It's kind of a natural thing for union people to stick up for the less powerful and weak. But, I think we shouldn't extend our kindness to small and increasingly weak or irrelevant national unions.
I say this today because a number of people (including AFL-CIO staffers) have written to me or posted comments expressing concern that a weakening of the AFL-CIO would hurt smaller unions more than larger unions (by the way, keep the comments coming--it's really great to see people thinking about these issues and the point of this blog it to be a place anyone can express a point of view).
That argument goes something like this: the AFL-CIO has a host of services (research and legislative, just as two examples) that big affiliates don't need as much because they can afford to create such departments in-house. It's the smaller unions that depend much more on the Federation's staff. If the AFL-CIO staff gets even smaller--mainly because of substantially reduced resources if one or more affiliates leaves, which would compound the worsening of the Federation's finances which have declined substantially in the past few years--the smaller unions would have no where to turn.
Okay, I hear that argument. Maybe it's true that the Federation disproportionately helps smaller unions.
But, my question is: why should these small unions exist if they are so weak they have to lean on an even weaker institution like the Federation (a fact that is not partisan but has been true always because of the nature of the Federation)?
One of the most compelling arguments made during this debate is the need for immediate mergers to create larger, more powerful unions. I made this argument ten years ago--on the eve of John Sweeney's election as AFL-CIO president--because it seemed obvious that we had to be organizing on a large scale, not by drips and drabs, and small unions couldn't to it.
If you want some startling numbers to back that up, check this out: Just to increase our ranks a measly one percent above the current 12.5 percent (and that’s generously including public sector workers), labor needs to bring in a net of 1.5 million workers, according to Jeff Grabelsky, a labor researcher and strategist at Cornell University. The AFL-CIO says its affiliates netted 500,000 new members last year; I think that number might be generous because it probably includes affiliations of previously independent unions.
But, even if you take the number as real, it's obvious that organizing a thousand workers here or there is a loser. Money isn’t the problem: unions still possess billions of dollars in assets. Personally, I would argue that labor should consider choosing a few big employers, commit to a minimum five-year campaign to organize their workers, and focus the entire labor movement on those strategic targets. Even if certain unions might not reap members immediately, taking down big targets will open up other opportunities down the road.
And small, weak unions that rely on the Federation to prop themselves up cannot carry their weight in that kind of organizing.
Everyone jumped all over SEIU when it argued in "Unite To Win" that the Federation should force unions to merge. Well, okay, maybe I can buy the argument that it's hard to *force* independent unions to merge. But, when people attack the process, I always smell another motive: either people don't want to change or they have no viable alternative to solve the obvious problem.
What the Federation can do, though, is show leadership by setting up much tougher standards for unions--including stop babying unions that can't stand on their own two feet. Sure, that sounds a bit Darwinian. But, I'd argue that it's far more Darwinian to say that we're going to protect the few while 91 percent of workers in the country hang out there with no rights and no power at work.
No, before anybody says anything, the name is not a joke. I am really named Harry Bridges.
I agree with the basic premise set forth by Stephen Lerner in New Labor Forum back in, I think, 2003 about massive collapsing and merging of unions. While I don’t agree with everything SEIU proposes, and I’m not sure about leaving the federation, it’s clear that major mergers must take place.
Specifically, it seems like there should be some serious merging in the building trades. Why should there be a cement masons’ union, a cement finishers’ union, a bricklayers’ union, etc...Couldn’t they best be classified as Laborers? Couldn’t Ironworkers and Sheet Metal Workers merge into one union? Something along the lines of Mechanical Trades, Metal Trades, Electrical Trades and General Construction Trades really should be the model.
One of the most telling things in the last couple of years is that Dick Gephardt had the endorsements of something like 23 unions by the time AFSCME and SEIU endorsed Dean, and he still only had like 1.3 total union members backing his candidacy. That’s just stupid, and doesn’t work in the modern world.
Posted by: Harry Bridges | June 17, 2005 at 09:35 AM
This is a sore spot with me Johnathan, but a fair question to pose. As a former UFCW guy, i saw first hand what mergers can do. I was there for the merger with the Meat Cutters in 1979 and thought it would be the catalyst for making the Retail Clerks infinitely stronger.
