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I wrote this, or most of it some time ago and rediscovered it. I have to be honest in admitting that part of my reason for publishing it is for my own satisfaction, documenting what was for me a very exciting and rewarding period in my life. But I also genuinely want to share this experience with other rank and file activists in particular young workers and I know that my experience is not unique. There are thousands of dedicated rank and file trade union activists out there fighting for workers' rights and power in the workplace where the "rubber meets the road" as we used to say. Part of that struggle is internal, the inevitable battle any rank and file activist or reform caucus that is serious about changing the present class collaboration policies will be forced to engage in with the established leadership in these situations.
In fact,if you are a rank and file worker, retired or not, and you have similar experiences you would like to share, send it to Facts For Working People and we'll check it out and publish it most likely. Lastly, I would like to ask readers if you could put your e mail address in the box on the right so you can receive posts directly in to your e mail. Facebook's algorithms are not favorable to us, charging for boosting articles to a wider audience and Google is also suspect. The policies of these two tech giants has cut our readership in half without paying. There are more documents I have from this experience described here but my tech skills are such that I can only put a link to a couple of them below rather than include them in this post.
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Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
I was going through some old union files today and came across these items which reminded me of quite a battle I got in back in 1992-93. I was a delegate to the Alameda County Central Labor Council from my local. I was elected to that position by Local 444 members and co-workers at a membership meeting some years earlier. Some of the young people entering in to the labor movement today, particularly those young people in DSA who are in unions might find this interesting history.
At that time, the California Nurses Association, (CNA) was outside of the AFL-CIO. The leadership of CNA I would describe it as an outsider, (I was in Afscme and in a different industry) was relatively conservative seeing themselves as professionals rather than workers, reflecting a tendency among the nurses themselves. The similar dynamic existed among teachers. This has changed with both groups as they have been somewhat proletarianized. Teachers' working conditions and living standards have been savaged since then. It’s hard to consider oneself special when one has to work two jobs to get by.
The competition for members between local and national unions was fierce, much as it is today. I heard tales of physical assaults between organizers from different unions competing for the same group. They are all guilty of this as the heads of organized labor, they see the unions as employment agencies and themselves as the CEO’s, the dues money is their revenue. I think CNA had about 26,000 members back then so it was a big prize and was being courted, by SEIU 250 in particular.
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I could follow local events and participate in the wider labor movement activity at labor council meetings and in 1992 there was a huge strike at a hospital in the East Bay involving members of the AFL-CIO affiliates, SEIU, OPEIU, ILWU Local 6 (Warehouse division) and HERE. HERE had not yet merged with UNITE.
Despite being outside the AFL-CIO to which the other unions belonged, council delegates reported that CNA was very supportive and helpful during that strike and was supporting cross union solidarity as they had the same employer. CNA was definitely one of the more aggressive unions at that time.
Some time after the strike, I heard that there was a shake
up in CNA. It seemed that the more pro-management “we’re professionals not
workers” faction were displeased with the pro-union direction CNA was heading
and CNA’s board fired the then director of collective bargaining, Rose Ann
DeMoro along with 12 of her staff. (see the first document "Working Together"). It is clear that DeMoro and co. were more
organized labor oriented. A war was erupting there.
I am including some documents from that time. Some time later a new leadership of CNA was elected that
was more union oriented reflecting the changes among the rank and file, and
rehired DeMoro.
I wanted to know more and reported back to my local
membership that we should invite someone from this new, more "labor" oriented CNA leadership to come
speak to us at our October 1993 membership meeting along with the director of our Afscme District Council 57 and, International Vice President George Poppyack. This would allow our members to hear both
sides. The CNA rep that came was Jim Ryder who I knew prior as being with the
ILWU Local 6.
Brother Poppyack never responded to my request for his attendance (he rarely answered phone calls) but our Business Agent Walter Yonn was present. Needless to say I got quite a savaging from Walter and he referred to Sal Rosselli of SEIU Local 250 as “Gangster Sal”. I was accused of being his boyfriend (Rosselli is gay). It appears I had upset someone. So I wrote Walter Yonn a letter about this. You can read that letter here
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Next thing I know I get a copy of a letter DC Council 57 Director George Poppyack , received from Rosselli’s lawyer Bill Sokol demanding an apology for the (Gangster Sal) comments or legal action will ensue.
Sokol had written to our Business Agent asking for an apology but as you can see from Sokol's letter included here, our BA was not very cooperative and actually responded to Sal Rosselli blaming me.
