On The Brink
Would that the kind of candid and searching debate about labor’s future that Bill Fletcher and Frank Joyce have tried to stimulate here at the House of Labor were taking place within the actual “House of Labor.” For months now I’ve heard many well-intentioned folks say that while they disagree with the slash-and-burn tactics of the SEIU and/or its mediagenic prescriptions for “reform,” they nonetheless appreciate the fact that Andy Stern has opened up a debate about labor’s strategy and prospects.
Full disclosure: I was once one of those folks.
But as the months have gone by, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the SEIU’s approach has done more to stifle honest dialogue than to stimulate it. And sadly, it increasingly appears that SEIU is more focused on recruiting other unions to be part of an alternative power bloc than in grappling with the hard questions of how to make the entire American labor movement stronger.
To a disturbing extent, that bloc-building is based on highly public distortions of the views and records of those who refuse to join the SEIU camp--and a high gloss version of the records of those who have. So instead of serious thinking about the real challenges of organizing in today’s economic, political and social context, we get the Change to Win (CtW) folks’ incessant drumbeat that those who aren’t in their corner don’t care about organizing, don’t do organizing, only care about politics, only want to elect more Democrats, etc. etc. etc.
How is it possible that anyone can call this a serious debate about strategy? For the record, just on the raw facts, while it’s not true, as Tom Buffenbarger asserts in his letter, that virtually every union in the AFL-CIO is making a real effort to organize new members, it is the case that many of the unions supporting Sweeney have as good or better records on organizing workers as those allied with Stern. AFSCME, the CWA, the UAW, and the AFT all compare more than favorably with the Teamsters, the Laborers and the UFCW in this respect. (Full disclosure number two: I’m an officer of AFSCME.)
Bill is trying to call us back to a broader vision of social transformation—and he is absolutely right to do so. Of course you can’t effect this kind of transformation without a greater force than is now posed by the labor movement and its allies in community and social justice organizations. So bringing more workers into unions is an urgent moral imperative, not only because it offers the best potential to improve the lives of those workers, but because it offers the best hope of building a vital movement that can counter the ever-more concentrated power of global corporations—and the regressive policies they foster.
The toughest questions are the ones Frank is raising about the challenges to successfully organizing those workers. As he so cogently suggests, the SEIU’s insistence that its own growth is all the proof needed that “there ain’t nothing to it but to do it” is dangerous oversimplification. If it’s all so simple, why has the SEIU concentrated so much of its organizing in the public sector—and barely dented union density among its “core” private health care or janitorial sectors where the density level is scarcely any better than labor’s overall density in the private sector? For that matter, has HERE made real progress is increasing density in the hotel sector, even with its innovative organizing tactics? Or have the Carpenters grown, even after pulling all of their resources out of the AFL-CIO?
I don’t fault any of these unions for effort. But the hard fact is that while they are certainly among the most aggressive unions organizing today, they haven’t been able to make significant inroads in organizing private sector workers—and this even though their core sectors aren’t bedeviled by the incessant threat of global competition.
So what do folks mean when they say Stern and his allies are right to “emphasize organizing”? In point of fact, Sweeney has spent the last decade stressing the urgency of organizing. If talking about organizing is what wins the prize, then you’d have to say they’re both gold medalists. But if we’ve learned anything from Sweeney’s approach, it’s that “emphasizing” organizing isn’t enough.
What, then, is CtW’s actual program to advance organizing? At this point, it’s all come down to redistributing dollars that now go to the AFL-CIO back to unions for organizing. This is a big idea? I don’t think so. We’re talking about a pitiably small sum of money here compared to what is needed to run organizing campaigns in today’s environment. If a union isn’t prepared to spend 10% (or more!) of its budget on organizing today, why would it do so tomorrow just because it would get less than 1% of its budget back from the AFL?
The so-called debate about organizing vs. politics is even more devoid of real content. Political and legislative action are the functions that most benefit from a combined labor strategy and a unified labor voice. This makes them the ideal functions for the AFL-CIO at the state and national levels.
Organizing, on the other hand, almost by its nature, rests on the shoulders of the individual unions (or strategic partnerships). The AFL can and should foster, prod and facilitate organizing—and it can certainly do a much better job in that respect. But it is sheer nonsense to imagine that if the AFL spent less time or resources fighting to preserve Social Security or working to elect John Kerry, there’d be significantly more workers organized in this country. And, of course, there’s the small matter of where workers would be if Social Security were privatized.
