The Fallout From Black Tuesday

    It was a grim group that crowded into the President's Room at 16th Street at 4 p.m. yesterday. Along with many people who participated via phone, the AFL-CIO staff vented their anger at John Sweeney and Bob Welsh, his executive assistant and chief of staff, for the brutal staff cuts announced Tuesday. Black Tuesday is a wound that will fester for many weeks, months and perhaps years into the future, among people who remain, people who end up retiring or taking a buy-out, or people, many of them young activists brimming with idealism, who leave embittered by their experience in the house of labor.

    From reliable reports, I've pieced together this account. Understand the mood--safe to say that most staff members like Sweeney personally; the same cannot be said of Welsh. While they are furious about what has happened, the questions, demands and a few pointed accusations were delivered mostly without shouting, though full of emotion. It must have been the lowpoint in Sweeney's ten years in office--to preside over a meeting signifying the dismantling of what he had built up organizationally.

    A number of people voiced concern for the staffers who were perhaps 2-3 years away from retirement but face an uncertain future: losing the possibility of a full pension with a tough road to try to find new employment. "If corporate America did this, we would be out on the streets," said one person, to loud applause (it is pretty unnerving that, in the past few months, labor has been pounding the airline industry for reneging on its pension obligations). "I'm pleading with you to direct your subordinates to find an equitable solution." Sweeney's response was roughly, "I appreciate the issue you're raising and we will do our best to address this."

    A recurring theme which came up repeatedly was the feeling that the staff cuts were done unfairly, sparing managers while hacking away at the unionized staff members. The shop steward for the public policy department gave a very detailed and impassioned critique of how it all went down for her colleagues (recall, as described in Tuesday's report of the cuts, Public Policy, Health & Safety, and Legislative were all merged into a newly created super-department called Government Affairs): according to her, 9 out of 10 Guild positions were defunded, the 10th was transferred, while 3 out of 4 managers were moved to the new super-department. She argued that the 4 managers jobs should have been defunded and the work transferred to Guild members because, as she sees it, Guild members can do the manager's projected work created in the new Government Affairs dept.  Where was the shared sacrifice, she asked. After her presentation, Welsh tried to make a joke, saying "I can see why we have you representing the AFL-CIO," to which she responded, sarcastically and bitterly, “Not anymore."

    The point here really is this: I don't know whether her description of the situation is accurate. What's important is the environment Black Tuesday has created among AFL-CIO staff. No one knows what the work will be and what the positions will look like--there are no job descriptions for the new positions as described in Tuesday's report.

    I just find that astounding: you take a meat cleaver to an organization--no, a unionized workplace, no, the emblem to the outside world of who labor is--,wipe out job categories with the stroke of a pen yet nothing is presented in their place except for vague job titles. Would any union leader worth his or her salt stand for that action at a workplace under a union contract? Of course not--every one of them would say, "hell, no," kick up serious shit and be in the boss' face 24/7.

    The real tragedy is the tension that has been created between co-workers. As the public policy staffer put it, the Guild members had to go home to their families and explain how their livelihood may be gone, while managers went home not having to tell that to their families. In the coming weeks, there is the potential for very serious conflict over the leftover crumbs. Welsh is asserting that the newly-created titles represent a new kind of work with new responsibilities requiring a different skill set from the previous jobs. The Guild will argue hard that the jobs aren't much different and that filling the new titles should be done simply on the basis of seniority. And a lot of people are going to be competing with each other for a relatively small pie. The whirring sound you hear is the fax machines dispatching resumes as fast as possible to international unions (and, I know for a fact one large international union is already looking at the people who were defunded to see who they can pick up).

    How does this play on labor's image? Another staffer from the South told the following story: A year ago he married a woman who works in corporate America. When he tried to explain to her what had transpired in the past couple of days, her response was: "I thought that shouldn’t happen to you because you have a union and you’re in the labor movement." His worry, he said, was that as word gets out, "people are not going to understand and they are going to come to the conclusion that what we’re doing is exactly what corporate America is doing and we lose our credibility and moral authority." Sweeney, though acknowledging that it was a tough situation, disagreed with that assessment, saying that the Federation is "confronted with the need to restructure if we want to grow and be stronger and also because we have a mandate from the leadership."

    The looming political struggle came up twice, more or less explicitly. Welsh tired to hang these cuts partly on the "insurgent" unions saying that "unions representing 40 percent of the federation put forth proposals to cut the staff of the federation in half. It’s against this background we’ve made tough choices." And Sweeney was asked whether he thought these changes would stop any union from leaving the Federation, referring clearly to SEIU. Sweeney basically sidestepped the issue, saying the Federation would face up to whatever challenges came up.

