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From: House of Labor

Ok, let's start considering vision

By Bill Fletcher - August 18, 2005, 6:07AM

The following exchange from CNBC has been circulating across the Internet. I find it quite fascinating, particularly in light of the claim that the great un-debate is over. The issues contained in this are the sorts of issues that should have been addressed well before the AFL-CIO Convention.

If we are going to rebuild a union movement, we need to be clearer as to what direction we are taking.

With no further comment....

Street Signs
CNBC-TV, August 1, 2005, 2:30 PM
Union Split
<h1> &nbsp

; </h1&gt<h1>BROADCAST EXCERPT</h1&gt

RON INSANA: Well, the Federation of the AFL-CIO suffered its largest split in more than 50 years last week when three unions left the labor federation’s umbrella. The Service Employees International Union was one of the three unions to split from the AFL-CIO last week. Now, what initiated the break up and what is the future of the labor movement?

Joining me now is the president of the Service Employees International Union, Andrew Stern.

Mr. Stern, thanks for being with us. We appreciate you joining us today.

ANDREW STERN [President, Service Employees International Union]: Thanks, Ron.

INSANA: Why did you break from the AFL-CIO?

STERN: Well, Ron, I don’t need to tell you that we are living through the most significant transformative economic revolution in world history, and American workers, although there’s growth as you just noted in the economy, it’s not distributing. They’re not finding their work valued and rewarded, and we need to build a new, dynamic, modern, flexible, innovative labor movement that can be good partners with our employer and we started down that road last week.

INSANA: Let me ask you to define what that means and how it’s different from the movement that is, you know, essentially led by the AFL-CIO.

STERN: Well, our labor movement was built around an industrial economy back in the 1930s. It was sort of a class struggle kind of unionism, but workers in today’s economy are not looking for unions to cause problems; they’re looking for them to solve them, and this means just like Ireland where business and labor and government all began to work together, we need team America to really work together if we’re going to reward American workers’ work, and to make sure that they still can live the American dream.

INSANA: All right. Let’s take a look at one industry, for instance, which has seen more than its share of trouble, the airline industry. We’ve seen workers give more than their share of concessions over time as the industry has faced some problems of its own and making some that were well out of its control.

How would you, in fact, take that model that you described and apply it to an industry like airlines so that you did get that cooperative management, labor and government triumvirate if you will?

STERN: Well, first of all, you cannot build that kind of relationship when there are 12 different unions who don’t cooperate or coordinate; some in different crafts, some in different companies all pulling in different directions.

So, first of all, we need to be able to speak with a single voice, not just for employers in a company, but in industry. Get some of this healthcare and pension costs off individual employers. Talk about how we can add value and compete in today’s economy where countries all over the world have national airlines.

So we need to change our focus, consolidate our strength, have unions that are big enough and strong enough to be good partners with the industry, not individual employers.

INSANA: What don’t you like about the AFL-CIO today? I mean, I know, you mentioned the industrial roots that date back to the 1930s, but what is it about today’s organization that led you to walk away?

STERN: Well, what I don’t like is what’s happening to American workers, to janitors, to truck drivers, to people that go to work at Wal-Mart, and what they’re seeing is less and less ability to be able to live decently in this country, and the AFL-CIO, I think, is just spending too much time talking to politicians, too much time involved in giving money to Democrats and thinking that somehow going to change their life.

We need to modernize. We need a strategy. We need resources. We need to be partners with our employers, and we need to do it now by talking to workers, not to elected officials all the time.

INSANA: Now, you know, when you listen to somebody like Alan Greenspan, he’s saying that there is disconnect between, you know, corporate profitability and labor’s sharing in the wealth has more to do with educational levels than almost any other single factor in this country and that the only way to get a value-added, high paying job is to be more educated than anyone else, not only here, but anywhere else in the world.

How much of a role does that play in your future vision of the labor movement?

STERN: Well, obviously, education means a lot, but here’s the problem. There are people who spent a lot of money getting a good education. They got to teach at a Head Start agency. They go to work in a nursing home or a home care worker and can’t find the kind of job that rewards their work, but more importantly, there are 35 million workers in America who go to work in retail, who go to work in our healthcare system, who drive a truck or work in a warehouse. These are good jobs in America, but they aren’t paying the benefits. They don’t have the healthcare that they have.

What’s happening, Ron, is that we’re not sharing in the wealth. America used to be proud of having the greatest middle class in the history of the world, and yet, as Alan Greenspan said, we’re now diverging and that’s a threat to our democracy. It’s a threat to our economy. It’s a threat to the gift that we’ve always given to the world, which is if you work hard, you can do better than your parents and the kids will do better than yourself.

INSANA: Now, where will your organization stand on free trade and globalization relative to the stance taken by the AFL-CIO?

