7 Does Labor Have a Future? (November 28, 2005)



Does Labor Have a Future? (November 28, 2005)

Why Change-to-Win Coalition Can’t Build
A ‘Bigger and Stronger’ Labor Movement

By Harry Kelber

(third in a series of six articles)

The first open challenge to the AFL-CIO leadership emerged in September 2003, when five international union presidents came together to form the New Unity Partnership, with a plan for drastic changes in the organizing methods, structure and functions of the labor federation, but without any prior discussion of their initiative, either within the union movement or their own members.

The five union presidents, who called for a dramatic increase in funds and resources for organizing and an emphasis on union density and market share, were: Andy Stern of the Service Employees, the spokesman for the group; John Wilhelm of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees, Bruce Raynor of UNITE, the apparel union; Terence O’Sullivan of the Laborers, and Douglas McCarron of the Carpenters, whose union had quit the AFL-CIO in 2001.

An internal memo of the Partnership revealed some startling information about the plans that the “gang of five” recommended for revitalizing the labor movement. They proposed to allocate 77% of its budget to organizing. (How they arrived at such a precise number as 77% was not made clear.)

It also wanted to eliminate or reduce a majority of the AFL-CIO’s 19 departments, including those dealing with public relations, education, health and safety and international affairs that do not contribute directly to organizing. Such functions, the NUP officers insisted, should be carried out by the international unions, not by the national AFL-CIO.

The Partnership would put an end to elections to leadership positions in the affiliated state federations and central labor councils. Its memo stated: “Each national union will select their representatives to State Feds and CLCs.” It added that each State Fed and CLC will have a full-time Executive Vice President, appointed by the national AFL-CIO, who will be the “Chief Operating Officer.” (Note the corporate style and names of titles.)

Regarding politics, the memo provided a reminder to the five NUP officers about meetings with moderate Republicans and Karl Rove, President Bush’s top political strategist.

When the NUP’s intentions, as revealed in its memo and other documents, became public, it aroused a storm of indignation from union leaders and activists. But they had a positive effect. Stern and his NUP associates were able to jump-start an intense, continuing debate about labor’s future, ending the years when the AFL-CIO’s failures and the incompetence of many of its leaders were swept under the rug.

Praise from the Media, Lack of Support from Union Members

As president of SEIU, the largest and fastest-growing union inside the AFL-CIO, with 1.6 million members, Andy Stern’s views on rebuilding the labor movement received special attention, eclipsing proposals offered by other leaders. The media, aided by an SEIU high-pressure publicity campaign, became entranced with Stern.

The New York Times ran a flattering 10-page illustrated feature on him in its Sunday magazine, letting him state his views extensively on why and how the labor movement had to undergo a dramatic transformation if it was ever to regain its former strength and influence. He also took pot shots at union leaders who were resisting his recipe for labor growth.

Business Week, in a long piece on Stern, asked: “Can This Man Save Labor?” Some pundits even suggested comparisons between Stern and the NUP with John L. Lewis and the CIO.

The problem for Stern was that the adulation shown by the media didn’t spill over to union leaders, whose votes at the 2005 convention would determine the AFL-CIO’s future. Many labor leaders were repelled by Stern’s arrogance and high-handedness. (Modesty, it should be noted, never rated high in a labor leader’s value system.)

But what was astonishing was the utter lack of support for Stern and his views, not only from any of the AFL-CIO union leaders, but even their members. In fact, with the exception of the SEIU, there were no cheers from rank-and-filers in the other four NUP unions.

On Jan. 4, 2004, only a few months after it had been founded, the five union presidents met in Washington and decided to shut down the New Unity Partnership. NUP was going nowhere. Its chances of gaining ground within the AFL-CIO were about nil. Bruce Raynor, then UNITE’s president, tried to put the best face on the NUP demise. “I think it served a purpose,” he said. “The list of unions calling for reform has expanded. Hopefully, the AFL-CIO now becomes the vehicle to reform the labor movement.”

Stern’s Organizing Plan Raised Unanswered Questions

Stern noted that many international unions were too small and too weak to organize on the massive scale that was needed to regain labor’s strength. He proposed that the then 60 internationals be reduced to about 15 to 20 “mega-unions,” each responsible for a particular sector of the economy (such as, construction, government, health care and transportation).

Given enough money and resources, these enlarged unions, Stern claimed, would be in a stronger position to organize and bargain with major corporations through regional, national and even global campaigns for an entire industry.

On paper, the proposal seemed to make good sense, until a series of pertinent questions were asked that Stern could not or would not answer. How could 60 international unions be shoe-horned into, say, 20? Who would decide which ones would be the lucky few and which would be left out in the cold? Who would be selected to make the decision and how long would it take before the mega-unions were ready for action? And what do unions do in the meantime? Will members have any say about what course their union chooses to follow? Even more important, what guarantees were there that the mega-unions would be victorious when so many other promising strategies had failed?