    And diversity came up at least twice: once when it was pointed out that, though Sweeney has made a big issue of promoting women, the one person dealing with womens' issues in the civil rights department was defunded (I guess "defunded" is a euphemism for canned, fired, dumped). Sweeney's response: very painful but trying to maintain programs. The second challenge, to applause, came when someone pointed out that virtually all the defunded positions in the political department except one were jobs held by African-Americans; adding that she wasn't claiming management was racist...a charge Sweeney said was not justified.   

    There was a recurring theme in Sweeney and Welsh's defense: that the cuts and restucturing were mandated by the Executive Council, and that this was part of a plan to create a stronger labor movement. Welsh, in particular, argued that, even though the Field Mobilization department was decimated, the smaller, new staff positions would create a longer term, skilled infrastructure out in the field particularly among State Federations. He said that the goal was to change the dynamic whereby weak state federations and central labor bodies rely on the Fed to help with rallies, a local political race--the Fed, he said, never has had, and never will have, the resources to fill all those requests. He probably has a point there. He spoke of breaking the cycle of dependence, focusing, instead, on building long-term local capabilities.

    A number of people who spoke from the field expressed some doubt about Welsh's plan. "Why on earth would we reduce resources when the work is even harder," asked one. The field operation--now a catch all department called Political Mobilization--was cut from 67 to 37 people.

    I'm a bit perplexed by management's argument: as I pointed out in questions to Sweeney (to which, not to belabor the point, no answers have come), there has been no real coming to terms with the failure to organize and the failure in politics, measured by the results. Sixty percent of the membership of the AFL-CIO voted for general resolutions about focus at the last Executive Council meeting in Las Vegas--but there was ZERO recognition, beyond rhetoric, on the part of many individual unions what it would take in terms of changing their organizatons to build a real organizing and political program.These cuts don't seem to have any relationship to a new strategy for organizing or politics, even though they follow the release last week of the officers' recommendations.

    I have pointed out many times that blaming the Federation and Sweeney for the mess we face is too easy and, to a large extent, misplaced: its the individual unions that shoulder the responsibility for the past and, thus, the key to any change for the future of labor. I'll have more to say about that by early next week, pegged to the rumors about UNITE-HERE's John Wilhelm possibly jumping into the race next week--and whether that matters or not.

    To quote my grandmother: Oy.
 

Comments

[former AFL staffer]

Comparisons of union job cuts to corporate America are misguided. The simple fact is that the AFL had lots and lots of fat to cut (as do the majority of US unions) and fear of being compared to corporations has partly hindered union leaders from making hard decisions about how to administer their organizations. Every union should rigorously and regularly assess their staffing to make sure it's in line with their priorities and programs. After all, the union doesn't exist to employ staffers but to represent workers.

Having worked at the AFL, I'm very sorry to see my former colleagues getting laid off, even though I think many of the layoffs (particularly the field layoffs) are exactly what's needed. (And pace the ubiquitous Barab, the AFL's Health and Safety Department was already small and peripheral, with most of the important work happening at industrial unions. So its elimination is no big deal.)

But as Tasini points out, the underlying logic to the layoffs is indefensible. The incompetent or in some cases unethical managers at the AFL who are responsible for the failures of the last 10 years escaped unscathed. Not a single department head lost his or her job as far as I can tell. The heads of the Organizing, Communications, and General Counsel's office should all have been fired if the AFL wanted real change. But they don't. Welsh and Mitchell and Hiatt want to stay in office, even though they have no plan and no vision, and they're pitching to unions like the UFCW and the IBT with these cuts, hoping to mollify critics who don't really have a plan either.

And finally, Tasini says these cuts will be damaging to labor's image, harming our 'moral credibility' with the public. Give me a break. Middle America will be happy to hear that big unions assumed to be full of do-nothing layabouts are taking an axe to themselves. While most union members like their unions, very few like their staff reps.

[FMR]

I think that cutting all youth oriented programs such as Union Summer and defunding the Student Coordinator Position (Reena Desai, my former co-worker, just took the position two months ago was axed after making a move for the position), is a bad, bad move. Not only do the stale, old ideas continue to reign, now the AFL-CIO has insulated itself from fresh ideas, and new leadership.