The SEIU spent some $65 million in the last presidential election—more than any other union (and probably more than any single non-party entity). I haven’t heard any vows of “never again” coming from its leadership. If organizing really should always and everywhere be prioritized over politics, why didn’t the SEIU take all those dollars and put them into addressing its lack of density among health care workers?
In reality, politics does not stand in opposition to (or competition with) organizing, but is, in myriad ways, a critical component of successful organizing campaigns. SEIU, like AFSCME, relies heavily on political leverage to gain neutrality agreements and other aids to organizing in the public sector—and sometimes even in the private sector.
This imbroglio began with SEIU and its allies raising hard questions, but CtW all too quickly settled into facile answers that provide little more than ready sound bites. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re now on the verge of a major split in the AFL-CIO—though few can even explain why. Contrary to Nathan’s sunny predictions, the CtW unions that depart will almost certainly engage in raiding. In fact, SEIU has already begun a raid on one of AFSCME’s largest affiliates in California.
Some people think the split will be a tragedy. Full disclosure number three: I used to be one of those people too. But tragedy implies something grander than this incoherent stew of half-formed ideas and overblown accusations. I think I’d just call it a likely disaster and let it go at that.
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Comments (11)
I think that a point has been overlooked in the discussion of labor recruitment in general. It will do no good to increase the level of union members in the US if the labor movement is not going to aggressively recruit internationally. Corporations are now multinational and that is what the labor movement must morph into. By supporting a middle class wage world wide, labor can fight the multinationals search for poverty level wages. At this point in the US it is a futile effort, akin to unionizing one county in the whole of the United States and assuming that businesses will not move to the next county.
July 18, 2005 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the best attack on the intentions of CtW that I've read to date. Interestingly, in all the comments I've read from AFSCME President Gerald McEntee I've not heard anything so cogent and direct. This seems to be a much more fleshed out version of McEntee's belief that the problem here is not the logic of SEIU's focus on density, but rather its "my-way-or-highway" tactics. Roberta Lynch even seems to agree with SEIU's tactical focus on density by criticizing SEIU for organizing the public sector while union density in both its core sectors is marginal at best. So why isn't AFSCME, an intensely sectoral union, getting on board the CtW density train? Can it really be because those guys are my-way-highway assholes? Or is it because the sectoral arguments are just a cover for a group of big unions interested in raiding?
Kudos to Lynch if the latter is what she really thinks. I think she's entitled to her opinion and I think she makes a strong case. I'm just curious if anyone going to Chicago is actually going to try to patch things up, find a way past all the bruised egos and hard feelings. AFSCME Council 31 and SEIU Local 880, both based in Chicago, are loaded with really smart, dedicated, progressive labor activists who can organize with the best of them. I know because I've worked for both of them. It's troubling to think of the two of them squaring off against each other. That might be why some have seen this split as tragic, rather than merely disastrous.
July 18, 2005 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
RE:
To a disturbing extent, that bloc-building is based on highly public distortions of the views and records of those who refuse to join the SEIU camp--and a high gloss version of the records of those who have. So instead of serious thinking about the real challenges of organizing in today’s economic, political and social context, we get the Change to Win (CtW) folks’ incessant drumbeat that those who aren’t in their corner don’t care about organizing, don’t do organizing, only care about politics, only want to elect more Democrats, etc. etc. etc.
Change the names of the parties involved and you have a perfect description of the last two Presidential campaigns, at least from the view of most swing voters. I'm not actually saying that raw politics is a bad thing, but it strikes me as no different than the real political world that has existed outside the "House of Labor" for quite some time.
Roberta, I am not close enough to the specific issues to comment on whether or not enough substantive debate has taken place, but -- at the risk of sounding unsympathetic -- the discomfort you express at (horrors!) raw politics in the labor movement sounds a bit like the creaking of an old house undergoing much needed renovations.
See my earlier post articulating a much greater challenge to labor than who controls the AFL.
