tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21885199978034177722024-03-14T01:19:42.838-07:00It's About Power Stupid!Thinking Strategically About Labor's SurvivalUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-57679095044200520572014-02-17T15:10:00.004-08:002014-02-17T18:41:16.151-08:00A Cloward-Piven Strategy for Labor?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ylTbgbPfpoQ/UwKD39uNsAI/AAAAAAAAAU8/U2FXm8FvLds/s1600/efca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ylTbgbPfpoQ/UwKD39uNsAI/AAAAAAAAAU8/U2FXm8FvLds/s1600/efca.jpg" /></a></div>
Since the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, a key question facing the U.S labor movement has been how to pass pro-worker legislation that expands on workers' right to organize and bargain collectively. From the post-PATCO effort to ban permanent replacements to the more recent effort to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, labor legislative efforts have been stymied by intransigent opponents and reliance on less than reliable allies, and of course too few reliable allies.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qpOA0hoRBi4/UwKDRomI-WI/AAAAAAAAAUs/g-QaYRVSKGs/s1600/freedom+riders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qpOA0hoRBi4/UwKDRomI-WI/AAAAAAAAAUs/g-QaYRVSKGs/s1600/freedom+riders.jpg" height="109" width="320" /></a></div>
For whatever reason, these campaigns at legislative reforms have always taken a more traditional path than other more confrontational models utilized historically by both the early labor movement that successfully helped pass the National Labor Relations Act and other progressive constituencies such as the civil rights movement in the 60's and the contemporary immigrant rights movement. This often means traditional lobbying supplemented by sporadic press conferences, testimonials by workers to elected officials and some attempt at getting the legislation to gain traction in the media.<br />
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While much of labor has languished in this purgatory, movements basing their ability to make change on asserting ones existing rights, confrontational and dramatic tactics, and a willingness to challenge hesitant allies have gained steam. This trend offers a glimpse of what a transformative workers movement that could win major pro-worker reforms could look like.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-clY24wAyAN8/UwKDn-3iOKI/AAAAAAAAAU0/qPT8f8rTDSA/s1600/fight+for+15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-clY24wAyAN8/UwKDn-3iOKI/AAAAAAAAAU0/qPT8f8rTDSA/s1600/fight+for+15.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a>A few bright spots in the labor movement have decided on a strategy of launching campaigns where groups of workers at strategically important companies or industries assert the right to protected collective activity under <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/protected-concerted-activity" target="_blank">section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act</a> and use that activity to win concessions from an employer prior to winning a collective bargaining agreement. The overall strategy being the building of a movement of workers that will eventually gain majority support and demand recognition of one of the unions supporting the workers' efforts.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3_1CJTBH6OA/UwKV7E3Zt6I/AAAAAAAAAVU/aSETr4ek7nE/s1600/walmart+strikers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3_1CJTBH6OA/UwKV7E3Zt6I/AAAAAAAAAVU/aSETr4ek7nE/s1600/walmart+strikers.jpg" /></a>While these tactics have not led in the short term to the explosive growth that is needed to turn labor's fortunes around, they have been enormously successful. While the rest of the labor movement is contemplating how to remain relevant to the members they represent and the industries they work in, the innovative strategies being employed by Walmart workers, federal contractors and workers in the fast food industry are grabbing headlines, stirring up debate, and most of all ...winning.<br />
<br />
While organizing workers is different from creating new labor law in America, the strategy of social disruption, if<br />
expanded, might very well point the way for labor to "upset the table" of American labor law and create a crisis out of which a new American labor law might be born.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_v-pVbe7kTM/UwKWkcpvgSI/AAAAAAAAAVc/l3jG1c4cJvg/s1600/good+jobs+nation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_v-pVbe7kTM/UwKWkcpvgSI/AAAAAAAAAVc/l3jG1c4cJvg/s1600/good+jobs+nation.jpg" /></a>The theory espoused in what has been popularly referred to as the "<a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/weight-poor-strategy-end-poverty" target="_blank">Cloward-Piven Strategy</a>" puts forward a model of winning reforms by creating a "crisis" (in their case, in the social welfare system) by the subjects asserting their rights under current law and taking actions that utilize these rights to demand reforms as well as make concrete gains that improve current conditions. The premise of the strategy is that most systems are not designed for people to seek the benefits or rights that they are entitled to by law in any sort of concerted manner, so that when they do so in large enough numbers, the legal structures in place begin to "short circuit" and force changes that go beyond existing law.<br />
<br />
This theory is not based on a pie in the sky belief, but rather the historic truth of social movements, that people organized and moved into action to assert demands to existing rights in a broad enough way will more times than not win an expansion of said rights. This is a truth exemplified in both the 1930's labor movement that led to the NLRA and the Civil Rights Movement which secured the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LI5ka9kbp8E/UwKEW5tzJ8I/AAAAAAAAAVE/YWn5bcrYBoo/s1600/Cloward+Piven+Glenn+beck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LI5ka9kbp8E/UwKEW5tzJ8I/AAAAAAAAAVE/YWn5bcrYBoo/s1600/Cloward+Piven+Glenn+beck.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a>What if that same strategy was fully established into a comprehensive campaign, anchored by the labor movement, to build a movement of workers along those same lines? These workers would be linked to sponsoring unions through organizations designed to facilitate concerted activity actions, tailored to specific industries, companies or even regions, using section 7 of the NLRA as a basis for action.<br />
<br />
Anyone who knows the current state of the National Labor Relations Board understands that even a moderate level of concerted activity would provoke illegal actions of retaliation from employers to which the Board would have to react. It is very likely that any consistent level of activity would create a crisis of labor relations in this country due to the inability of the Labor Board to successfully adjudicate cases, as well as create a sense on the part of corporate America that they must make concessions in order to get the system back to functioning along normal lines.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cFzlI0SZ3kA/UwJweihoHSI/AAAAAAAAAUY/b7ST7nnyHvw/s1600/cloward+Piven+Map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cFzlI0SZ3kA/UwJweihoHSI/AAAAAAAAAUY/b7ST7nnyHvw/s1600/cloward+Piven+Map.jpg" height="209" width="320" /></a>There is good reason that the entire far-right conspiracy theory "industry" has put so much effort into vilifying the strategy advocated by Cloward and Piven. Primarily, they find it useful to tie a "radical" theory of social change to President Obama, but also they target it because it expresses principles that have enabled earlier movements to expand to the point they destabilized American capitalism. The notion of using a method of movement building that at it's core states unequivocally "these are our demands and until you grant them we will exercise every right we have under the law to achieve them" terrifies our enemies for good reason.<br />
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Before i am accused of daydreaming of a workers uprising (which i am guilty of by the way), I will point out that the fundamental laws of organizing still apply to the American worker. The efforts by the fast-food workers, OURWalmart, and Good Jobs Nation have shown that it is possible to fight and win using this approach to movement building and that there is at least a conscious minority of American workers ready to take such actions. The real question now is whether we are willing to "put it all on the table" and dig deep for the political will to create a crisis for corporate America that can rebuild the power of the labor movement and extract the concessions that American workers need to survive and prosper?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-6972766848110911532014-01-06T15:55:00.000-08:002014-01-06T15:55:48.040-08:00The Year in Preview: Labor's Outlook<h1 class="instapaper_title">
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<a href="http://prospect.org/authors/rich-yeselson">By Rich Yeselson</a>
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2014 doesn't look like it's going to be all bad for unions, but it won't be all good, either.<br />
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<span class="dropcap">L</span>abor—unions
and the broad working class of wage workers—hasn’t had a good year in a
very long time. Union membership continues its long, slow decline, as
does median family income. But if nothing else, 2014 should be a
clarifying year in the life of several legal and organizing struggles
that will either advance or retard the progress of labor.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<strong>The Cold Hard Numbers</strong></h2>
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">The labor year begins in early
January when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its
union-membership numbers. Despite recent high-profile fights over
public-sector unionism—teachers and government workers—union density
among public employees has stayed remarkably steady, somewhere around
35-36 percent of the public-sector workforce. Private-sector unionism
(the iconographic male union members of yore—autoworkers, steelworkers,
truckers, coal miners) continues, year by year, to creep lower and
lower—last year, density stood at 6.6 percent, probably the lowest since
the beginning of the 20</span><sup>th</sup><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">
century. The members of those giant mid-century powerhouse unions are
no longer the face of labor: Today, union members are far more likely to
be women, people of color, and service workers. Think nurse’s aides or
hotel housekeepers. The numbers may be more demographically egalitarian
these days, but they grow ever smaller. So the first question of 2014
will be: Was 2013 the year that the rate of private-sector unionism
ticked up, even a little? If so, in what states and in what sectors of
the economy?</span><br />
<br />
<h2>
<strong>The Supremes</strong></h2>
The current Supreme Court cannot be viewed as sympathetic either to
the rights of individual workers (on say, issues of gender
discrimination) or to unions as their institutional representatives.
Fifty years ago, a Democratic president could name the General Counsel
of the AFL-CIO to the Supreme Court (Arthur Goldberg) without shocking
the nation. (This is the difference between 30 percent private-sector
union density and 6.6 percent.) Today, unions are lucky if the Court
decides not to rule on a critical case on a technicality. That’s what
happened in early December with <em>Mulhall v. Unite Here Local 355</em>,
a case which might have gutted essential tools for organizing. Instead,
at least six justices decided that the decision to hear the case had
been “improvidently granted.”<br />
<em style="line-height: 1.538em;">Mulhall</em><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">
highlighted the most effective and least incendiary way for unions to
organize workplaces today: through card-check neutrality agreements,
where companies agree not to fight union certification, staying neutral
rather than opposing the union. Typically, companies will agree to
accept signed cards from over 50 percent of workers authorizing the
union to act as their collective-bargaining agent rather than have a
contested secret-ballot election.</span><br />
<em style="line-height: 1.538em;">Mulhall</em><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">,
involving a Florida-based casino and the local union seeking to
organize its workers, centered around the question of whether these
card-check neutrality agreements constitute a form of bribery of union
officials. Because, in this unusual reading of a provision designed to
prevent companies from corrupting union officials, the company is giving
union officers something “of value”—<em>i.e.</em>, their neutrality in
an organizing fight. The company, in turn, receives a peaceful, stable
labor policy, and, in this, case, the union contributed $100,000 to
approve a referendum that would have permitted slot machines to be
installed at a race track that the casino owns. (Unions often lobby and
work on behalf of the interests of their employers.)</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Neutrality and card-check
agreements have been entered into by companies and unions for decades,
but the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTWF), supporting a casino,
challenged the union in the 11th Circuit Court. The court rendered an
ambiguous opinion, and the union </span><a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15968/supreme_court_dismisses_mulhall_v_unite_here_giving_a_labor_a_lucky_esc/" style="line-height: 1.538em;">gambled</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> it could get the high court to permanently settle the confusion in favor of neutrality and card check.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">The oral arguments seemed to go
pretty well—swing vote Anthony Kennedy expressed skepticism of NRTWF’s
argument—but who knows what would have happened? The dismissal means
that while neutrality and card check may continue to be challenged,
unions will also be free to continue to use these common and fairly
effective organizing techniques.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">However, the Court is scheduled
to hear oral arguments in mid-January in another case with enormous
potential implications for labor. In </span><em style="line-height: 1.538em;">Harris v. Quinn</em><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> (Quinn is the Illinois governor, Pat Quinn), the Court will consider whether the fee (an “agency fee”) for </span><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Medicaid-provided
home health care can be waived for workers who choose not to join the
union. The worker-plaintiff is making a First Amendment claim that the
non-members are being compelled to associate and express their political
opinions to the state on behalf of SEIU, the union to which they are
paying the agency fee.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">It would be nice to think that
it’s “only fair” that if a worker doesn’t want to join a union, she
doesn’t have to pay up—it’s a free country, right? The problem with this
kind of folk wisdom is that the workers who choose not to pay union
dues, legally permitted in the 24 “right to work” states, still receive
all of the benefits that unions make possible—higher wages and benefits
like health care—that dues-paying union members receive. They are “free
riders,” playing their co-workers who pay dues for suckers. Agency fees
are designed to mitigate the free rider problem in the non-right to work
states by compelling workers to at least pay for the part of union dues
that goes toward bargaining representation.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">There is precedent on the side of
permitting agency fees on the grounds of equity and labor stability.
This Court could well see things differently. Justice Samuel Alito, no
friend of unions, noted in a 2012 case, “….free-rider arguments,
however, are generally insufficient to overcome First Amendment
objections.” If four other justices agree with him (now, who might they
be?), the result could affect revenues for, and the organizational
integrity of, public-sector workers all over the country.</span><br />
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<br />
<h2>
<strong>The UAW vs. the South and Foreign-Owned Auto Companies</strong></h2>
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Foreign auto companies started
off as a tiny blip on the American radar—a few VW bugs and Datsun’s
running around during the fifties and sixties. Today, foreign-based auto
companies employ 1/3 of all U.S. autoworkers. Fifty-five percent of the
“foreign” cars sold in the U.S. are built here, too.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">The automotive industry remains
an enormous business in the U.S., generating over $750 billion in
revenues annually. If the UAW can gain traction with a foreign
transplant company, it will not only be able to sustain the wages and
benefit packages at the Big Three, but it will increase the union’s
economic and political impact dramatically. It will also be a
significant advance for unions in the South, the historic sub-nation
within the U.S. for lower wages and non-union employment.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">The UAW, once the flagship of
American unionism and perhaps the most powerful and broadly progressive
organization in the country, has never organized a single
“transplant”—an auto plant owned by a foreign company. It has lost badly
in several places. </span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">But Bob King, the outgoing UAW
president, is the smartest, organizing-focused president the union has
had in a long time. He has galvanized support from unions around the
world to pressure the foreign-based companies. Now it looks like the
union has a couple of real chances. One is a long-running campaign in
Canton, Tennessee to organize a Nissan plant. Even more promisingly, the
union claims to have a majority of workers who have signed union cards
at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga. Under pressure form the powerful
IG Metal union in Germany, Volkswagen will permit the plant to have a
German-style works council, an employer-employee group that, in Germany,
is complementary to unions. Under U.S. labor law, however, the UAW
would have to first unionize the plant, but VW appears not to be
fighting hard against this. Still, the union is under pressure from </span><a href="https://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15876/anti_union_forces_mobilizing_at_chattanoogas_volkswagen_plant/" style="line-height: 1.538em;">right-wing groups</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">,
anti-union workers who are accusing it of labor law violations, and
politicians like Senator Bob Corker are doing whatever they can to </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/business/at-a-nissan-plant-in-mississippi-a-battle-to-shape-the-uaws-future.html?pagewanted=all" style="line-height: 1.538em;">defeat the drive</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">.</span><br />
<br />
<h2>
<strong>The Low-Wage Retail Struggle</strong></h2>
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Demonstrations and brief strikes
at the nation’s largest employer, Wal-Mart, and in the fast food
industry, generated a lot of sympathetic media coverage this year, and
continued to keep the issue of low wages and income inequality in the
spotlight. Polls consistently show that a minimum wage increase is
broadly popular, even among a plurality of Republicans. National and
local Democrats, including Barack Obama, seem to have finally figured
out that running on raising the minimum wage is good politics—we will
see how the issue might impact several key mid term races, including the
Kentucky Senate race, where Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes is driving
the issue hard against Mitch McConnell.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Labor is supporting the workplace
actions, without formally calling them “organizing drives,” though the
longterm goal may well be to make retail labor’s foundation the way
mining and manufacturing used to be. But will the number of workers
willing to risk their jobs at a Wendy’s franchise or a Wal-Mart increase
over the next year? The fast food campaign is inherently decentralized
because the big franchisors like McDonalds or Wendy’s can hide behind
their franchisees, which are the direct employers of record. More
leverage must be applied to the franchisors themselves.The Wal-Mart
campaign is more equivalent to Soviet dissidents facing off against the
Kremlin—an implacable top down monolith controls the corporate strategy
at over 4,000 work sites, with over 1.2 million employees around the
country. You never know with these large labor and social justice
fights. It took 20 years to organize the steel industry, for example.
