Trade unionists discuss new directions for labor
USA
A S A cross-union newsletter and
network, Labor Notes provides an invaluable forum where trade unionists can compare experiences and begin to draw some lessons. Seeing its task as putting "movement back into the labor movement," Labor Notes invited some of the key leaders of today's labor struggles and used the conference to focus on the elements essential to building a revitalized workers' movement.
About 40% of the participants were women, 15% were African-American, with a sprinkling of Asian-American and Latino trade unionists. There were significant delegations of public sector workers, Teamsters organized in a national rank-and-file organization — Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) - and, for the first time, a significant group of workers from the basically unorganized South.
Unionists from 17 different countries attended, including 50 from Canada. Despite the fact that 40% of all Canadian workers are unionized, while in the United States less than 18% are in unions, industrial workers in both countries are often represented by the same international" union. With seventy different unions participating, the biggest delegation by far was the more than 200 autoworkers from the UAW.
Concessions did not save
Many jobs
The American union movement is dominated by a right-wing bureaucracy that has collaborated all along the line with the employers' offensive launched during the 1974-75 recession. Their 'business unionism" bargained away the shop-floor fight over the work process years ago (in exchange for higher wages), accepting corporate profitability as the sole framework for any negotiations. In the last decade they have imposed concessions on their members, with the promise that this would save jobs. Concessions didn't save jobs - but it did result in weakening the union movement.
Disarmed in the fight against concessions, the US labor bureaucracy has responded enthusiastically to the latest employer schemes of speeding up the workday. The "team-concept", modelled on Japanese management methods, attempts to make individual workers, plants and production units compete with each other, thus undermining labor solidarity. Workers become more responsible 6 do not in fact control. Team concept for the results of a work process that they International Viewpoint #167 • July 10, 1989
OVER a thousand trade unionists attended the fifth national Labor Notes conference, held in the Detroit area May 19-21. This year's theme - "New Directions for Labor" — was explored in three major panels, sixty workshops, and twenty meetings by union or industry.
### DIANNE FEELEY schemes are perhaps the most advanced in the auto industry. Here, the UAW leadership has sugar-coated these programs, heralding them as providing job security and greater democracy in the workplace. Beneath all the rhetoric about management/union cooperation, however, is the reality that if the union does not "sell" the team concept to the workers, the plant will be closed down.
But over the last few years, as these teams have been introduced into the workplace, a movement has arisen inside the auto union to develop a strategy that could blunt the speed-up and begin to offensive. The term "New Directions" is trend in the UAW. This trend has drawn the conclusion that taking concessions was a disaster. It forced workers in the same union to compete against each other through two-tier contracts (institutionalizing substandard wages for the new hires) and "whipsawing" (where local unions outbid each other by bargaining away UAW leaders organize picket of the conference
Currently "New Directions" candidates (Jerry Tucker and Don Douglas) are running for the directorship of the UAW in two separate regions of the country. This means that more delegates with an alternative to the leadership will be at the UAW convention this June than have been present at such a gathering since the beginning of the Cold War. Those at the Labor Notes conference were able to see the heavy-handed manner with which the UAW Administrative Caucus deals with its opposition. reports surfaced that UAW President
Bieber was personally phoning trade unionists, pressuring them not to attend the event because of the prominence given to the New Directions caucus. Some UAW locals complied with Bieber's request and a few speakers can-
Labor Notes offered Owen Bieber a chance to debate the issues over what direction the union movement should take, but the only response they received was a two-hour picket set up by the UAW Administrative Caucus at the conference site. The situation was explained in the conference's opening session and UAW New Directions members organized themselves to escort conference-goers inside.
Conference organizer Phil Kwik pointed out to the press that the picket line had nothing to do with any labour dispute, but was "a political action aimed at the reform forces in the UAW who are participating
"No mob control. No government control"
A central panel at the conference illustrated how militant, democratic reform movements can organize to win. Participants included Glenn Berrien, newly-elected national president of the Mail Handlers Union and a member of the Team for Democracy caucus; Diana Kilmury, co-chair of the rank-and-file Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU); and Jerry Tucker, UAW Region 5 director and leader of the New Directions movement.
Kilmury described how she spoke up at an International Brotherhood of Teamsters (BT) convention several years ago that the union had to rid itself of organized crime. She said she felt like the kid who remarked that the emperor had no clothes. As a Canadian organized into a union that represents both US and Canadian workers, Kilmury described her indignation when the US government filed a civil suit to impose a trusteeship on the union. She explained how TDU developed a position against the government lawsuit, saying that the membership could take care of their own problems if they had democratic rights. Their slogan was "No mob control. No government control. Teamsters need the right to vote"
This March the suit was settled out of court, with the union agreeing to a democratic procedure for their 1991 convention, allowing for the direct election of union officers and establishment of an Independent Review Board to deal with complaints of corruption or racketeering. Even the Wall Street Journal noted that
### ABOR NOTE
Community_
Labor Board to Allow Eight Bargaining Units in Hospi "close observers of the Teamsters accord said the terms of the settlement were greatly influenced by the concerns and platform of...the Teamsters for a Democratic Union" (March 14, 1989).