[Josh H. Pille]

Sweeney -- always an electrifying speaker -- wowed us at this meeting with his consistency. Regardless of the question put to him, he had one of two answers:

1) I appreciate what you're saying; we all feel that way; we've thought very hard about that, and we're going to take that into consideration as we move forward in consultation with your union; or

2) Let me have Bob answer that one.

[a.non]

"the AFL-CIO has insulated itself from fresh ideas, and new leadership"

This is the response to cutting the Student Coordinator position? That's a sad commentary on the vision of union staff and their role in revitalizing labor. Staff (which would include those brought on board through Union Summer and student outreach) exists to serve the membership. End of story. Not lead, but serve.

[anonymous]

re: a.non

labor cannot win ANYTHING anymore except when it works with allies. that's the story. now they've cut off every single one of the ways that unions could EVER appear in a positive light to anyone under 40. it'll be years before anyone under 40 sets foot in that building now. that IS a disaster. i think the members that you think you're defending understand that much better than you do. they know the value of having young people have positive experiences with the labor movement -- especially since it's less and less likely that experience will come from having a union job. Labor needs young people inside AND outside unions to be supportive or its future is over before it even begins.

[OI]

I have to agree with anonymous. I was recruited to join the labor movement from the Organizing Institute, and being under the age of 25, I am a little disappointed by the de-funding of the union summer programs. Those that were recruited from colleges after attending the OI 3 day training left invigorated and mobilized. It's our ability to tap into the energy of these young students that will continue to spread the message and positivity of the union.

Although dis-enchanted with what is happening at the AFL, I am still proud to be union, proud to be AFSCME and hope that the labor movement doesn't lose sight of what really matters and that's making sure that the workers in the United States are being treated fairly...whatever that entails.

[a.non]

One thing I'm trying to get across is that we don't just need young people as organizers and researchers. We don't just need fresh college grads to knock on doors. We need young workers to organize their own shops, to step up to leadership roles. The energy of young students is nice, and shiny and happy and all, but not enough to build a movement. We need young workers to build their own power. Union Summer and the OI, for all their good points, don't do that.

I do want to say that cutting staff is not a solution to anything. Cutting the folks on top responsible for the direction of youth programs (and everything else) would be a better place to start.

[not]

well, there is something also to be said for campaign experience and relationship building. All of the field staff was cut and as far as i know, everyone out there is working their ass off! To have an understanding of institutional relationships and 'shadow' power dynamics is essential to your ability to move support for a political. legislative or organizing fight.

it isn't the staff's fault that ineffective leadership at state feds and clc's have hindered our ability to move programs locally. it isn't the staff's fault that benchmarks and assessments to gauge the effectiveness of these organizations have not been implemented. and it certainly is not the staff's fault that the labor movement has not developed new, strategically thinking leaders at the clc, state fed or shop level.

[Guillermo Perez]

As the president of a small, independent staff union and a former AFL-CIO employee (I worked for the Organizing Institute for a short time), I'm more than a little sympathetic to the pain this reorganization is causing staff. The saddest part of this whole affair, however, is not that so many staffers are being laid off, as sad as that is. The saddest part to me is that it appears that these sacrifices are nothing more than an attempt to save overpaid, unsuccessful managers. The AFL-CIO has failed under Sweeney. And yet, it appears that the team of managers who oversaw that failure will continue to enjoy fat, six figure salaries, expense accounts, etc., while the people they directed will be made to pay for their bosses' failures. Among union staffers we call this "shit running downhill."

A principled organization, especially one committed to the principle of workplace democracy, would have outlined the goals of its reorganization and engaged the staff union in a discussion of how such goals might be met with minimum adverse effect on staff. That clearly has not happened at the AFL-CIO and the result will no doubt be low morale and cynicism among the remaining staff (though plenty of celebration among the executive class of the organization).

To be clear, workplace democracy in a union bureaucracy does not mean that the needs of the staff should be put ahead of the mission of the organization. Rank-and-file union members are THE stakeholder group whose interests unquestionably trump all others. But in a highly hierarchical organization, which unfortunately describes most unions and the AFL-CIO, the management are often the least informed about what's working and what isn't. I agree that the AFL-CIO is in desperate need of strategic reform and reorganization, but this ain't it. If anything, this reorganization may mark the beginning of the end of the AFL-CIO. Let's hope like hell that something better replaces it.