Likewise, it might require years—maybe decades—of chipping away before
the statue of Sam Walton is toppled.</span><br />
<br />
<h2>
<strong>The Wildcard: West Coast Longshoremen</strong></h2>
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">People who most Americans never
see or think about—long shore workers at the ten largest ports on both
coasts—unload about 90 percent of American imports each year. They are
faceless facilitators of the massive global supply chain—from Guangzhou,
China, right to your door, courtesy of that nice Mr. Jeff Bezos. And,
especially on the West Coast, where 60 percent of imports come in, those
anonymous longshoremen can stop that supply chain cold.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">The International Longshore and
Warehouse Union (ILWU), forged in the militant struggles of the 1930s,
is pretty much the last American union left that can have that kind of
impact upon the daily operations of capitalism. In 2002, President Bush
invoked, under the emergency powers of the Taft Hartley Act, an
injunction to bring locked out ILWU members, and the terminal operators
and shipping companies back to the negotiating table. Taft Hartley
injunctions were specifically designed to limit the economic power of
union at a time when several large ones, like the mineworkers, had
massive economic power.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Now that list is pretty much down to the ILWU. The union’s current six-year contract expires on July 1</span><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">, 2014. Circle that date on your calendars. You may not be interested in the ILWU, but the ILWU might be interested in you.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Crossposted from T<a href="http://prospect.org/article/year-preview-labors-outlook" target="_blank">he American Prospect </a></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-40046688462835872012013-09-12T19:58:00.003-07:002013-09-12T20:03:10.022-07:00Union Organizing and the New Reality (This article was originally published at <a href="http://www.laborcombat.com/">www.laborcombat.com</a>. <i><b>It's about Power Stupid!</b></i> is cross posting hereto hopefully initiate discussion among Building Trades readers of the "value proposition" and alternatives to it.) <br />
<br />
By <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://www.laborcombat.com/author/dannycaliendo/" title="View all posts by Danny Caliendo">Danny Caliendo</a></span><br />
<br />
The loss of jobs in construction may very well be the new reality.
The loss of jobs will be permanent for both union & non-union and is
due to ongoing technology in construction delivery and will also
accelerate as modularization advances.<br />
<br />
Why there is a lack of hard discussion about jobs at the national and
state level is very strait forward – jobs are going to be hard to come
by, particularly in construction, going forward.<br />
Critically examining the continued “Value on Display” <b><i>strategy</i></b>
as the model for market share increases in the Building Trades is long
overdue and would require a hard core review of some of those statements
that are at the core of “Value on Display”.<br />
<br />
<b>We are more productive and can make the non-union contractors more money.</b><br />
<br />
Reality check is that 85% of all construction is done non/anti-union.
The cost of putting a union tradesperson on the job includes: A living
higher wage, real benefits, verified and dynamic safety, honest workers
compensation & other ancillary benefits that accrue to the industry
and the community; vs poor pay, little to no benefits, under/mis
classification and/or 1099’s and the total abuse of workers
compensation in the non-union. Building Trades union would have to be
158% to 214% more productive, day in and out, to overcome these cost
differences. If you are waiting for legislative relief to address these
problems – without an increase in members and money – it’s not going to
happen. If we continue to ”sell” this as a business proposition vs.
standing up for workers’ rights and the middle class, then we will
become the working poor!<br />
Unions are safer –Yes we are & we report & act on safety to
improve on it. Reality check is that non/anti-union either under report,
or don’t report injuries and safety violations. Keep in mind that 85%
of the construction world is fine with that. We can’t offset both poor
safety and the total abuse of workers comp with increased production.
The numbers/cost simply does not work! Safety has to be imposed on the
work site, on behalf of the workers, and historically unions are the
instrument for imposing worker safety on the job. At the end of the day,
union work sites are safer, and that is imposed, not sold!<br />
<br />
<b>The Building Trades are highly skilled – YES!</b><br />
<br />
Reality check, we are quickly moving into a time where skills will
count for less & less because of technology & modularization.
Increasingly production, fabrication & manufacturing will produce
the majority of pre-built components for construction projects of all
types. We are already behind the organizing curve organizing these
entities. Also the reality is all of the Building Trades training
modules are available for free to anyone who wants them, so why would
you pay for a formal apprenticeship? Training is not keeping pace with
the 21<sup>st</sup> century, while some components of training require
“hands on” the reality is most training can be done online and protected
to the degree possible. The rapidly changing design of construction
systems, underlying warranties & liabilities currently militate
against the current form of training.<br />
<br />
<b>The Building Trades is keeping up with technology. </b><br />
<br />
Reality check is
that is ABSOLUTELY NOT THE CASE!<br />
Priority 1 is advancing our signatory
contractors in the market, we can do that – we are not! We still are
dabbling with inter & intra union website BS, which by the way we
suck at!<br />
Labor/Management advances the union construction industry. Reality
check is where are the real “net” numbers that demonstrate that? This
may have been a worthwhile endeavor, however it is unions selling to
unions – bottom line! The ROI is the ROI, tens if not hundreds of
millions of dollars invested of member’s hard earned money for a
collapsing market share!<br />
Keep in mind “little items” such as withdrawal liability, Obamacare for our H&W, RTW, Prevailing Wage etc…<br />
If we continue “selling” the “Value on Display” message when no one
is buying – how much longer do we have before this becomes a “hard”
lesson learned?<br />
Organize and stay the hell out of the NLRB and get off playing on the
other guys field. We need hard increased numbers to solve the issues of
the day & the power and leverage to be viable in the future.
Organize 21<sup>st</sup> Century style!<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b> “if you see a good fight – get in it”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-60935614727099965082013-09-10T12:43:00.001-07:002013-09-10T12:57:47.157-07:00A Call for a Second Operation Dixie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="entry-meta">
</div>
<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v1D6yAgCqjs/Ui931eWI-bI/AAAAAAAAARg/EeBiMsngxSA/s1600/UAW+NISSAN+NEWSPAPER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v1D6yAgCqjs/Ui931eWI-bI/AAAAAAAAARg/EeBiMsngxSA/s320/UAW+NISSAN+NEWSPAPER.jpg" width="240" /></a> There are no fortresses for labor; no metaphorical stone
walls that we can shelter ourselves behind to try and ride out the
onslaught. MaryBe McMillan, secretary-treasurer of the North Carolina
AFL-CIO, said that we must “<a href="http://aflcionc.org/organize-the-south-or-die/" target="_blank">Organize the South or Die</a>,”
and she is absolutely correct. The fact of the matter is that without a
deliberate, concerted effort to organize in the states of the old
Confederacy, there will not be a labor movement worth speaking of within
the next ten years, and all the gains for working people that brave men
and women fought and bled and died for over the past century will be
clawed back by rapacious corporate oligarchs bent on societal
domination.<br />
<div dir="ltr">
</div>
The notion that this is a crisis is massively underselling the
problems facing labor, both organized and unorganized, right now. The
destruction of PATCO, the air traffic controllers union, in 1981 was a
crisis. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement through a
unified Democratic federal government in 1993 was a crisis. The recent
“Civil Wars in American Labor” between the Service Employees
International Union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, and UNITE
HERE were a crisis. What the union movement faces right now is not a
crisis, it is nothing less than a threat to the existence of unions in
their present form, and with that comes a threat to the very basic
minimums all workers in the United States can rely upon.<br />
<br />
As we discussed in <a href="http://thesouthlawn.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/culture-warriors-why-creating-a-culture-of-unionism-is-essential-for-increasing-labor-density-in-the-south/">our previous piece</a>,
there is a cultural void in the South when it comes to labor. What we
didn’t do is go into detail on why that is. There is a long and ignoble
tradition in the South of active repression of workers organizing. Much
of this tradition was exercised against the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO) in the largest unionization drive in the South to
date: Operation Dixie.<br />
<span id="more-541"></span>Operation Dixie was conceived because of a
problem that may sound familiar to many today: companies were shifting
their operations from the heavily unionized North and Midwest to the
South, where unionism had comparatively not taken hold. The predominant
focus of the campaign was on the burgeoning textile industry in the
South, which stretched largely from the Carolinas through Alabama, as
well as the wood products industry. The CIO committed 250 organizers and
around $1 million in 1946 (about $12 million in 2013) to set about
attacking the largest firms and the most recalcitrant workers within
those firms. The organizers came from across the industrial spectrum,
and the citizens’ committees were surprisingly diverse for the times,
including workers from across the racial barrier, religious leaders, and
recent veterans of World War II. It was a campaign that held much
promise, and a victory in Operation Dixie would go a long way towards
building a powerful labor movement in every corner of America. However,
while there were some successes in organizing tobacco workers and
workers in other smaller industries, the effort to unionize the textile
and wood products industries were largely dead by the end of 1946.<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eJjeYofpyTI/Ui94gA_zgjI/AAAAAAAAARo/SM9NKwkiBJw/s1600/mlk+2013+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eJjeYofpyTI/Ui94gA_zgjI/AAAAAAAAARo/SM9NKwkiBJw/s320/mlk+2013+10.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
Where did Operation Dixie go wrong? How did it fail? The biggest
reason for its failure was the lack of preparation for the power of the
business-carceral alliance: the cooperation between law enforcement and
industry whose primary purpose was preventing the ability of their
workers to collectively bargain. This alliance worked in numerous ways;
the detaining of organizers, the harassment of pro-union workers, and
the refusal to prosecute crimes committed against both groups (even
murder) created an atmosphere of fear that kept many workers from
signing up for the union from fear that they would be placed in the
crosshairs of this powerful alliance. The organizing of workers across
racial lines also caused problems, with the interracial organizing that
was occurring being compared to a Communist takeover of Southern
industry. Red-baiting was frequently deployed by the business-carceral
alliance…and the American Federation of Labor (AFL).<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y4cEPFZ1MN8/Ui94reoVvQI/AAAAAAAAARw/lx5mzhFj4No/s1600/Smithfield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y4cEPFZ1MN8/Ui94reoVvQI/AAAAAAAAARw/lx5mzhFj4No/s320/Smithfield.jpg" width="320" /></a>Another obstacle to organizing in the South was the conservative AFL,
which used Red-baiting tactics later seen by the likes of U.S. Sen.
Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) in order to turn public opinion against the CIO’s
organizers. Interestingly enough, at same time that then-AFL President
William Green was using Red-baiting and race-baiting to halt the CIO’s
progress in the South, he steadfastly refused to assist the Florida
labor federations’ attempt to stop the first right-to-work statute in
the United States from becoming law in 1946. Green’s tepidness in
Florida combined with the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act made it more
difficult to sustain the successes that the CIO managed to wring out, as
right-to-work laws spread like a fever across the South. The final
reason that this did not come to pass is a simple one: a lack of
resources. The amount of money and organizers committed to this project
was tepid at best, and in many places, the union’s presence was
stretched thin while it weathered attacks from the House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC) and the AFL at the same time. When the CIO’s
balance sheet for Operation Dixie showed a deep hue of red, resources
were cut back dramatically and eventually ended, as was the campaign
itself.<br />
<br />
There is so much more that can (and will) be said about Operation
Dixie, but that will be at a later date. What we need to talk about is
labor’s future in the South. In the wake of the recently-passed <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/Conventions/2013/Resolutions-and-Amendments/Resolution-16-Building-Enduring-Labor-Community-Partnerships">Resolutions #16</a> and <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/Conventions/2013/Resolutions-and-Amendments/Resolution-26-Resolution-to-Develop-a-Southern-Organizing-Strategy-Amended">#26</a>
at the 2013 AFL-CIO Convention, it’s clear that the movement grasps the
need to build power in the South and is willing to contemplate
significant action to do so.<br />
<br />
What is needed is nothing less than a bigger, modern-day Operation
Dixie. Anything less would make these resolutions paper tigers: fine
rhetoric that has been heard before with no chances taken or resources
committed behind it. In some ways, the plan we propose is even more
ambitious than the original Operation Dixie:<br />
<ul>
<li>The AFL-CIO should, over a six month ramp-up period, hire one
thousand organizers, half drawn from existing rank-and-file activists,
half drawn from young activists who support the kind of worker
self-determination that the AFL-CIO ultimately stands for. This massive
hiring would exhaust the supply of organizers with union experience
looking for work. Other organizers, such as those with experience doing
field work for Democratic political campaigns or those who have worked
for public interest research groups (PIRGs), would be a good place to
staff up once all experienced union organizers were brought on board.
However, all people hired for this project who have not either been a
rank-and-file activist or on staff as an organizer for a union would
have to go through a training run by the Organizing Institute to
guarantee a minimum of capability.</li>
<li>Experienced organizers already working for AFL-CIO affiliates or
with extensive experience in the movement would be shifted over or hired
on to this project to provide day-to-day supervision of this cadre of
activists, with regular local oversight of this project performed by the
Central Labor Council (CLC) of the area it is operating in. The reason
for the CLC performing oversight is twofold: it allows international
unions, through their locals, to ensure their specific concerns with
regards to this project are addressed regularly, and it allows union
workers direct oversight over this work, as CLCs are the most elemental
representative body within the movement.</li>
<li>Once this project reaches 85% staffing levels, the AFL-CIO would
commit to keeping the resources for this effort in place for no less
than four years, after which the Executive Council would decide to
re-authorize, modify, or end this project in its current form.</li>
<li>Successful organizing campaigns would initially form locals that
directly affiliate with the AFL-CIO. Once the first contract is
negotiated by this local, it would choose an international to affiliate
with, preferably with an international that has experience in the
industry they are working in.</li>
<li>The South would be divided up into seven regions and would have
seven regional offices from which this project would be directed for the
duration, with other offices opened as organizing campaigns dictate.
The headquarters for this effort would be in Atlanta, GA, and that
office would oversee the operation across Georgia. Other regional
offices would be based in Raleigh, NC (covering North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Virginia), Birmingham, AL (covering Alabama and
Mississippi), Tampa, FL (covering Florida), Baton Rouge, LA (covering
Louisiana and Arkansas), Nashville, TN (covering Kentucky and
Tennessee), and Austin, TX (covering Texas).</li>
<li>The importance of developing relationships with community groups is <a href="http://thesouthlawn.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/one-big-union-why-community-engagement-is-needed-for-labor-victories-in-the-south/">difficult to overstate</a>.
