What’s behind the split in the AFL-CIO?
Lee Sustar, Chicago
Call it the wishbone strategy - grab hold of a big part of the labour movement, give a hard pull and hope to end up with the biggest piece. That’s the method of the seven-union Change to Win coalition, whose three biggest members pulled out of the AFL-CIO trade-union federation during and after the federation’s convention held on July 25-28 in Chicago.
By running away with more than a third of the AFL-CIO’s 13-million membership and US$120 million budget, the disaffiliated unions - led by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Teamsters union, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) - aim to create a rival group that would in practice cripple the 50-year-old federation.
SEIU president Andrew Stern justifies the split as necessary to organise the 87% of US workers not in unions. Stern orchestrated his press conferences in Chicago to feature plain talk about the challenges facing workers - in the hopes of creating a contrast with the ponderous AFL-CIO convention.
Indeed, the scripted federation meeting lumbered along with the usual parade of Democratic Party politicians.
The welcome exception was the passage - by an overwhelming majority of delegates - of an unprecedented resolution that called for the rapid withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, the product of more than a year of organising by members of US Labor Against the War.
The differences between labour’s rival camps turned out to be narrower than either side cared to admit. As Jerry Tucker, a former dissident official in the United Auto Workers, observed, both camps aim to “save business unionism” - the type of labour-management partnership that employers rejected three decades ago.
The next battlefield will be state AFL-CIO federations and labour councils - where the disaffiliated unions plan to keep paying dues in a bid to buy support at the local level that they couldn’t muster at the top of labour officialdom.
AFL-CIO leaders responded by pushing through a series of bureaucratic war measures that aim to expel disaffiliated unions from state and local bodies and remove their members who serve as officers.
Some have likened the Change to Win breakaway to the militant Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s, which organised in the mass production industries. But this comparison has more to do with the SEIU’s slick public relations than reality.
The CIO, after all, was launched by dissident American Federation of Labor (AFL) leaders in 1935 as a means to put themselves at the head of a rank-and-file rebellion that resulted in general strikes in Minneapolis, Toledo and San Francisco the previous year.
The current split, by contrast, comes amid the lowest ebb in strike activity since the late 1940s. And union leaders on both sides of the divide are doing their best to keep the situation that way - by pressuring members to accept tens of billions in wage and benefit concessions and job cuts.
For example, Stern’s latest ally, UFCW president Joe Hansen, has presided over a series of terrible grocery contracts - following the debacle of last year’s Southern California strike against the industry’s three biggest companies.
Hansen is the man who removed the elected leadership of UFCW Local P-9 during its dramatic 1985-96 strike against concessions at the Hormel meat-packing plant in the town of Austin, Minnesota - and then negotiated give-backs with management. The UFCW leader remains “proud” of his role in the P-9 strike, he said in an interview. “It’s because of me that there’s still a union in that plant”, he said.
Hansen’s methods - accept a steady stream of concessions rather than call a strike that would risk union resources - are shared by union leaders across the divide. Pushing concessions to help management “partners” remain profitable necessarily means lowering union members’ expectations and demobilising them, rather than relying on them to help organise new members.
If unions can’t stop concessions - exemplified currently by the wipeout of pension funds at United Airlines, the halving of wages in auto parts plants, and the end of affordable health insurance for grocery store workers - then why should non-union workers risk getting fired to sign up?
And if Teamsters president James Hoffa was willing to sabotage the southern California grocery strike by allowing his members to maintain deliveries to scab stores, why should relatively well-paid Wal-Mart truck drivers join his union?
For all the talk about organising, Hoffa - who recently suppressed an internal report on Mafia involvement in the Teamsters - gave away his motivation for the split by repeatedly mentioning the $10 million in annual dues that the Teamsters will no longer have to pay to the AFL-CIO.
This is why the dispute between AFL-CIO president John Sweeney and the Stern-Hoffa camp turned on the relatively narrow question of dues rebates from the national federation to fund organising drives by the unions.
While Stern and Hoffa rightly criticised the AFL-CIO for pouring too much money into the Democratic Party, Stern also pointed out at a press conference that his union gave more money to the Democrats than the AFL-CIO - hardly a signal of independent labour politics.