Boy was i wrong. As you noted last week, it put the two organizations in the marriage from hell. The P9 debacle has been a blight on the labor movement, and there are countless other stories of how that merger failed to accomplish the move to the promised land.
Fast forward a few years and you may remember the UFCW swallowed up 5 small international unions. It was one way to grow the organization and was trumpeted as a real boon.
In reality it turned to be more of a boondoggle. The UFCW used their rich retirement and retirees health care plans to leverage the mergers. On its face it looked like a sound plan, but obviously no one did a benefit analysis.
The net was the acquisition has nearly collapsed the UFCW. The cost of taking on hundreds (i'm being generous) of aging staffers and officers and rolling them into our pension and health care caused irreparable harm to the funds. To this day, those mergers have done little in growing the strength of the UFCW, but have placed a massive cost on the benefit infrastructure of the international.
Finances aside, it does lay open the whole question of what happens to democracy when mergers take place. It's hard to imagine them becoming more democratic and less in the biz union mode as they become Walmart like in size.
I just finshed John Dicker's book The United States Of Walmart (excellent by the way). I couldn't help note the oddity of organized labor pointing their fingers at Walmart while all the while arguing about trying to become more Walmart like in it's efforts to right itself. John and a host of others have well articulated the problems the retailer has faced since becoming this massive monolith standing alone. He rightly asks the question does size matter, and while it does, it brings a host of other problems.
I think of your entire article the most telling stat is the need to grow unions at a pace well beyond any numbers we've seen in the past forty years. Conventional labor board elections will never allow us to do that. Couple that with the growing perception that labor unions don't have the answer and the problem is magnified ten-fold.
I believe our only hope is take far more bold and dramatic steps than proposed by NUPer's: Denounce business (biz) unionism; trash the bureaucratic nightmare we've become; get of the business of politics and into the business of people; and let the AFL-CIO and the central bodies become strategic centers for progressives to build a true movement...one centered on workers; not leaders or their organizations. Then perhaps we've got a fighting chance to survive.
Posted by: Bill Pearson | June 17, 2005 at 09:50 AM
I thought this story might be relevant:
UTU seeks merger to "offset" power of the Teamsters
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA – The United Transportation Union is talking merger with other unions, UTU International President Paul Thompson said June 15 in a state of the union speech at a regional meeting here.
“We want an appropriate merger partner to offset the power the Teamsters are exerting over some in rail labor,” Thompson said. “Having a truck drivers’ union control rail labor begets long-term disaster because trucks and rail compete. The Teamsters have demanded and won from trucking companies a limit on how much traffic can move by rail.
“Carriers have been merging for decades, and the balance of power between labor and the carriers has been affected,” Thompson said. “At the same time, we will not accept a merger that does not benefit our membership, or one that threatens our jobs, or one that will not preserve what the UTU stands for.
“The Teamsters,” Thompson said, “are dominated on their executive council by truck drivers. Not a single officer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers or the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (both subsidiaries of the Teamsters) sits on that council. Now,” asked Thompson, “who do you think those truck drivers in charge of the Teamsters and its subsidiary rail unions will support when the issue is truck jobs versus rail jobs?
***
One of many unions with which the UTU has spoken is the Sheet Metal Workers International Association. One of its officers, Dewey Garland, told UTU officers and members attending the regional meeting, “Some say the UTU is off by itself. Believe me, you are not alone. Many in rail labor cherish the same beliefs of the UTU,” Garland said. “I like your name, ‘United,’ which signifies your culture of supporting each other and not trying to backstab others.”
Do the Sheet Metal Workers have any members in the railroads right now?
Posted by: Rob | June 17, 2005 at 10:57 AM
Maybe I think too much about the historical context of all this talk, but maybe one of the most important things labor can do is create a new center for organizing, like the role the CIO played in many organizing drives in its heyday.
When workers organized, when workers sat down in a shop, they didn't call the Restaurant Workers or the Furniture Workers or the Electrical Workers. They called the CIO. We need a trade union center that can expand and move and collapse when necessary, with skilled staff and leadership on loan from unions with effective organizing programs.