As such, this project would work to cultivate relationships with faith
leaders, local environmental organizations, and other progressive
political organizations in the South to address the needs of workers
outside of the workplace and in their homes and neighborhoods. It would
also work to shepherd the expansion of alt-labor groups like Working
America in the places where it’s operating.</li>
</ul>
This is a monumental undertaking, and it will mean other worthy
efforts will go under-resourced while this project is operating, but
there is no other way forward. With a Democratic President, a Democratic
House, and a Democratic Senate, we could not get the Employee Free
Choice Act through at the federal level, and anti-union policies
continue to advance through state legislatures. Unless we rebuild our
power in a big way, there is no way forward for any of the significant
improvements to public policy that the labor movement would like to see.
Everything from an increase in the minimum wage to labor law reform
will rot in committee while things get worse for working people in this
country.<br />
<br />
We make this proposal knowing full well the kind of resources it will
take to carry this monumental effort forward. However, the time for
quarter-assing things has long since passed and the hour is late for
labor. It takes bold moves to counter bold foes, and foes like Art Pope,
David and Charles Koch, Eli Broad, and the Walton family are nothing if
not bold. The only alternative to a monumental effort like the one we
are outlining is a too-timid outing that will only delay and not reverse
(or even arrest) the labor movement’s accelerating decline into
extinction.<br />
<br />
<i>Crossposted from <a href="http://thesouthlawn.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">The South Lawn</a> </i><br />
<br />
<div class="entry-meta">
<i>This was a joint post, written by </i><i><b>Douglas Williams</b> and </i><i><i><b>Cato
Uticensis</b> <i><b> </b></i></i></i><br />
<br />
<i><i><i><b>Douglas Williams</b></i> is</i> a
third-generation organizer,who is currently a doctoral student in
political science at the University of Alabama , where his research centers around
public policy as it relates to disadvantaged communities and the labor
movement. You can find him on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/DougWilliams85" target="_blank" title="Douglas on Twitter">@DougWilliams85</a>, as well as at <a href="http://tcf.org/experts/detail/douglas-williams" target="_blank" title="Douglas Williams at The Century Foundation">The Century Foundation</a>, where he blogs about the labor movement<b>. </b></i></div>
<div class="entry-meta">
<i><b>Cato
Uticensis</b>, is the pseudonym of a union organizer working in the
South. He likes barbecue, bourbon, cigars, and labor politics. He can be
found on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/Cato_of_Utica" target="_blank" title="Asinus Pervicax on Twitter">@Cato_of_Utica</a>.)</i></div>
<div class="entry-meta">
<i> </i>
</div>
<br />
Sources for historical info on Operation Dixie:<br />
Griffith, Barbara S. The Crisis of American Labor: Operation Dixie
and the Defeat of the CIO. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988.
Print.<br />
<div dir="ltr">
Goldfield, Michael. “Race and the CIO: The Possibilities
for Racial Egalitarianism During the 1930s and 1940s.” International
Labor and Working Class History 44 (1993): 1-32. Print.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Gall, Gilbert J. “Constant Vigilance: The Heritage of the
AFL’s Response to Right to Work Legislation.” Labor Studies Journal 9.2
(1984): 190-202. Print.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth, and Ken Fones-Wolf. “Sanctifying the
Southern Organizing Campaign: Protestant Activists in the CIO’s
Operation Dixie.” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the
Americas 6.1 (2009): 5-32. Print.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-16442308382991327242013-09-07T20:44:00.004-07:002013-09-09T06:13:27.880-07:00The Danger of "Trickle down" Change. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RJEOsk9ymAk/UivxY2f-aRI/AAAAAAAAARI/3LAg7F5b17w/s1600/walmart+913.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RJEOsk9ymAk/UivxY2f-aRI/AAAAAAAAARI/3LAg7F5b17w/s320/walmart+913.jpg" width="240" /></a>The challenge facing the 2013 AFLCIO convention is not acknowledging the crisis or being willing to discuss solutions. The preconvention <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/content/download/88871/2368791/LSreportjuly.pdf" target="_blank">discussion </a>has been exceptionally open and steered towards finding ambitious solutions to the myriad problems labor faces (even some frank discussion of the peril of failing to <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2013/09/voices-organize-the-south-or-die.html" target="_blank">organize the south</a>). I couldn't help be be disappointed with how little of the discussion was geared toward breaking employer resistance to organizing, but in general most people's contributions came from a place of an acknowledgment of the depth of the crisis and deep anxiety over how to make changes that would lead to labor's revitalization.<br />
<br />
Fundamentally, the AFL-CIO's main challenge lies in driving titanic changes in the way it and it's affiliates operates to ensure any changes decided upon don't end up in an unused powerpoint on a jumpdrive somewhere or only bought into by a minority of exceptional affiliates. Without a well thought out approach to implementing the decisions made at the convention and ensuring the buy in of the maximum number of affiliates, the impact of any change that is accomplished will be stunted and limited once again to a far too narrow group of affiliates, labor councils and state feds. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oO3TpKdXjnA/UivqetILu2I/AAAAAAAAAQg/uAgKJAThMBM/s1600/port+strike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oO3TpKdXjnA/UivqetILu2I/AAAAAAAAAQg/uAgKJAThMBM/s320/port+strike.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
This year's AFL-CIO convention opens on what could only be considered a high note considering the crisis of labor. The struggle against a low wage economy took center stage last week beginning with a strike by <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/08/LA-port-drivers-strike.html" target="_blank">Port Truckers </a>protesting being paid poverty wages for transporting goods out of the ports of Long Beach, and ended with a strike by <a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/29/marching-at-mcdonalds-for-a-15-wage/?_r=1&" target="_blank">fast food workers</a> in over 60 cities around the country. This week <a href="http://makingchangeatwalmart.org/2013/09/06/more-than-100-arrested-in-11-cities-protesting-walmart/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=more-than-100-arrested-in-11-cities-protesting-walmart" target="_blank">Wal-Mart workers</a> took actions in 15 cities with over one hundred people being arrested across the country after issuing them an ultimatum to stop retaliating against workers for organizing and to increase pay to a living wage.<br />
<br />
While two of the three campaigns are sponsored by <a href="http://changetowin.org/" target="_blank">Change to Win</a> affiliated unions and one by another that just re affiliated to the AFL (UFCW), these campaigns all had critical characteristics that are essential to the revitalization of our movement and are thus are worthy of more than a thought by those attending the convention next week:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sBzU4fS_5m8/Uivrq5RtPGI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/ZQaSfLxEa4o/s1600/atl+fast+food.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sBzU4fS_5m8/Uivrq5RtPGI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/ZQaSfLxEa4o/s320/atl+fast+food.jpg" width="320" /></a> <b>Organizing to Scale</b> - The campaigns are all large scale in conception and seek to transform entire markets or industries that are critical to breaking into historically anti-union strongholds.<br />
<br />
<b>Comprehensive Strategic campaigns</b> - The Campaigns were based on a well thought out strategy based on mobilizing a multi prong attack on a given target using public opinion, political pressure, community mobilization, and most of all direct action to exert pressure on the targeted company/sector. <br />
<br />
<b>Militancy and Boldness</b> - The direct action in the campaigns rested on the willingness of groups of workers (of various size) to boldly confront the employer or group of employers themselves through varying forms of direct action such as strikes, marches on the boss, flashmobs and other creative tactics. A break from the past corporate campaign approach that exerted almost exclusively outside pressure.<br />
<br />
The convention is an ideal opportunity for the rest of the labor movement and its allies to take stock of these events and incorporate the positive lessons into this weeks discussions of how labor can turn around its fortunes. The proposed <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/Conventions/2013/Resolutions-and-Amendments" target="_blank">convention resolutions</a> are ambitious and clearly aim having a rich discussion on substantive changes to how the AFL-CIO and it's affiliates operate in today's reality.<br />
<br />
Regardless of how rich the <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/176065/partnerships-politics-and-purpose-key-questions-watch-afl-cio-convention#" target="_blank">discussion</a> is and how many solutions are developed, the chief weakness that the AFL-CIO must grapple with and overcome in order for its week of deliberations to have any meaningful impact on our future is how to move its program among affiliates. Historically, programs rolled out at AFL conventions are adopted in practice by the state affiliates and labor councils to greater or lesser degrees along with a minority of forward-thinking, progressive minded unions that are the ones influencing the direction of the discussion in the first place. This was true when the Sweeney program rolled out the focus on organizing that the AFL-CIO enacted in the mid to late 90's and the adoption of comprehensive immigration reform as a strategic goal since 2000. Compelling affiliates to buy into and move a transformative program within its own top-heavy structures will be critical to ensuring that whatever plans that are adopted at this years convention become a true program for the vast majority of the labor movement that resides within the AFL to act upon. <br />
<br />
The federal and voluntaristic nature of the AFL has been a longstanding impediment to the mobilizing capacity of the 12 million member organization and was one of the points of contention that were part of the debate that led to the split in the AFL that formed Change to Win. Certain key affiliates have built dynamic organizing programs that were supported, re enforced, and in many cases driven by AFL labor councils and state Federations, these efforts have more times than not failed to gain traction among the leaders or members of the majority of the affiliated unions. The result has been that labor councils and State Feds are loose federated bodies that mirror the structure at the top and are reliant on a minority of dynamic and visionary affiliated unions for capacity and resources with participation of other affiliates being sporadic at best.<br />
<br />
Even into the lead-up to the convention, support has inconsistent at best among affiliates for all of the campaigns mentioned earlier and participation in street mobilizations continue to have the sense of a routine with the "usual suspects" showing up. In conversations with leaders of local affiliates you still get the feeling they they still haven't fully wrapped their heads around the fact that they are truly fight for the lives of their organizations<br />
<br />
<i><b>The convention is unlikely to be able to overcome the historic shortcomings of the entire labor movement, no matter how high the stakes and under even the best conditions. With that being said, the possibility of a larger groups of leaders coming out of this convention feeling compelled to take decisive action is a real possibility. It will be up to the most forward thinking leaders to take the momentum of this years convention to cajole, push, pull, and where necessary, demand that other leaders step up to the plate mobilize their memberships and throw themselves and the full resources of their respectable organizations into saving the American Labor movement and themselves in the process.</b></i><br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-89289244515024507032013-06-14T13:31:00.003-07:002013-06-15T18:35:39.050-07:00Building Fortresses or Tearing Down Walls? Thoughts on "Fortress Unionism"<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cunzn6yi87Q/Ubt6opl80vI/AAAAAAAAAPo/mQ1J46hN7Bs/s1600/abandoned+castle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="174" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cunzn6yi87Q/Ubt6opl80vI/AAAAAAAAAPo/mQ1J46hN7Bs/s320/abandoned+castle.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abandoned Fortress</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Rather than scaling back and holing up in our strongholds as advocated
in "<a href="http://www.democracyjournal.org/29/fortress-unionism.php" target="_blank">Fortress Unionism</a>", labor should be focused on tearing down the
barriers obstructing workers' ability to organize in whatever form that
is.<br />
<br />
Rather than curling up in the fetal position hoping to survive the
body blows, labor should launch broad campaigns that employ tactics
aimed at pushing back on or circumventing exclusion from the right to
bargain a contract and employer intimidation.<br />
<br />
"Fortress Unionism" gives readers a crash course on the history of labor's decline from it's explosive growth in the 30's and the powerful upsurge of offensive strikes and organizing that ensued in the postwar period. Fear of labor's power provoked a swift and unyielding push to pass the Taft-Hartley Act which provided the seeds of labor's slide towards conservatism, capitulation to reactionary politics, stagnation and eventual decline. "Fortress Unionism's other great strength is the sobriety with which Yeselson looks at labor's dire straights and how deep and fundamentally existential this crisis is.<br />
<br />
Yeselson moves on to outline a few main fundamentals of what he calls "Fortress Unionism":<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>Defend the remaining high-density regions, sectors, and companies.</i></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><i><i>Strengthen existing union locals.</i></i></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><i><i><i>Ask one key question about organizing drives: Will they increase the density or power of existing strongholds?</i> </i></i></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><i><i><i>Sustain coalition work with other progressive organizations.</i> </i></i></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><i><i><i>Invest heavily in alt-labor organizations, especially Working America.</i></i></i></b></blockquote>
The last action the Yeselson proposes we carry out? : <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b> And then…wait. Wait for the workers to say they’ve had enough.
When they demand in vast numbers collective solutions to their problems,
seize upon that energy and institutionalize it.</b></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><i> </i></i></blockquote>
I encourage people to take the time to read Yeselson's piece in it's entirety. The proposal made is one that flows from a a deep analysis and a sober critique of labor's strategic weaknesses. In the end though, Fortress Unionism's proposals would not only not aid in labor surviving it's crisis, it would likely result exacerbating labor's decline .<br />
<br />
<b>(Point of clarity: I should have been more explicit here about what parts of Yeselson's piece I agree with. I basicall agree with him on his proposals around ALT-Labor, strengthening local unions, and conceptually around building alliances with progressives. I do however not agree we should shrink into the background though to allow the progressives to be in the spotlight.)</b><br />
<br />
"Fortress Unionism" is based on the premise that the root cause of why we cannot turn labor's fortunes around is that even with the development of innovative tactics aimed at organizing large swaths of workers, labor cannot organize workers in large enough numbers for it to stop its decline and grow. Yeselson asserts that currently workers do not want to be organized and that we should protect our organizations where we have density and power and hold on to what we have until workers decide they want to be in unions again. <b>This is where we part ways</b>.<br />
<br />
I have no idea what data Yeselson uses to back up this assertion that workers are "uninterested" in joining unions. I can only say that polling consistently indicates that workers would join unions if given an opportunity with the main obstacles being fear of management retaliation and/or exclusion from the NLRA. I also know for a fact that my union receives several calls a week of inquiries about how to join the union. The chief reason we never hear back from these workers is fear and disillusionment in the process of organizing under a gutted NLRA, not lack of interest. Workers want to improve their lives or in many cases be able to hold on to what they have. Our dilemma is that labor lacks the capacity and a viable strategy that could lead to organizing on the scale necessary to prove to workers that they can win improvements without losing their jobs.<br />
<br />
Our metric for success going forward should be our ability to find a path to worker organization and our ability to break through the two primary barriers to it, employer intimidation and broken labor law. Where we cannot immediately implement a campaign that results in a contract at a given employer, labor must create vehicles for those workers to begin organizing around their issues and create a way for them to join the labor movement immediately. This may be through the formation of affiliated associations, minority union organizing committees, or opening the door wholesale to workers joining existing unions as associate members and assisting them in building organizations at work labor can and must creatively look at ways to break out of the self imposed limitations of only allowing workers to join their unions once they have a contract.<br />
<br />
Yeselson's critique of comprehensive campaigns has merit insofar that
they have not resulted in organizing breakthroughs on sufficient scale
that would stem labor's hemorrhaging of members. I find it hard to
reject comprehensive campaigns when the overwhelming majority of unions
have failed to employ them as a strategy or much less have any sort of
coherent strategy to tackle their respective jurisdictions. It would be
helpful if we were critiquing labor as a whole acknowledging its crisis
and operating at full throttle to employ every tactic at its disposal to
organize, but that is not the case.Given that comprehensive campaigns
have not been dis-proven in their efficacy and that there is still a
possibility and need to organize workers who are not excluded from the
NLRA, comprehensive campaigns still have their place as one weapon in
labor's arsenal.<br />
<br />
Yeselson is correct that worker organization only grows in a qualitative "leaps" in periods of increased social struggle and that it is these types of struggles that generate pro-worker reforms. The problem is that increased and sustained struggle by workers has never been spontaneous. The upheavals of the 1930s and post war period were the product of intense long-term organizing both on the shop floor and in the streets by socialists, communists and other radicals of various stripes . With the formation of the CIO a vehicle was created that opened the floodgates allowing workers to form permanent organizations by the tens of thousands. Workers in the 1930's didn't just spontaneously "rise up" and nor will they now or in the future.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JlcCKuuZN6U/Ubt4kyNybZI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/NvwxMUmhxEA/s1600/castle-siege.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="231" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JlcCKuuZN6U/Ubt4kyNybZI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/NvwxMUmhxEA/s320/castle-siege.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">People stopped using fortresses for a reason</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The fundamental problem with "fortresses" is that while they may be useful to establish and hold territory, they can also prove to be deathtraps for one's forces if they are not supplemented by a broader strategy. If encircled, fortresses allow the enemy the luxury of launching sustained attacks on a fixed position and eventually wearing down the defenses.<br />
<br />
This analogy holds true with "Fortress Unionism". Retreating to the increasingly small number of cities or companies where labor has enough density to hold sway means abdicating entire regions of the country and virtually the entire service economy. The result will be retreating from some of the most innovative organizing currently taking place as well as allowing our enemies to further strengthen their own "fortresses" from which to attack working people ie. low density cities, states, and industries and continue the "War on Workers" that began in Wisconsin. These areas of relative strength should instead be used as "bases" from which labor launches "attacks" on the fortresses of the enemy and to strengthen and assist forces who are trapped "behind enemy lines".<br />
<br />
Workers want to to find a way to improve their lives now more than ever. It is our duty as strategists and organizers to assist them in finding a way to break through the obstacles preventing them from self organizing, not to retreat out of a false sense of self preservation. There is no other option but to find a way to fight. The alternative is defeat. <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-64625391343386599142013-06-05T07:27:00.001-07:002013-06-05T07:27:40.150-07:00South Africans have more rights than workers in Mississippi | UAWDanny Glover serves up some truth about workers' rights in Mississippi.<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.uaw.org/articles/south-africans-have-more-rights-workers-mississippi#.Ua9Ki43JgMo.blogger">South Africans have more rights than workers in Mississippi | UAW</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-90207509638417373312013-05-24T13:43:00.001-07:002013-05-27T07:53:29.323-07:00Crosspost - One Big Union: Why community engagement is needed for labor victories in the South.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Today, labor faces both <a href="http://www.charlestonbusiness.com/news/45704-nlrb-boeing-s-c-violated-labor-laws?rss=0" target="_blank" title="NLRB: Boeing S.C. violated labor laws">threats</a> and <a href="http://www.msnewsnow.com/story/18688552/nissan-workers-want-union-vote" target="_blank" title="Nissan workers want union vote">opportunities</a>
in the South. If union density (which is at an all-time low in the
South) is to grow, the way forward has to be community involvement and
mobilization. It has been about this since the beginning:</div>
<blockquote>
“In the 1944 Florida election, the Miami Citizen noted
that the principal backers of the bill ‘come entirely from the backward,
low-wage sections of the state, where the lumber and turpentine
interests rule their workers like barons of old, and laborers receive<br />
little or nothing in groves and on the farms.’” (Shermer 2009)</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://thesouthlawn.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/the-union-as-community-why-community-engagement-is-needed-for-labor-victories-in-the-south/">One Big Union: Why community engagement is needed for labor victories in the South.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-62668863449672791452013-05-15T14:01:00.001-07:002013-05-15T14:01:21.477-07:00Sharecropping on Wheels - Working In These Times<a href="http://adifferentclass.com/" target="_blank">Sarah Jaffe</a> has written a fantastic piece on <a href="http://www.teamster.org/" target="_blank">Teamsters</a> and <a href="http://changetowin.org/" target="_blank">Change to Win</a> organizing <a href="http://www.standupforsavannah.com/" target="_blank">Port Truckers</a> in Savannah. Georgia <br />
<br />
<a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15001/sharecropping_on_wheels/#.UZP1ZqjKF2Y.blogger">Sharecropping on Wheels - Working In These Times</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w8ncm7ktrvA" width="420"></iframe><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-50712848385501112902013-05-05T21:31:00.000-07:002013-05-07T19:48:52.718-07:00The South: Labor's Elephant in the Room #1ufuture<b>While encouraging, the recent uptick in discussions regarding the future of the labor movement will be limited in its impact unless the strategic nature of the U.S. south is included in the exchange.</b><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CgX15lKiGHY/UYccSzi9q7I/AAAAAAAAAN4/JXngP4CY-fU/s1600/I+am+a+man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="189" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CgX15lKiGHY/UYccSzi9q7I/AAAAAAAAAN4/JXngP4CY-fU/s320/I+am+a+man.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Memphis sanitation workers strike, 1968</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It is somewhat mystifying that while acknowledging the urgency of labor to address its shortcomings, the critical role that the U.S. south plays in stymieing labor's ascendancy has received little to no attention. More concerning is the fact that the south's centrality to labor's resurgence and ultimate survival is not even acknowledged in this increasingly vigorous discussion.<br />
<br />
The combination of anti-worker laws, repression against people of color and reactionary politics has allowed the enemies of labor to define an entire geographic area as a bulwark against movements for social justice. The south provides the critical majority of electeds who have held the line against pro-worker reforms (along with most other progressive legislation) and its laws have provided a template for laws passed in the "war on workers" in northern states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and New Hampshire.<br />
<br />
The low regulation, low union density south continues to attract major corporate investment and the south's role in the global supply chain continues to grow. A majority of the largest ports on the eastern seaboard are located in southern right to work states and the world's largest airport is in Atlanta, Georgia which has steadily increased it's role as a major global air freight hub.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R50oCSxC3Nk/UYcxlgK3NSI/AAAAAAAAAOw/jQKMIXJ1qfc/s1600/savannah+port.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="217" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R50oCSxC3Nk/UYcxlgK3NSI/AAAAAAAAAOw/jQKMIXJ1qfc/s320/savannah+port.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The port of Savannah</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
These and other facts are well known to every person contemplating labor's future. One can only speculate for the reason for it's lack of being included in the current discourse. It might be easier for some to use this as a political club with which to further illustrate the need for one of the many silver bullets suggested or to argue for the replacement of many of the various union leaderships. The more responsible path would be for those of us in labor who see the absolute necessity of labor's engagement in a discussion of the south to highlight it and demand its particular circumstances be taken into account with sufficient seriousness wherever we engage in discussions of organizing, politics and union structure within the current debate.<br />
<br />
For the most part is is easy to see why labor continues its historic weakness in southern states. Most unions have responded to the lower memberships among their affiliated southern structures with a "you're on your own" approach to organizing, contract negotiations and political action. The logical outcome of this approach is unions that are structurally weak remain weak, the union density of their respective jurisdictions remains low and workers remain unorganized, and the reactionary, anti-union structures and laws remain in place to reinforce and maintain the status quo.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6e55-QwkPoI/UYccvFHUdTI/AAAAAAAAAOA/bfTEFWg5DYA/s1600/mlk+20132.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6e55-QwkPoI/UYccvFHUdTI/AAAAAAAAAOA/bfTEFWg5DYA/s400/mlk+20132.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sanitation workers march in Atlanta on Martin Luther king Holiday 2013</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This does not mean victories don't happen in the south. UFCW's decades long organizing campaign that was ultimately victorious at Smithfield, Teamster organizing of school bus and sanitation workers and at UPS Freight (formerly overnite), UAW's renewed campaigns among foreign southern based automaker transplants like Nissan are bright spots where it is shown that successful organizing is <br />
possible in the south. The Struggle of the Coalition of Immokolee Workers, the recently initiated Teamster/Change to Win campaign to organize port truckers in Savannah, Georgia, and various campaigns among southern public sector workers who lack the right to collectively bargain show the possibility of campaigns directed at workers who are misclassified and excluded from traditional collective bargaining. Unfortunately these are exceptions, and campaigns like these would have to be replicated on a massive scale for labor to turn around its fortunes much less reverse its decline.<br />
<br />
Seriously taking on the challenge that the south represents requires that labor, during its deliberation over its future, incorporate a strategy that recognizes the reality that labor cannot win without winning in the south.<br />
<br />
The question of resources will obviously dominate any discussion. There should be no argument that increased resources should be deployed to compensate for southern labor's weakened state. How labor effectively deploys any increased resources will determine whether there is a break with failed strategies of the past or an embracing of effective ones.<br />
<br />
Labors textbook approach to bolstering resources in to fly in organizers and other staff employed by the international union or, given sufficient gravity additional resources and staff borrowed from other local unions or other affiliated bodies, for the duration of a campaign and then move them on to the next campaign. While it will always be necessary to supplement staff and resources at key moments in a campaign the blitz model is problematic in that is does nothing to structurally strengthen unions in low density areas.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IUCgBplivSc/UYcdocTHh7I/AAAAAAAAAOI/rS3HOBsoD1U/s1600/Smithfield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IUCgBplivSc/UYcdocTHh7I/AAAAAAAAAOI/rS3HOBsoD1U/s400/Smithfield.jpg" width="400" /></a>An alternative approach would be the pooling of resources to allow unions in the south to staff up as needed to increase capacity and stabilize their organizational existence. Some unions have created funds that are contributed to by locals in high union density areas to subsidize unions with less resources to increase their capacity to organize. Grants provided to local unions or affiliated bodies to underwrite large scale campaigns and increase staff and capacity in other areas have been used in some unions, increasing the size, scale and availability of such grants would be necessary to meet current needs.<br />
<br />
Shifting resources to win in the south necessarily means taking funds from other projects and revenue sources. In many cases this could create an internal struggle over the allocation of funds.There is no doubt feathers will be ruffled and fiefdoms will be threatened, but making a choice between labor's survival and comforting the sense of official entitlement will require political will that hopefully can be summoned.<br />
<br />
Increased resources will not lead to winning campaigns without significant deployment of education and training resources that can assist local leaders in developing effective strategic plans that can lead to growth and organizational strength. Examples of best practices as well as the assistance in the development of regionally specific strategies that are tailored to the reality of the south must be made available and local leaders could be offered assistance in implementation.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Bhuq5C4Et9E/UYcrJOF-87I/AAAAAAAAAOg/Nfz5Me1WI3Y/s1600/STUDENTS+SUPPORT+NISSAN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Bhuq5C4Et9E/UYcrJOF-87I/AAAAAAAAAOg/Nfz5Me1WI3Y/s320/STUDENTS+SUPPORT+NISSAN.jpg" width="320" /></a>As in all cases there will be local officials who will be hostile to any attempt to shift out of the present arrangement. Many have learned to exist in a weakened state (see "<a href="http://itsaboutpowerstupid.blogspot.com/2012/12/right-to-work-body-blow-not-death-blow.html" target="_blank">Right to Work: A Body Blow not a Death Blow</a>") and some have carved out areas where they already exercise some degree of power. Every union has its own internal norms of the degree of local autonomy enjoyed by its affiliated bodies and will have to determine the degree to which new organizational norms might or can be imposed from without. It is pretty clear however that the current reality of laissez-faire federalism in many unions is at least part of the current problem. Coming to terms with the fact that aspects of local autonomy may need to be reconsidered in order to implement a broad based and effective approach will be essential.<br />
<br />
Key to building public support is to organize among the overwhelming majority of working people in the south who have yet to join a union. Working America has shown great promise in its ability to conduct grassroots organizing and political mobilization of non-union working families. A broad campaign among non union workers in southern states educating them on working families issues would be of great benefit. One encouraging sign is Working America's recent <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/173875/afl-cios-non-union-worker-group-headed-workplaces-fifty-states" target="_blank">announcement</a> that it will expand its operations into all fifty states within five years. When the decision is made to make the move into the southern states hopefully it will be done with the need for supplemental consideration of the southern reality.<br />
