate control of the political
and economic system, single payer-universal health
care, a progressive tax system that restores fair share
taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, taking
corporate money out of politics, a new industrial trade
policy, a peace, not war economy as well as a strategy
for reforming repressive/crippling labor laws and
enforcement bodies.

5. The specific proposals by the Change to Win group
are structural and bureaucratic, not programmatic -
rebating union dues, forcing unions to merge, limiting
the executive council to the largest unions, and
claiming sovereignty for unions by industry or sector
based on a union's density in that area. There is no
evidence any of these changes would solve labor's
problems.

6. The notion that the salvation of the labor movement
reduces to "density as manifest destiny" is
historically false, and analytically shallow. Equally,
for the unions that are proposing the monopolistic
changes, seemingly self serving. Some unions that have
achieved density have been decimated by corporate
sponsored political, economic, and social policies.
Besides, forced mergers are anti-democratic and could
silence the voice of the most active and militant
unions and union leaders.

7. If the issue of organizing was simply dues rebates
we could all rest easy. But that notion is painfully
oversimplified. Some unions in and out of the Change to
Win unions are organizing within the current structure,
others have not organized for years. Even if the AFL-
CIO paid per capita to some of these unions they still
would not or could not organize. And forcing mergers is
not synonymous with organizing and in fact could
silence the voice of the most active and militant
unions and union leaders who are fundamental in
building this labor movement.

8. Perhaps because the corporate right is so extreme,
some 'progressive' analysts have been portraying the
dues rebates and proposed forced mergers as core
issues. But more troublesome are those pundits who
write glowingly about the Change to Win group's greater
expansion of labor-management partnerships with their
corporate-friendly cost savings schemes, worker speed
up programs, explicit endorsement of globalization,
deskilling, outsourcing and privatization as Labor's
salvation. These proposals can only serve to further
alienate the American worker from the labor movement,
further erode labor's power and harm the very society
wide communities with which labor needs to align and
nurture.

9. Limiting the executive council to the biggest
unions would further reduce the influence and voice of
women and people of color in labor leadership.

10. No discussion of non-bureaucratic strategies are
on the table - including expanded coalitions with non-
labor community, religious and environmental groups;
active grassroots education and mobilization campaigns
to challenge the corporate/far right agenda; building
genuine political independence and holding the
democratic party accountable to worker and public
interests, and serious consideration of - imagine, a
labor party for a labor movement.

Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of the California
Nurses Association

but it honestly seems like a bunch of smoke.

Actually, I just got an email from him about it, here's what he says:

"it is just a hard time without many good or easy solutions...shaking
things up may help...the sum of the separated parts might equal more.....but it is sad that such deep wounds are happening among old friends. In unity there is strength...but then again maybe less bureaucracy and more organizing"

What you do sounds really cool! Where are you based?

I agree about the media exposure, by the way.

I'm also in law school and want to be an attorney for a union when I grow up. So don't tell the CFL what I said about the split.

OH and also: the opinions stated above are mine and mine alone and most definitely do NOT reflect the stance of the organization that I work for, who is remaining adamantly neutral about the whole thing.

And oh and: Go dad! Your pop sounds cool.

None of that means he can do what he says he can. But identifying the challenges is the first step, and he seems to have a pretty clear handle on that. (Much clearer than someone fantasizing about a "labor party," no offense to the Nurses Association.)

xpost, wow, right on, pullapartgirl. How do you see the split helping the organizing efforts that you're part of, and that these workers are part of? You said a bit, but I want to hear more.

the hillman model, btw wound up being v. ugly for lots of garment workers and effectively rendered the union partially simply an arm of employer-profit-driven rationalization, and hence hillman represented the more conservative wing of the union as compared to lewis eventually.

also it seems that sweeping away the crafts hardly addresses the issue of jurisdiction for the currently unorganized workforce. if anything the promise seems to be more to employers -- doing away with craft priv. in return for a better deal for non-craft workers and increased rationalization of wage structure? (that's what hillman essentially did at least)

a sector model (replacing a plant-by-plant industrial model coz of the shift from single plant to integrated subcontractor chains) seems interesting, but again i wanna see some sense that the sectors that are proposed bear a real instead of silly correspondence to economic flows. the power of an industrial union, don't forget, was that it could shut down a plant at once. moving to a model that can shut down an equiv supply chain is one thing -- but that's a question of organization of locals as much as of unions themselves i think, while what stern's proposing seems more lateral and horizontal rather than vertical.

was this decision arrived at democratically w/in seiu and the teamsters? i mean i know the members were 'polled'--but did they actually get to vote? b/c if i were a member of seiu (i actually was, once!!) i'd be sort of pissed right now.

But, OK, I'm still puzzled by all the Stern-bashing here. He sounds to me like a realistic voice, with a pretty good grasp of the big picture. The SEIU has been successful, right? He seems to have a handle on at least some of what he's doing. The AFL-CIO just voted to double their spending on recruiting/organizing, largely because of the dissident pressure. Is that bad? His global-union ambition sounds kind of fantastical right now, but it might not in 10 years, and is any other major labor figure articulating anything like that? I just think he's too smart and has too strong a track record to write all this off as an ego play.

None of which means he's right or that he'll be able to get done what he says he wants to. But couldn't the split give more room for reformers and innovators within the AFL-CIO as well as outside it, since they'll inevitably be reacting to each other? I'm still having a hard time seeing how this is going to prompt a catastrophe even in the worst case, given the palsied state of the movement as a whole. (Even In These Times is pretty equivocal about it; they wish it wasn't happening, but "it need not be a disaster".)

Tracer Hand, sorry. I've not been near the computer for any significant amount of time until now.

A lot of it depends on the fulfillment of the promise that the dissident unions really will push for more organizing, but we mostly work with the SEIU and UNITE-HERE just by nature of the work that most of the folks that come to the center do. A lot of the workers are really tough and are willing to take the fight to the streets. I think a coalition that really values that kind of grass roots organizing can use this amazing energy to get more people in the Latino community excited about organizing. Most of the reluctance comes from workers who are afraid of retaliation (as one of the attorneys I work with sometimes said today, "They get the impression their employers might retaliate when their employers say things like 'If you tell anyone that you're not being paid overtime, I'm going to call immigration on your entire family.'") so if the dissident coalition is serious about supporting their target workforce, I think they can help support these workers so that will expand the fight to unionize their workplaces instead of just accepting illegal or substandard conditions because the alternative is deportation.

I met with a bunch of attorneys today and one of them expressed feelings very similar to the "deep wounds" comment that your father made. He also said that it's ironic, to say the least, for James Hoffa to bill himself as someone who is all about organizing. The mood in the meeting was really grim after he made his comments and it made me realize that this split is more difficult to deal with than I had first imagined.

Tomorrow, however, there's an SEIU action to support their Justice for Janitors campaign. It will be interesting to contrast the mood of that group with that of the anti-Hoffa guy I talked to today.

I think gypsy mothra is pretty right on, though. It's done, so let's make sure it isn't a disaster.

The president of CFL was there and spoke (and the VP of CFL was in attendance, but not speaking) and I thought that was really cool. He said he was torn apart by the split, etc., but that regardless, Chicago labor would continue to present a united front. I thought it was good that he put that statement into action by speaking at a "dissident" union's action.

All in all it was a very positive rally, but it was a gathering for a specific cause (Justice for Janitors) and taking attention away from that to talk about the split didn't really seem appropriate. There was still a sense of sadness about the split, but not the sense of doom that I got from those on the AFL-CIO side.