No Gun But A Smoking Letter

    Just to get back for a moment to the battle between UNITEHERE and CWA over the California casinos. So, the underlying mystery here has been: is it true that CWA president Morty Bahr promised John Wilhelm, back when he was president of HERE, that CWA recognized HERE's absolute right to organize the casino workers and that CWA would stay out of that organizing effort?

    Well, I've got the letter (JPG file) now that makes it pretty clear that Bahr did, in fact, make such a promise on March 1, 2004. When you write, "CWA recognizes HERE's exclusive jurisdiction over the California tribal gaming industry granted by the AFL-CIO, which CWA supports," there isn't much equivocation.

   And, anyway,I don't get why CWA--which bills itself as "the union for the information age and has to organize an entirely non-union computer industry, a largely non-union cable industry and an increasingly non-union wireless industry--has any reason to waste time on casinos.

    I've sent the following message to Morty Bahr:

    Dear Brother Bahr:

    This morning I posted on Working Life's blog a March 1, 2004 letter from you to John Wilhelm asserting CWA's recognition of the exclusive recognition of the jurisdiction of HERE (now UNITEHERE) in the California tribal gaming industry. The context of the letter, and the interest of the readers of Working Life, is the on-going dispute between CWA and UNITEHERE over that jurisdiction. I would be happy to post any explanation you would like to give to the dispute in light of the letter.

Solidarity,

Jonathan Tasini

Comments

[dh]

the reason cwa wants to do these casinos is because the casinos are begging them to come in and sign the sweetheart deal to keep unithere out!

when organizing those workers is a monumental struggle the cwa says "hey, you do it, that's your jurisdiction." but when the boss is offering the workers on a silver platter they suddenly want to be partners.

[Mike]

I'm an organizer with UNITE HERE, from the UNITE side. UNITE HERE hasn't had any union-wide conversations with their staff yet about the issue of whether they'll leave the AFL, but my impression is that we probably won't. I'm not 100% sure of that, but the sense I'm getting is that we're wanting to keep a foot in each federation as long as that's possible.

[Mike]

I'm an organizer with UNITE HERE, from the UNITE side. UNITE HERE hasn't had any union-wide conversations with their staff yet about the issue of whether they'll leave the AFL, but my impression is that we probably won't. I'm not 100% sure of that, but the sense I'm getting is that we're wanting to keep a foot in each federation as long as that's possible.

[Josh H. Pille]

We need to stop talking about CWA (or any union for that matter) like its monolithic. Yeah, there has been a local of CWA that has acted disgracefully over the past decade in cutting sweatheart deals in California tribal casinos. But the international has always done what it could to try to discourage this local from being the prick of the labor movement. And my impression has always been that the international acted in true good faith and was sincerely upset about this rogue local.

Now this has changed, and I want to know why. Is it as simple as the Sweeney/Stern (AFL/CtW) nastyfest? Or is there something else going on? C'mon, people in the know: now's your chance to frame this thing. Because we're going to read about it here or we're going to read the court filings.

[dh]

CWA pulled $50million out of the Amalgamated Bank. The International is doing a good job of being a prick all on their own.

And Mike, I will bet you a thousand dollars that UNITEHERE leaves the AFL-CIO. You can paypal me the money.

[Josh H. Pille]

My point was just that it's only recently that CWA, at the level of the international, has started acting as disgracefully as that one local. Pulling that money out of Amalgamated Bank was, yes, as petulant and nasty as any move we've seen. (I'm especially ashamed, as I'm a CWA member.)

DH-- If you set some guidelines (like a timeframe, and if you can confirm that you're only acting on publicly available info), I'll actually take you up on some of that action.

[Mike]

dh: too rich for my blood. You may be right. I'm just basing this on what some of the local leadership on the West Coast is saying. After all, as I said, there have been NO conversations about this with staff, at least on the UNITE side. Much less with members.

