Organising education
AFGE president's being on the Democratic National Committee and also endorsing the Labor Party. "The point where I'll see a contradiction is if they decide to run candidates."
Thus the Labor Party leaders reason for refusing to run candidates is not that they fear annoying the Democratic Party bigwigs, as some critics have claimed. Labor Party leaders are pretty clear on the worthlessness of the Democrats. What they fear is alienating potential Labor Party recruits. The Holding Tank
Under this approach, the Labor Party is to be a holding tank of progressive political sentiment. The leadership's strategy is to recruit unions into a larger and larger holding tank, based on the notion that you can be in the Labor Party and still do your regular Committee for Political Education (COPE) work, until there is a critical mass large enough to actually act like a party — that is, to run candidates. Party leaders may well be looking toward the ascension of SecretaryTreasurer Rich Trumka-seen as more progressive than current president John Sweeney—to the AFL-CIO presidency in a few years, and aiming to recruit as many locals, intermediate bodies, and internationals as they can to pressure Trumka to start an official, AFL-CIO-backed labor party once
It is hard to argue with the notion that a party should not take bold action until it is strong enough. The question is: how does it get strong enough? Under the Labor Party leaders' strategy, the rank and file of those unions is likely to be passive. Their main activity is going door to door getting petition signatures. When, suddenly, someone opens the floodgates of the holding tank, are the ranks supposed to rush out and give their all for the Labor Party? Over the last 20 years union members have been markedly resistant to their leaders' recommendations about how to vote. Without significant groundwork — and action - they won't be automatic converts to the Labor Party either.
Graduate students have always been expected to work long hours for little pay, with the understanding that after a few lean years they would move from
"apprentice" to professional lecturer or researcher status. But, as Mathew
Paymar explains, this post-graduation scenario has become increasingly unlikely.
Universities have been replacing student. But the median age of graduate stable tenure-track positions with part- students is 34.1 years, and over half of time and temporary teaching jobs that typically offer low pay and no benefits.
As a result, graduate student-workers are becoming less willing to delay gratification for several years until they attain their doctorate, since doing so is not likely to yield a permanent job. Only one in three graduate students will land a tenure-track job, according to members of the Campaign to Organize Graduate
Students (COGS) U.E. Local 896 at the
University of lowa. "If current hiring trends in academia persist, most of us are likely to struggle in lecturer positions with even lower wages and fewer benethem are married. It takes an average of 7.2 years to complete doctoral studies -an awfully long time to voluntarily remain at a poverty-level income.
Large teaching loads, low incomes and poor job prospects have made many students conscious of their status as employees. About 25,000 graduate students are members of a dozen officially recognised unions, and a new graduate student union has been formed or recognised each of the past five years. More established unions such as the American Federation of Teachers and the Communication
The holding tank strategy presents other problems: There are no additional national union endorsers on the immediate horizon. The endorsing unions (which include the Farm Labor Organising Committee (FLOC), the California Nurses Association, and the California Carpenters) represent a small minority in the labor movement - more than a drop in the holding tank, but not big enough to drag the rest of labor in after them. Pointing out their smallness is not a criticism of those unions; nor is this movement insignificant because it starts on the margins of the labor movement rather than in the mainstream. That is to be expected.
During the next stage, Labor Party leaders are concentrating on recruiting local union endorsements, a positive step since it is work that is closer to the ground and which can involve rank-and-file union members, unlike top-level negotiations at union headfits than those we endure in grad Workers of America, have discovered school," points out Steve Macek, a Uni- that the area is ripe for organising. versity of Minnesota graduate student.
Universities have been saving money by shifting teaching loads onto the backs of graduate students. In 1994, graduate students and lecturers performed 51% of university teaching, compared to 25% in the 1970s, according to the American Association of University Professors.