-- The Duke
July 18, 2005 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
You may want to see more international workers recruited into unions, but to say failure to do so will do "no good" indicates the blindness of what is going on. Groups of workers can be organized to pursue their own self interest, this is their primary purpose. And when people state that getting people at MacDonalds a few bucks more an hour is not worthy unless coupled with all sorts of progressive agendas, they clarify the reason for the decline of unions. The purpose of unions is not to enlist workers into the international movement for progressive causes, it is to protect them. A very limited number of political causes are essential to that agenda. Adding others coerces people who don't believe in them.
The fact that this has been the goal of unions for the last 30 years when college trained "organizers" rather than workers took over marks a period when unions, even the old CIO unions stopped caring about people making lousy wages in lousy conditions because there were so many other wonderful causes that could be supported with the dues including paying all those people with the progressive agenda. So why aren't they giving information to every burger King worker in town? More important stuff to do than worry about a bunch of kids and Mexicans!
July 19, 2005 2:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Where's the vision?
July 19, 2005 4:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have largely stayed away from this debate (at least on-line) in equal measures because of CtW boosterism and resignation that it is going to happen. As a good friend said the other day, the Teamsters have a long history of going in and out of the AFL, and, nothwthstanding that they have the most to lose of the CtW5, probably will go. Here is to hoping that CtW splinters and that at least the Laborers and UFCW stay.
Lynch is dead on that what is happening on the ground (i.e., the institutional reality that comprises what happens in a union, any union) does not square with the CtW rhetoric or goals. Whatever the virtues CtW may possess, causing a ground-swell in organizing is not one of them. And if the CtW reasons do not add up, we need to look elsewhere to understand what it is really happening and about to happen.
I do not have access to the decision-making by the international bigs (but I hope someone who does can address this in the coming days) , but exactly why is this happening? I suspect this is for the oldest of reasons: those in the second power slot want to be at the summit. This is a takeover ploy wrapped in an ideological imperative and justified on historical grounds (the unions are dying -- do SOMETHING!). Perhaps I am being too cyncial and there are other reasons that are not obvious to the public. Maybe Stern and the rest really believe that they are only ones positioned to save the labor movement.
Maybe again CtW knows something about the inertia of the AFL that the rest of us do not. Lynch seems to squelch that possiblity and I am inclined to agree with her. Maybe this is just a large-scale raiding ploy (in my experience, that is very possible).
No matter what it is, CtW does seem to play right into the need many labor and progressive people have for large-scale change of a dramatic nature. Organzing is the toughest gig in the movement and it is slow, painful proccess that is often chock-full of rejection. Talking about organizing is far more exciting than the hard work it entails. This is not to say that the CtW unions do not organize, just that it is hard to rally the troops and allies with organizing stories.
What a shame it will be if the hopes of so many turns out to be nothing more than a really bad big idea whose time has come (if for no other reason that CtW is making it come now). But nothing I have seen says otherwise.
July 19, 2005 7:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
The labor movement is falling. I don't think that, at least here, there's much dispute about that.
So if I could turn the question around a little bit - because I think that to castigate the CtW folks on the grounds that they don't seem to have a clear plan to create something that's better ENOUGH - Why would a progressive union committed to organizing stay in the AFL? Half of what's likely to be left insists there isn't a big problem, and the other half offers no solutions to the problem. No vision, no new ideas, nothing. What hope would our hypothetical union have that things are going to get better?
An industry approach is not a panacea, but it's the right thing to do. Lip service about meaningful, practicable international workers solidarity is not a plan, but hopefully it's the assertion that precedes the plan. CtW doesn't have all the answers, but they seem to understand the question, and that's a start. A start that the AFL hasn't made.
The AFL seems to be held together right now by inertia, with a pinch of sentimentality. That's not enough. I don't know how bad things have to get for the AFL and its more enthusiastic affiliates to get serious about turning the thing around, but I forgive the CtW folks if they aren't interested in sticking around to find out.
July 19, 2005 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
From what I know of SEIU decision-making, they've centralized things a lot lately - pressuring locals to merge if they organize the same sectors, pressuring others to give away units if they don't fit the other sectors in the local. They've even used rather flimsy reasons to put some locals under trusteeship. Arguably, this has led to a better disciplined, stronger organizing machine.
To some degree, I think they're taking that model to the AFL-CIO. If I understand things right, I think they want to remake most unions in their image, and I think they'll succeed, while causing a lot of bitterness along the way. If AFSCME wants to fend off raids from SEIU, they'll have to devote a good deal of resources to reorganizing workers in those shops.