Not having the resources to sustain a national, industry-wide campaign shouldn't be the death sentence for a union. How well a union can work together with others to build that capacity, inside or outside the AFL-CIO, and how well we can work our staff and membership into building not just our local or our union but our MOVEMENT should be the benchmark. How do we measure that?
Posted by: alex | June 17, 2005 at 11:43 AM
Jonathan/Bill Pearson,
As you both have noted, since none of the NUP’ers are calling for more democratic unions, do you think the argument of biz vs. democratic unions has a place in the current climate? I can’t help thinking that it’s a nostalgic argument that becomes a distraction in today’s worker culture. Since the 60s, and with growing dominance, selling worker power at the office has been communicated either through capitalist themes of leverage or a sense of individual rights originated in the civil rights movement. These instead of their organizing predecessor – democracy and democratic control at the workplace. Workers expect their unions to act like a company with specialized expertise, which then services them as if they were its clients.
Maybe workers want a more “interactive” union, but that seems like a public relations problem, not a structural one.
Posted by: Josh Adams | June 17, 2005 at 12:08 PM
I'm a member of nage which is a national union that is part of seiu. I've followed the debate about UNITE TO WIN and generally agree with SEIUs program on restructoring. However, SEIU still needs to continue cleaning up "general unionism" within its own ranks. My union is made of mass. state workers, cops, emts, federal workers, group home workes in Hawaii, spread all over the country. We are a minor player amongst federal unions, one of the smallest police unions etc. Why SEIU does'nt give the federal workers to AFGE and the police to the dominant police unions is beyond me. Below is a recent story about our president. I'm not saying that general unionism leads to corruption. But a point can be made that when a union is spread so thin both geographically and by sector, there is little opportunity for rank and file members to exert any influence on their union. That has been my experience in NAGE. There is much that seiu should be doing to clean up this mess.
Good job(s), good wages
By Steve Bailey | April 29, 2005
If state workers represented by the National Association of Government Employees are unhappy with their new contract -- pay increases that average less than 2 percent a year -- they can do what their overpaid union boss does: work a second job.
David Holway, the gruff 6-foot-3 president of Quincy-based NAGE, is becoming a model for working stiffs everywhere. If CEOs can get overpaid for running their places into the ground, then why can't the working man? Be like Dave and you can get yours, too. Holway is doing it not once but twice -- and at the same time. Where do I sign up?
As previously reported here, Holway made $240,147 last year as head of a union with just 46,000 members. That is slightly more than the president of his international, Andrew Stern, made for running the entire Service Employees International Union, which has 35 times the members that Holway's SEIU local has. Stern is one of the labor movement's most dominant players; under Holway, NAGE has lost $3.7 million over the last two years.
Holway calls himself a reformer, but he got his job the old-fashioned way: by helping to depose his predecessor and onetime pal, NAGE founder Ken Lyons, a union man with his own considerable baggage. If Holway is a union reformer, it is a better bet than any you'll get at Suffolk Downs that he is the only union reformer anywhere who runs a horse breeders association on the side -- and gets paid handsomely for it. NAGE and the Massachusetts Thoroughbred Breeders Association, an unlikely pairing, do have at least two things in common: Both are run by Holway, and both are hurting financially.
Neither Holway nor the SEIU will talk about his second job. ''Have fun," Holway told me, and hung up. ''Good luck on your story," says SEIU spokesman Ben Boyd. ''I'll have no comment from a SEIU perspective on Mr. Holway."
Let's go to the records then. According to the organization's website, board minutes, and the state auditor's office, Holway is the executive director of the breeders association, a group designed to encourage thoroughbred breeding in Massachusetts. The group's website lists Holway's home -- the one in Cambridge, not the one in Martha's Vineyard -- as its mailing address. Suzanne Swaim, who answers the phone at the association, at first confirmed that Holway is the executive director, but then called back in a panic to say he was only ''covering" for his sick brother who is executive director. Not so, says the state auditor's office, which earlier this year completed an audit: David Holway is the executive director -- even if he doesn't want to talk about it.
It is good work if you can get it. The group is funded through a small levy on races at Suffolk Downs. In 2003, for instance, the group received $1.5 million from Suffolk Downs, the auditor's report says. The group's website notes that Holway, a longtime lobbyist who cut his teeth on Beacon Hill working for a fellow Cambridge homeboy, former House Speaker Charles Flaherty, worked ''without charge" to help secure that funding. What it doesn't note, but the auditor's report does, is that Holway gets 7.5 percent of the group's revenue from the track, or about $112,000 in 2003 using that formula. He would have been paid about $106,000 the previous year using the same formula.
On top of that, the state auditor's report found Holway had been overpaid by the association twice in the past few years, including nearly $11,000 in 2001. As for the thoroughbred association itself, the audit found the group's checking accounts were a shambles. The bottom line, according to the auditor's report: The association's ''ability to meet its financial obligations, and its future, is questionable."
If the worst does happen at the thoroughbred association, Dave Holway will still have his day job to fall back on. The union members who pay his salary should be so lucky.
Posted by: nagesage | June 17, 2005 at 01:27 PM
Having talked to people who work for "smaller unions," I tend to hear the same arguments for their existence: they usually say a) financial factors do not require that we merge, and b) we have a different organizational culture & identity.
a) of course is irrelevant. the discussion is not over the fiscal necessity of mergers, but the strategic necessity.
b) is a smokescreen, and a fairly offensive one. it's really not too different from nurses who dont want their union to organize the janitors or cafeteria workers in the same hospital. or the boilermaker who gets all haughty if anyone implies his work is similar to sheet metal work. it really is the worst of the trade mentality. but it goes beyond being offensive to notions of class solidarity-- it flies in the face of economic reality.
none of this, of course, touches yet on democracy. democracy is too often used as a shield by those who want to resist change for their own reasons. and nothing proposed by the NUPistas is anti-democratic, as is often charged. it's true, as some claim, that it is "top down," but isn't that what leadership is for? i have never seen any incompatibility, any tension, in an organization having all of these elements: a) leadership from the top guiding the organization; b) active (existing AND new) memebr involvement & mobilization; c) structural membership oversight of leadership decisions & proposals. in fact, not only have i not seen tension with this-- but the best, most high-functioning, most successful organizations i've seen combine these three elements. top-down leadership is hardly incompatible with true democracy.
look, there are, and will always be, groups of workers that want the height of direct control over their organizations. god bless 'em. the IWW is about a century old, all couple hundred of them, organizing starbux in NY, and bookstores in phili, and, you know, more power to them. workers should ALWAYS have the option to form this sort of organization. the point the NUPistas are trying to make (as i see it) is that we are much stronger when we look through the prisms of industry focus & density. so while workers can form things as they like, if, on the other hand, you want to be a part of the house of labor, these are the ground rules. if you don't want to do that, fine, and best of luck. but in OUR movement, we have a responsibility to make these changes.
Posted by: Josh H. Pille | June 17, 2005 at 02:27 PM
I was going to give my view of democracy versus leadership but Josh articulated prcisely what I would say. From my own experience and looking at other unions, too many people who spend their entire energy on decrying the leadership and calling for "rank-and-file democracy" either (a) don't have their own solutions for the real questions of building power and (b) often haven't organized a single worker in their life. Yes, I'm making a broad generalization and there are really poor examples of leadership with a vision but zero union democracy--as well as unions who call for union democracy all the time but do very interesting things that would politely call undemocratic.
Bridges' point is quite a good one: the building trades should all be united in a single union. Makes no sense to me from an industry-organizing standpoint.
Alex says, "How well a union can work together with others to build that capacity, inside or outside the AFL-CIO, and how well we can work our staff and membership into building not just our local or our union but our MOVEMENT should be the benchmark. How do we measure that?" The statement is unobjectionable but I think I would ask it a different way: if the energy and resources of maintaining even the small unions that are not floundering were incorporated into one union, would we make more progress? I'm one who believes that the answer is yes.
Finally, re: Bill's point about Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a blight but let's face it: it's one of the smartest and most effective corporations on the planet--ever. We might be able to learn from it, particularly in the area of technology and information collection.