[joe h]

somebody please explain this Amalgamated Bank thing. who's in charge the bank or the union?

[Mike]

The Amalgamated Bank is owned by UNITE HERE, and before that by UNITE. It was started to provide banking services to union members at low rates, and holds pension funds from many unions. While there are some legal separations between the bank and the union, the top people at the bank basically answer to Bruce Raynor, the president of UNITE HERE. I've read rumors/conspiracy theories to the contrary, but it seems to be just speculation. While AB has more money than UNITE HERE, the power lies within the union. The bank has been helpful at times in various corporate campaigns, for example through stocks that it owns, which allow the union access to boards of directors.

[Tasini]

Now, fellas, don't get me in trouble by turning this place into a betting parlor.

I'm not sure anyone can be sure who pulls out or not. I think what is more interesting, at least to me, is what can the Change to Win coalition do that can overcome the huge challenge of igniting some big organizing campaigns--and winning them.

[Guillermo Perez]

I guess I'm still missing the point of all this. Again, why is it better for the casino workers to have only one union trying to organize them? I don't mean to sound naive but no one's offering an explanation.

If the answer is that achieving the requisite density to leverage good contracts requires that one union dominate, then say so. My comeback to that is that the record shows that the quickest way to density is to have multiple unions competing. The problem of one union gaining an advantage by appeasing employers is easily addressed by allowing competing unions to "liberate" these shops (to borrow a term I recently learned from a UE organizer). UNITE should know plenty about "liberating" shops, they've had plenty of success liberating laundry workers from corrupt independent unions.

Personally, I don't really care what Morty promised, I'm much more interested in which of the two unions the actual casino employees would prefer. I know of only one way to find out.

[Josh H. Pille]

First of all, GP, you're rather blithe with "there's only one way to find out"-- by which I presume you mean an election. And here you sound like the boss speaking about the fairness of the election process, but I'll try not to hold that against you, brother. We all know how UNeven a playing field we get when we have an election. So that is not the best way to find out, much less the only way to find out. We can also look at things like quality of contracts, member involvement, member leadership, etc. These things will give us some good clues as to which of the competiting unions is actually building worker power rather than selling workers out.

One other smallish point before the main one. Allowing competing unions to "liberate" shops (and bear in mind that Some Of My Best Friends Are UE Organizers) is really not a good solution to the problem of company unionism and sweatheart deals. It's back to the question of: are we going to compete over the 12% of organized workers, or are we going to focus on organizing the other 88%?

Which gets to the main point. I doubt I can argue the point as well as some (including the host of this site; I suggest you check some of his columns), but here's the bullet bitten: yeah, we have incredibly limited resources, our backs are against the wall and the deck is stacked against us. We don't have the luxury of letting a thousand flowers bloom. We need to get a plan for building serious worker power, and pronto. Which means, yes, some degree of central coordination. (I won't get into, again, why centralization and democracy are perfectly compatible, despite the rhetoric of some; you can see earlier posts.)

We need to look around, evaluate what we can each do, and just go and f'ing do it. We all know that UNITE-HERE (in this instance) is the union of casino workers, with something like 55,000 workers+ under contract in vegas, and something like 100% density in atlantic city. These same exact companies are operating casinos in california, and mississippi, and colorado, and new york, and everywhere else. Don't you think workers throughout a single company -- or in a single market -- would have more power if they were all brought under the same contract? (To see the answer to this question, just look at the contract standards of Vegas versus those of a tribal casino, whether CWA or UNITE-HERE.)

Had we a million lifetimes to get this right, we could try it all sorts of different ways. But we don't have too many more times to try to grab this ring, so we need to get it right.

But c'mon, GP: be a little honest here-- having the boss invite in one union when another starts organizing doesn't set any bells ringing in your head?

