Afscme Local 444. Some Rank and File Memories

by Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

Back in the mid to late nineties I was still active in my union, Afscme Local 444. In 1997, I would be on the negotiating team for the third time. The first time was in 1982, the second was in 1985 during our strike and by 1997 I had learned a lot. I certainly figured out that I had the right instinct not being not interested in attending a seminar or class titled, Concession Bargaining that a union staffer suggested I attend in the early 1980’s.

 

During this 1980’s and 90’s I was also a delegate from my local union to Afscme District Council 57 and also the Alameda Central Labor Council which was the county arm of the AFL-CIO to which all AFL-CIO unions were expected to affiliate.

 

A District Council was a body of affiliated local Afscme unions in the area that met three or four times a year; it was a sort of regional body between local unions and the International.  We paid significant dues to it and at the local level it was always a contentious issue as many members felt we did not get our money’s worth. In fact, when I first became active in in the late 1970’s early 1980’s we weren’t an affiliate. Then the International union mandated we affiliate and a war broke out between the old guard, many of them charter members of the local, and the generation of younger activists myself included.

 

The older members did not like being told what to do by the International union though our position won out in the end. But they knew how to fight and I remember they mustered up enough votes for a period of time that prevented us from paying the bills so the local couldn’t function properly. What a lesson it was for me.

 

In the late 1980’s the private sector unions were getting hammered which was to be expected after Reagan crushed the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike in 1981 with practically no response from the heads of the AFL-CIO bar a few fundraising efforts. He fired 11,000 of them and banned them from working in the industry for life.

 

At a news conference on February 20, 1989, Lane Kirkland, the moribund head of the AFL-CIO was asked, with reference to the strike at Eastern Airlines, “Are you prepared to call a nation-wide airline strike and use the full weight of the AFL-CIO  to reverse the concessions and union busting?” Kirkland replied, “Can we have a serious question?”

 

There was an attempt in a number of industries, two strikes at Greyhound, the Hormel strike and UFCW Local P9, Eastern Airlines, strikes in communication and others to drive back the capitalist offensive that intensified after PATCO . But these heroic struggles could not overcome the powerful combination of the bosses and their own leaders and went down to defeat opening up a period of decline for organized labor.

 

I distinctly remember other changes that began to appear, in particular the term culture. We have to change the workplace culture and the confrontational relationship between employers and unions. The term “worker” was being replaced by associate, or team member; flexibility and working smarter not harder was the name of the game. I had read about this Team Concept idea, that bosses and workers have the same economic interests and that being adversarial in our approach hadn’t worked, unions had had their day, we had to be realistic. Through my activity in higher bodies, national conventions and the other AFL-CIO bodies I met other union members, made contacts not just in the public sector but throughout and it was clear that this teamwork stuff was growing and the top leadership were promoting it.

 

I had met rank and file members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and they had warned me that this was a major problem for them. The wage tier systems were increasing, the workplace was changing. I had read a document, Treat it As Continuous Bargaining by Charley Richardson at the Technology and Work Program at the University of Massachusetts that warned union activists about employee involvement programs like Interest Based Bargaining, Employee Participation, Problem Solving Teams, Partnership and Focus Groups. These are all structures management use to undermine a union and the unity of workers on the job. Most workers know in our gut that we don’t have the same interests as the boss. But the labor leadership, incapable of organizing a genuine fight back against concessions blocked by their ideological marriage with the employers and commitment to capitalism and profits, have forced this philosophy and the policies that flow from it on union members with catastrophic results.

 

During the 1990’s the push to join management’s team efforts intensified but the leadership of  Local 444 resisted it fiercely.  We ordered a number of copies of the above document and distributed them to activists and shop stewards. And Labor Notes had some excellent publications that gave statistics and data that helped us in our arguments like a pamphlet on the 8 hour day. I recall sitting in my boss’ office dealing with a grievance and he walked out to get something. I noticed a book on his shelf about labor relations and psychology written by Carl Robinson, Vice President, Organizational Psychologists.

 

I had a quick look and it read:

 

"If you're going to strive to motivate workers through autonomy and empowerment, it's important to remember that the primary burden is to make sure employees believe what you say.

 

Don't tell them you want them to be empowered to increase the company's profits.  Tell them you want them to be empowered because it's the best way to remain competitive and guarantee everyone their jobs."