<br />
Putting the discussion of organizing the south at the center of the current discussion on the future of the labor movement would open up the possibility of actually building power in corporate America's stronghold and undermining their ability to maintain a stranglehold on our democracy. We ignore it at our peril.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-16998639529135895792013-03-12T20:38:00.002-07:002013-03-13T16:56:16.565-07:00The Will to Change<i>(I have updated the last paragraph for clarity's sake) </i><br />
<br />
The depth of labor's crisis has now been officially <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/richard-trumka-afl-cio-speech_n_2828671.html#slide=2139660" target="_blank">acknowledged</a> by Richard Trumka.<br />
<br />
That is a good thing.<br />
<br />
All of us , inside and outside the AFL-CIO, should welcome the coming discussions leading up to the AFL-CIO convention later this year. <br />
<br />
The space to discuss and debate strategy on how to best revitalize, invigorate, and most of important of all save the labor movement has now been expanded. Hopefully this will open the door to those who decline to comment, discuss, or even acknowledge labor's fight for survival out of a perceived need to "circle the wagons" so as not to feed into anti-union rhetoric.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GPNVV3zUUgw/UT_uaYefs6I/AAAAAAAAANQ/b5Ne2Y_ij3I/s1600/Two-fair-election-signs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GPNVV3zUUgw/UT_uaYefs6I/AAAAAAAAANQ/b5Ne2Y_ij3I/s320/Two-fair-election-signs.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nissan workers organizing in Mississippi</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
While we should carry out this type of discussion with the intended goal of strengthening workers in as open of a way as possible, it should be acknowledged that many times discussions of "change" are often accompanied by rhetorical attacks on leaders of our movement from self-serving perennial critics. This has often led to a tendency of keeping discussions of deeper questions of strategy behind closed doors.<br />
<br />
Much of the discussion seems to center around exploring "new models" and strategies that seek to make labor relevant to a broader spectrum of working people including those who are either excluded from traditional collective bargaining or who choose to organize in non-union organizational forms like the <a href="http://rocunited.org/" target="_blank">Restaurant Opportunities Center</a>.<br />
<br />
Bringing in workers that expand a historically limited vision of the labor movement is absolutely essential, but we must resist the urge to seek a path of least resistance as a substitute for developing and deepening proven strategies of breaking and neutralizing employer resistance in the private sector.<br />
<br />
Large scale comprehensive campaigns that take on employer intimidation with smart, strategic tactics have not been given a chance to prove their viability to turn around labor's fortunes because for the most part the overwhelming majority of the labor movement has not even been employing an organizing strategy of any sort. Before people get their shorts in a bunch and become reflexively defensive of their individual unions, if you are getting mad I am probably not talking about your union.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F92Dx4VlHRY/UT_vik39B5I/AAAAAAAAANc/McOqq8huCR0/s1600/Station+picket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F92Dx4VlHRY/UT_vik39B5I/AAAAAAAAANc/McOqq8huCR0/s320/Station+picket.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unite Here Campaigns for a fair Election Process at Station Casinos in Las Vegas</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The fact is that far too many Internationals, local unions, joint councils, districts, grand lodges, and other types of labor bodies have no program in place to grow much less to to assist their affiliates in developing and carrying out a plan. <a href="http://itsaboutpowerstupid.blogspot.com/2012/08/marrying-actions-and-rhetoric.html" target="_blank">As I said before</a>, I view having the political will to overcome this lethargic approach in the midst of such a crisis as the paramount challenge to leaders contemplating a way out of this mess. The latest new plan to win means nothing if it sits in the "to be read" box of blast faxes regularly sent out to mid and lower level union officers around the country.<br />
<br />
Creating the resources necessary to carry out large scale private sector campaigns is another area that requires challenging longstanding structures and consciousness that does not correspond to today's reality. The questions of restructuring and mergers at all levels of the labor movement is a question that cannot be ignored. This has been a thorny subject in every debate because it means challenging establish structures that will resist attempts to consolidate where that means loss of positions and in many cases salaries.<br />
<br />
The main question facing us now is do we have the courage to honestly look at ourselves and make the changes necessary to survive and grow? While we should always be expanding the labor movement to be the voice of all workers, we should remember that there are still millions of workers who remain in industries that are not excluded from traditional collective bargaining who would join a union the moment they were given the opportunity. These workers have the right to organize and join a union under the law, but in fact are prevented from exercising any of the freedoms that they are supposedly guaranteed due to rampant employer intimidation and labor law that has no mechanism of enforcement worth talking about. They cannot be forgotten in this process.We can't let them down.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-90572607642751966172012-12-16T20:37:00.001-08:002012-12-17T16:56:24.987-08:00"Right to Work" : A Body Blow, Not a Death Blow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_9sFdVChThk/UM6ZH4B97lI/AAAAAAAAAMc/CBNZs_iTRQA/s1600/RTW+VETO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_9sFdVChThk/UM6ZH4B97lI/AAAAAAAAAMc/CBNZs_iTRQA/s320/RTW+VETO.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The signing of "right to work for less" in Michigan is another stark reminder to us all how deep the crisis of labor is. As if we needed another. The fact that the supporters of "right to work" could garner enough votes to pass such a bill in Michigan underscores the determination of our enemies and the extent to which the decline of labor density has weakened labor's ability to fend off attacks, even in our strongholds.<br />
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Right to work will not kill the labor movement in Michigan. If enacted, it will however weaken it substantially. This makes keeping up pressure in the streets, courts and all other points possible to defeat its implementation essential. There is also still time to mitigate and undo the damage done through a variety of legal and legislative strategies. While the fight is far from ending in Michigan, we must look soberly at our priorities as a movement. <br />
<br />
Going forward with the effort to beat back and repeal "right to work" is both necessary and makes sense. The same can be said for the other states who have recently passed or partially passed attacks on the labor movement. In many cases these states will see many of the Republicans who snuck into office in 2010 under false pretenses kicked to the curb in 2014. The energy created by the movements against the attacks on labor and working people represents a movement that has awoken from it's slumber and this new energy will lead to our taking the offensive both politically and in organizing if our leaderships take advantage of it. <br />
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That being said, the rest of the states that have been living under "right to work" will continue to do so until we reverse our decline and begin to grow qualitatively. In those states growth and infrastructure building must take priority over possible efforts to repeal Right to work or enacting "fair share" legislation. This is not to say that we should not take advantage of any opportunity to do either should it present itself (a remote possibility), but prioritizing it over growing our movement, activating our members, and strengthening our organization would be a mistake at this moment. On the other hand, so not to be confused with the more syndicalist abstentionists out there, to what ever extent possible we have to for survival's sake continue to resist legislative attacks against labor wherever they are.<br />
<br />
<b>I live in a right to work state. Anyone who says right to work is an acceptable condition to work under has never lived the experience, at least in terms of trying to build and grow organization.</b><br />
<br />
Every day some portion is spent contemplating how to maintain membership levels in my union. We represent several large groups of low-wage members both newly organized and as components of larger groups of better paid members. These groups of members have an extremely high turnover rate, so engaging with them immediately upon being hired is always a priority. The right to meet and do a union presentation is always a priority of every contract that we negotiate. Freeloaders are subjected to varying degrees of 100% legal social pressure from their coworkers of varying degrees depending on the level of union organization at that worksite. This additional burden of maintaining our membership is a constant financial drain on our union valuable hours of staff time are consumed daily by this area of activity.<br />
<br />
Where turnover is lower the level of membership is always higher. Our local union's worksites as well as other unions that are more stable provide the core of our states union membership. Not coincidentally these industries usually represent those area of the private sector where unions used to hold sway nationally. It also reflects the fact that members in these types of bargaining units have a greater understanding of how their membership levels reflect their relative strength to their employer and how that correlates with contract gains.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CZx0SJx5SxA/UM6cbQGgXsI/AAAAAAAAAMs/Iz3ItFoSpiE/s1600/UI+rally.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CZx0SJx5SxA/UM6cbQGgXsI/AAAAAAAAAMs/Iz3ItFoSpiE/s320/UI+rally.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Schoolbus drivers organize against cuts to unemployment in Georgia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
All this being said unions have survived for decades in right to work states and will continue to do so insofar as we continue to survive precariously on a national level. A strategy for growth and strategic development of capacity in right to work states must be at the center of any discussion of labor revitalization. Ideally this would include creating special funds that pool resources from the union locals at the "bookends" of our country where we are strongest to be channeled into strengthening our structures in the south or creating structures where none exist.<br />
<br />
<b>Labor must make an investment in the south and right to work states. It is no coincidence that our greatest enemies are voted into positions of power from the south and RTW states. </b><br />
<br />
In states where the "war on workers" has been waged the most we must do everything we can to roll back these attacks. At the same time as we fighting to protect our flanks in this war we must work to internalize the mistakes we have made that got us here in the first place. The constant attempts to blame the contemporary leaders of unions where mistakes have been made for decades for this situation serves no one. It is up to all of us now to do the hard work of rebuilding and the best way to do that is a robust and sober discussion at all levels of our movement that dispenses with preconceived notions and opens up to winning strategies. It behooves our leaders to listen.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-4013813895685973352012-12-08T16:22:00.002-08:002012-12-08T16:24:18.934-08:00A "Tahrir moment" in Michigan?Thursday the Michigan State House and Senate passed "Right to Work " legislation despite howls of protest over procedure and a massive last minute mobilization by Michigan labor. Since the House and Senate passed different versions the differences must be reconciled and voted on be both houses. If were hiding under a rock yesterday<a href="http://blog.workingamerica.org/2012/12/07/10-things-to-know-about-what-happened-in-michigan-on-thursday/" target="_blank"> here</a> is the quick and dirty from <a href="http://www.workingamerica.org/" target="_blank">Working America's </a>blog Main Street.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qChstjIdDQ4/UMPXL8CiPvI/AAAAAAAAAME/vVuaJX8glRA/s1600/Packing+the+capitol+in+Michigan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="215" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qChstjIdDQ4/UMPXL8CiPvI/AAAAAAAAAME/vVuaJX8glRA/s320/Packing+the+capitol+in+Michigan.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Union members pack the Michigan capitol on Thursday</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Passing "Right to Work" for less legislation in Michigan is further confirmation that the "War on Workers" that started after the 2010 election did not end with the re-election of President Obama. Those ideologically anti-worker majority legislatures and Governors elected in 2010 that remained in place after this election cycle still hold in their hands the same plans ALEC handed them two years ago. Those chambers that have shifted back toward being less hostile to workers this election are busy ramming through their agenda in the remaining "lame duck" session.<br />
<br />
Labor now faces another attempt to cut us off at the knees. Already the cries of "We'll remember in November!" ring out from the ranks of our members packing the Michigan Capitol.There are five days before another vote can be taken on "Right to Work" for less.<br />
<br />
Five days is a lifetime in movement politics.<br />
<br />
Where we have failed to defeat these attacks generally it has been because our enemies had generally been more determined than us to win. They have been willing to lie, cheat, steal, and suppress to achieve their agenda. This was true in Wisconsin , Indiana, and Florida and it is true today. Legal challenges notwithstanding, they beat us because they were willing to impose their will on us no matter the cost.<br />
<br />
They DID NOT beat us because we didn't mobilize. Incredible mobilizations were carried out in every state where we were attacked, most dramatically in Wisconsin where the capitol was occupied by thousands for a few weeks. We fought hard. But when push came to shove we as a movement choked when the question was called whether we would take the fight to the next level. Obviously some will disagree with me on this assessment, but the fact remains that labor was not only politically defeated we were also outmaneuvered by our opponent's intransigence and political will.<br />
<br />
Things are different now. We have contemporary examples of how people can take action to force the hands of those in power and win despite the odds not being in our favor.<br />
<br />
Not long after the fights in Ohio and Wisconsin, the people of the Middle East rose up in massive mobilizations against corrupt, authoritarian regimes. In Egypt this culminated in the occupation of Tahrir square in Cairo where sustained demonstrations brought down the Mubarak regime.<br />
<br />
Beginning with Occupy Wall Street, occupations of public spread to numerous cities in the U.S. emulating not only Tahrir Square but also the movements for Democracy and against corporate power in countries around the world. The images of these movements are now etched into American consciousness and direct action now carries a legitimacy that would not have been possible before.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PiinoQb3cPY/UMPVCV5fAJI/AAAAAAAAAL8/C1nXguBHl8k/s1600/cd+planning+in+MI.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PiinoQb3cPY/UMPVCV5fAJI/AAAAAAAAAL8/C1nXguBHl8k/s320/cd+planning+in+MI.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michigan union members and supporters meet to plan civil disobedience</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Obviously a titanic amount of mobilization will be required to stop this bill. Mobilizing sufficient social power to put a halt to the legislative process is a tall order, but not impossible.Thankfully plans for such actions seem to be taking place<a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2012/12/hundreds-ready-to-get-arrested-in-mich.html" target="_blank"> this weekend</a>.<br />
The number one thing that MUST happen is for people to stop saying we will wait "four more years" to repeal this bill. Winning requires actually believing in your ability to win. The people of Michigan CAN win this fight. My thoughts and prayers are with them as they plan for the fight of their lives.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-50343477240621028032012-11-29T06:52:00.006-08:002012-11-29T06:59:42.357-08:00Fast Food Workers Go On Strike in NYC! From <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/11/29/in_rare_strike_nyc_fast_food_workers_walk_out/" target="_blank">Josh Eidelson</a> at Salon:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"At 6:30 this morning, New York City fast food workers walked off the
job, launching a rare strike against a nearly union-free industry.
Organizers expect workers at dozens of stores to join the one-day
strike, a bold challenge to an industry whose low wages, limited hours
and precarious employment typify a growing portion of the U.S. economy."</i></blockquote>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y4l-KqW3CBU/ULd2MwyKznI/AAAAAAAAALM/3xFuF1Md5SI/s1600/NYC+fast+food+strike.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="206" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y4l-KqW3CBU/ULd2MwyKznI/AAAAAAAAALM/3xFuF1Md5SI/s320/NYC+fast+food+strike.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/29/1165629/-Hundreds-of-New-York-City-fast-food-workers-strike" target="_blank">Laura Clawson</a> at Daily Kos</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/mcjobs-should-pay-too-its-time-for-fast-food-workers-to-get-living-wages/265714/" target="_blank">Sarah Jaffe</a> had this to say in The Atlantic: <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"For so long, a lot of labor and other folks have avoided these
industries because they thought they were too low wage, too hard to
organize, and now our economy has become an economy of mostly low wage
service jobs," Westin said. "It was the same thing when they were
organizing factories in the early 1900s. They organized those factories
and lifted an entire segment of the population into the middle class.