STERN: Well, we’re very much in favor of balanced trade, you know, we’re not in favor of outsourcing American jobs and insourcing foreign workers because we don’t raise the standards in those other countries, but we live in a global economy, Ron. There’s going to be trade. We’re not going to stop it. The question is: How do we round off the edges? How do we make sure it’s balanced? And how do we make sure everyone benefits by the results, not just the executives and the shareholders?

INSANA: All right. Mr. Stern, we appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for joining us today.

STERN: Thank you.

INSANA: Andrew Stern joining us to present his side of why his union defected from the AFL-CIO.

Now, how is the Federation of the AFL-CIO responding to the split of the unions, such as the SEIU and the Teamsters?

Joining me now from Washington, DC is the organizing director of the American Federation of Labor and that is Stewart Acuff.

Mr. Acuff, good to see you. Thanks for being with us today.

STEWART ACUFF [Organizing Director, AFL-CIO]: Good to be with you, Ron. Thank you for having me.

INSANA: What did you make of Mr. Stern’s assessment of your organization?

ACUFF: Well, we agree with a lot of Andy’s analysis. We just don’t agree with his prescription.

American families have been victimized by corporate-fueled globalization, which has offshored American jobs, exploited foreign workers in developing countries. That’s been going on now for 20 or 30 years. We’ve also been victimized by the failure of the United States government to protect American workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively. Now, American workers have been victimized by this unnecessary, gratuitous split from the AFL-CIO in the house of labor.

There’s nothing that Andy Stern is talking about that he and the other unions, the Teamsters and the USCW couldn’t do within the house of labor. We need unity now more than anything --

INSANA: Mr. Stern just said not only do you need unity, but you need a vision that’s based on the modern economic reality as opposed to the reality that was more germane during the 1930s movement that was focused on industrial labor as opposed to the type of labor that we do here in the United States today.

ACUFF: We need to follow the shift in the economy from the industrial base to the service base. There’s no question about that, but cooperating with employers who are intimidating workers who are trying to form unions who are offshoring American jobs instead of taking a very firm stance to protect workers in America is not the answer, and I’m afraid of what President Stern offered was a lot of rhetoric, but not clear plans.

We’ve got to have a real discussion and a real change in course in this country to allow workers in America to freely form unions and bargain collectively and we also have to --

INSANA: What is the plan that you’re describing that would allow you to get to that point – again, the corporate side a rather large backlash against that movement given the opportunities to employ low-wage labor elsewhere?

ACUFF: Certainly, the plan is not just to roll over and cooperate with people who are kicking workers in America in the teeth. We have legislation right now, the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow workers to organize unions free of intimidation, which would require penalties on employers who violate workers’ rights and violate the law. That legislation now has 200 co-sponsors in the House and 38 co-sponsors in the Senate. That represents both a plan and an answer, not something that’s going to happen tomorrow, but a plan and an answer.

We also have to -- let me take issue with his rhetoric vis-à-vis trade.

INSANA: Yes.

ACUFF: We have to have trade agreements and trade policy, which sets labor standards and environmental standards, not just balanced trade. We’re talking about trade with justice built in for workers.

We have this incredible situation now where Mexican workers are competing with Chinese workers, where African workers are competing with Chinese workers. The world deserves better than that. American workers and workers across the globe deserve better than that and we’ve got to use the power of the American economy to lift standards for workers and lift environmental protection and not allow them to continue to be depressed.

INSANA: Well, let me finalize my questioning of you with, again, the industry that I asked Mr. Stern to talk about, that’s the airline industry. When you look at the cooperative arrangements that a Southwest or JetBlue has with it employees’ unions and the decent pay that their employees and pilots make, how do you argue against a cooperative relationship that does take into account more constituencies than just shareholders, but the whole stakeholder group involved in the company?

ACUFF: I don’t argue against it all, in fact, Southwest Airlines is one of the most heavily unionized airlines in the industry and a model of good management. There’s no reason that other airlines can’t have that kind of arrangement with their workers and their employees.

Look. The problem in the airline industry has a lot more to do with the cost of fuel than it does relationship between the employers and the employees, and Southwest can be a model across the board.

&nbsp

; So there’s no reason that you can’t have cooperative relationships like we used to have with United and still should have with United and their employees and their other stakeholders.

INSANA: All right. Mr. Acuff, we appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for joining us today.

ACUFF: Thank you very much.

INSANA: Stewart Acuff of the AFL-CIO.

[END OF INTERVIEW.]

6 Comments

| Leave a comment

The capitalists are ever more ruthless, the labor leaders are toothless. "Partner" with plutes? No thank you.

Posted by richard myers
August 18, 2005 6:57 AM | Reply | Permalink

Bill, thanks so much for posting this material. The debate on how to grow the labor movement to both earn the respect of employers and that of employees is one that needs to continue. At present much of the debate/discussion has focused on how to structure or restructure the labor movement. That is an important part of the debate but your posting helps me to focus more on the overall vision of where labor is going and who organized labor “partners” with in getting there.