I heard about the results of an attempted AFSCME raid on SEIU in Illinois (full disclosure, I work for an organization with strong ties to a couple of SEIU locals), and the immediate response was flooding the state with SEIU organizers and making sure that every one of those workers was visited and revisited. I think in the end, that unit will be stronger for the extra work put in on the ground.
For the most part, though, I doubt much raiding will go on. There will be opportunistic locals, but SEIU and Stern don't need the overall rep that aggressive raiding would get them, and raiding is almost as hard as new organizing, unless the prior union was just incredibly bad. Everyone will have to run a tighter shop.
I also think that what matters more happens on the local level. There are locals that live to destroy each other - AFSCME and SEIU locals in Illinois, for example - and others that work closely together in Central Labor Councils. The breakup of the AFL won't mean that much to those relationships, although I am interested in seeing what happens to the CLC's.
I think folks are right that the stated reasons of the breakup don't make a lot of sense, but the end result won't hurt that much, and could help.
July 19, 2005 8:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is the most coherent analysis I have read yet regarding the state of affairs at the AFL. I have to admit I too once praised Andy Stern for raising questions. But I have to say that I have come around to the view the goal was never to get answers or change at the AFL. It seems patently unfair for this 'debate' to boil down to the personality issue of who heads the AFL. The goal seems to be to saddle Sweeney with the failure to stop the decline in union membership.
It is good for the discussion, not for the unions, to find out that the 'organizing unions' have had the same problems increasing membership as the others. As well as to learn that some of the "non-organizing' unions have had some success as well. It is very difficult for me to discern any substantive difference between the CtW activities and the AFL activities. I know someone will bring up "vision". I suspect both sides have the same vision of a larger and stronger union movement. What they need is a roadmap.
I regret my past praise of Stern and now I wonder if the reason this horse can't be put back into the barn is because to do so means the CtW unions would have to admit to the same "failures" they charge the AFL with. How do they go back to their membership and say it wasn't "them" but all of us and make the case they should work with the AFL to put togther a real national program when it is much more expedient to lay the blame on Sweeney and the AFL?
I doubt they have the will or the "vision".
July 19, 2005 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm curious: all of these folks who have newly-discovered (& clearly strongly-felt) beliefs about the virtues or problems with CtW... who are you?
I mean, do the posters here work in the labor movement? In some arm of a progressive movement? Academia? (This last is my guess.)
I appreciate Sister Lynch disclosing her institutional connection. I don't agree with all of her analysis, but I'm going to take it much more seriously knowing that she is in and of the movement. Likewise for the slightly more cynical Brother Perez (whose paychecks are cut at the same place).
But what about the rest of you who are now oh so convinced that this is a power grab or a raiding ploy? You're basing this on what? Because what I read from Sister Lynch didn't make any argument about the intentions of the CtW people.
I'm disappointed to see this site starting to more closely track the UniteToWin site in its seemingly uninformed discussions and ad hominem attacks (and lack of disclosure of who a given poster is). A better model would be Tasini's site, where folks tend to explain why they may be convinced of something-- pointing to evidence rather than blind accusations. Or perhaps I prefer that site because the majority of people there seem to be union activists, and I don't have to wonder about how informed or not -- or how committed or not -- they are when they talk about the purpose of unions, the difficulty of organizing, etc.
There are enough well-credentialed, thoroughly dedicated, and very smart people who contribute posts to this site that it would be a shame if it had to be written off, as most serious people have by now written off UniteToWin, despite its initial promise.
(Disclosure: I have been a union member, staff & activist for over a decade. Although I am a CtW partisan (but can still regretfully acknowledge that at least some of what Sister Lynch says is unfortunately true), I am not employed by or affiliated with any of the CtW unions. In fact, it is quite to the contrary.)
July 19, 2005 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you miss the point of this site. It is a general progressive politics blog, and a major goal of these discussions is for outsiders - like myself - to learn through discussion something about the state of labor and how that relates to progressive politics in general. Think of it as a counterpart to a more focused community of labor activists - both in what it requires (educating outsiders) and what it gives (new ideas from people interested and knowledgeable about progressive politics but not about labor). Yes, that means putting up with people spouting off about a subject they aren't expert in, but that's the way any political discussion goes, and if it raises progressives' level of conciousness about labor, I'd wager that's a net plus for the labor movement.
July 19, 2005 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink