a vote for stone age unionism

   under construction 

Reinventing Trade Unionism for the 21st Century

The future of organized labor in the US:

Reinventing trade unionism for the 21st century

    "The essence of trade unionism is social uplift.
    The labor movement has been the haven for the
    dispossessed, the despised the neglected, the
    downtrodden, the poor." -- A. Philip Randolph

An important debate has commenced within the ranks of
organized labor regarding the future of the movement.
From our experience we know that the 'top-to-bottom'
approach to revitalizing workers' organizations will
not foster meaningful membership participation and
support. The debate must be joined by rank-and-file
union members and leaders, other labor activists,
scholars and the broad array of supporters of trade
unionism. It must be open, frank and constructive,
recognizing that we all have a stake in the outcome of
these discussions.

The following represents the collective opinion of
several individuals from different sections of the
labor movement who have joined together to let our
voices be heard as the debate unfolds. Our
intervention in this debate is at least partly
motivated by our sense that the concerns and
perspectives of people of color and women are all but
absent in these discussions about labor's future.
The irony, of course, is that our respective demographic
groups represent the future of organized labor in the
USA, if organized labor is to have a future at all.

We look forward to your feedback.

                   * * * * * *

The economic and political changes over the last thirty
years both in the USA as well as globally, have
resulted in a far more hostile environment for labor
unions specifically and for working people generally.
In this context, contrary to the spirit of A. Philip
Randolph's notion that the essence of trade unionism is
social uplift, the trade union movement is rarely
looked to today as a voice of progress and innovation,
or a consistent ally of progressive social movements.

It is not just that organized labor declined as a
percentage of the workforce since 1955; or that it
carried out unfocused growth, evolving eventually into
no growth; or that it emphasized servicing its current
members rather than planting the seeds for future
growth. It is that organized labor looks at itself as
separate and apart from the rest of the working class,
and, for that matter, does not see itself as the
champion of workers and their communities, but rather a
mechanism for advancing the interests of those it
currently represents.

For organized labor in the USA, the path away from
oblivion must begin with the recognition of the vastly
different situation that the working class faces in the
early 21st century from what existed even twenty years
ago. Time and space do not permit an exhaustive
examination of all of these changes. Much has been
written about it in various journals and books. Suffice
to say that the growth of neo-liberal globalization
has represented a dramatic change in the approach of
capitalism toward both the working class as well as
towards society as a whole. Multinational
corporations and their allies have concluded that the
terms of any 'social partnership' must be altered in
their fundamentals at the expense of working people.
This view -neo-liberalism- has grown in importance,
coming to dominate the thinking of both major US
political parties and has guided the shift to the
political Right in the ruling circles of the USA.

The current situation necessitates a new approach to
strategy, tactics, and fundamentally, the vision of
trade unionism. This is more than the production of
new mission statements, but instead rests on the
necessity to rethink the relationship of the union to
its members, to the employer(s), to government, to US
society as a whole, and to the larger global village.
Can the union, we must ask, as an institution and as a
representative of a larger movement, rise to the
challenge of being a means to confront injustice, or is
the union condemned to be solely an institutional
mechanism to lessen the pain of contemporary capitalism
on those fortunate to be members of organized labor?

In this context, we propose the following:

1. There is a need for a vision that includes, but is
not limited to, organizing the unorganized: Missing
from the current debate is a clear statement as to what
the trade union movement actually believes. Of course
there must be massive organizing of the unorganized.
But a sole focus demonstrates the same inflexibly that
reformers are attempting to root out. In spite of the
qualified success of the organize-above-all-else
approach, it is still being touted as the panacea to
what ails the trade union movement. As essential as
is organizing, alone it is not enough.

When the Congress of Industrial Organizations began to
come into existence (with the formation, first, of the
AFL's Committee on Industrial Organization) in 1935,
there was a very different social, economic, and
political climate. Yet this situation is frequently
cited, ahistorically it should be noted, as a parallel
to the moment in which we find ourselves.

While there are critical matters relative to the
structure of unions, the AFL-CIO and organized labor as
a whole that must be settled, these are not the issues
which should be the starting point for any debate. Why,
we must ask, should millions of unorganized workers
potentially sacrifice so much in order to join or form
unions? Why should millions of potential allies of
organized labor spend any amount of time away from
their own core issues, to unite with the demands of
organized labor? What does a reconstructed, if not
reborn, trade union movement have to say to people of
color and women that goes beyond the tried and true
rhetoric of the past? What are unions doing about the
increasing degradation of work, i.e., that even
unionized workers are working harder, faster and longer
than in the past, providing us less free time and
increasing the level of stress on individuals, families
and friendship circles? If these questions are not
answered organized labor will not serve as a beacon of
attraction to the millions of non-union workers in the
USA, and, in fact, the rebirth of organized labor will
be still-born.

2. The union movement must be unapologetically pro-
public sector and pro-public service: Over the years,
since the emergence of neo-liberalism, with the
corresponding rejection of positive government
intervention in the economy as the dominant philosophy
directing globalization, the US trade union movement
has addressed the symptoms rather than the disease.
Thus, it has spoken out against privatization, cuts in
social services, and right-wing tax proposals that
reduce taxes on the wealthy and deceive the rest of us.
This is all important, but organized labor has not tied
this all together into a package. A clear example of
this was the failure of much of organized labor to
dissect the actual politics and economics of the
Clinton administration, as it advanced institutions
like the World Trade Organization, and supported
notions of free trade, all of which undermined (and
continues to undermine) the notion of the public
sphere.

3. Organized labor in the USA must study the current
economic and political situation, and understand that
there is no space for a compromise with any view that
rejects positive government intervention in the
economy. Organized labor must also refuse to support
individuals and/or organizations who believe that
progress and social justice can be achieved by
subordinating workers' interests to those of unregulated
businesses and financiers.

4. The union movement must stand for the expansion of
democracy: Organized labor must stand AND fight for an
expansion of democracy beyond the limits of formal
legality. It must be the champion of the fight against
racism, sexism, hetero-sexism, xenophobia, religious
bias, and other forms of intolerance.

5. In the current national and international situation,
democracy is under attack. Intolerance and
irrationalism seem to be gaining the upper hand in the
relations among people. Minorities are being excluded
if not exterminated as a growing competition for
diminishing resources takes place at precisely the same
moment that immense amounts of wealth are being
accumulated by the few.

Civil liberties are under assault. In the name of
opposing terrorism, governments, including our own, are
passing legislation that restricts the right to
organize and protest. Those challenging the status quo
are often viewed with a jaundiced eye, with the
assumption being that they are insufficiently loyal and
patriotic. Discussions are being shut down in the name
of fighting the common enemy, depending on who that
enemy happens to be at any one point.

Elections are becoming a sham. In the USA the Electoral
College effectively disenfranchises millions of voters,
particularly in the South, and while the US demands the
practice of one-person/one-vote internationally, at the
federal level we have nothing approximating this.
Compounding this problem is the evolution of
gerrymandering into the equivalent of a science and the
creation of so-called 'safe electoral districts,' where
opposition can be counted out. The piece de resistance
is election fraud, always part of the US political
environment, but now upgraded with the use of a
combination of computer technology and voter
intimidation, particularly directed at communities of
color. Furthermore, millions of felons who are primarily
people of color are disenfranchised.

The union movement must engage in struggles against
these various undemocratic practices and move us away
from a fortress-like society.

The future of the right to join or form trade unions is
integrally linked to the future of democracy in the
USA. In its own obvious interests, the union movement
must unite the demand for the right to form or join
unions - the right to organize - with the overall battle
for democracy.

To be credible champions of democracy the union
movement must fight for democracy within its own ranks.
If our members believe that they have no control over
the future of their own organizations, or are
inadequately represented in them then we have failed.
We will have created paternalistic organizations rather
than organizations of the workers themselves.

6. We must have a U.S. union movement structure suited
to advancing organizing of the unorganized workers:
The question of the shape and structure of the US union
movement cannot be driven by a concern about jobs for
the officers and staffs of the current unions. It must
be driven by the need to organize into unions the
millions of unorganized workers who wish to join or
form unions. It must provide legitimate
representational structures for people of color and
women, and ensure that these structures make up a
significant segment of the leadership of the trade
union movement that reflects the diversity and
aspirations of its membership. This means not only the
inclusion of AFL-CIO constituency groups, but also an
organized and active process of recruiting new
delegates and leaders representative of the workforce
in their respective industries, and the creation of
opportunities for younger trade unionists to learn and
test their own leadership abilities.

The structure of organized labor must orient unions
toward their core jurisdictions -- i.e., toward their
regional, occupational or industrial base. The logic
of this is to be found in the matter of expertise and
efficiency. Those unions that have displayed a
commitment to a particular industry, occupation and/or
region will tend to be more studied in those arenas and
better situated to strengthen the industrial power of
the members.

Unions should only enter into new industrial sectors,
occupations or regions if and when they are prepared to
make the LONG-TERM commitment to that sector and have
demonstrated a willingness to work with other unions in
that same sector or region.

7. The union movement must reshape its political program
to focus on the needs of the working class: The union
movement has made the repeated mistake of assuming that
it can tell its members how to vote, and that the
Democratic Party structure will automatically represent
their interest. What we promote as political education
is rarely more than campaign publicity. The promise of
the 1995 reform movement was for a different political
program. We need to develop popular economic and
political education programs that speak to where our
members are socially and politically. Such a program
should aim to create a framework through which they may
begin to understand the political, economic and social
issues of our times.

We must organize our members - politically - into
popular organizations which are community-centered,
concerned with politics, sensitive to different social
groupings, and able to branch out into the community
where they, their families and friends can find a means
to participate in a relevant political practice. This
means the creation of electoral political organizations
at the grassroots level that can engage in the arduous
but necessary fight for power for working people. PACs
and 527s cannot replace popular, mass-based
organizations.

8. The union movement must organize in the South and
Southwest: The November 2004 elections demonstrate two
interesting things. First, there is a direct (though
not exclusive) relationship between union membership
and one's tending to vote in one's own economic
interests. Two, the Black and Latino vote in the South
and the Southwest, while critical at the local, regional
and state level, has not had the same effect in
Presidential races due to the undemocratic nature of
the Electoral College.

The union movement has put off organizing the South and
the Southwest for too long. Successes in organizing
the South and the Southwest will serve as a bridgehead
for progressive politics in those regions, and allow
the union movement to utilize these bases in order to
advance a progressive agenda and build broader
political support. Thus, resources need to be put into
organizing that assumes that organizing is a long-term,
strategic process rather than an event or action.

Any organizing in these regions must appreciate that an
inability to embrace the African American and Chicano
social movements respectively will result in
disappointment, if not failure. Simply focusing union
attention on the South and the Southwest, while an
advance over what most unions are doing today, is
insufficient. The unionizing of these regions must be
connected to the fight for political power for
traditionally disenfranchised groups. During the 1988
Presidential campaign, the Rev. Jesse Jackson put it
best: "In one hand, you have a union card; in the other
hand, you have a voting card."

9. State federations and central labor councils must be
democratic, inclusive, young and audacious: Too many
central labor councils and state federations, due to
their lack of representation, are disconnected from the
realities that their members face, not to mention the
realities faced by the bulk of the working class.
Central labor councils and state federations must
represent strategic centers for local political action,
coalition-building, member education and inter-union
support. If any of this is to work, then central labor
councils and state federations must look more like
their memberships. Just as with the national AFL-CIO,
the local and state bodies must provide legitimate
representational structures for people of color and
women. The local and state bodies must ensure that
these structures make up a significant segment of the
leadership of the trade union movement, thereby
reflecting the diversity and aspirations of its
membership. This means not only the inclusion of AFL-
CIO constituency groups, but an organized and active
process of recruiting new delegates and leaders
representative of the workforce in their respective
industries, and the creation of opportunities for
younger trade unionists to learn and test their own
leadership abilities.