This could happen here. We could lift an entire segment of the US
population out of poverty and into the middle class."</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
Crossposted from <a href="http://laborstrat.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/fast-food-workers-go-on-strike-in-nyc-2/" target="_blank">LABORSTRAT:</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"And this is the common thematic element of the new organizational efforts we’re seeing take place in the service industries. Both the Walmart strikes and the New York City fast food strikes taking place are very demonstrative. That is to say, they are attempting to expose a contradiction in an industry (very successful companies who compensate workers very minimally) with a very visible, highly publicized action. This is a great way to create a discussion, but the question remains after that discussion begins: what type of organizations, unions, and institutions are we to build which can maintain the energy we’ve produced through activism. What receives this infrastructure being built by organizers? How are resources built, and more importantly, how are victories produced in which workers are not only politically better off, but economically better off?"</i></blockquote>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-43200694687355736132012-11-28T19:32:00.003-08:002012-11-28T19:46:38.824-08:00Thoughts Since Black FridayI participated in the Black Friday action. No workers struck at my location but dozens of supporters held a spirited and effective action that a) received really good media attention that highlighted the demands of the Wal-Mart associates and b) successfully rattled the cage of store management. All in all a fun day. Nationally the picture was much more <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ourwalmart/" target="_blank">varied </a>from strikes with dozens of strikers and hundreds of supporters to a single supporter or striker (yes one striker) picketing a store by themselves. I wanted to share some thoughts on the implications of the Black Friday strike and protests.<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/171435/biggest-strike-against-biggest-employer-walmart-workers-make-history-again#" target="_blank">The strike was a successful escalation</a>. The number of workers participating increased. A new layer of leaders seems to have stepped up since the earlier strikes. A broad spectrum of allies showed up to support the workers. Wal-Mart desperately <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/business/wal-mart-dismisses-labor-protests-at-its-stores.html?ref=stevengreenhouse" target="_blank">tried to dismiss</a> the actions as tiny and irrelevant. The key was to for OURWalmart to successfully show thatWalmarts intimidation campaign had not pushed the Associates back, in fact that new additional leaders stepped forward to carry out this series of strikes showed the capacity or OURWalmart to grow despite management's campaign.</li>
<li>The strike was a <a href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/12961-walmart-worker-uprising-protests-held-at-1000-stores-on-black-friday" target="_blank">watershed moment</a> for labor. Not because any Wal-Marts were shut down or not, but because WalMart's image as a benevolent employer has been effectively challenged in American public discourse. Illustrated here:</li>
</ul>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font: 11px arial; height: 340px; width: 512px;"><tbody>
<tr style="background-color: #e5e5e5;" valign="middle"><td style="padding: 2px 1px 0px 5px;"><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/" style="color: #333333; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Daily Show with Jon Stewart</a></td><td style="font-weight: bold; padding: 2px 5px 0px 5px; text-align: right;">Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 14px;" valign="middle"><td colspan="2" style="padding: 2px 1px 0px 5px;"><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-november-27-2012/the-employees-strike-back" style="color: #333333; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Employees Strike Back</a></td></tr>
<tr style="background-color: #353535; height: 14px;" valign="middle"><td colspan="2" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 5px 0px 5px; text-align: right; width: 512px;"><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/" style="color: #96deff; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">www.thedailyshow.com</a></td></tr>
<tr valign="middle"><td colspan="2" style="padding: 0px;"><embed allowfullscreen="true" allownetworking="all" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#000000" flashvars="autoPlay=false" height="288" src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:421544" style="display: block;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="512" wmode="window"></embed></td></tr>
<tr style="height: 18px;" valign="middle"><td colspan="2" style="padding: 0px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="height: 100%px; margin: 0px; text-align: center; width: 100%px;">
<tbody>
<tr valign="middle"><td style="padding: 3px; width: 33%;"><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/" style="color: #333333; font: 10px arial; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Daily Show Full Episodes</a></td><td style="padding: 3px; width: 33%;"><a href="http://www.indecisionforever.com/" style="color: #333333; font: 10px arial; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Political Humor & Satire Blog</a></td><td style="padding: 3px; width: 33%;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow" style="color: #333333; font: 10px arial; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Daily Show on Facebook</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The degree to which the strikers and the supporters were portrayed as
leading a just fight by many media outlets was a critical blow to
anti-worker PR in general.<br />
<ul>
<li>The notion that changing Wal-Mart was key to <a href="http://www.demos.org/publication/retails-hidden-potential-how-raising-wages-would-benefit-workers-industry-and-overall-ec" target="_blank">change America and creating a new economy</a> is now firmly established <a href="http://robertreich.org/post/36219730368" target="_blank">among American progressives</a>. Before there was tepid support among many liberals who perceived the Wal-Mart struggle as just another union "pet issue". It is now common wisdom among the progressive blogosphere and academia that Wal-Mart's role in the supply chain is a key roadblock to economic justice for ALL workers.</li>
<li><b>This is where I piss people off</b>. I was disappointed when I noticed that a broad swath of the labor movement sat out the Black Friday action. I was mortified to find out that some large UFCW locals opted to not build or participate in actions. The more this campaign is seen as simply a project of the UFCW International by local UFCW unions, the more difficult it is going to be to build the grassroots infrastructure needed to expand the campaign. The active support and participation UFCW local unions and the full support of labor councils and other labor organizations are key to generating community support and protection for the OURWalmart activists that will give them the much needed "breathing space" to continue to organize and grow. Bureacratic abstention, Grudges and petty divisions blocking particpation in these HISTORIC actions are the equivalent of high treason in the moment of both peril and opportunity for our entire movement. </li>
</ul>
<b>There I said it. Let me have it.</b><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-81726612615243183152012-11-22T18:51:00.000-08:002012-11-24T17:24:40.921-08:00Will Black Friday be a Tipping Point?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AKkcEYPC-mI/UK7frp2uV2I/AAAAAAAAAKk/1jsbZc_9TkU/s1600/Walmart+Fist+up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AKkcEYPC-mI/UK7frp2uV2I/AAAAAAAAAKk/1jsbZc_9TkU/s320/Walmart+Fist+up.jpg" width="320" /></a>Tomorrow, "Black Friday", Walmart Associates across the country will be walking off the job to stand up for their right to organize and to protest management retaliating against their members for standing up. No one really knows exactly how many people will walk off the job during the busiest shopping day of the year, but whatever the number, it is clear that Black Friday has brought the issues the workers face to the forefront of the public consciousness. In that alone they have one victory in the bank.<br />
<br />
In the past Walmart was able to tightly control the narrative told by most of the media. That is not so anymore. <a href="http://www.forrespect.org/" target="_blank">OURWalmart</a> and their allies have skillfully put Walmart on the defensive by frontlining the members of OURWalmart rather than staff people as guests on talkshows and in the media and by making sure the workers were able to tell their compelling stories through social media. Labor journalist <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blogs/josh-eidelson" target="_blank">Josh Eidelson</a> has done a fantastic job chronicling the strikes on his new blog at The Nation.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g_SJIpAT0_o/UK7iIJzupJI/AAAAAAAAAKs/WuL0q5KRdZo/s1600/WALMART+WAREHOUSE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g_SJIpAT0_o/UK7iIJzupJI/AAAAAAAAAKs/WuL0q5KRdZo/s320/WALMART+WAREHOUSE.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The strike wave a few weeks ago never really ended. Strikes became more sporadic but continued at stores around the country. <a href="http://www.warehouseworkersunited.org/" target="_blank">Warehouse Workers United</a> called a new strike early last week over management retaliation against organizers. These continuing actions have kept the spotlight on the struggle facing Walmart associates who are raising quite reasonable demands. The fact that the strikes are "Unfair Labor Practice" strikes protects the workers from permanent replacement and any retaliation by Walmart simply creates the basis for valid claims of illegal activity by the Company.<br />
<br />
My metric for success is not whether a single Walmart is shut down
tonight or tomorrow. I will judge the Black Friday strike by whether the
labor movement as a whole comes out of this with with a renewed sense of our own ability to be bold, think big, and to take the fight to the enemy. The question for us all is could this be the "tipping point" that both validates a new model of organizing large service sector employers and leads to a new upsurge in organizing and worker militancy? I can't wait to find out.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://corporateactionnetwork.org/campaigns/black-friday/" target="_blank">So get your ass to a Walmart tomorrow and lets make some history.</a><br />
<br />
If you can't get your ass to a Walmart tomorrow(actually even if you do), you can sponsor a striker <a href="https://www.wepay.com/donations/dont-let-walmart-silence-workers-support-worker-leaders-who-are-calling-for-change" target="_blank"><b>HERE</b></a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-28276545759017257442012-10-30T13:28:00.001-07:002012-10-30T13:28:50.433-07:00Labor South: Mississippi students see labor and civil rights as their social justice movementAnother dispatch from the fight in Mississippi. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://laborsouth.blogspot.com/2012/10/mississippi-students-see-labor-and.html#links">Labor South: Mississippi students see labor and civil rights as their social justice movement</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-66933119274388259372012-10-28T15:42:00.001-07:002012-10-30T13:21:20.594-07:00If You're Not Excited You're Not Paying AttentionI definitely cannot be counted on to deliver up to the minute analysis of huge events in the labor movement. If I counted that as one of my objectives I would be a dismal failure.<br />
<br />
Since my last post, we have witnessed a series of events that can only be seen as vindication of those of us who have rejected the notion that the death of the labor movement is a foregone conclusion. Also vindicated is the perspective that labor must begin strategically targeting and organizing in such a way that can shift the balance of power in whole markets in order to win.<br />
<br />
It would seem there are more than a few in labor who are determined to turn things around. They are proving the crisis of labor is in fact deep, but not insurmountable. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Yjrx8FS1Ykc/UI2cl579iMI/AAAAAAAAAIU/5duVx38TsUc/s1600/chicago-teachers-strike-465px.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Yjrx8FS1Ykc/UI2cl579iMI/AAAAAAAAAIU/5duVx38TsUc/s320/chicago-teachers-strike-465px.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
The <a href="http://www.salon.com/topic/chicago_teachers_strike/" target="_blank">Chicago teachers strike </a>pitted the third largest teachers union in the country, the 25,000 member Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) against Barack Obama's former chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanual. The stage was set for a confrontation between CTU and their newly elected militant leadership and Chicago's Democratic Party establishment. Known as a ruthless political opponent, Emanuel was outmaneuvered by bold and aggressive organizing that framed the issue successfully and truthfully as a battle to save public education for Chicago's children. The CTU was able to maintain public support throughout the strike and were both aggressive enough to win substantial gains as well as pragmatic and saavy enough not wage an open ended strike, resulting in making concrete improvements both in conditions for Chicago's students as well as working conditions for the Teachers. By rejecting the pro austerity narrative and controlling the framing of the struggle as one for justice and fairness the Teachers defeated attempts to isolate them. All in all, <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13876/chicago_teachers_strike_lessons_learned/" target="_blank">a solid win</a> in an age where strikes are seldom planned and even more seldom won.<br />
<br />
<b>The Chicago teachers raised our spirits, got our blood pumping and gave the "screw the unions" wing of the Democratic Party's poster boy a bloody nose.</b><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rMZnurFx4d4/UI2eGbJAQPI/AAAAAAAAAIc/7p9Yy5CKwV4/s1600/Station+picket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rMZnurFx4d4/UI2eGbJAQPI/AAAAAAAAAIc/7p9Yy5CKwV4/s320/Station+picket.jpg" width="320" /></a>Unite Here's <a href="http://www.workerstation.org/organizing-station-casinos.html" target="_blank">campaign</a> to organize Las Vegas's third largest private employer Station Casinos received a recent boost when the NLRB <a href="http://www.workerstation.org/2012/10/victory-at-the-labor-relations-board.html" target="_blank">denied</a> the Company's appeal of an administrative judges ruling finding Station guilty of 87 Unfair Labor Practices. The violations were so egregious that the NLRB found an additional two charges of Station Casinos violating the workers' right to organize free of intimidation. The ruling came after a dramatic public <a href="http://www.workerstation.org/fasting-with-faith/" target="_blank">hunger strike</a> by workers demanding a fair process for an election. <br />
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Groups of warehouse workers who work for Walmart contractors <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/walmart-warehouse-workers-pilgrimage-photos_n_1881306.html?1347649325" target="_blank">struck</a> in California's Inland Empire led by <a href="http://www.warehouseworkersunited.org/" target="_blank">Warehouse Workers United</a> and in the Chicago suburbs led by <a href="http://www.warehouseworker.org/" target="_blank">Warehouse Workers for Justice</a>. The Strikers in California organized a "<a href="http://www.warehouseworkersunited.org/warehouse-workers-end-50-mile-6-day-pilgrimage-for-safe-jobs/" target="_blank">Walmarch</a>" to LA to deliver their demands and the Strikers in Chicago shut down their warehouse with a mass demonstration that culminated in <a href="http://www.warehouseworker.org/news/2012/10/wal-mart-warehouse-strike-heats-up/" target="_blank">civil disobedience</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qTn83cQuziQ/UI2iCpzSV9I/AAAAAAAAAI0/S5tx-NVRkXQ/s1600/523186_505361876143129_1844729664_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="164" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qTn83cQuziQ/UI2iCpzSV9I/AAAAAAAAAI0/S5tx-NVRkXQ/s200/523186_505361876143129_1844729664_n.jpg" width="200" /></a>Very soon thereafter Wal-Mart store employees (Associates in Wal-Mart Speak) struck over a dozen stores around the country led by <a href="http://forrespect.org/" target="_blank">OURWalMart</a> an organization led by Wal-Mart Associates. <br />
The strikes culminated with Warehouse workers from Chicago and California linking up with OURWalmart strikers in Walmart's hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas and where there were joint actions at the first <a href="http://youtu.be/uYA3xC_jx2I" target="_blank">Walmart store </a>and <a href="http://youtu.be/Tp3DNmag1r8" target="_blank">Walmart's headquarters.</a><br />
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Both the warehouse and store Associate strikes "changed the game" and were remarkable in a number of ways:<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jcpf52s7OO0/UI24CvaTgVI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/-S7kpNBjH3Q/s1600/walmart+associates+and+warehouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jcpf52s7OO0/UI24CvaTgVI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/-S7kpNBjH3Q/s320/walmart+associates+and+warehouse.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Warehouse workers and store Associates in Bentonville.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<ul>
<li><b>Non Majority Strikes</b>- Both the warehouse workers and OURWalmart called strikes where the majority of workers did not participate.The actions rested rested on workers' rights under the section 7 of the <a href="http://nlrb.gov/concerted-activity" target="_blank">NLRA </a>to organize in the workplace regardless of whether they had majority status. </li>
<li><b>Strategic Use of Unfair Labor Practice strikes</b>- The strikes were called to protest Walmart's acts of intimidation and harassment of activists making it an <a href="http://www.nlrb.gov/strikes" target="_blank">unfair labor practice</a> strike. This gave the strikers protection against permanent replacement and allowed them to return to work once they ended the strike.</li>
<li><b>Non traditional Organizing</b>- None of the organizations mentioned regard themselves as unions in the traditional sense, that is none of them are working towards an NLRB election for union recognition nor do they define their goals as ending with a collective bargaining agreement but rather a stated goal to simply <a href="http://forrespect.org/our-walmart/about-us/" target="_blank">improve working conditions</a>.</li>
<li><b>Coordination and solidarity</b>- The warehouse workers and store employees coordinated in order to build off of and support each others struggle </li>
</ul>
OURWalmart has announced that they will strike again on <a href="http://forrespect.org/stand-for-change/black-friday-pledge/" target="_blank">Black Friday </a>to protest Walmart's acts of intimidation and retaliation against workers who are organizing for change in their workplace. <a href="http://makingchangeatwalmart.org/" target="_blank">Making Change at Walmart</a> is organizing solidarity with the workers. This could well be a watershed moment in contemporary labor history and if there ever was a moment to think in a dynamic way about how we can work along side these incredibly brave workers in their struggle this is it. At a bare minimum, you can sponsor a worker <a href="https://www.wepay.com/donations/dont-let-walmart-silence-workers-support-worker-leaders-who-are-calling-for-change" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<b>All of these struggles illustrated the validity of approaches that include boldness, strategic planning, messaging and actions designed to draw public sympathy by emphasizing basic principles of fairness, and organizing that targets building density and power in entire industries and markets. </b><br />
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<b>Maximizing how the rest of the labor movement learns the positive lessons of the recent actions as well as continues to look to using the same guiding principles in our own efforts at building power for workers.</b><br />
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I would be remiss if I did not touch on the 2012 election. With no exaggeration whatsoever, we face the starkest choice of any election in my lifetime. Mitt Romney poses a mortal threat to American working families. There is no debate that he intends to take measures designed to mortally cripple the American labor movement and roll back every gain of the new Deal.<br />
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In addition to supporting candidates, Labor is faced with a number of critical ballot initiatives around the country. From fighting an aggressive attempts to politically neuter labor like <a href="http://www.calaborfed.org/index.php/site/page/1252/" target="_blank">Proposition 32</a> in California to the ambitious campaign to enshrine collective bargaining into Michigan's constitution through <a href="http://protectworkingfamilies.com/" target="_blank">Prop 2</a>.<br />