It’s been my experience that management respects and “partners” with labor only when labor has some serious power. The real power, as opposed to imaginary power, of any union or labor movement comes from its educated and involved members not in its posturing leaders. BTW, in the labor/management partnerships that I am familiar with, labor is always the “junior” partner. Junior partners have little say in the running of the business (damn those management rights clauses), and its most often bad, short-sighted employer decisions that put the welfare of the workforce in danger.

There are two problems with increasing union power: regularly activating those members already in unions (and their natural social and economic justice allies) and increasing union density on both a sectoral and national basis. Neither, in my opinion, will happen when unions partner with management in order to build the union’s power to improve the quality of life for working people or when unions partner with radical right wing politicians in order to do the same thing.

Again, thanks for letting us see the differences in vision between these two articulate spokespersons for their sides of the debate.

Posted by wbils
August 18, 2005 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink

It seems to me that Acuff completely misses the point. You can draft all the legislation that you want, but you have to get it passed. A little review of history will show that labor has been remarkably unsuccessful at getting this done, even when the dems had the White House and both houses of Congress. That means that there were enough dems who stabbed us in the back to sink labor law reform, organizing Fed Ex, passing grossly unfair trade bills, ... well, you get the picture.

Do not misunderstand me - I do not oppose political action. Never have. In fact, I have worked in campaigns on and off for 30 years. I have been the chair of a union political committee. But, I am a bit tired of the constant claims made by the Acuffs of the world that we would succeed if we just did a little more. Maybe I'd be more convinced if I saw unions go after more double-crossing dems, because as it stands now, such retribution is seldom exacted.

I'm sorry guys... but even though I don't agree with every word coming out of Andy Sterns mouth, Acuff's defense of his own position was about as lame as it gets. Frankly, he's too smart a guy not to be embarassed by the line he's trying to sell.

Posted by thelonius
August 18, 2005 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink

Oh God!!!! Save us from ourselves.....

Acuff talks about political action and legislation that frankly has had a snowball's chance in hell for 25 years and seems to have the same snowball's chance as far as I can see into the future.

Stern talks about partnership, as if labor has the strength to force a partnership on anything except the terms of corporate power.

Meanwhile, the commentators to this piece Bill has provided are saying, "we need to find a way to fight back...."

Labor has only, and look at this with a long term, 200 year perspective, made gains where the bottom line analysis, and spirit of workers, ahs been based on a sense of class struggle. This is absolute. I defy anyone to find instances of major gains for workers based on cooperation with a governmental and corporate partnership and without the collective power of workers. Please help me if such examples exist.....

Those of us who have put jobs, lives and major time in the line need to thing and organize amongst ourselves. Clearly, coming out of Bill's posting, the leaders have their blinders on and their minds off.

Posted by lambchop
August 18, 2005 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink

Is it too cynical to read a bit of bullshit into Stern's line about labor-management partnerships. I mean, he's on CNBC, after all, not exactly the channel most hospitable to militant rhetoric.

I just find it very hard to believe that Andy Stern is interested in cooperation with management in the sense that the posters here fear. Isn't it more likely that he was using rhetoric meant to appeal to the typical CNBC watcher?

Posted by Oppidan
August 19, 2005 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink

random thought, on the "partnership" vs. opposition question.

seems like a good opposition wins by breaking the opponent into factions and playing them off one another. god knows the businessmen do it to us well enough.

so for instance, there's a demonstrable fact that a major problem with american firms is that they're management-heavy. people talk about this all the time, the economist complains about it for heaven's sake. causes real inefficiencies for business. at the same time, it normally means you have a few extra layers of bureaucracy and managerial prerogative to deal with at work.

the shareholders of a company don't have any real reason to keep these folks around, they just have no choice, they lack any information conduit to accurately assess managers, except other managers.

so, why not have unions provide a "service" to shareholders, in return for a better cut, either of wages or profit-sharing or, god forbid, authority in a work site.

unions can assemble and compile, as independent watchdogs, which managers are basically wasting money. they can inform shareholders of this regularly, and boom, cut out some major segments of corporate waste, pass the savings onto workers and customers. employees get the opportunity to get rid of managers who create "unproductive" working environments.

this isn't necessarily the way to go, just saying, if we're really out for blood here, you fight a war through dividing and conquering.

also have a broad sort of question. there seems to be a pretty huge anti-corporate sentiment in america, and it seems like it should be easy to tap into and turn into something powerful. so why exactly can't we do it?is it for want of trying, for want of results? do we offer no alternatives, or are our alternatives too moderate? do people really like corporate society? should we keep griping about outsourcing or should we just start to build an alternative economy?

Posted by bakunin661
August 20, 2005 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink

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