10. The union movement needs real membership education:
It is presumptuous to think that either organized and
unorganized workers will blindly follow or adhere to a
certain point of view without providing them with a
coherent and up-to-scale mechanism by which they can
access information. Without, however, the necessary
resources for a significant, member-focused educational
effort, it will be impossible to provide union members
a different vision of trade unionism, achieve their
loyalty, or motivate them.

Education not only means imparting information, but
dialogue and debate as well. A reinvigorated labor
movement needs an integrated education program that
joins together an examination of domestic and
international economics, as well as a critical look at
US foreign policy. In addition, such education program
must foster the development of a framework for
advancing discussions about class, race, gender,
capitalism and the fight for power for working people.
As such, the notion that organizing can take place in
the absence of education or that education is somehow a
distraction or a draw away from organizing is absurd.
Paying attention to the education of our base is a
profound sign of respect. Calls for mobilization in
the absence of a coherent and unified framework are
disempowering, irrespective of the intentions, and will
not invoke worker militancy or support.

11. The US union movement must build both global union
partnerships and solidarity with others fighting global
injustice: The US trade union movement has made great
advances away from the Cold War trade unionism of the
past. In spite of these advances, the US trade union
movement continues to be eyed with some level of
suspicion by our friends beyond our borders, in part
because of a frequent perception that we are engaged in
protectionism. Excellent steps at union-to-union
cooperation have, however, been taking place, but these
must go much further. A platform for the
transformation of the International Confederation of
Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the global union
federations/international trade union secretariats must
be advanced, and should genuinely strengthen the role
of unions from the global South (Africa, Asia, the
Caribbean and Latin America). The US union movement
must adopt an approach that encourages union-to-union
relationships and worker-to-worker exchanges, up to and
including the reform and/or creation of new
international labor bodies that support real solidarity. 
In addition, the US union movement must develop means
and mechanisms for providing concrete support to union
movements and other progressive movements involved in
the struggle for global justice. Such a stand must
represent resistance to the race to the bottom being
conducted by global capitalism against workers in all
countries. We can not engage in or be perceived to be
engaging in selective international solidarity, i.e.,
solidarity only when it is in defense of US workers
and our issues. Genuine international solidarity will
also necessarily involve a willingness, on the part
of the US trade union movement, to challenge US
foreign policy when it undermines national
self-determination and human rights.

___

We, who sign this document, do so with an interest in
advancing discussion and debate within the union
movement. In alphabetical order,

Kate Bronfenbrenner, Director of Labor Education
Research, Cornell University*

Donna Dewitt, President, South Carolina AFL-CIO*

Bill Fletcher, Jr., President, TransAfrica Forum*

Patricia Ann Ford, former Executive Vice President,
Service Employees International Union*

Fernando Gapasin, President of the Central Oregon Labor
Council and President of AFSCME 1108*

Elena Herrada, President, United Catering, Restaurant &
Hotel Workers, Local 1064, RWDSU*

Tom Juravich, Professor and Director, Labor Center
UMass-Amherst*

Ruth Needleman, Labor Studies, Indiana University*

Robert Phillips, policy analyst

Steven C. Pitts, Ph.D., UC Berkeley*

Katie Quan, UC Berkeley*

Ken Riley, President, Local 1422, International
Longshoremen's Association*

Marchel Smiley, National President AFRAM-SEIU*

David Bacon, labor journalist

* organizational affiliation for identification only

Statement Endorsers (list in progress-submit to
bill_taf@yahoo.com)

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