Posted by: Tasini | June 17, 2005 at 03:41 PM
Finally, someone willing to openly discuss the problems of the biz union model. Just because we get bigger doesn't make them less democratic, but it does make them suspect; especially when those leading put themselves and the survival of the organizations ahead of workers or even the members who they are supposed to exist for.
Look at Sweeney, the classic example of a biz unionist. It would seem to me if the "solidarity" of labor is so important, why is he insisting on yet another term? He's hardly been our salvation.
I am at distinct disadvantage. I speak from my experiences inside the UFCW. It was pure top down. The resistance to talk openly about our "sins" was ever present. We never confronted our mistakes except behind closed doors in small whispered clusters. While we may have been an exaggerated example, many of the same problems existed in most other top down unions (which is the vast majority).
Virtually every comment above have touched on this issue. Is it PR? Is it a lack of democracy? Is it because we aren't bigger? Is it because there are a bunch of labor hacks who hang on forever? I think the answer is yes, all of the above.
You can't inspire workers if you don't have solutions. Do you think anyone other than insiders care who runs the AFL-CIO...or any other local, international or central body for that matter?
They want results. They want what matters to leaders to be what happens in their workplace. This isn't rocket science; it's human nature. We've wasted a million words, tons of ink and piles of printed points arguing over who runs what structure and what workers belong to what union. None of that matters to workers.
That to me is what is wrong with this entire concept. We're so immersed in what happens at the top we never get to what happens at the bottom. Inside the UFCW i've watched leaders taking huge increases and bonuses while the workers they represent take a pounding. There's an organization i'd be chomping at the bit to join.
I see the solution in being along the lines Rob outlined. Let the AFL-CIO become a worker empowerment structure. There are so many opportunities for THE organization to become an aggressive outspoken advocate for workers that it would be a shame to pass it by.
We can merge into giant internationals, but i fail to see how that transforms us into the kind of organizations that workers would be clamoring to get into...and frankly that is the kind of growth we need to survive.
Posted by: Bill Pearson | June 17, 2005 at 03:46 PM
Bridges' point is quite a good one: the building trades should all be united in a single union.
Wow, you just lost a lot of credibility. It's statements like this that highlight the flaws in Nuppie thinking -- you're seeking to play God with industries, unions, and workers about which you know next to nothing. It's indicative of a mindset that sees working people as pawns on a chessboard in a grand game. And it would be frightening if it weren't so absurd.
Posted by: Mitchell | June 17, 2005 at 06:23 PM
Mitchell-- Please explain to me why it is that the building trades should stay separate. (If you can do this without appealing to "trade pride," so much the better.)
I'm asking in sincerity. I know very little about how the trades are organized and how they operate. My sense has always been that these are folks who work for the same employers, often at the same worksite, in the same geographic markets. This seems, prima facie, to argue for consolidation.
Help me understand.
Posted by: Josh H. Pille | June 17, 2005 at 06:36 PM
Yes, NAGE should be disolved. Instead, the independent NAATS is going to merge in with them. Ironworkers put the girders together on sky-scrapers. Sheet metal workers install the ducts inside the buildings. There really is no connection.
Posted by: pw | June 17, 2005 at 07:39 PM
Jonathan and Josh: Let's assume i buy your argument; democracy just doesn't matter. I'll even accept (at least for the purpose of discussion) that bigger is better. I've seen empiricle data supporting the claim density affects bargaining ability; so there is at least foundation for the leap to consider those two premise.
Alex said there is too much historical perspective, but to fail to use it as a tool assures we talk from purely speculative endpoints. And, for reasons alluded to by Tasini, i guess a quick trip covering my experiences can dispel any idea this is just the ramblings of a closet commie who has never organized a worker and praddles on endlessly about worker democracy.
I started as a carryout in a grocery store a 16, and today i'm retired as a UFCW president. The journey in between was some of the best days imaginable, in that i had a job i loved and lived to the fullest. From union member/activist, steward, e-board member, union rep, secretary treasurer and finally local union president, i saw it all first hand.
It was the good, the bad and the ugly. Average guy, average smarts and i hated to lose. I took every class possible through the U of M labor education services. Read books on leadership and leaders, trying to understand the differences in good and bad. Participated with every coalition and organization that had common ground.