Certainly more money for organising is crucial to organised labour’s future. But even if more resources are put into organising, this won’t overcome the fatally flawed methods used by the competing groups.
In one union, an organiser might be a well-paid business agent in a Lincoln Navigator; in another, an idealistic young organiser fresh from college willing to work 18-hour days for little money. But the basic approach is the same - a cadre of full-time staff organisers kept on a short leash by union officials, even as rank-and-file members become bitter towards their unions for failing to stand up to employer attacks.
What’s different about Stern’s SEIU is the use of corporate campaign strategies to support organising - using public relations and community support to pressure employers into signing “card-check” agreements in which management recognises the union if a simple majority sign membership cards.
While this approach has occasionally worked at the local level, Stern and the UFCW’s Hansen now apparently intend to use this method against Wal-Mart - having somehow concluded that a breakaway faction of the labour movement already at its weakest point in 80 years is prepared to mount a frontal assault on the biggest and most viciously anti-union employer in the country.
To counter Stern and the Change to Win coalition, the rest of the labour bureaucracy has closed ranks around Sweeney. But if Stern’s appeal for “change” sounded hollow as he stood with the likes of Hansen and Hoffa, the same was true of Sweeney’s appeal for unity in the “house of labour”.
That’s because the AFL-CIO convention was dominated by people who rose through the ranks of their unions’ one-party states by being yes-men and women who ruthlessly crush dissent. Thus, convention delegates listened sullenly as a self-perpetuating group of leaders responded to the breakup of their apparatus by reflexively tightening their grip on what remains.
The federation did respond to pressure with a pre-convention conference on diversity, later backed up by constitutional changes to make future convention delegations reflect the racial and gender composition of union memberships.
But the middle-aged and elderly white faces that dominated convention proceedings - Sweeney, American Federation of Teachers president Edward McElroy and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees president Gerald McEntee - were redolent of the status quo. A somewhat younger newcomer was Steelworkers president Leo Gerard, a Canadian who emerged as an enforcer for Sweeney to keep the manufacturing unions in line.
In the weeks and months ahead, union members and labour activists will be pressured to line up behind one or another camp. They will have to fight to keep the disaffiliation at the top of the AFL-CIO from tearing apart the labour movement at the grassroots.
At the same time, they will have to put forward a different perspective for building a fighting labour movement - one that draws the line against concessions, mobilises support for organising drives within and between unions, and takes independent political action.
A House Divided: For Better or Worse?
by Jerry Tucker
Note: this concluding report on the AFL-CIO Convention and events surrounding it will be offered in two parts. First, a summary and catch-up on certain events and impressions of the week in Chicago; second, an attempt to sort out and analyze these events, what they represent in a larger context, and what it all could mean to this country’s working class.
One of the many reporters covering the AFL-CIO’s “50th Anniversary Convention” commented on its conclusion: “well, it’s ended here, but it’s just beginning out there!” He waved with his hand as if fanning a far horizon. His point was clear: now the rupture in top labor’s ranks precipitated by the breakaway of several large unions at the start of the week was coursing its way to the union base. Open fault lines would now appear in subordinate labor bodies in states, cities, and towns all over the country.
For most of the delegates from those widespread locations, already on the front lines of the sustained attack by corporate capital and its government accomplices, the week has raised more questions than it has answered. Despite an attempt to conduct a “business-as-usual” convention, the events of the week overall have clearly rattled the Federation from top to bottom. Faced with the sudden loss of one-third of its affiliate membership base, a severe dues income dip, and the expected creation of a competing federation of the breakaway unions, this probably looked like the week from hell to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and his remaining administration.
Among the Convention’s last morning’s unfinished business was what some had hoped would be a full debate on the controversial role of the AFL-CIO American Center for International Solidarity (ACILS). Now called the Solidarity Center for short, the ACILS has over the years received significant monies from the U.S. Government’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The National Endowment for Democracy is cited by critics for its “dubious history, having been deployed frequently to promote U.S. government foreign policy objectives, including assisting in overthrowing democratically elected governments and interfering in the internal affairs of the labor movements of other countries.” Such an unprecedented open debate was not to be. In its place, by use of arbitrary Resolution Process rules, was an administration-backed resolution which under those rules represented the final and only resolution to be voted on the matter of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center.
