Union hierarchy's failed strategy in Wisconsin continues in Ohio

Important yes, bus so is what we're bargaining about

In the 1980’s my former Union, AFSCME turned out 40, 000 volunteers for Walter Mondale’s presidential bid. Along with volunteers, over the years, the Union hierarchy has funneled hundreds of millions, in fact billions of dollars of workers' hard earned dues money in to Democratic Party coffers to elect its candidates who then savage our living standards on behalf of Wall Street and the Corporations. This disastrous strategy is one of the reasons so many US workers have abandoned the political process altogether.

In the 2010 elections AFSCME spent some $90 million dollars of workers’ money on this Wall Street Party and its candidates’ election campaigns. The brilliant strategists of this potentially powerful organization with 1.3 million members even took out a $2 million loan to elect people like California governor Jerry Brown who is waging a vicious assault against workers and the middle class. The policies of this enemy of working people have been described as “fair and balanced” by top Union officials in the state; no thinking worker agrees with this, even those who will hold their nose and vote for him out of desperation.

We see the same process time and time again. In Wisconsin, what could have been the birth of a national independent workers’ movement encompassing mass action in the streets and workplaces out of which independent candidates and a mass workers’ party could have arisen, has been safely derailed and driven in to the Democratic Party and its electoral aspirations.

In Wisconsin, the Labor leadership from the AFL-CIO on down openly embraced concessions on wages, hours and working conditions. The position of the entire leadership of the AFL-CIO is concessions. The only points of contention are the right to bargain without which they would have no job, and dues checkoff which makes it harder for them to collect revenue, which is also of considerable concern to Democrats as recipients of much of it at election time.  This is why Democrats have been forced to appear on our side on this issue, money. On the basics, Democrats and Republicans both agree that the cost of their crisis must be borne by workers and the poor.

In Ohio, where a similar offensive is being waged against public sector workers the same disastrous strategy is being repeated, disastrous for the dues paying Union member and workers as a whole that is. Labor’s strategists and their Democratic Party “team” members have teamed up to repeal the anti-worker law the governor signed last April. The law increases health care and pension contributions for public employees and takes away their bargaining rights. There’s no doubt this law is a bad one.

The Unions have an army of 10, 000 volunteers and a $25 million war chest aimed at getting the 231,000 signatures necessary to force a statewide referendum for the repeal. The Democratic Party is “offering technical assistance and support to the repeal effort, recruiting thousands of volunteers, providing voter lists for canvassers and helping with fundraising”, the Wall Street Journal reports. *

The Ohio Education Association represents 128, 000 members and has promised $5 million for the recall repeal effort, “..by assessing teachers $54 and support staff members such as cafeteria workers $25,” Michele Prater an OEA spokesperson tells the WSJ. The 73 delegates representing the 128,000 members “unanimously approved the one-time assessment” the WSJ adds. No alternative use of these their resources would have been put forward if the average member was asked at all.

According to the BLS, Ohio had 655,000 Union members as of February this year, the WSJ puts that figure at 650,000. 13.7 percent of wage and salary workers in Ohio were organized as of 2010 compared to 21.3% in 1989 reflecting the general decline of the percentage of US workers in Unions, but clearly, most workers are outside of organized Labor but would love to be in if Unions were fighting aggressively for a better life for all.

The resources in the form of Labor and money that will go in to efforts to repeal these bills and recalling Republicans in favor of electing Democrats are impressive. The facts speak for themselves; if the same efforts were put in to organizing the unorganized who are over 80% of the workforce, a powerful movement of our own could be built that could begin to drive back the bosses’ offensive. Instead, there is a considerable campaign to fight for the right to give away our wages and benefits.

Union leaders cannot direct these resources to launch an independent campaign to organize the unorganized for jobs, housing, health care and a $20 an hour minimum wage for example because such a campaign would attract people to the Union banner. What would they do with them? They accept the bosses’ arguments that such basic necessities are unrealistic and unattainable; capitalism is in trouble and they have to help it. Ideologically, they are wedded to the Team Concept, the view that workers and employers have the same interests, so mobilizing the power of Labor against them is impossible, it would be like tackling your own teammate in soccer, it would lead to chaos and too many home goals which is exactly where the Labor hierarchy has lead us.

I do not live in Ohio but I went to the campaign to repeal the bill’s website and that’s exactly what it’s about, only what it’s about; repealing the bill. One contributor says “Three signatures a minute. That's what it will take to put an end to the biggest attack on Ohio's middle class in a generation."

There’s no doubt the attacks on bargaining rights are serious and we must fight them. But so are attacks on wages, working conditions, pensions etc. and we can’t stop those without building a wider movement and we can’t build a wider movement without actually fighting for something concrete. What we are fighting for is the right to have Union officials sit at a negotiating table and give away our living standards. And what of the unorganized? What are the Unions offering them? We cannot build a movement this way. We are asking people who the Unions have really failed, to help us protect our livelihoods; we are going to them with nothing tangible.

Consequently, Unions and Union members unfortunately, are seen by many of the vast majority of workers not in them as only interested in our benefits, our rights, our wages and conditions. We are generally much better off than non-unionized workers, not simply with regards to wages and benefits, but rights we have in the workplace and we're gradually losing them. As public sector workers we are in a better situation than the private sector in the main. Without the public sector only about 7% of US workers are organized. It is this the employers want to change.

This is why these attacks on us can get an echo----the Union hierarchy has no response to the propaganda that we are the cause of it all. And as people lose homes jobs and livelihoods, public sector workers complaining of unfair treatment is being used against us in the absence of an alternative from Labor. We must not think that comments from one government official in Ohio like, “We’re very confident when people realize it’s simply restoring some balance between public and private sector workers they will understand how valuable Senate Bill 5 is,” don’t make sense to some folks, as mistaken as that may be. If there’s no vision of rising up together then the only alternative is for us to all go down together; we've all heard that before but we have to act on it not treat it a feel good slogan.

It is not ruled out that the bill will be repealed, even people who wouldn’t consider themselves fans of Unions believe in the right to bargain with the employer collectively. “A statewide poll conducted May 10-16 by Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., “ the WSJ adds, “found 54% of Ohioans said they think Senate Bill 5 should be repealed, while 36% said it should be kept. At the same time, 59% of respondents said they think public employees should be required to pay at least 15% of their health-insurance premiums, a provision of the law.”

If the Labor leadership were fighting for concrete gains for all showing that there’s plenty of money out there, 59% in the poll above who support public sector workers paying more for our retirement would have a different view. I know there are many dedicated union members out there collecting signatures to repeal this law but we have to think about this strategy and how resources are being used. We are reaching out to fellow workers, most of them unorganized wishing they had our relative security, wages and benefits, and we’re urging them to support us as the bosses attack our rights.

We are using resources, both financial and human, in a campaign to be able to sit down with the employer and cut our own throats. Why would workers be attracted to an organization that is willingly supporting a reduction in the living standards of its own members (not the top officials of course who don’t generally have to live under the contracts and deals they recommend) It’s a disaster. What a waste of resources. In actuality, it’s using the resources of the movement to protect and maintain the jobs, obscene salaries and comfortable life styles of a leadership whose policies have failed us time and time again, and that’s putting it mildly.

This strategy cannot build a broad, national independent workers’ movement that is crucial if we are to reverse this offensive of the corporations.

* Unions Push to Undo Ohio Law: Wall Street Journal, 6-3-11