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Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, Retired
GED/HEO
3-20-23
In December 2021, members of the once mighty United Auto Workers’ Union voted 63.6 percent in support of electing top officers through a one-member-one-vote system. The campaign was led by a UAW reform caucus, Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) formed in 2019.
Last week, Shawn Fain, a member of UAWD and part of the UAW Members United slate, defeated incumbent Ray Curry in a close runoff election for UAW president; every seat challenged by the reformers won. Like the recent change in the leadership of the Teamsters Union, this result is being hailed as an historic event as the present entrenched bureaucracy atop the UAW, known as the Administration Caucus, has been in control of the union since 1946.
This is indeed is a major development in one of the most important and potentially powerful unions in the US. Despite the low union density and the declining membership in the manufacturing sector, the auto industry is crucial to the functioning of the US economy. While many of the new auto plants in the South are non-union, the failed organizing drives in the past at VW and Nissan plants in Tennessee and Mississippi were the result of the disastrous strategies of the previous leadership, not an inherent anti-union mood among the workers there. See some inks to these campaigns below.
The UAW has 400,000
members and a strike fund of $1 billion or more and Fain and the other UAWD members
now in a position of power in the UAW are faced with some tough decisions as
well as dangers from hostile forces including the entire leadership of
organized labor in the US that will be watching events very closely, and the
left in the form of all shades of opportunists, self-described experts, many
with the academic credentials to prove it. These elements, often former
bureaucrats themselves latch themselves on to any leftward trend within the
movement offering their expertise and advice, very little of it earned in the
struggles in the workplace, the shop floor where the rubber meets the road.
They are not steeled in these workplace struggles.
I will add that there are academics and people from academia who are our
allies, are allies of the working class as equals, and these brothers and
sisters place the skills they have at the service of the working class and are
some of the best fighters.
I have managed to
follow much of the developments leading up to this victory including some of
Shawn Fain’s statements and visits to UAW members. Both Fain and the UAW
Members United slate claim that rank and file participation is key; “By now, the writing is on the wall: change
is coming to the UAW,” Fain told Labor Notes, adding that “You,
the members, have already made history in this election, and we’re just getting
started. It’s a new day in the UAW.” Fain has made three points his main platform; an
end to corruption, concessions and tiers.
We have all dealt with the issue of tiers, management’s divisive strategy where
workers, generally new hires, are paid less for doing the same job. It has
brought billions in profits to employers throughout the country in all
industries as it undermines solidarity in the workplace. Frank Hammer, retired
president of UAW local 909 in Warren Michigan pointed out to me that it is this
strategy that is the basis for the profit-sharing policies that many workers
benefit from but it is the lower paid workers on the tier who pay for it, even
if they too receive a share. Unfortunately the reform caucus has not made the
elimination of profit sharing an issue and the lower paid workers will be conscious
of this I would assume.
Abolishing the tiers and winning back pay/compensation for the victims would be a huge victory. On profit sharing, it should be explained that the auto bosses are able to return some profits to their workers by implementing the tier system and denying future generations the wages and benefits that were won in the past. As workers’ labor power is the source of profits, the bosses are merely returning a little more of the wealth they create back to them.
Program is Key
With many reform groups within organized labor there is a tendency to focus on the issue of democracy while avoiding concrete demands and a strategy for winning them. This is a way of appealing to a very broad layer within the unions and wider society and avoiding conflict with the leadership in power; after all, who can oppose democracy or democratic rights? This is not to discredit the importance organizationally of the recent victory allowing members to elect their own leaders through a one-member-one-vote system. In the main, unions are fairly democratic compared to other institutions in society.
But in my opinion, what is central for any individual or reform group aiming to transform our unions, and necessary to both build and strengthen our movement and achieve significant victories against the bosses’, is a clear program detailing what we are fighting for and what we have to do to win it. The other important aspect of this approach is that it keeps us on our toes, it holds our feet to the fire and anchors us to the movement. It also gives the rank and file a reason to become involved and participate in the union in a real way; as we have goals and a game plan. It is this discussion that the rank and file must be an integral part of, contribute to and develop. Vague statements about fairness, justice, and “engaging” with the rank and file without substance, are all well and good, but we’ve heard it all before.
The interview with Shawn Fain in In These Times on March 17th revealed the dangers now facing the new leadership as Steven Greenhouse, an accomplished labor journalist who wrote a great deal about the events in Afscme during the 1990’s when I was still active, posed some important questions. Whether it was how to fight concessions, or unite the union or win the one clear demand Brother Fain as a UAWD member campaigned on, ending the tier system, the main response was that the new leadership must “engage” with the membership along with other vague statements. “Engage” was the answer at least ten times. It’s like throwing the word “unity” around as if it’s a programmatical demand in its own right: We must have “unity”. That’s all well and good, but unity around what?
In some cases we oppose unity. The Team Concept, the dominant ideology of the trade union hierarchy today that claims workers and bosses have the same interests, has been a disaster for workers. Any reform group or individual that does not openly condemn this ideology and the policies that flow from it, will end up on the same concessionary path.
When asked about how the divisions in the union can be overcome, Fain responds with “If we want unity, we have to regain the trust of the membership”, and, “Going into Big Three bargaining [with GM, Ford and Stellantis], we need to run contract campaigns where we engage the membership and go after their demands.” This is all more akin to a therapy session to be honest. It sounds nice but has no real substance, no one can disagree with it including the boss.