All of it was just the training for my last nine years. I ran against the seated president, much to the chagrin of the international. I made commitments to the members and it began with the idea i would listen to them. I won easily, a fact that is not often the case in most local union elections.
During that time period we won elections at nursing homes, Borders Books and Dakota Premium Packing House. We used the internet to reach members in our major grocery store negotiations, perhaps more aggressively than any union has ever done. To this day the local is involved in four websites. We built a national program called youareworthmore, reaching thousands of workers...union and non. We improved our members defined benefit pension, health care and created a stand-alongside defined contribution plan that now has 25 million dollars for approximately 4000 participants. We focused on raising bottom wages, rather than just at the top. Best of all we began empowering the membership.
Here's the bad news, it wasn't enough. We were too little too late. Almost all of our programs were run on a shoestring. Percapita payments to central bodies, the international and a host of others was sucking some 45% of our revenues. Thank god our members were willing to take a 25% dues increase to support our actions. The fact that we kept our salaries low and worked our butts off paid dividends in passing the increase.
But, here's the rub, this whole discourse isn't about me, or even the local. It's about the membership, it's about workers and the biggest question in the whole resolve...can organized labor morph into a movement that will inspire workers to want to join unions...and can they do it while trapped in the biz union model?
I know it is a trite over used term, but it does represent what we have become. How else can you describe the ULLICO scandal? The shameful outcome of the Southern CA grocery strike? The ridiculously high salaries, perks and related expenses that todays leaders enjoy? The spin doctoring that comes from the talking heads? The aging leaders who cling to positions that haven't a clue as to what they are doing or where they are going? A structure that has failed to inspire and incite workers who are being gored to death by their employers?
No offense, but WE have failed. Yup, freely admit it; i was a part of it. I was one of those who tried to fix everything for the membership. Over the majority of my career i was part of that mentality that said if there was a problem, call the union. Only over time did i come to understand the importance of members taking action.
The tragedy is, most of our contracts are built in a way that new workers/members see little benefit in becoming union; at least for several years. They pay high dues and initiation fees, get the least and worst hours and in all likelyhood will leave before ever reaching the top. In many cases they resent the union, rather than seeing it as their salvation.
The biz union model is one that is short on two-way communication. As a top down structure, decisons are made at the top and often the membership is asked to make critical decisions without benefit of all the facts. I could list a host of instances, but it would make this too long post even longer.
In a recent article i wrote entitled "You Are The Union," i dispatched the myth that members are at the core of the decison making process. The reality is the boys at the top are making those choices and all too often are doing so based on taking care of themselves first, the organization second, with members coming in a distant third. Ending that alignment is at the core of our reformation.
Workers have to move to the top of the equation. Lest you think i have no solutions, i posted on several sites a proposal that would have changed the AFL-CIO to a structure unlike anything in it's history. It is a minimumization to say they become a think tank, but that is a part of it. Creating worker empowerment centers at all central bodies, they would literally become the strategy makers, educators and communicators for all workers.
By divorcing ourselves from politics we have the resources to engage workers at local and national levels. There are millions and millions of workers, union and non, who are looking for help. My proposals start at the bottom, not at the top. Of course leadership would make decisions, but much like i found as president, they would be made based on what workers think and what they see as important.
Frankly i don't care if it's done by merging into five, ten or twenty internationals. I don't care about the structure or who leads it. The only thing that matters is the outcome...and how workers do better. The one thing we know for certain is the past forty years of business unionism has brought us to the brink of the eve of destruction.
Sorry for the length, but this is one of the few times i have found anyone remotely interested in openly and honestly discussing this issue. Thanks JT and JP for opening that door and providing a forum for it: Might make for an interesting front page article and discussion.
Posted by: Bill Pearson | June 18, 2005 at 09:43 AM
Good morning, Bill: thanks for the time and thought you put into your post. I'm just going to answer the first part right now because I'm a bit squeezed this a.m. (believe it or not, not just because of work!!!). I don't think Josh or I said democracy doesn't matter. I think we are saying it has to be balanced in terms of peoples' focus and attention with the strategic questions facing unions. Yes, we call care about having democratic institutions. But, I remember a story that went roughly like this: people wondered why James Hoffa, the dad, was so popular despite the fact that he ran the union with an iron hand. The answer was: he delivered for his members. My own perception from talking to rank-and-file workers throughout in many different unions over the past 20 years is that they almost never ask about democracy in the union. That's always the focus of activists and particularly left-wing activists.