 

I had read Lester Thurow’s book The Future of Capitalism around the same time and in it Thurow warned, “….flexibility is simply a code word for falling wages” In a later chapter, talking about society or capitalism Thurow added:

“Basically some species are solitary animals living alone except when they mate. Other species are herd or pack animals. Man is clearly the latter. Any successful human society has to recognize this reality, but capitalism does not.”

 

Unfortunately Thurow, despite his understanding of capitalism’s inherent anti-human nature offered no real solution other than to hope capitalist society can discover “the best mix of individual and communal actions that will allow a society to persist and flourish.”. This is impossible in a mode of production where profits are sacrosanct and the source of profits, or the wealth of society, is the unpaid labor of the worker who owns nothing but their own labor power.

 

In the nineties I was part of the leadership that met with management as part of a requirement we meet and confer, over workplace changes. Our employer, as was the case throughout the public sector, was pushing the Team Concept warning us we had to tighten our belts to stave off privatization. The national union leadership’s name for this was “competitive bidding” we had to show how we could be more competitive and undermine our sisters and brothers on the outside, a disastrous race to the bottom for working people. US capitalism was after crushing the public sector unions after defanging the once mighty UAW with the help of the national leadership of that union. Jobs in unionized auto was a major gateway to the middle class for many American workers.

 

It was 1994 and management was introducing the Maintenance Assessment Project New Operating Vision and Case For Action. A fancy name indeed and we were not fooled, as Charley Richardson warned in the document above, the management will be working with consultants and be introducing all sorts of trendy language and psychological tricks to weaken union unity and basic class conscious. The image on the right from the description of this management vision shows how important the war on consciousness was and how much of the ratepayer’s money they were willing to spend winning it.

 

Here are a few more little nuggets from that  vision. Flatter, it appears is a negotiating skill. No doubt well educated consultants and pyschologists were working hard developing a "flatter structure" for a water utility. Consultants are very important and are rewarded richly in the war on labor

I should add that when I first got involved with the union in the late 1970's we still had merit pay in the contract. The old timers hated it because obviously the boss determines what merit is and who should be rewarded. I think we removed it in 1982. But as we can see, neo-iliberalism (privatize everything) was bringing it back a decade later.

We were always told that reducing time to complete a  task is done through working smarter not harder, it is not an attempt to increase workloads or speed up.

 

These are just a few examples of battles myself and other rank and file activists were involved in during the 1990's in particular. In our union newsletter and during the 1997 negotiations the last I was involved in, those of us that fought this trend toward labor management peace at the workers' expense made it very clear to our own members and the members of the other Afscme union representing the white collar workers that we have no alternative, we have to fight as the bosses will not stop. Global capitalism will ensure this. We had failed on one occasion to unite the two Afscme locals as the leadership of the white collar local and the District Council opposed it. There was no organized rank and file opposition in the white collar local (Afscme (2019) that could counter this.

In 1997, three of us on the negotiating team recommended a no vote. We stressed that we could get no more at the table but we could get more if more of the membership became involved, if they became part of the strategy we developed that meant reaching out to the wider labor movement, and the communities in which we live and work. We made it clear that they can't vote "no" and go fishing, there is no more we can get through negotiation and the threat of action. We have to do more.

As we expected, the membership voted yes on the contract and it was a good deal by most standards. But I know one thing that has changed for the worse. I retired at 54 and you have to be 67 now I believe.   Read an assessment of that negotiations here.

Back then we were arguing that no local can win, no national union can. We are fighting global capitalism. And as Jack Henning, the former head of the California Labor Federation, with two million workers affiliated to it once said, we have to have global unionism to fight global capitalism. He never used his powerful position to make that a reality, just the opposite, but the statement is correct, building an international movement of the working class, both economic and political, is integral to building and ensuring a future for our children and our children's children. 

Workers taking up the issue of climate change is also integral to this as if we do not halt it before it's too late, wages and working conditions are really a sideshow. With reports of the drought crisis globally and in here in the Southwestern US, Extinction is on the cards.

This is just a small part of this writer's history in the workplace and union. I know that regardless of the type of work or industry, every serious shop steward, every rank and file  activist in the workplace has a similar sotory and can relate to the issues I raise here.