Guillermo Perez
President
Headquarters Staff Union (HSU) of AFSCME Local 1000

[JT]

A good set of comments from folks.
I, too, worry about how young people are now going to view working in the labor movement. To be sure, the labor movement is much bigger than the AFL-CIO. But, for now, the concept of the AFL-CIO does occupy a place in peoples' perceptions as a symbol of the labor movement. Maybe not for long. In that vein, I'm glad to see OI's comment that she is still proud to be part of the labor movement--hopefully, she and other younger people (I emphasize "Younger" because, darn, we all are young relative to someone else...right? please?) will be able to ride the rough waves we're on now to a better movement.

As well, look, let's be honest--for too long, too many state feds and CLCs were just seen as dumping grounds for union people looking for a position. Not to say that there were not truly good state feds and CLCs out there. But, I feel for the staff people who tried to work to turn those places around.

Finally, I agree with those who question how the staff cuts were made--it certainly seemed to me they were done (a) not in keeping with union principles of open dialogue and (b) divorced from a strategic discussion about the movement and the Fed's role.

Keep the comments and thoughts coming and get your friends and colleagues to participate.

[pr]

As one who has worked on Capitol Hill, I wish to take issue with the "former AFL staffer" who contends, "the AFL's Health and Safety Department was already small and peripheral, with most of the important work happening at industrial unions. So its elimination is no big deal." Having worked to try to improve the Occupational Safety and Health Act and, more recently, to try prevent others from gutting the law, I can state that the successes we have been able to achieve, and perhaps more importantly the defeats we have managed to avoid would not have been possible were it not for the "small, peripheral" Health and Safety Department. I do not mean to diminish the important contributions that have been made by the unions. UNITE, the Steelworkers, SEIU, the UAW, and the Mine Workers are among those who have contributed significantly to preserving such health and safety protection as the law affords. However, the contribution of the AFL-CIO Health and Safety Department; both in terms of the expertise it has provided regarding specific issues and in the role it has played as coordinator, facilitator, and intermediary; has been invaluable and indispensable. One may dispute how successful we have been; but the successes we have achieved are absolutely due in very large measure to the Health and Safety Department, we would have been significantly less successful were it not for the Department, and our failures have been despite, not because of, the Department's efforts.

The individual unions can, do, and should play a far greater role than the law in protecting the health and safety of the 8% of the private sector workforce who are represented by unions. My experience does not afford me a basis for assessing what role the Department plays in assisting those efforts. However, in my view, one cannot overstate the importance of the AFL-CIO Health and Safety Department in protecting the health and safety of the 92% of the private workforce who depend on the law and do not have direct union protection. Nor should one dismiss or underestimate the importance of the work of the Department in preserving a law that serves as floor upon which improvements can be built.

[BC]

There are two issues surrounding the cuts at the AFL-CIO have bothered me for years.

First, the real lack of an effort on the part of some union "leaders" to serve workers and support their efforts to lead. This is reflected in the mis-directed aspirations of "OI." Far to many of the labor "leaders" and department "heads" did not rise out of the work places they represent, but entered the labor movement as acedemians and technicians from priviledged "liberal" backgrounds. While they provided tremendous expertise, they used that to usurp leadership, when they should have been supporting union member's efforts to lead their own movement.

The other concern is the whole attitude of far to many union leaders to organizing in the South. From "Operation Dixie," which had tremendous promise but was decimated by political infighting (ie. the red-baiting and the purges of the '40's and '50's)which was more important than organizing workers in the minds of the CIO (and AFL) leadership of the time, and all through the hit and miss organizing that followed for years, to the present "downsizing" of the AFL-CIO committment in the South, (including dumping some very seasoned,effective and respected African American organizers), the southern labor movement may be weakened again. For many southern workers who want to organize unions, and the many regional unions lacking resources, the AFL-CIO southern regional presence has been their rapid response team against the bosses.

Taking a "corporate" approach to the downsizing was very wrong. It reflects the mentality of some of the "leaders." In fact how much is the real rank and file union members in the work places involved in any of this? JT is right about the process: that it was not in keeping with the union principals of open diologue, and it was divorced from a strategic discussion about the labor movement and the role of the AFL-CIO.

[Wayne]

Needless to say, the AFL-CIO and the labor movement are in dire straits. It is so sad to see the House of Labor layoff workers in the same manner that many gredy corporations do. Sad, indeed.

[UBC Member]

Its funny how everything Doug McCarron the Carpenters Gen. Pres.,told Sweeney needed to be done,he is now doing! He ridiculed McCarron for it and forced him to leave the AFL, who was right now? Organizing is where its at Sweeney,look what the Carpenters have done for labor since leaving the AFL. Its time to take notes Sweeney,and just retire.