The administration’s resolution to protect and perpetuate its Solidarity Center made no mention of the NED funding or any of the alleged improper activities in other countries over the years. The floor discussion on that resolution was a textbook in controlling debate. In fact there was no debate. Each of the recognized speakers worked from a carefully prepared script and played up such things as the more recent role of the Solidarity Center in the dispersal of funds to African labor contacts to fight the “devastating effects of HIV/AIDS.”
One speaker, a high-ranking national union vice-president, even reminisced enthusiastically about the AFL-CIO role in the conduct of the “Cold War.” It was a throw-back moment. The vote was taken on the resolution without a speaker having been recognized to offer an opposing view. One delegate who had supported a resolution which would have banned the Solidarity Center from taking NED grants noted that “in the wake of the millions being lost to the Federation’s treasury by the split, shutting off the State Department’s funding spigot never had a chance anyway!”
In the brighter-moment category, withdrawn Executive Council candidate Harry Kelber was given his negotiated opportunity to address the Convention for a few minutes (he pushed the envelope on his allotted time). Harry “thanked Brother Sweeney” and commented on the fact that if he had run as announced, he would have had absolutely no chance of winning and by negotiating for “these few minutes” felt “he had made a good deal.” He drew laughter and applause on that remark.
Brother Kelber then gave the Convention something seldom heard the entire week, pointed but constructive criticism. He noted that, in his view, “the [rank and file] members don’t have the slightest idea of what you’re doing.” He went on to contend that the leadership lacked a real “vision of a labor movement and a vision of society for our children and grandchildren.” He offered additional observations on the lack of democracy in unions and the AFL-CIO at this time, and other changes that he felt should be made. He ended by stating, “I am committed to this labor movement!” He received a standing ovation. It was a rare, almost poignant, moment in a week of sobering and ominous events for the delegates.
A Key Question: What’s Going to Happen Back Home?
Throughout the week, leaders from the State Federations and particularly leaders from the Central Labor Councils (CLCs) across the country were holding ad hoc meetings and engaging in small-group discussions about the anticipated problems the fracture in the labor movement would produce. There was a clear sense of urgency and concern among that broad group of delegates. It is this layer of the labor movement, in cities and communities large and small, where the real work of the labor movement, outside the individual workplaces, gets done.
Typically, CLCs represent the second line of defense when workers in a specific union are under attack in contract disputes, particularly when strikes, lockouts, or extreme employer behavior raise the profile of the struggle. They can, and the best of them do, represent the solidarity face of all labor when workers in their area are under attack. When they function as they should, they are the bridge between community support for struggling workers and they play a central role in building coalitions to fight against today’s rising tide of federal and state public policy takeaways concerning Medicaid protections and others. The CLCs are a critical terminal in funding, and recruiting the foot soldiers for, the “voter registration” drives and the “get-out-the-vote” efforts in elections.
The disaffiliation of major unions from the national AFL-CIO, and the forming of a new federation (the Change-to-Win coalition plan) will impact virtually every CLC and State Federation in the country. Where the confrontation in Chicago left that situation, based on the stated position of the feuding factions, is still unclear. The Change-to-Win unions took the position that they would continue to affiliate and pay dues to the state and local bodies. The AFL-CIO leadership has rejected that option, declaring that exclusive Subordinate Body affiliation is barred to non-national affiliates (even though that rule has been unevenly enforced in the past).
The delegates of a fractured national labor movement are now back home where the split could have the most profound effect. The impact may vary widely from place to place, depending on a number of factors, starting with the relative amount of per capita dues (the amount paid per member by CLC participating unions) that could be lost by a hard rule that CTW unions can not participate in State or Local Councils.
Already, I understand that some CLCs have voted to not allow participation of, or accept dues from, CTW unions. Others are reputedly planning to ignore national AFL-CIO directives and continue on as before. Another option under discussion is the creation of “parallel organizations” to carry out certain joint activities and provide mutual fund pooling for specific projects or activities. Similarly, there are in many communities auxiliary organizations like Jobs with Justice coalitions (consisting of labor, community, religious activists and organizations), and other labor supported formations that work on specific issues and community concerns. These could grow in importance if local labor organizations want to continue to project a united front.