Graduate student incomes have been stagnating, especially when rising tuition and fees are factored in. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, for example, has raised tuition by 20% in the last five years. As a result, even though Madison graduate students participate in the countrys oldest student union and enjoy the highest gross pay in the Big Ten, they now have some of the lowest average incomes among these schools
A net income of $9,000 or $10,000 may seem viable for a young, single 24 International Viewpoint recognition last year, and achieved a whopping 19% increase in the base salary. Iowa now has the biggest union in the Big Ten, representing both teaching assistants and research assistants In the last two years provisional organising committees have cropped up across the US, at both public and private schools. University of California administrators recently withdrew voluntary recognition of the union, sparking a series of well-organised strikes. Although the university has lost a lawsuit, it is refusing to honour the result. Illinois graduate students cannot hold a union election, until they challenge a state labour law that classifies them as "students." * For further information contact the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions (CGEU) at cgeu-taa@macc.wisc.edu Source: March/April issue of Dollars and Sense magazine (www.igc.apc.org/dollars/index.html)
quarters. But what is the Labor Party likely to do that would change the many non-endorsing union leaders minds? The strategy has been "the less we do, the more likely they are to join" - and there is or was some truth in that, as the AFGE affiliation demonstrates. But what will persuade more unions to join now? The campaign for a constitutional amendment, itself, is unlikely to have much attractive power. Pressure to act
For many current members, moreover, the holding tank conception has little appeal They are likely to want more. We have already seen this in action. In LPA's first years, restive members were not satisfied with LPA as a mailing list/club. They transgressed leaders' wishes by forming local chapters whose de facto existence forced the leadership to accept and then encourage them. In late 1993, Mazzocchi noted, "It's difficult to recruit people, as many of our activists have pointed out, when there's really nothing for them to do." And that is what
prodded leaders into holding a founding convention of a Labor Party when they had no intention that it should act like a party. But thereby expectations were raised. Now that it is a party, the pressure is on to act like one.
Leaders who share this view may be able to maintain the holding tank strategy (though such views are not unanimous among leaders of the four main unions). They may continue to win votes against running candidates at Labor Party conventions. But there will be greater pressure and fractiousness than ever within the party. Many, not just leftists but members of the endorsing unions, will want the party to run candidates at some intermediate stage, before the leaders decide that the holding tank is full enough.
Instead of concentrating solely on filling the holding tank, Labor Party leaders ought to be doing some serious research and sounding out this year, investigating areas where the endorsing unions, both local and international, might have the combined capacity to run credible local campaigns — for school board, city council, county executive, perhaps even Congress. Local unions or chapters that think they could run a worthwhile campaign should be pressing the leadership to let them try. The 1998 Labor Party convention could adopt such campaigns and prepare to go all out to win them. Given the weaknesses of the chapters, this would be a sounder approach than passing a resolution allowing any chapter anywhere to jump into the electoral arena.
It should be noted, that the holding tank justice, but does not mention racism. The words "African American" found their way into the platform document only because the Black Caucus proposed an amendment opposing the torching of African-American churches. The reproductive rights plank does not use the word "abortion."
This omission evoked one of the longer and more emotional debates at the convention. The California Nurses Association offered an amendment to support "safe, legal abortion." Speakers stressed that the original language called for "a full range of family planning and reproductive services" under a single-payer health system: in effect the left's old call for free abortion on demand. They proposed to omit the trigger-word, in the hope of mollifying anti-choice party members and potential members. Supporters of the amendment argued that, with abortion rights under attack, this was no time to appear to waver. They pointed out that feminists would not be attracted to a party that refused to openly support abortion rights.
It is healthy that the new party had this debate. If the platform committee had called for abortion rights and everyone in the room had automatically raised their hands, it would have indicated that the new party was basically made up of the usual suspects. As it Peru
USA/Peru * was, the platform committee made an attempt to recognise that the working class (like the middle class) is divided on abortion. The pro-choice majority, in effect, held out an olive branch to the less-enlightened,
"We want you in our organisation since we agree on most things, so we'll make a major concession on language. At the same time, we won't modify our politics."
Convention delegate Marilyn Clement, who is executive director of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, said she voted for the original language because "Building a party is not about thinking up the most radical language. We've been there, done that." Although powerful arguments were made on both sides of this debate, perhaps the outcome signifies that the new party will reject the seductive but sterile "witnessing" model of activism in favour of one that says politics is about finding a way to work with people who do not already agree with you. * * Jane Slaughter is a member of the Detroit Labor Party chapter and a former staff writer for Labor Notes. An earlier, longer version of this article appeared in New Politics. The newest issue of Labor Party Press is available on the Labor Party web site <www.igc.apc.org/lpa>. Included in this issue is a report on the national convention of LP chapters, discussion of electoral perspectives, and an update on the Labor Party's campaign to make a job at a liveable wage a constitutional right.