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Labor has responded to this threat with the largest independent field mobilization in it's history. Banking on our capacity to mobilize and the newfound ability to directly communicate to the public through community affiliates like <a href="http://workingamerica.org/" target="_blank">Working America</a> or independent committees like <a href="http://www.workersvoice.org/about/" target="_blank">Workers Voice</a> , tens of thousands of volunteers and staff have supplemented the massive ground campaign of the Obama campaign and criticial Senate, House, and Gubenatorial races around the country.<br />
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All of this is in addition to the traditional member to member <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2012/10/teamsters-rock-vote-all-over-usa.html" target="_blank">campaigns</a> of direct contact at worksites and directly volunteering for campaigns in battleground states. Labor's campaign is now being credited with providing the key firewall in the key swingstate Ohio. When all is said and done, there will be no doubt of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/obama-2012-campaign-moveon_n_1814892.html" target="_blank">labor's key role </a>in every major victory in 2012.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vzzESxSK8mk/UI20LxICFAI/AAAAAAAAAJk/bpq28MPQPQI/s1600/teamsters+for+obama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="279" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vzzESxSK8mk/UI20LxICFAI/AAAAAAAAAJk/bpq28MPQPQI/s320/teamsters+for+obama.jpg" width="320" /></a>This is no time to be agnostic on elections nor is it a time to turn our backs on our own critical struggles in favor of electoral work. For the first time in our history it looks like that we might actually pull both off.<br />
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<b>I am positively thrilled. How about you?</b><br />
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<b> Now back to the trenches.</b><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-34206790932743444932012-09-03T18:39:00.003-07:002012-09-03T19:34:01.038-07:00Labor Day: Time to Think Big<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Ok, so I'm a bit late. I spent most of my Labor Day celebrating my son's birthday and fighting the urge to think about what to write about not only today but the past few weeks and the next few months to come.</i><br />
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So much of our future hangs in the balance it is difficult not to offer up a set of <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/how-do-you-build-a-union-for-today/261884/" target="_blank">opinions</a> of what I think we should be doing to reverse the decline of unions and thus reverse the decline in wages, benefits and working conditions for millions of American workers. Literally dozens of Newspapers, <a href="http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2012093603/unions-enforce-democracy" target="_blank">Blogs</a>, and more than a few TV shows today highlighted the fact that unions are singularly responsible for the creation of the American middle-class and with the weakening of unions that same middle-class living standard is <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/ib342-unions-inequality-faltering-middle-class/#.UD-bLUB_47s.facebook">disappearing</a>.<br />
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It is always good to hear our leaders state in so many different <a href="http://www.seiu.org/2012/09/at-stake-this-labor-day.php" target="_blank">ways</a> that we are going to fight like hell to win this years election. Regardless of anyone's opinion of President Obama's record on delivering on his commitments to labor, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and the cabal of reactionary operatives like Karl Rove and Grover Norquist represent an existential threat to unions. They are committed to waging war on our ability to fight for a fair economy that works for all of us.<br />
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A key question in this years election will be whether labor's increased emphasis on diverting resources away from Democratic Party structures toward membership <a href="http://www.workersvoice.org/blog/" target="_blank">mobilization and messaging</a> as well as direct contact with non-union voters will be sufficiently robust to counter the tsunami of corporate money that will bombard voters with billions of dollars in negative advertising. <br />
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The spike in corporate money entering elections and the corresponding uptick in right-wing independent expenditures in 2010 caught labor by surprise. That unexpected infusion of corporate cash along with substantial cynicism among union and progressive voters (the "enthusiasm gap") led to the shellacking we took in 2010. After much hand wringing and exhaustive analysis labor has hopefully developed a ground game that can play a key role in delivering a defeat to Mitt Romney.<br />
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I accept that most discussion between now and Nov. 6th will be focused on beating our blood enemies. I don't often use the term "our only hope", but this comes about as close as you get to a life or death election for labor.<br />
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But aside from the fiery speeches about kicking Mr 1%'s ass, Labor Day allows us to also take a few stabs at thinking about strategies for not only our immediate survival but also turning our current defensive posture into one of offense.Labor Day is a day to think big and dig deep. It is a day to look back in reverence and to look forward with renewed determination.<br />
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Thinking beyond Nov.6 is critical. If Obama wins or loses, there are dozens of state houses and Governors now in the hands of people committed to our destruction who will open up legislative sessions next year with a whole new set of attacks on workers.<br />
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The same quandary over growth and renewed power for unions in America continues to elude us. Commentary from scores of <a href="http://lbo-news.com/2012/06/06/walkers-victory-un-sugar-coated/" target="_blank">radical pundits</a> notwithstanding, serious and deliberate action is required to begin retooling the labor movement to meet the challenges ahead:<br />
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<li>Unions must be willing to restructure to and do away with redundancy, waste and any structure that does not serve the immediate need to grow and raise living standards for our members and the millions we must organize to maintain those standards. Serious thought has to be put into consolidating organizational bodies, pooling resources, and where possible mergers of entire unions. I say this not to rehash the debate that <a href="http://labornotes.org/node/575" target="_blank">Stephen Lerner</a> initiated, but because I see that perspective vindicated every day when I see local unions who have jurisdictions ripe for organizing in their cities with no ability to grow because they lack resources or when I see entire International unions with less than five organizers on staff. Fetshizing tiny fiefdoms where we negotiate increasingly marginally better contracts for smaller and smaller groups of workers is a notion that must rejected and vilified. Clinging to standards that no longer determine the wage scale in an industry simply represents impending death for any organization unless we are aggressively working to rebuild density.</li>
<li>Make the "<a href="http://www.workersstandforamerica.com/rights.htm" target="_blank">Second Bill of Rights</a>" campaign real. The recent trend towards independent political activity should be expanded into a focus on mobilizing our members in state house legislative sessions around the country. We should also be willing to learn from our enemies and make our presence felt whenever town hall meetings are called as congressional representatives come home to their districts during recesses as either confrontation or positive reinforcement whichever is appropriate. </li>
<li>More and more we must renew the idea of looking at organizing entire markets with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPRKkcrJqeo&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">campaigns</a> that capture the imagination and/or demand the <a href="http://www.workerstation.org/" target="_blank">attention </a>of the surrounding community.The increased use of strategic researchers and campaign staff can and should be used to great effect in these campaigns to piece together comprehensive campaigns that use maximum leverage to achieve employer neutrality or at least muted objection to being organized. Where we choose to continue utilizing the NLRB to organize, we must be crystal clear with companies that we are organizing that there will be a political price paid for aggressive anti-union campaigns. Whenever there is a point of vulnerability, coercive anti-union campaigns should be met with public campaigns of equal strength that expose their coercive nature, rally community allies, and bring public pressure to their doorstep.</li>
<li>We have to develop alternate or parallel forms of organization for workers who are either not afforded the right to organize or whose employment structures make it all but impossible to organize through traditional means. Structures for misclassified workers, workers excluded from the NLRA, temporary and contingent workers, as well as public sector workers in states that prohibit collective bargaining can and should be developed that allow these workers to build organizations that will allow these workers the ability to collectively fight back. These could take the form of associate member programs, paralleled associations or membership based 501c4's based on the concrete circumstances.</li>
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Finally we have to renew the spirit of discussion that can help us flesh out the details. I realize that what I am writing here is just the opinion of one union staffer who has a very limited ability to implement any of what I am writing about. But I also know that many labor leaders I speak with grapple with these exact questions. The main obstacle that seems to be present is a clear method of overcoming the various obstacles both human and material to rebuilding our movement. Happy Labor Day.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-84952729910169670302012-08-05T09:58:00.001-07:002012-08-05T10:02:16.360-07:00Labor South: UAW vs. Nissan in Mississippi: Operation Dixie Revised? An in-depth look<br />
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A great article on the UAW organizing drive at Nissan in Mississippi.<br />
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<a href="http://laborsouth.blogspot.com/2012/08/uaw-sets-up-for-major-battle-at-nissan.html#comment-form">Labor South: UAW vs. Nissan in Mississippi: Operation Dixie Revised? An in-depth look</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-36493696842373621142012-08-03T17:02:00.003-07:002012-08-04T11:23:05.014-07:00Marrying Actions and RhetoricI have to thank Stephen Lerner because I am stealing the title of this post from this speech of his given last year:<br />
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KXFTsPADC0Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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This is the short version, you can watch the full version <a href="http://youtu.be/I2w9UlSfgR4">here</a>. I chose the title because regardless of how much I understand that changing the labor movement is a titanic task nowhere near as easy as many seem to imply, I deeply feel that there is a disconnect between the state of the labor movement, the challenges we face, and what we as a movement do on a daily basis to achieve these goals, grow and build power for working people.<br />
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I attended one of the many labor sponsored banquets not to long ago. While I often find most labor's gatherings dry and mundane, I attend them because it is an opportunity to network and connect with leaders of our movement and to show my unwavering support for our movement at one of its few public events in my city.<br />
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Most of the speakers were what I considered to be fairly traditional as were the topics, the 2012 elections, political attacks on our movement, fighting for good contracts, and honoring the storied history of our movement's forefathers. Many of our key politcal allies attended and were recoginized. Drinks were had and fun (or something resembling it) was had by all.<br />
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At the end of the dinner, I came to the realization there was huge disconnect between events like this and the reality of the fact that we are actually facing the destruction of our movement. <br />
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I am just as guilty as the next person of being part of that disconnect. Intellectually understanding the depth of our crisis and taking action that corresponds to that depth requires having the shirtail to move the necessary changes but more importantly the political will to take the necessary action. The issue for most of us that the process of overcoming lethargy is a daunting thing to tackle and building intertia is harder than it looks. <br />
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Most of our time is spent doing what the labor movement needs to have done to exist and protect what members we do have. We negotiate contracts, we represent workers in grievance hearing, arbitrations and panels. These are the main things that workers organize to obtain, ie. to improve their working conditions, to have better wages and benefits, to have these gains "put into writing" in a legally binding agreement, and to have that agreement be enforced by their union. <br />
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For many of us, we give everything we have everyday and it is nowhere near enough. Local and regional officers often percieve their organizations as "doing all they can" and often are strapped for resources themselves. <br />
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The tendency to "circle the wagons" keep our heads low and hope the assault on labor will "blow over" after Obama wins a second term is strong. <br />
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Most in the upper echelons of the various unions do indeed seem to understand the crisis and also seem to have some idea of what it will take to overcome it.The national AFL-CIO has some new itiatives such as the creation of "<a href="http://www.workersvoice.org/">Workers Voice</a>" a "superpac" that will serve as an independent voice for labor in supporting pro-labor candidates and the <a href="http://www.workersstandforamerica.com/">Workers Stand for America </a>Rally next week that is meant to role out a campaign for a "second bill of rights". <br />
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Both of these initiatives give substance to the notion that labor must redirect resources more towards independent activity rather than sinking resources into the national Democratic Party structure. The justification for this redirection of resources was underscored by DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz's comment that the struggle over collective bargaining in Wisconsin would "<a href="http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/wisconsin-recall-dncs-debbie-wasserman-schultz-sees-no-national-impact-if-democrats-lose/2012/05/25/gJQAVJ8KqU_blog.html">have no impact on the November election</a>".<br />
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Similar to the National AFL, a good number of International unions affiliated to both the AFL and Change to Win have adopted varying degrees of restructuring, directing resources more towards organizing and a more independent approach to electoral politics for this election season. Unfortunately, in every instance the extentof these changes has been either exclusively contained in the International unions or is spotty among regional union structures<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tq93TV99Tsw/UBxigHPpGxI/AAAAAAAAAGA/UUoaNM-ef1M/s1600/cold%2Bdead%2Bhands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="280" width="180" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tq93TV99Tsw/UBxigHPpGxI/AAAAAAAAAGA/UUoaNM-ef1M/s320/cold%2Bdead%2Bhands.jpg" /></a></div><br />
The biggest obstacle remains in local and regional structures, where the policies adopted and moved by International leaders trickles down in a very inconsistent way.<br />
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The ability build a grassroots movement of working people rests with politically revitalizing the local and regional structures of our various internationals.Mainly because those are the structures that have the most direct contact with union members.<br />
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The challenges of doing this are huge. While on the one hand just about every labor leader in the U.S. would call labor's current state as standing on the precipice, the ability to challenge deeply entrenched norms and structures that impede growth and our abilty to build power remains elusive. <br />
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This is where the notion of "marrying our actions with our rhetoric" must occur. <br />
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Abandoning traditional collective bargaining, and transforming our various unions into movements explicitly geared towards the fight for power is not realistic in the near term. Saying that, we need a sense of urgency in how we frame the state of our movements and the corresponding actions that we should be asking of ourselves, our coworkers and the members we serve. <br />
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We are in a crisis folks, let's act like it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-11519528623680898752012-07-08T18:10:00.000-07:002012-07-11T09:29:27.662-07:00Well, is Labor a "Lost Cause?"Stephen Lerner and Bill Fletcher appeared on <a href="http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-is-labor-a-lost-cause/">Bill Moyers</a> yesterday. Moyer's theme for the show was "<a href="http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-is-labor-a-lost-cause/">Is Labor a Lost Cause</a>?".<br />
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I have to confess Having Stephen Lerner and Bill Fletcher on TV talking about the crisis of labor was enough to make my labor nerd head explode. Both of them have been thinking, writing and speaking about labor strategy for decades and both of their voices are welcome contributions to this discussion. <br />
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<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/45207885?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe><br />
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I came away from the discussion with a sense of clarity that while labor is not a "lost cause", we have a tremendous amount of internal self imposed conservatism that must be broke through at every level of the labor movement. Where the discussion comes up short is that while the ways in which labor is lacking are pretty clear (at least if you are looking), those of us thinking of how to carry out the type of needed transformation were probably still left with many of the same questions we had before.<br />
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How do we convince labor leaders at every level of the labor movement to get into "crisis mode" and begin to behave as though the destruction of labor can only be averted by their own bold decisive action? How do we make the case to leaders of union Internationals that they must more aggressively challenge the disfunction and atrophy that may be present among local unions who are more inclined to hole up and hold on to what they have hoping for the best instead of mobilizing? The internal political relationships of the various international are a minefield for a President looking to stay where he is. Not being dismissive of this dynamic and looking for solutions that take it into account are essential to any realistic approach to organizational change.<br />
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One difference I have with brother Lerner is his perspective that labor should move beyond traditional collective bargaining towards bargaining startegies that directly benefit large sectors of the non union population.While it certainly reflects a deeper sense that labor should be the voice of the entire working-class, demands such as these are an extremely heavy lift in terms of convincing members that they should lead the fight for the entire working-class by deprioritizing fighting to maintain their own wages and benefits. If labor's survival is deependent on our members reaching this level of consciousness in the near term, we are doomed. <br />
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Whether you agree or not with Fletcher or Lerner, you came away after watching their discussion with a greater sense of vision from two people who have spent their lives thinking through how we can fight and win. You also have the sense that both of them strove to frame any criticisms they made from a sense of real historical knowledge of how we arrived at this crisis devoid of the moralism or paternalism that have defined so many critiques.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-71607780775436386652012-07-04T15:45:00.002-07:002012-07-04T15:53:44.896-07:00Freedom and the Debate About Labor's FutureI actually felt a bit cheesy today as my family celebrated Independence Day the traditional way, poolside in the sun cooking out with family, while I type out my thoughts on the vanishing of real freedom for the American worker.<br />