[Guillermo Perez]

Josh, I've been nothing but honest. I know plenty about backroom, top-down organizing and I don't put it past any major union -- including UNITE-HERE. And what I meant by "the only way" was a democratic process instead of a backroom deal between union bosses or an order from a federal judge. I agree that board elections are a farce, though I'll repeat that the win rates in multi-union board elections are higher. Whether they're high enough to overcome the general unfairness of a board election is something I can't answer without doing more research (got to stop spending so much time blogging).

Yes, density matters. Yes, industry-wide master contracts have a much greater potential for lifting standards. But that doesn't happen without empowering rank-and-file working people. And rank-and-file empowerment requires some form of democratic process (oh, and in case you're wondering, I have organized workers so I guess I'm entitled to an opinion on this).

Finally, this business of not having the luxury to let a thousand flowers bloom is frankly an argument for more top-down organizing of the kind CWA is accused of pursuing with respect to these casino workers. Those flowers blooming is pretty much why I got into the labor movement in the first place and, by the way, its the only way things will turn around -- there just isn't enough staff or money to organize without the heavy involvement of our present members. UNITE-HERE has the track record to build the needed density, so they should follow Josh's suggestion and just go and f'ing do it already instead of wasting valuable resources suing CWA in federal court.

[rich]

Guillermo -- UNITE HERE is just f'ing doing it in California. I was an organizer on the tribal casino campaign for 3 years. (Recently moved to another campaign)

But UNITE HERE has been there organizing a statewide movement in dozens of casinos for the last ten years.

What has CWA done? Two sweetheart deals, and that's all. No press, no rallies, no fights, no nothing but two crappy contracts.

If we don't protect our rights a coalition of CWA and the bosses, will team up to destroy us. CWA has already been lobbying with bosses in Sacremento against Card Check Neutrality for the workers.

[Guillermo Perez]

I'm not claiming that CWA is entitled to represent these workers. From everything I've heard UNITE HERE is the best union to represent them. All I'm saying is that awarding exclusive jurisdictions from on high is not a solution. I visited the CWA local's website and read a recent contract and I agree, it sucks. The International should be ashamed of it and the local that negotiated it. All of us should condemn CWA for being in bed with the boss and for lobbying against card check neutrality in Sacramento, if indeed that's true. Any union that would lobby against card check doesn't deserve to be called a union (a racket might be the better term for such an operation). All of that said, the solution still lies with the workers themselves, both those who currently work under a crappy CWA contract and those whose standards are undercut by such contracts. Mobilizing them to beat the boss and CWA in Sacramento will do a lot more to build a strong union than a lot of righteous indignation over how Bahr broke his promise to Wilhelm. And by the way, if we only consider union representation contributing to union density when the union has won recognition by fighting from the bottom-up (not necessarily a bad idea), we're going to have to revise the current 12.5% figure significantly downward.

[rich]

I agree with you and HERE has organized workers, both in building the union on the shop floor and having workers fighting with politicians in Sacremento, but we also need to fight in the labor movement, about whether or not this is the future. General unionism, yellow unionism, business unionism, CWA type unionism. I hope not, and if we don't fight about it in public and in the labor movement as a whole, CWA can continue to drone on about how it's the savoir of democracy in unions.

[dh]

guillermo, you are more right than you know, because what you are advocating seems to me to be the major impetus for these unions to bolt from the afl-cio.

the change to win unions are obviously quite confident in their abilities to organize other industries under competition from unions like cwa and afscme. by leaving and starting a new federation, they are saying that they believe workers are going to pick the fighting union every time. they are also putting themselves at great risk to raiding.

this thing with cwa, just like the beef in illinois between seiu and afscme, is about the fed choosing when to step in based on politics.

and the example you gave of unitehere "liberating" laundry workers, well that whole fiasco ended by the Textile Processors, the fake union they were being liberated from, merging with the ufcw and getting article 20 protection from the aflcio.

strangely enough, the ufcw is part of this coalition, and it appears they are preparing to move those shops over to unitehere.