Stern and SEIU senior staff people emphasized the importance of building union density (the ratio of union members to the workforce in a particular industry) and market share. But you build union density and market share by gaining new members and new bargaining contracts. How was Stern planning massive organizing campaigns if he had such little support from members of most unions? And why wasn’t he trying to win them over?

A Two-Fold Strategy with Predictable Results

Stern and his group made no secret of their new strategy. “Change is so long overdue that we either transform the AFL-CIO--or build something stronger,” he said. With only seven of about 60 unions in support of his proposals, his hope of capturing control of the AFL-CIO was foredoomed to failure. His group’s resolution to rebate 50% of the federation’s income to internationals for organizing was defeated in the Executive Council by a vote of 15 to 7. Another rebuff to the Stern group came when the Council, by 14 to 8, approved a proposal by President Sweeney to increase funding for political and legislative activities to a total of $45 million a year.

The Stern faction thought of running John Wilhelm, co-president of UNITE-HERE, as its own candidate for AFL-CIO president, but a canvas of unions showed that he could muster little more than one-third of the required votes. The crusher came when 44 union presidents announced they were endorsing Sweeney for the top post.

On September 27, 2005, the Change to Win coalition was founded at its first convention in St. Louis, just two months after the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago. The members of the CTW unions had not been allowed to vote on whether or not to quit the AFL-CIO.

CTW is a Mini Labor Federation with Lots of Problems

Despite efforts to expand its affiliates, the Change to Win coalition was able to end up with only seven unions. They were the SEIU, the Teamsters, Food and Commercial Workers, UNITE-HERE, Laborers, Carpenters and Farm Workers. The United Farm Workers, with only 16,000 members, was hardly the kind of powerful ally that the CTW needed.

Stern’s grand organizing strategy based on 15 mega-unions, obviously couldn’t be put into play with CTW’s seven unions. Furthermore, how could those seven unions coordinate their activities in multi-union campaigns, when they represented such diverse industries?

Stern’s insistence that unions be assigned a “core” industry ran into another problem that involved the Teamsters and the UFCW. The Teamsters have organized workers in 19 different industries that include airlines, bakeries, food processing, motion pictures and theatricals and graphic communications.

The same condition exists within the Food and Commercial Workers, which has several hundred thousand members working in retail, meatpacking, food processing, health care and public services. Would the Teamsters and UFCW cease organizing in these industries to comply with Stern’s “core” principle? Would they turn over their countless thousands of members in these industries to other unions that claimed jurisdiction? Fat chance.

Stern is contemptuous of members who insist on union democracy, which he regards as an impediment to his leadership style and policies. At the same time, he is a big admirer of Doug McCarron, president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, who has stamped out any vestige of democracy and members’ rights, and runs the union as if it is his personal property. McCarron can also brag that President Bush attended two of his Labor Day picnics and that he gets to ride on Air Force One.

Here is what Stern had to say about McCarron at the Carpenters’ convention last August: “Let me tell you what a privilege, what an honor it is for me to be here. The most precise, the most simple definition of leadership is about going first. And by that definition, this union and Doug McCarron have been our leaders… “So I come today to say on behalf of the 1.8 million members of our union that we owe you, we owe Doug, a debt of gratitude. You taught us all actually that the name of our new coalition is right.”

CTW Unions Have Weak Organizing Records, Except for SEIU

Of the seven CTW unions, only the SEIU continues to win organizing victories, but it was doing that while still in the AFL-CIO and is not relying on help from other CTW unions. UNITE-HERE has been trying to organize Cintas, one of the largest uniform rental companies in North America, with 17,000 production workers, since March 2003, but has thus far failed.

The United Food and Commercial Workers lost a five-month strike against three Southern California’s supermarket chains. The UFCW could not organize a single one of Wal-Mart’s more than 2,500 stores, after trying for years and spending millions. Now, it is heading the CTW¹s new Wal-Mart campaign.

The Teamsters lost a three-year battle, including an ill-conceived strike, to organize the 13,000 employees of Overnite Transportation. Neither the Carpenters nor the Laborers has scored any significant gains in construction, and don’t count on the Farm Workers to advance much beyond their 16,000 members. CTW definitely won’t be a CIO.

The biggest fault with the Change to Win coalition is that its leaders expect to achieve the American Dream without involving union members in the process. It can’t be done, no matter how brainy its leaders think they are.

The CTW will be operating under many handicaps, but its biggest problem is that it lacks unions representing teachers, auto workers, miners, government employees, communications workers, machinists, engineers, postal workers, airline pilots, steel workers, electricians, firefighters, iron workers, longshoremen, pipefitters, seafarers, musicians, operating engineers, utility workers, and workers in other industries who belong to the AFL-CIO.

Despite its high-flying rhetoric, Change to Win, under the best of circumstances, can only be a satellite within the labor movement, not the powerful labor federation envisioned by Stern and his partners.

Article 4: “How Can Union Members Make a Difference?” (On Monday, December 5, 2005)

Harry Kelber’s e-mail address is: hkelber@igc.org

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