Is democracy important? Of course. But, to say again, I think the discussion about democracy should share its time and space with the discussion over strategy around confronting the employer.
Posted by: Tasini | June 18, 2005 at 10:20 AM
JT-- I'm wondering how your thoughts on merging small unions into big ones relates to/comes out of your experience at Nat'l Writers Union aka UAW 1981. Could you comment?
I don't know if NWU has become self-sustaining yet but at least for a time there was a subsidy from the UAW wasn't there? I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
Last year UAW let the Graphics Artists Guild leave over a financial difference that seemed pretty small.
Oddly both these groups are media workers... in a union that is notoriously poor at dealing with the press.
As to Hoffa Sr. sure he was respected for delivering... but the guy was also in league with the mob.
An argument could be made that mob-connection is logically an extreme variation of the business union model. It delivers, has certain efficiencies, keeps the members in line etc.
Posted by: joe h | June 18, 2005 at 06:16 PM
I'm enjoying the discussion here immensely, particularly the contributions of Bill Pearson. It seems to me that part of the difficulty of this debate over union democracy versus biz unionism is that no one is defining what we mean by union democracy. According to Johnathan most workers could care less about it. All they're interested in is results. While I don't entirely disagree with that, as a practical matter I don't see how a union delivers good results without the support and involvement of its members. That generally requires some degree of union democracy. My criticism of the NUPers is based on my own experience as an organizer working for the SEIU international in the late 90s. The campaigns were staff-driven and controlled and the rank-and-file membership seemed alienated from the union (few SEIU members in Chicago where I did most of my work could even name the union they belonged to). I'm pretty certain that this model of organizing and unionism will not deliver the numbers we need to revitalize the labor movement.
Finally, before we look to the likes of Wal-Mart for ideas for building our movement, I think we ought to examine how other democratic countries with vibrant labor movements have structured their unions and/or federations. I'm also curious why we so rarely hear about the de-centralized structure of the biggest union in the U.S. (far bigger than SEIU), the NEA. Perhaps the debate ought to be de-centralized versus centralized rather than small unions versus big unions.
Posted by: Guillermo Perez | June 19, 2005 at 09:27 AM
I don't think either of you said democracy doesn't matter either Jonathan, it was just a little tongue in cheek cheap trick to insure a response. We've debated this whole democracy thing on other sites on a number of occassions.
What i did read in your initial responses was some of the same hyperbole that drowns the discussion; the debate over biz unionism is really about democracy...and frankly i don't see them being the same thing; at least not entirely.
Democracy speaks to elections, where biz unionism is about control. I don't want to pick flyshit over terminology, the whole thing is too important a topic to get caught up in a semantics game.
For some strange reason, the boys in power don't/won't address the question of biz unionism. To me it's about empowering workers, increasing their involvement, expanding their knowledge base and bringing them together. It is a long term project that holds very little in the way of immediate results. This isn't about who is elected, but what they do when they get there. That's why many of the reformers i know see no hope under the current structure, they expect the next batch to become more of the same once elected.
That is unless there is massive upheaval or change that would trigger sensational press coverage and member/worker interest. We are seeing some of that now with the sudden importance of the coming AFL-CIO convention. The pending breakup will become yesterdays news as the parties resolve the issues or even if they seperate and function independently.
Morris Massey called it a SEE...significant emotional event, and this convention could be just that. Imagine if the powers that be boldly stated they were getting out of politics and into the people business. Imagine if they announced their primary goal would be to engage workers and become their voice for the future...their role being to educate and communicate with and for them. They would cause a stir that would reverberate for years to come. Everything they did would become front page news.
Drastic, dramatic, traumatic, call it what you will; we need become something different, something new, something bold. I know these are silly senseless dreams of one who is out of touch with reality, but i fear until we start thinking in much broader, bolder terms we will be victims of our own lack of immagination.
