Labor leaders want workers to "get involved". But what are they fighting for?

Bankers rep and workers' rep

The Union officialdom is always complaining that workers don't attend meetings and that they don't get involved in the Union.  But what is it that drives people to get involved in politics or the Union?  Workers built Unions at great sacrifice to themselves because they were forced to.  We recognized that if we banded together we would have some social power and be able to win better wages and conditions from the employers who had the law, the state, the media and the police on their side to enforce their will on us as they do today.  It was illegal for workers to talk to each other or band together with the intention of raising wages, illegal under conspiracy laws. In order to build Unions we broke the law in a mass way.

Workers were shot, deported and generally brutalized for attempting to win better wages and working conditions. Initially, workers organized around their particular crafts which is why the oldest Union organizations are the craft Unions, printers, carpenters and the like and many that have since disappeared.  These were a step forward but very narrow in scope as they simply protected a certain skill and some firms may well have had, as they do now even, three or four different unions representing various trades.

With the onset of the industrial revolution, more and more workers were unskilled, working in textile, coal, and eventually steel, rubber and auto plants. The United Mine Workers was one of the few early industrial Unions.  The craft Unions were conservative and looked down on the unskilled workers fearing they would drag down wages and deskill them.  They felt the same way about the women workers that were entering the workforce, much of this mentality still remains today, particularly among paid full-time officials.  And in the main, the craft Unions, that were eventually affiliated nationally in to the American Federation of Labor, were racist organizations mirroring US society.  The Machinists I think barred blacks until the 1940's.  (I am not writing a paper here so I am not researching just operating from memory.)

The IWW was very different and by the mid 1930's the AFL split and the CIO, the national industrial Union organization was formed.  The 1930's saw a massive explosion in Unionization, factory occupations, militancy and three successful general strikes in 1934.   After these strikes, a half million workers occupied workplaces with the great 44 day occupation in Flint of 1936-37 being part of the straw that broke GM's back and heralded a new dawn in auto. The Flint occupation should be our (workers) 4th of July, it was a great moment in working class history. But we don't get to write the history books that our children study in school.

The AFL and CIO were united in 1954 under the conservative lead of the AFL-CIO.  Thousands of militants, socialists and communists were expelled. Anyway, enough of that for now.

The conservative AFL-CIO bureaucracy is harping on about Union rights.  The bosses, emboldened after years of attacks on workers have gone unanswered by this bureaucracy, in fact, it has cooperated in the attacks on workers wages, benefits and living standards, are now after the public sector and want to eliminate even the right of a Union to bargain.  This is crucial for them as the public sector is some 35% unionized whereas the private sector is under 7%.  This is where the Union hierarchy's  policies of cooperation and collaboration (they call it the Team Concept) have brought us, if it weren't for the public sector there would be hardly anyone in Unions in the US. The bosses intend to bring the public more in to line with the private and are using divide and rule tactics to accomplish this, blaming public sector workers'  pay, benefits, and relative job security, for the tax increases and cuts they are or will be implementing.

The initial response has been what we have seen in Madison Wisconsin, an unprecedented 100,000 in the streets at one point and an occupation of the state Capitol.   It appears that the Union hierarchy has successfully diverted this potential mass movement in to that black hole known as the Democratic Party and a recall campaign, and were able to limit the demands to two that affected them, leaving the concessions in place.

I got a note from my Central Labor Council, one of many that waxed euphoric about the "We are one" rallies and how Unions are a fundamental right and we have to defend the right to bargain etc.  It informs us that the Asian Pacific Alliance, one of the numerous groupings within the AFL-CIO, is supporting public workers: "unions are a fundamental human right...and eliminating these rights would weaken workers'  ability to provide for their families." the APA says in a released statement. 

The e mail from the Labor Council boasts about the rally it organized here in Oakland earlier in the week where 1000 workers turned up to show how "we are one" with Wisconsin.  Given that there are 100,000 workers affiliated to the Alameda Central Labor Council, 1000 (and a huge number of them full-time staffers, local leaders and left groups) is not much of a turn out.

"Now more than ever, union members and community supporters need to get involved!" the Labor Council e mail tells us.  But what drives workers to "get involved"?  Our lives are consumed with just surviving.  Even better paid workers' lives are consumed with other things from paying for a college education to the young one's little league to keeping the house if you haven't already lost it. What will encourage workers to get involved, both in Unions and out,  is if the Union leadership is leading a fight for real concrete things, things that will improve the material conditions of life. (Outside of the bosses attacks which force people in to activity of course)

But it is not simply the right to bargain that would "weaken worker's ability to provide for their families" as the APA release says. What we talk about at the table is as important.  The Union hierarchy has agreed to all the concessions the employers want in the public sector or private for that matter,  they are only concerned with a seat at the table, without which they'll have no job. They are also concerned about the elimination of dues check off which is the employer collecting the members' dues through the payroll so the officials don't even have to do that which means interacting with the members.  For these two demands to go through, the Labor hierarchy will lose income and a job, the same thing their members normally suffer due to their failure to fight.

It is not only in the present case, but consistently over the years the Labor hierarchy has willingly given back to the employers their members'  wages, benefits and working conditions on the job that have severely weakened our "ability to provide for our families" and severely is putting it mildly.  The Union hierarchy has consistently crushed or held back any movement from within its ranks that has tried to prevent the employers from weakening our ability to "provide for our families".  There are too many examples to list here.  But in the case of some, like the UAW local in Cleveland NC known as the Cleveland Five, the officials cooperate in terminating militant local leaders that stand up to employers.

The main reason for the Union hierarchy's capitulation as we have said on this blog many times, is not simply the obscene salaries many of them earn or the other perks like job security, or corruption in the normal meaning of the word, these are secondary, it is that they have the same world view as the bosses.  They see no alternative to capitalism and the market and their policies flow from this world view. When the system goes in to crisis they must rescue it.  When the demands of workers go beyond the limits of what capitalism and particularly the Democratic Party sets, then any movement arising out of this must be suppressed.

So the conservative Labor bureaucracy will not lead, but that does not mean we must not lead where we can or force them to when we can.  Within organized Labor oppositions that we build must be around concrete issues and demands and ignore what the bosses, the Democrats and their allies in the Labor movement say are realistic. What is realistic for them is no Unions. We must demand what we need not what is acceptable to them.  Such oppositions cannot simply be built around "Union democracy" which is so often the case. To be honest, this is more often than not a substitute for not raising concrete issues, because the people raising it also accept that capitalism cannot afford what we need and with this approach will follow in the same footsteps as those they are claiming they want to replace. Many genuine fighters have ended up betraying workers; the road to hell is paved with good intentions as they say.

It is the struggle for concrete material things, jobs, wages, more leisure time, vacations, health care, education etc. that will draw workers in to activity.  Workers know if we take that step it is a serious business; it has to be seen as worthwhile, after all, there is a lot at stake.