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By Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
The report from Chris Brooks on yet another UAW organizing defeat at the VW plant in Chattanooga Tennessee is interesting. Brother Brooks is correct to criticize the tactics that contributed greatly to the defeat referring to them as the“….unsophisticated, shallow organizing approach of the UAW.” , and that, “Even if the union had won the election, its weak and conflict-averse organizing approach raises serious questions about whether it could have won a first contract—or a good one.”
The report from Chris Brooks on yet another UAW organizing defeat at the VW plant in Chattanooga Tennessee is interesting. Brother Brooks is correct to criticize the tactics that contributed greatly to the defeat referring to them as the“….unsophisticated, shallow organizing approach of the UAW.” , and that, “Even if the union had won the election, its weak and conflict-averse organizing approach raises serious questions about whether it could have won a first contract—or a good one.”
This is pretty strong stuff and to the point. Brother Brooks goes
on to challenge perhaps the most damaging aspect of the trade union
officialdom’s approach in all class conflicts and labor disputes and that is
the Team Concept, the view held by the entire leadership of organized labor
that workers and bosses have the same economic interests. Brother Brooks refers
to this as the, “labor-management
partnership”.
I had
written an article in response to an earlier report Chris Brooks wrote
on the VW organizing drive that was in Labor Notes Magazine. I shared the differences
myself and others around our blog, Facts For Working People have with how Labor
Notes traditionally approaches union work and in particular the refusal to
point to the role of the trade union leadership. While Brother Brooks does take
up crucial issues, I think we have to explain two things: one is the role of
the trade union leadership and the other is why they do what they do.
But in this latest report Brother brooks again, when raising
failed tactics and strategies, refers to the UAW as opposed to the UAW
leadership. But the tactics are not developed by the UAW; they are determined
by the leadership of the UAW. The only way the unions will be made into
democratic fighting organizations and the unorganized will be organized, is if
we look at the policies of the union leadership as distinct from what is in the
interests of the union membership.
The trade union leadership supports concessions. Their entire
approach is one of “controlled retreat”. I recall during the UFCW’s strike against
Safeway in California in 2005 Ron Lind, a UFCW official on the negotiating team,
assuring the employers and the public through the mass media how responsible
the UFCW leadership’s position was: “We
want to make changes with a scalpel, not a chain saw.”, he
announced. It can’t get any plainer than this and there are simply too many
examples of labor officials pleading with the bosses’ to be less aggressive,
don’t cut too deep, to not see it for what it is, a weak and conflict-averse strategy as Chris Brooks describes it.
Many rank and file workers explain away the trade union
leadership’s friendly relationship with the bosses, with the capitalists, as
being a problem of corruption in the sense of criminal activity or taking
bribes. Some think it is due to their obscene salaries and perks. These are certainly a factor, but this is not
the main reason the leadership refuses to go on the offensive, refuses to mobilize
the potential power of organized labor.
The main reason the union leaders from the AFL-CIO’s Richard
Trumka on down refuse to fight is that they see no alternative to capitalism.
So when the system goes in to crisis their first instinct is to bail it out.
For them there is no other alternative but to make a deal with the capitalists that
inevitably means at their own members expense and at the expense of the working
class as a whole.
If it is a choice between mobilizing and fighting and winning
victories they will choose defeat because a mobilized membership threatens this
relationship they have with the capitalist class; it threatens their world view.
Victories would energize and inspire the trade union rank and file and all
workers as they will see that there is an alternative to the present policy of
class collaboration.
Any significant victories by sections of the trade union membership
like we saw in West Virginia with the teachers/educators, threatens the entire
policy of the union leadership for the past three or four decades based on
their arguments that victories were impossible. So not only do they not
organize in a way to achieve victories, they actively sabotage any struggles
that look like winning. There are many instances where union members voted down
concessionary contracts as a first step to pushing back only to have the same
rotten deal brought back to them time and time again to wear them down. In the
Boeing contract a few years ago, the national leadership sabotaged that deal
and back in the 1980’s the great Hormel strike the UFCW leadership simply
replaced the leadership of UFCW Local P9 with a more compliant one.
The recent struggles in education have shaken the confidence of
the trade union officialdom as they were rank and file led, violated anti-union
laws or legislation and were organized in a way that drew in the community and
all other workers in education. They were run counter to how strikes and
protests have been organized by the established leadership that were designed
to fail. These victories cannot be ignored and have even forced the labor
hierarchy to publicly state that strikes can be won. But the strategy and
tactics of the educators’ struggles are a major threat to the present
leadership and their view that there is no alternative to capitalism. For them,
a mobilized and conscious membership and the victories that would come from
this can only lead to chaos.
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