Victory In Houston

    Steve Greenhouse has a front-page story in The New York Times today (registration required) reporting on the success of SEIU's organizing drive among janitors in Houston. What's interesting about the victory--other than the fact that it brings in 5,000 new members in the hard-to-organize South--is the way the victory was pulled off.

    Check out these two paragraphs:

The service employees, which led a breakaway of four unions from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. last summer, has used several unusual tactics in Houston, among them lining up the support of religious leaders, pension funds and the city's mayor, Bill White, a Democrat. Making the effort even more unusual has been the union's success in a state that has long been hostile to labor.

"It's the largest unionization campaign in the South in years," said Julius Getman, a labor law professor at the University of Texas. "Other unions will say, 'Yes, it can be done here.' "

    And...

In the current campaign, the service employees urged several public-employee pension funds to press building owners and janitorial companies not to mount hard-hitting anti-union campaigns to defeat the organizing drive. To step up the pressure, the union called a strike at one building in Houston and then arranged sympathy strikes by janitors at 75 office buildings in four other states.

    It was also a successful use of card check (the process that avoids using the so-called election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board):

In recent days, the union has collected cards signed by about three-fifths of the workers at four of Houston's biggest janitorial companies. An agreement signed in August calls for the American Arbitration Association to inspect the cards and certify when the union has received majority support. The janitorial companies have promised to recognize the union once that happens.

    Kudos to Stewart Acuff, the AFL-CIO's organizing director, for taking the high road and praising the victory by the Change To Win federation's largest union.

    Now, not to rain on the parade of an important organizing drive, Greenhouse fails to put this in context, other than the usual analysis about what this means for organizing in the South: while 5,000 new members is nothing to sneeze at, we need to keep in mind that, as a whole, organized labor needs to recruit a NET of 1.5 million members a year to raise its overall density in the workforce by just ONE PERCENT. So, in essence, we need a Houston janitors' victory almost every day to grow the labor movement's power.

    But, the reality is having a union in the lives of these janitors in Houston will make a huge difference--once they negotiate a first contract, no easy task.

    Still, a reason to celebrate.

Comments

[Worker Power]

In 1934 there were many causes for despair among the labor movement. The difficult strike and victory of Minneapolis Teamsters Local 554 only involved the drivers in a single city, and compared to the scale of the American economy really wasn't that big a deal....

...but then again, it did eventually utterly transform the Teamsters union, turning it into an organization that successfully organized on a national scale. And it did usher in a new style of union organizing, and a new level of confidence among workers that we can fight and we can win.

[Cathy Howell]

This is a huge and important victory in Houston. And I want to add that there are other recent large victories in the south - in North Carolina. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee will have 6000 or more workers under contract this summer (a union shop) with the NC Growers' Association - a historic victory in a broad-based community centered campaign. And the UAW has added almost 5000 new members in NC under a card check agreement with Daimler-Chrysler at three facilities - still hard fought because of the anti-union climate. They were forced to run an election at Thomas Built Bus in High Point after a business campaign against their card check victory. The won the election as well - by a bigger margin than the card check. Organizing victories are possible in the south.

[Bill Pearson]

I too will add my congrats to SEIU for this win. Very nice. The problem is, as JT pointed out, we need one two or three of these wins every day to begin to rebuild a labor movement...one workers will be fighting to get into.

I felt there was an awesome suggestion posted in another thread, and one that has been virtually ignored. Worker Power said this:
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"On December 1, 2005, fifty years to the day of Rosa's brave act of defiance, join with working class people all across America and stay home. This small act of defiance will send a loud and clear message - hands off our pensions and health care benefits - we demand jobs that provide our families the dignity we deserve - a living wage, health care benefits, and a secure retirement. If trucks don't roll, airplanes don't fly, busses don't run, offices, schools, and stores don't open, no gas is bought, trust me, they'll start to get it......and if all workers participate in this simple act, they can't retaliate....they need us too much and they won't want us to do it again!

December 1, 2005 - National Day of Dignity - Stay Home with Your Family
Let this simple act of defiance be the match that lights the fire to restore dignity to the jobs of working class americans. Send this message to every working class american you know and encourage them to join us in our Rosa Parks moment in history."
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How cool would it be if all of the unions, churches, social and economic justice groups and anyone else who see's what is happening to this country got behind this action?

By virtue of the range and scope of the internet, this could become the single most powerful message ever sent by workers. It could become the day the largest single contingency group in the USA and the world flexed its muscles and said enough is enough.

The real question is, do the players who have the resources to help make this happen have the balls to get behind it or are they content to win an occassional election and believe that of unto itself will be our salvation?

[Not an AFSCME Staffer]

Stewart isn't the type of guy who would badmouth another union's organizing victory, so there's no surprise here. Also, he came out of IGLWU, a union that had an aggressive and innovative organizing approach.

[NathanHJ]

Also, he came out of IGLWU, a union that had an aggressive and innovative organizing approach.

And before that he was an organizer and regional director (I think) with ACORN...

[Jan]

This is terrific. Kudos to everyone involved. Makes
me want to get up yet aother day to continue to work for
social justice. This gives me great hope.
Congrats!

[Reece Chenault]

Way to go, SEIU.

Just to show them you mean business, do it again tomorrow.

[Ben Runkle]

This is both a great victory, and as Tasini pointed out, a sobering reminder of how far we have to go. Hopefully this will give momentum to some of the other major J for j campaigns going on (indy and miami jump to mind) as well as the security guard organizing throughout the country.

It is also another example of a major organizing victory that is a result of a focused national industry strategy. Similar to CWA's excellent work at Cingular, UNITE HERE at Angelica andthe UAW work in NC that cathy mentioned, all of our biggest recent victories are results of these sort of strategies. (If not for katrina we would have the gaming workers in Mississippi on this list by now, too) And, interestingly, all of these specific examples reached workers in the south! So I think we can lay the "can't organize the south" bugaboo to rest and start thinking about HOW we do it.

[RoscoeRich]

SEIU is supposedly on track to organize 200,000 workers this year. If only we could figure out a way to get seven other unions to organize on that scale then we'd be gaining ground. Perhaps SEIU could be the new UMWA and give staff/money/resources to the other CtW unions to organize on a much larger scale. Nonetheless, great news in a bleak year.

[emma]

I think that SEIU is playing the UMWA role in CtW, but it is not really just about staff/money/resources. Those are there. The Teamsters have money, UFCW has money, etc. It is really about getting the rest of the unions to use their money in a smart way.

[Jon Koppenhoefer]

Tasini's book "They get cake, we get crumbs" should be required reading for every working American.

I'm baffled to understand why 50 million Americans find it 'wise' to vote for Republicans, unless it's because Democrats aren't addressing the long-term economic well-being of working families anymore.

The wage stagnation of middle-class Americans is a dirty little secret that no professional office-seeking dares talk about.

The studied ignorance of both parties when it comes to bread-and-butter issues tells me it's time for a Labor Party or (Gasp!) a Socialist Party in the US.

[la]

Why don't Unions advertise more? I still remember the song Look for the Union Label when buying........ That campaign was good for Unions.

[Houston Labor Lawyer]

Hard to believe that was 3 years ago, that was a great victory indeed.