Posted by: Bill Pearson | June 19, 2005 at 09:37 AM
Joe: good questions. Two answers. I've argued this point about mergers for more than a decade--see my chapter on this question in The Edifice Complex (ironically, published just before John Sweeney was first elected), which you can download for free (why would anyone pay for it anyway, eh?).
Second, I actually believe that there should only be one union for creators, combining the NWU, Writers Guilds, Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA etc. Seems to be with the media industry vertically integrated, makes no sense to have multiple creative groups. For that reason, I started the Creators Federation: www.creatorsfederation.org
Interestingly, I would say a majority of creators' unions/guilds agree with the concept but getting there is a huge leap.
Posted by: Tasini | June 19, 2005 at 10:42 AM
Thanks Brother Perez, i found your comments regarding member involvement and the lack thereof to be at the heart of what is wrong with the biz union model.
Which is a nice segue to JT's point on merging all of the creators/guilds/crafts to one union. If my response seems a little pointed, i'm sure you will understand why...seems the debate regarding biz unionism is being avoided.
So JT or JP, how would you propose we do this merger thing?
I see a couple of options:
1). We gather all of the existing union leaders from the various crafts and guilds and offer them huge improvements in wages and benefits. All they need to do is give up their positions of power, and by consolidating things will get better (the question is for whom, but then we already know the immediate answer to that one).
2). Once they do that, they all go out and tell members they have a plan and by accepting it things will improve. They get their executive board to approve it and the 12 members that show up for the general membership meeting unanimously endorse it.
OR
3). There is full disclosure as to what the leadership is getting out of the merger, there is a massive education process where members are exposed to the pluses and minuses of the merger and there is a mail vote by all of the members as to whether it is in their best interest.
Historical application is a powerful tool for analyzing effectivenes and right ways and wrong ways of doing things. If the goal is for leaders to just arrive at the "right decisions," take the members out of the equation and let them just do it. It is exactly how we got to the sorry state we are in today.
Posted by: Bill Pearson | June 20, 2005 at 09:38 AM
Hey Bill Pearson, why don't you have a blog? I'd read it.
Posted by: zwichenzug | June 20, 2005 at 10:12 AM
Pearson hit the nail on the head with the following statement.
"The tragedy is, most of our contracts are built in a way that new workers/members see little benefit in becoming union; at least for several years. They pay high dues and initiation fees, get the least and worst hours and in all likelyhood will leave before ever reaching the top. In many cases they resent the union, rather than seeing it as their salvation."
I'm a shop steward for Giant Food in the DC area (Local 400) and this is EXACTLY the sentiment the new hires have. New tier was added last contract and it completely nullified any good reason for new hires to pay dues other than for the work rules. No health insurance till 18 months, no dependent coverage for 6 years. No time and half sunday pay until 60 months. And starting pay with no experience remains at $6.60 /hr for a cashier. Try living off that in DC.
I guess this is what they had to negotiate since they could't afford another strike after SoCal. The complete and utter failure of the UFCW to see this crap coming years ago just amazes me. And the fact that the membership isn't empowered with being able to kick out their miserable leaders (cough Doug Dority cough) speaks exactly to the issue of democracy in the movement.
JT makes a fine point about members not caring about democracy when an effective leader (say Hoffa) is in charge. But what about a lousy one? Do we just sit there and suffer though years of complete crap? Because that's just what myself and most other UFCW members have done for the last 20 years.
Posted by: Jambon | June 21, 2005 at 02:33 AM
Brother Perez, with regards to your inquiry about the NEA and its "decentralization" check out the following...
http://www.unitetowinblog.org/story/2005/5/2/101540/8994
Posted by: Jambon | June 21, 2005 at 02:39 AM
Great, great comments Jambon. The differences in good and bad leadership is usually reduced to outcomes. While that is unfortunate, nobody would have cared what Dority walked away with if he had just produced.
Years ago i did an article for the local paper on how the longer i was away from the shop floor, the further immersed i became in some "bigger picture" agenda. It helped me never forget to look at things through the eyes of the members/workers. While i tend to overstate things, your assessment of what happened in contract talks back your way says it all.
Posted by: Bill Pearson | June 21, 2005 at 09:22 AM