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Labor's crisis is bound up in the dramatic expansion of corporate power. The same forces that have sought to villify and portray labor as a special interest group are the same forces that are hijacking American Democracy with a tidal wave of cash funneled through a variety of corporate sponsored front groups unleashed by the Citizen's United Decision.<br />
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Gordon Lafer's latest contribution to the post Wisconsin debate "<a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/168435/opinionnation-labors-bad-recall#" target="_blank">Labor's Bad Recall</a>?" does an exellent job of pointing out how Doug Henwood and many of the other critics of labor fail to acknowledge the impact of corporate power and its ability to impact public opinion through media outlets and pundits.<br />
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It can't be overstated that it is IMPOSSIBLE to understand labor's steep decline in influence and power without looking and the dramatic increase of corporate influence over American politics. The 2010 election that ushered in so many of the Governors, Congresspeople, State House Reps and State Senators who launched the offensive across the country against unions, voting rights, and public services was the first election carried out under the principles of Citizen's United.<br />
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<strong>Has labor been in a crisis since before 2010? Yes. </strong><br />
<strong>Has labor made mistakes? Yes </strong><br />
<strong>Do changes need to be made ? Yes.</strong><br />
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But the sharpness of the attacks launched have blunted labor's ability to organize it's way out of the crisis, no matter who is at the helm and despite the best efforts of even what the critics would consider to be model unions.<br />
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Lafer rightly points out that the <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/149300/New-High-Americans-Foresee-Labor-Unions-Weakening.aspx?version=print" target="_blank">poll</a> Doug Henwood uses to demonstrate his thesis that labor is losing influence due to it's supposed longstanding opulence and lethargy shows what are in fact more recent phoenomenon that are more the result of external factors. There is much <a href="http://www.kochbrothersexposed.com/" target="_blank">anectdotal evidence</a> that the uptick in spending by corporate front groups like the <a href="http://unionfacts.com/" target="_blank">Center for Union Facts</a> , the Koch Brother-funded <a href="http://americansforprosperity.org/" target="_blank">Americans for Prosperity</a> and other Superpacs has been able to successfully influence public opinion through media saturation aided by entities like <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/" target="_blank">Fox News</a> and a host of right-wing pundits.<br />
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It is fair to say that labor could have done more to confront its crisis and to push back on this new offensive. The fact that the more recent slew of criticisms fails to even acknowledge that corporate influence has had even the slightest effect is telling about their motives. I would say it suggests a more fundamental difference of political perspective than a competing view of strategy.<br />
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Any discussion of restoring labor's power must begin from the standpoint that the primary source of labor's woes lies in the boarddrooms of corporate America, not in the union halls and International headquarters of the labor movement. The corporate cabal that is plotting labor's destruction is the very same threat to American freedom we are fighting to stop from stealing democracy from the American people. The solution to our crisis and the crisis of hope in America lie in defeating those forcesUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-47535778715035140042012-06-26T21:29:00.000-07:002012-12-16T13:09:19.448-08:00Some Thoughts on WisconsinNow that some of the smoke has cleared and most of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have shot their load, I get the chance to give my two cents:<br />
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<b>Claims of Our Demise are Grossly Over-Exaggerated</b><br />
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As much as many pundits and bloggers would like it to think, defeating the recall did not qualitatively alter the balance of forces nationally. Labor is still embattled no doubt, but we have beaten back as many post 2010 attacks as we have suffered defeats.<br />
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While not being sucessful at recalling Walker we were able to blunt his agenda by retaking a pro-labor majority in the Senate. We were also enormously successful in energizing a critical mass of members not only in Wisconsin but around the country. While we are not dead yet, in order to ensure that we didn't just wake up to die, we have some serious work to do.<br />
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Labor needs to deepen the process of how to make the drastic changes we HAVE to make in order to survive. Obviously we cannot continue on the downward spiral that we have been in for decades. We cannot continue simply tinkering with structure and resource allocation while avoiding challenging deeply entrenched disfunction that prevents us from climbing back from statistical irrelevancy.<br />
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The battle in Wisconsin DID reveal how precarious public sector unions are in relation to changing political winds. Labor has been far too dependent on growth in the public sector as a substitute for much needed growth in the private sector. Large scale organizing in the private sector and a deepened commitment to educating and mobilizing our members is the only way out of this mess, otherwise we eventually (and by eventually I mean soon) will reach the tipping point of being so tiny we lack the resources to claw back from the abyss.<br />
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<b>Debate is Good (and Essential)</b><br />
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I Sincerely appreciate The Nation for Opening up it's website to be a forum for debate about the Recall and the struggle in Wisconsin. The opening to "Labor's Bad Recall?" asks,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Unions invested heavily in the campaign to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Was that a huge mistake?</blockquote>
The opening exchange between <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/168435/opinionnation-labors-bad-recall" target="_blank">Doug Henwood and Gordon Lafer</a> does a pretty good job of putting forward two perspectives that many would agree with on each side of the debate. The discussions happening now give another teachable moment that helps to underscore the need for all of us to dig deep, put aside longstanding presumptions, and truly do some soul searching about the future of our movement. <br />
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One big problem is that too much of the debate is coming from outside the labor movement from people who know very little about the inner workings of the very movement they are discussing. The need for folks to have a forum for a broad discussion in the labor movement is great. Unfortunately, no one Blog or Website has successfully caught on as a place where the strategists discussing and assesing Wisconsin and the state of the labor movement could coalesce into a popular discussion.<br />
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<b>Labor is Not in Denial, We Just Know How to Lose a Fight</b><br />
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The handwringing by many progressive pundits over Labor's alledged flippancy or minimizing of the defeat in Wisconsin reminds me of the differences in how people from different social classes often react to losing a fistfight. <br />
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Many middle class people that I have seen lose fights often immediately begin explaining why they lost the fight. Most blue collar folks I know that lose a fight simply get up dust themselves off and often state matter of factly some variation of," wow he/she sure kicked my ass". <br />
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The point being many of the faults laid out with some venom by the progressive professors are things that labor has been discussing internally for decades. NOT A SINGLE point made has been unique nor stated for the first time. We get it we lost, we came up short, but it was not the end of the world for the labor movement. <br />
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<b>Electoral Politics Will Continue to Be a Tactic in Labors Arsenal</b><br />
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One of labor's loudest outside critics is Left Business Observer Editor <a href="http://lbo-news.com/about/" target="_blank">Doug Henwood</a>. He places the majority of the blame on labor's utilization of the recall as a tactic:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But lingering too long on the money explanation is too easy. Several issues must be stared down. One is the horrible mistake of channelling a popular uprising into electoral politics. </blockquote>
The recall became the strawman along with labor's alledged lack of rapport with the majority of Wisconsin workers on which the defeat was largely blamed by Henwood and other critics. The fact is that an overwhelming majority of those who participated in the mass protests participated in the recall movement. The recall was simply another stage in the movement. Most of the people involved in the protests voted with their feet and the protests fizzled well before the recall kicked into gear. <br />
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As much as it tortures uber radical armchair activists and their more active but just as misled hangers on, electoral politics is still one major component of how most American people will continue to choose to express themselves politically. Yes people are cynical about elections, but that is borne more out of a lack of collective power that also translates into not being active at all rather than engaging in more militant activity that they fantasize about. It is important not to confuse cynicism and abstentionism with militancy.<br />
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I wake up every day working to help workers to engage in collective activity, to gain a greater sense of their own power. The day that the majority of working people are ready to move will be a day of celebration, but we are not there yet. We need a combination of grassroots organizing and education that builds power in our workplaces and our communities, but as long as elected officials continue to determine as much of our lives as they do elections will be a terrain we must operate on, recalls included.<br />
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<b>Labor Did Not "Sell Out" the Struggle</b><br />
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The biggest myth perpetuated by Henwood and people like <a href="http://www.progressive.org/accountability_in_defeat_in_wis.html" target="_blank">Matther Rothschild</a> is that labor "shut down" the protests at the Capitol and "funneled" the movement into the recall campaign. According to Rothschild, the masses of Wisconsin were prepared to carry out open ended sickouts, slow downs, and mass civil disobedience and labor missed it. <br />
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No doubt there were people agitating for a general strike and other forms of direct action, the fact is that the critical mass of workers, students, progressives and other people that were part of the movement suffered from the all too human element of exaustion. Bills had to be paid, no strike clauses were in place that people as a whole were not willing to violate, so people returned to back work and continued to organize. Workers did in fact continue to organize on the shop floor by wearing buttons stickers, signing petitions. Maybe not as sexy as Henwood would like, but this is the stuff that actually builds movements.<br />
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The romantic notions of what was possible in Wisconsin make for good blog posts but were obviously written by people who have never actually organized workers. This post on <a href="http://coreyrobin.com/2012/06/20/what-might-have-been-one-report-from-madison-wisconsin/" target="_blank">Cory Robin's blog</a> gives some insight into the mind one participant who was part of one of the most militant elements of the Wisconsin struggle, the Teaching Assistants Association, who lead the first demonstration and initiated the occupation of the Capitol.<br />
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<b>Which Labor Movement are They Talking About?</b><br />
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Doug Henwood says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A major reason for the perception that unions mostly help insiders is that it’s true. Though unions sometimes help out in living wage campaigns, they’re too interested in their own wages and benefits and not the needs of the broader working class. Public sector workers rarely make common cause with the consumers of public services, be they schools, health care, or transit.</blockquote>
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I don't know what union Henwood is talking about. All the major unions I know of and most of the major private sector unions build labor community solidarity as a major component of any organizing campaign where it makes sense and many if not all public sector contract campaigns. <br />
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SEIU, AFSCME, ATU, NNU (Nurses), the Teamsters and a host of other unions with public sector members almost always put a sizable chunk of effort into build community alliances over staffing issues related to public safety and services to the broader community. The days of meat headed "go it alone" unionism are the exception and not the rule and they certainly are not how most union leaders are trained in today's labor movement.<br />
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This also further underscores Henwood's lack of understanding of what the purpose of a union actually is. Unions exist specifically to improve the lives of their members. Worker do not join unions to change the world and members take action because broader social change will increase their capacity to improve their own lives. People join struggles at least initially out of their own self interests, union members included. That is a basic ABC of organizing that Henwood apparently misses in his critique.<br />
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<b>FACT: The National Democrats Turned Their Backs On Us</b><br />
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Yes Barrett was a sucky candidate, yes our messaging could have been better, yes labor could have done a better job of conveying it's message to it's members, all that is true.<br />
BUT THE DNC AND OTHER NATIONAL DEMOCRATS SCREWED US, HARD. And that more than anything set the stage for defeat.<br />
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While some other Democratic groups, such as the Democratic Governors Association and the Obama campaign did send money and resources, the massive infusion of cash that was needed to counter Walker's arial bombardment of anti-recall commercials never came. And for a period of time the recall was openly <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/wisconsin-recall-dncs-debbie-wasserman-schultz-sees-no-national-impact-if-democrats-lose/2012/05/25/gJQAVJ8KqU_blog.html" target="_blank">dismissed </a>by DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz as not relvant to the national election. What did come from the DNC came after Walker had already been allowed to define the race and to undermine the recall as a legitimate tactic. <br />
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The unanswered call for president Obama to make an appearance in Wisconsin no doubt left a bad taste in the moths of many especially in the aftermath where <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/05/us/politics/wisconsin-recall-exit-polls.html" target="_blank">exit polls</a> showed that a majority of voters were Obama supporters and it was those supporters who provided Walker with his winning margin.And just for the record, the fucking tweet from the President was outright insulting and an outrage.<br />
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It would be suicidal for labor to sit out 2012 in retaliation for the inaction and some would say outright betrayal of the national Democratic Party apparatus out of our own interests in America not lurching further on an anti-worker trajectory. We should also have no illusions that until labor regains substantial density, we will more and more be seen as a junior partner and ATM by a party that is increasingly dominated by business interests. Ultimately the old quote by Samual Gompers that "labor has no permanent friends, only permanent interests" rings as true as ever.<br />
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Update: I had wanted to include some commentary about <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/155967/does_the_liberal_establishment_care_about_anything_but_itself_the_hard_lessons_of_wisconsin?akid=8977.290735.bsB1AO&rd=1&t=15" target="_blank">this post by Van Jones</a> where he points out "The lesson of Wisconsin is pretty straightforward," "This is what happens when we put our minimum against their maximum." but the clock ran out.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2188519997803417772.post-72533153799308576412012-06-19T18:45:00.001-07:002012-06-19T19:26:05.154-07:00A Debate RenewedThis was not how I hoped we would get this discussion going again.<br />
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I have often bemoaned the fact that the <a href="http://workinglife.org/wiki/index.php?page=THE+FUTURE+OF+LABOR%3A+Proposals" target="_blank">debate that began back in 2004</a> that led to the formation of Change to Win had come to a premature end. <br />
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The anti-Change to Win crowd basked in the glow of Andy Stern's pyrhic fall from grace and immediatly began the drumbeat that the experiment of Change to Win had been a disaster at worst and a failure at best. The anti-Stern crowd used Stern as a strawman to declare their victory with their perspective vindicated. <br />
But for many of us inside and outside the AFL-CIO who could not influence the policies or the debate, we were left hanging. For us the question still remained: "How do we reverse the seemingly irreversable decline of labor's power?" The time remaining to reverse that decline is ticking away every day and a seemingly endless stream of body blows are landed on the body of labor as we move from one battle to the next. The question now for those of us tired of getting our teeth kicked in is, "what is the plan"? How can we regroup to fight back and if we can what form should that fightback take?<br />
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The attacks launched against labor after the 2010 election had both the effect of galvanizing labor leaders who rightly mobilized union members to fight back and revealing the limitations of labors ability to beat back the assault. In state after state the results were mixed. When the final shoe dropped in Wisconsin where labor failed to recall Scott Walker but stalled his anti-worker agenda by reclaiming the majority in the Wisconsin Senate, a new debate ensued. <br />
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Out of the wordwork came a slew of Monday morning quarter backs railing against labors numerous inadequacies and the bankruptcy of electoral politics. Many of these folks lack any real experience in the labor movement, which prevented them from being privy to the decades long discussion that they thought they were presenting for the first time, or they were the same perennial critics who have been making the same criticisms from the sidelines as part of carrying out a long term ideological agenda.</div>
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While the "war on workers " raged across the country, the occupy movement burst onto the stage. The space created to discuss and strategize on how to defeat corporate domination of our society was immense and regularly reached into the discourse on the Sunday morning pundit shows, talk radio, the blogosphere andother forms of social media.</div>
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This is the context we find ourselves in. A big mess with everyone explaining to us inside the labor movement what we are doing wrong. A debate raging outside of our movement that lacks the perspective of the ins and outs of actually organizing and mobilizing working people. Maybe it has never occurred to them that some of us understand the problem, but solving it isn't as easy as writing a snarky tweet or blog post.</div>
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<strong>This blog was created for those of us who want to talk strategy but who lack the shirttail to get a hearing and at the same time aren't necessaritly interested in joining the chorus of perennial critics. I want to hear from the people who really are thinking about strategy on the ground, not the "I told you so" Left. So let's get it on!</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0