“I would caution you against placing too much weight on what you read in the Labor Militant”, he wrote.
Labor Militant was a socialist publication I was associated with at the time. I was expelled from the organization that published it (now Socialist Alternative) and the history of this and other activities of mine and Afscme Local 444, have been omitted from the Wikipedia account of Socialist Alternative's history in the US. I comment on this here. Socialist Alternative Members: Questions and Answers.
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| PDF of Yonn's letter to Rosselli |
Oh how I miss these Union struggles. It's likely that the legal
stuff was all a bit of a bluff and I don’t know what was said between them in
private if anything was said at all. I continued to take some flack from some
of the leadership’s sycophants in our District Council (AFSCME).
The California Nurses Association is also a founding member of the 170,000-member National Nurses United, which in 2009 united CNA/NNOC, the United American Nurses, and the Massachusetts Nurses Association, to create the largest union and professional association of nurses in U.S. history as affiliated to the AFL-CIO. More at the CNA Websit
Had I not believed that rank and file activists must be involved in the wider labor movement (as well as working class communities when possible) I would not have understood these details so clearly. But we see the same processes today where decisions that affect our daily lives, and the lives of all workers are top down. There were many delegates to higher bodies like a labor council that are supposed to represent local unions and memberships that are sometimes not connected to them at all but appointed by a leadership for one reason or another, many of them leftists, university educated and some simply use the position to gain a trade union credential as having a position like delegate to a higher union body is impressive if one belongs to one of the numerous socialist organizations that have many student members in them.
Another reason why the union leadership at the higher levels might appoint some lefty, an opportunist or naive younger person to such a position is that having no base among the rank and file of that organization, they have to do what they’re told or they’re out of a job.
When unions merge as HERE and UNITE did for example, what generally happens is the two leaderships get together and make the deal just like CEO’s of corporations. The members will have some knowledge of it but what does not occur is a thorough discussion on the pros and cons of such a move from the ground up.
I should add that what the AFSCME
leadership did in this
case is very
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| Local 444 to National Union PDF |
I did write a letter that my local adopted and sent to the international union in DC asking for information including on the rumored $6000 a month AFSCME’s national leadership were paying the 6 pro-management CNA reps it had picked up. Naturally we received no response.
The average union member is not drawn to an organization
that functions in this way because the desire for unity, fairness and
transparency is very strong among working class people and members of
unions. AFSCME though is not alone, all unions do this and
my experience over 30 years as a member and 25 or more as an active
oppositionist nationally is that AFSCME was one of the better examples. Myself
and others, with the support of Local 444, published an opposition newsletter
that we distributed at national conventions where we were delegates and it was subscribed
to by 10 or so locals in as many states as well as 250 or more individual
subscribers.
Along with writing this for my own personal desire to relive
some history and share it, having a blog being an advantage, I want to stress
the importance of the struggle we face to change the concessionary, class
collaborationist policies of the present leadership of organized labor and
through that process the leadership itself.
No activist can do that by hiding their actual political views and
thinking they can “sneak” in to the officialdom and then change its policies, from within
or being brought “on board” by the very forces whose policies have brought us
to this point.
You have to have your feet firmly grounded in the rank and file
and among your co-workers and genuine activists at the local level and you have
to develop a strategy and platform with their active participation. In other words, you can’t change the present
leadership by accepting their invitation to join. Many members or former
members of socialist groups have done this and are seen by genuine rank and
file members as no different from the people whose policies they claim to
oppose. They become part of the problem having entered the leadership using the
wrong methods, leaving their "radical" politics for their small grouplets isolated from the working class as a whole. Being accepted by the labor bureaucracy without being forced in to a leadership position from below means leaving your politics at the door.
The conservative class collaborationist leadership atop organized labor doesn’t care if you sell your communist,
socialist or whatever other radical publication you claim represents your views
outside of meetings; just keep your hands off their members. Do not openly campaign
among the troops for an alternative platform (as opposed to class
collaboration) and a strategy and tactics capable of winning it.
You have to have your feet firmly rooted among the people
you work with and are active in the local union and the defense of workers on
the job. Then you can openly stand your ground in a politically hostile milieu
and have some successes.
SEIU Flier distributed at Afscme Council 57 meeting
Letter from CNA thanking Afscme Local 444 and Afscme Local 3211 for their support.
Afscme Local 3211 statement on Afscme International's attack on CNA
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