When Greenhouse asked Brother Fain, “What are specific examples of how you plan to achieve no concessions in the Big Three contract negotiations? And how will your bargaining strategy and tactics be different from, or similar to, those of your predecessors as UAW president?” Fain refused to “divulge strategies or tactics”. I can answer that question for him; he doesn’t have a plan. The auto bosses will not give up the tier system without obtaining their pound of flesh so that one concrete demand alone with be fiercely resisted by the auto bosses.
Having no clear
program and strategy before winning leadership is one thing, when sitting in
the driver’s seat it is a disaster. And less than a week after celebrating
victory, Shawn Fain has shown how quickly disasters occur. Mike Elk reported in Payday Report on March
19th (yesterday) that
Fain has fired Joe Rioux his former chief of staff and most of his “top senior staffers”. It appears Fain
is turning to those trendy “labor
consultants” for guidance, in this case, Chris Brooks, the former Labor
Notes correspondent who I have had occasion to put pen to paper about,
particularly his failure to place the blame on the failed UAW organizing drives
in the South on those responsible, the UAW leadership.
This has been a trademark of Labor Notes and its writers in the past to avoid
directing blame at organized labor’s leaders by using the term “union” when raising criticism, “The union organizing drive was a failure” lets
the culprits at the top off the hook, blaming the members as well who are
included in the term “union”. It was
not the UAW rank and file that determined the organizing strategy for those
defeats, it was the hierarchy and its paid consultants. Here is one of my responses to a report
by Brooks.
All the talk of rank and file control and leadership goes out the window in times like these. The leadership of DSA which touts its radicalism and orientation to the rank and file of organized labor has farmed out its union work to forces like labor notes and former officials in the union bureaucracy. None of these people and those like them that attach themselves opportunistically to the labor movement are steeled in the any significant struggles on the job. Many are former members of left groups, one stating that he was “sent in” to a workplace. Workers aren’t sent in to workplaces to recruit so-called revolutionaries, we end up there because we need a damn job.
Opportunity Knocks Yet Again
Fain and the United Members United slate has a golden opportunity to change the
balance of class forces in the US and reverse decades of concessions and class
collaboration. The Unite All Workers For Democracy caucus (UAWD) also has the
same opportunity. But the UAW cannot do
it alone.
It is not criminal activity or corruption in the UAW or organized labor as a whole that is the main problem, it is class collaboration and the Team Concept. “People want the union to challenge management,” says one retired UAW official, “they ….want the collective power of the union, not just to reform the union, but to aggressively change the union into a fighting institution.”, but no union can achieve that with the position that the boss and the workers are on the same side.
No union can win alone. We belong to an
organization with some 14 million members and this is tremendous potential
social power. As president, Fain and the caucus could lead an open struggle
within the wider labor movement against concessions and for an end to the Team
Concept. The unwritten rule that the leadership of one union must never criticize
the leadership of another or appeal to their members must be cast aside. Biden,
Pelosi and the US Congress just imposed a contract on the rail workers that
they had previously rejected tossing the the right to strike out the window. There has been barely a peep from the heads of organized labor about this.
There is massive anger about this and the new UAW leadership should reach out
to the railroad workers and the reform group active in the rail unions. They
should address the 14 million members who are disgusted with the trade union
hierarchy’s love affair with the boss
and the Democratic Party as well as the working class as a whole and particularly
the young workers in Amazon and Starbucks and others that are forming unions and
whose leaders were excluded fro the AFL-CIO convention in June last year.
The International Longshore and Warehouse
Union has been in contract talks with the port bosses on the West Coast since
September and the ILWU leadership appears to have agreed to a complete blackout
on those events. The ILWU alone is in the position to bring the US economy to a
halt. This strategy needs to be openly challenged and appeals to the ILWU rank
and file to push their leadership to change course should be made.
The battle against the bosses is one
thing, the more difficult is the struggle within our own organizations against
the concessionary policies of the present leadership, but it is a fight we cannot avoid, and we must have it in the locals,
central labor bodies, and district and regional councils where we can not to mention society as a whole. To not
take up this challenge is to abandon these organizations workers built over 150
years of struggle and sacrifice.
There is the possibility of a
depression and/or slump ahead when the assault on US workers will intensify. Auto
workers do not have to build cars. We need a national transportation system that
is efficient and environmentally sound. The electric vehicle is not the answer
to our transportation needs or a looming environmental catastrophe. Mass
transit is.
The labor historian
Nelson Lichtenstein welcomes the changes in the UAW reminding us that the old
guard now dislodged were the product of Walter Reuther’s , “…elimination of his rivals from all posts in the UAW
hierarchy.” “hopefully…” Lichtenstein adds, “….with
the victory of Shawn Fain, he’s not going to create a new machine.” Labor
Notes: It’s a New Day in the United
Auto Workers
Let’s hope that’s the case but Fain and
the reformers need to step back from the abyss or UAW members are looking at more of the same.
UAW
leadership responsible for the defeat at VW
For
Labor Notes. The Labor Leadership Does Not Exist
A
Fighting Union Leadership Will be Built by Rank and File Activists
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