Today, unionists in communities everywhere are wrestling with these questions. While these are unwelcome developments to most local leaders, they could, of necessity, be forced to come up with a new degree of resourcefulness and innovation. That possibility has started a discussion among a growing network of progressive union activists who are calling for a renewed outreach to rank-and-file members and local union activists at the community level. Ideas, long forgotten, like “working people’s assemblies” and area shop steward councils and class oriented labor/community education conferences are resurfacing.
Fracture or no fracture, the relentless corporate offensive against workers everywhere requires new strategies. The breakup of monopoly unionism, even one precipitated by the barons of the bureaucracy with similarly anemic agendas could force a sinking labor movement to rediscover its greatest strength—its membership and its larger social constituency.
Postscript: as we post, it is now known that the Change-to-Win unions plan a September 27th founding Convention in Cincinnati for their affiliates to formalize the new labor federation under that banner. It may or may not be progress, but it continues to produce more news coverage than labor has had in years.
Concluding Commentary
“This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into!”—Hardy to Laurel
Revitalization or Recidivism?
Taking “the long view” in the immediate wake of a historical period’s potentially most dramatic events has its dangers. What has happened inside the U.S. Labor Movement over the past fifteen or so months, often described as a debate, was both overdue and curious. Overdue, because leaders finally acknowledged the desperately deepening crisis workers and labor unions in America are facing. Yet, what I and a number of others have found so curious is how shallow, myopic, and unplugged from today’s worker reality the so-called debate has remained to date. This has been a ping-pong match between guardians of a failed legacy—a faction fight to see who can best restore business unionism and labor’s junior partnership with capital.
The debate has always been a top-deck affair. At no point did rank-and-file workers and even secondary union leaders in state and local bodies and local unions have a way to represent their points of view, much less their dues dollars in the dispute. Throughout, it was defined more by what was not included in the debate than the few questions the leaders chose to wrangle over. The great contradiction—what the leaders want and what the workers need. In the trenches, where this debate means almost nothing, workers as a class are being systematically and relentlessly exploited.
Degradation of wages and working conditions, the continuous shredding of the social safety net, the disproportionate weight of taxes and prices of goods and services on the backs of workers, globalization as a tool of oppression—the list is extensive and growing. American workers don’t have to be told their quality of life is spirally downward—they know. What they don’t know is what happened to the mediating institutions that were supposed to launch a counterattack in their behalf. As one of the primary institutions in question, Big Labor’s meetings in Chicago did not even come close to answering that question.
A number of Convention observers seemed to agree that the essential unresolved differences between the feuding factions to be the CTW coalition wanting to spend more money on organizing and the AFL leadership wanting to keep more of a spending focus on politics. I don’t think it’s that simple, but the absence of a comprehensive analysis by either side helped feed that impression.
In a recent interview in Truthout (noted in an earlier report), Bill Fletcher, a former top Federation staffer, noted that “missing from the debate [is] a thoughtful, rigorous analysis of the economic and political conditions we’re facing. . . .” He went on to suggest that we need “radical solutions.”
I can’t help but think that workers under the heel of job losses through greed-driven corporate globalization strategies, those fired for expressing support for unionization, retirees now facing the loss of union-negotiated health insurance and possible pension destruction, service workers perpetually forced to work below a living wage, workers in the army of the unemployed, and millions of others in our “dog-eat-dog economy” would agree with Brother Fletcher. If we need solutions equal to the radical character of the attack we are under, then, the current internal labor squabble is pointing us in the wrong direction.
On the question of the “analysis” raised by Fletcher, it is past time for those who share his view and progressive backbenchers to raise a collective voice of dissent and disapproval and to begin to produce an alternative agenda. The renewal of a fighting, class-conscious labor movement in America—one that knows which side it is on, here and around the globe—is what the workers need and want. Educate the base. Give secondary leaders in locals, unorganized workplaces, and communities the tools and strategy-development skills and incentives and build a new labor movement out of more than the “scattered deck chairs” of the old!
Meanwhile, back in the world of jousting union factions, the next shoe to drop is likely to be the Change-to-Win Convention, scheduled in Cincinnati, September 27th, to form an alternative national labor federation. I guess we will all have to just stay tuned as the feud continues. So far, it’s the only game around.
NS Website note: Jerry Tucker’s reports originally appeared at www.mrzine.org