TDU campaigned for twelve years around the right of a simple majority vote to accept or reject union contracts, over the last two years has organized majority opposition to a series of concessionary contracts. Last fall the IT's General Executive Board rescinded constitutional provision that a contract can be ratified by a one-third vote.
Both Berrien and Kilmury have engaged in struggles to wrest control of their unions from a mob-linked leadership. Even in a union like the UAW, where the constitution is relatively democratic, Tucker was defeated for office in Region 5 by illegal means. In 1987, when the UAW convention delegates refused certify the election, President Bieber overruled the vote and had the incumbent installed. (Tucker won office after he was forced to sue the UAW. The US Department of Labor supervised a second election, which he won.)
Need for class-conscious unionism
In contrast to business unionism, reformers such as Berrien project the need for a class-conscious unionism. Allies are important to these unionists, but it isn't alliances with the corporations that are the focus of their concern. Rather they discuss the need to combat problems of racial and sexual discrimination, both on the job and in the community. In unions like the mail handlers, for instance, almost half of its membership is composed of Black and Latino workers. And in Region 5, the acknowledged backbone of the New Directions movement is Blacks, MexicanAmericans and women.
Another panel dealt with a range of views on how labor can use its power politically. Dan Cantor, the Labor Coordinator of the 1988 Jesse Jackson Campaign, and Bill Fletcher, from the Boston Labor for Jackson Committee, critically their electoral experiences. Both saw the Rainbow Coalition as an appropriate model for working people. While recognizing that there are problems in organizing within the Democratic Party, both felt that it was utopian to attempt an independent political formation at this
Fletcher, as a Black union organizer, also reminded the conference that racism is a key political question for the working class. Thus, he projected a rainbow coalition (that is in fact rooted in a Black working class) as having a better chance of overcoming the historic racism of US society than any other formation.
Unions not prepared to launch a labor party
On the other hand, Amy Newell, secretary-treasurer of the United Electrical Workers Union, maintained that "only a labor party, a political organization based on trade unions, has the money, resources, stability and organization to successunite working people." The final speaker, Sam Giondin, assistant to the president of the Canadian Auto Workers, and a member of the New Democratic Party, spoke about some of the concrete problems and advantages of such a party.
There was more diversity on this particular question than probably any other at the conference, but the panels and the workshops that explored the questions in greater detail were interesting precisely because participants spoke from their own experience. Despite sharp disagreements, participants were honest enough to examine the problems inherent in their own perspectives.
The fact of the matter is that the Rainbow Coalition is not a democratic, grassroots organization. But the existing bureaucratic unions are not willing or able to launch a class-based political party. The big problem, therefore, is to figure a way out of the current impasse, where workers end up voting for the bosses' can-
The final panel focussed on international solidarity. Discussing the political situation in their countries were José Lopez Feijoo, from the metalworkers' union in San Bernardo and member of the Brazilian Workers' Party (PT); Roberto Ortaliz,
General Secretary of the Kilusang Mayo
Uno (KMU) of the Philippines; Dumisane Mbanjwa, from the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA);
and Susanna Youn Soon-nyo, chair of a
Catholic institute that supports the growing trade union movement in South
There were also international representatives from unions in Palestine, Sweden,
Mexico, France and Canada, but the Salvadoran trade unionists who were invited were denied visas by the US government.
USA A number of workshops took up the particular tasks of labor solidarity, discussing grassroots networks and sister union projects, and evaluated the pernicious role of AFL-CIO [the American union confederation] foreign policy.
There was a great deal of enthusiasm and solidarity at the conference, most obvious in the reception the strikers from Eastern Airlines received, and in the standing ovations for international trade unionists.
Throughout the conference - and in sharp contrast to business unionism — there was a vision of a social unionism. Concretely this means union democracy, a call to organize the unorganized workers (who represent more than 80% of all workers), as well as linking community issues of Black empowerment, women's rights, the growing awareness of ecological interdependence and the peace movement. This broad view of the needs of the working class was also reflected in time set aside for caucuses where women, Blacks, Latinos and Asian-Americans met to build their networks and exchange experiences. Lesbian and gay workers met
Keynote speaker, Tony Mazzocchi, secretary-treasurer of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) remarked that although the base of his union is relatively well-paid white male workers, they are becoming more aware of the political necessity to speak out against discrimination, build alliances with ecologically-minded people, and develop a perspective for an independent labor party.
Rank and file organization in
UAW
Victor Reuther, whose remarks concluded the conference, also pointed out that: "We cannot cope with fighting the corporations, social injustice, racism and environmental problems without a movement towards a labor party." In addition, he announced what may be the most important step forward for labor in 1989. Whatever happens at the upcoming UAW convention, he stated, the New Directions movement in the UAW would seek to become an organized rank-and-file movement, with a membership base and a national newspaper. *
Labor Notes
An overseas surface subscription to Labor Notes is $15 a year,
$25 for two years (US: $10 for a year, $18 for two years). Labor
Notes, 7435 Michigan Avenue,
Detroit, MI 48210. July 10, 1989 • #167 International Viewpoint
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