LABOR MATTERS
Labor Pains
compiled by Jeff Burman
The
AFL-CIO's biennial convention was supposed to be a tribute to 50 years
of unity, marking the merger of the two labor behemoths in 1955. But
on the convention's opening day in Chicago in July, two of the nation's
largest and most powerful unions resigned from the AFL-CIO, fracturing
the federation as the labor movement struggles to stem decades of
decline and lost influence in both the workplace and the political
arena. Another union disaffiliated the following weekend.
"It's far easier to tear down a union movement than to build one," said John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO. "America's working people cannot afford for unions to declare it's 'my way or the highway' when workers are under the biggest assault in 80 years." "'Big Labor' has been on the retreat for decades, reeling under the loss of jobs in its manufacturing heartland, global competition and an increasingly hostile political climate," writes Dan Roberts in The Financial Times. "Amid exasperation on the American left in the wake of John Kerry's defeat at last year's presidential election, many activists—looking at corporate profits that have reached the highest percentage of national income for 75 years, a decline of defined-benefit pension schemes and a rollback of healthcare benefits—fear that the battle for control of the workplace may have already been lost.
"Now, organized labor faces its toughest test yet as a group of largely service sector unions seek a path that will rip apart what is left of the movement—but that also offers the best hope of a renaissance," Roberts continues.
In the annals of labor leave-taking, it was not as contentious as Mineworkers President John L. Lewis's departure from the 1935 AFL convention, when he decked the president of the Carpenters Union on his way out, writes Harold Meyerson in The Washington Post. Gerald McEntee, President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said that many union leaders had tried to persuade the unions not to walk out.
McEntee, who is chairman of the federation's political committee, said the walkout would weaken labor's political clout by weakening its role of coordinating nationwide campaign activities for unions, writes Steven Greenhouse in The New York Times. In Los Angeles County, as in many cities and counties with strong labor organizations, the departure of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) could cost the state and local labor federations a third of their annual budgets, complicating their ability to mount political campaigns, writes Noam Levey in The Los Angeles Times.
On the convention's last day, Sweeney made it clear that members of those disaffiliated unions—the SEIU, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers—will no longer be allowed as regular participants in the 51 AFL-CIO-chartered state federations and nearly 550 central labor councils. That includes no voting, serving as an officer or participating in decisions on political endorsements, writes Tara Burghart for the Associated Press.
But in mid-August, cooler heads prevailed. After being urged by local labor leaders, Sweeney proposed allowing union locals in the departing unions to rejoin state and city labor bodies as special affiliates if they signed a new "solidarity charter," according to Steven Greenhouse in The New York Times. "Under Sweeney's proposal, officials from those locals can no longer hold top offices in the city and state bodies, although people already in office can finish their terms. In addition, the locals that rejoin will pay a 10 percent 'solidarity fee' beyond their usual dues to help offset the cost of services provided to state and city labor bodies by the national AFL-CIO."
Why
the split? "Our world is undergoing the most profound economic transformation
in history," writes SEIU President Stern, leader of the breakaway
Change to Win Coalition, in an OpEd piece in The Los Angeles Times.
"Corporations are changing, technology is changing, the political
climate is changing, and as a result, workers' lives are also changing.
To fulfill their mission for working people in the 21st century, unions
must change as well.
"Fifty years ago, when the AFL-CIO was founded, one in three workers had a union, and unions were an essential vehicle for achieving the American dream. A union job was a ticket to the middle class, and union wages and benefits helped raise every American worker's standard of living. But today, with only one in 12 private-sector workers in a union, the labor movement is not strong enough to ensure that work is rewarded throughout the economy.
"Polls show that at least 50 percent of working people in the US today want a union where they work. But US labor laws, written for the industrial economy, are outdated and employers use their excessive power to stand in the way. And, to tell the truth, it's not just employers who are to blame. Unions share responsibility by failing to have the focus, strategy and resources to unite more workers in each industry.
"This is a dramatic step that we hope will open up opportunities similar to the surge in worker unity and organization when the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was created in the 1930s because the American Federation of Labor (AFL) failed to adapt to the changing economy of that era," concludes Stern.
The Change to Win Coalition (CWC) consists of the SEIU, the Teamsters, the Food and Commercial Workers, UNITE HERE (the merged needle trade union and the hotel and restaurant employees' union), the Carpenters and the Farm Workers. The schism that led to their varying degrees of separation comes from a desire to emphasize organizing over costly and mercurial political action. "In the end, does this split portend a stronger or weaker labor movement?" asked Robert Kuttner in The Boston Globe. "In the short run, it's a real setback. But, if real resources are indeed shifted to organizing, that's a huge plus. There was hand-wringing in the 1930s when labor radicals founded the Congress of Industrial Organizations outside the established (and enfeebled) AFL. It was CIO unions that organized new industries like autos and steel, where earlier efforts by craft unions had failed." Except for one consideration. The CIO unions in the auto, steel, rubber and other industries succeeded in a time and social context of remarkable militancy, far different from the present moment.
The AFL-CIO's answer is to add resources to organizing and to political work. Convention delegates agreed to create a $22.5 million Strategic Organizing Fund, with up to $15 million from rebates of per capita dues to affiliates who meet high standards in changing their unions to better organize workers. The AFL-CIO Executive Council, in a formal convention document, put the conceptual framework this way:
"The source of our power is our members—educated, mobilized and united. We must maximize that power to win policies that meet the needs of working families and guarantee their freedom to organize and bargain collectively; at the same time we must harness our power to reach out to the tens of millions of working people who want to be in unions to gain a voice at work. On these goals and principles we believe there is broadly shared agreement.
"We are committed to enacting serious changes now. Two inter-connected areas, in particular, are paramount to serious growth: First, we must greatly increase the resources of the labor movement devoted to helping workers organize. Second, we must greatly expand our collective efforts to transform the policies and politics of America.
"Without growth, we cannot sustain wins in the policy debates and political contests that determine the future for working people. And without a more hospitable, pro-worker political environment, we cannot grow as fast as we must. We cannot choose one over the other or pit one against the other. We cannot strengthen the labor movement unless we do both. And both require strengthening our grassroots capacity in states and cities nationwide."
Sweeney responded to the CWC by saying, "The delegates to the AFL-CIO convention will make major decisions about changing workers' lives this week, no matter what happens. It's a shame for working people that before the first vote has been cast, four unions have decided that if they can't win, they won't show up for the game.
"SEIU, UNITE HERE, the Teamsters and UFCW should come argue for their ideas and listen to others. That's how democracies work."
IA President Elected to AFL-CIO Executive Council
On a brighter note from an otherwise disappointing AFL-CIO convention, IATSE President Tom Short was elected as a Vice President of the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO, marking the first time in three decades the below-the-line union has been represented on the council.
ILRF Sues US Cocoa Distributors
A human rights group has sued three US companies in federal court in Los Angeles to force them to step up efforts to end child labor on African farms that supply cocoa beans used to make chocolate products.
The International Labor Right Fund filed suit against Nestlé, Archer Daniels Midland Company and Cargill Inc., claiming the companies are involved in trafficking, torture and forced labor of Mali children enslaved to work on Ivory Coast farms. The suit was brought under two federal statutes, the Torture Victims Protection Act and the Alien Tort Claims Act.
Jeff Burman represents Sound Editors on the Guild's Board of Directors. He can be reached at jeffrey.burman@nbcuni.com.