Labor Dividing

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) is a product of a merger of the Retail Clerks and Meatcutter unions, subsequently the Packinghouse Workers merged with them too.  Each individual union had a substantial membership and power within its jurisdiction; over time, however, union strength in the latter two sectors was devastated as the combined impact of corporate consolidation, technological change, production/sales methods designed to deskill the workforce and reduce labor costs, along with concerted anti-union actions by management, took its toll.  UFCW is now facing analogous threats – made worse by the rise of non-union behemoth WalMart – aimed at its retail clerk membership, as became evident last year when a difficult strike at southern California supermarkets revealed the union’s vulnerabilities.

Understanding this background is key to understanding the split which took place at the AFL-CIO’s July 2005 convention in Chicago when the three largest unions in the Federation, representing about one-third of its total membership – the Service Employees (SEIU), Teamsters, UFCW – united in the Change-to-Win Coalition and announced plans to found a new trade union center.  As UFCW’s situation indicates, tensions reflect the search for new solutions to stop organized labor’s steady loss of membership, bargaining strength, political influence.  A decline that has had direct consequences in workers’ stagnating or declining real wages, deteriorating job conditions, reduced benefits; and indirect consequences of growing inequality and insecurity throughout society.

Ten years ago, conditions such as these led to a revolt within labor that forced then-president Lane Kirkland to retire and to John Sweeney’s election in his place.  Frustration that the changes which followed proved insufficient to stem the tide of labor’s defeats caused the current crisis.  To push a way forward, SEIU led the CTW Coalition in presenting what amounted to non-negotiable demands.  These included the formation of a smaller executive leadership with more authority over affiliates; the forced merger of existing unions and realignment of their membership within core occupational sectors, and the obligation of each union and the Federation itself to devote 70 percent of its budget to organizing.

A majority of unions, however, rejected these demands, in part because of the unwillingness of the SEIU leadership to accept any compromises, in part because of the cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach.  Many unionists objected, too, to the content of what was being proposed.  For example, the attempt to build united action around strategic priorities by means of a central leadership dictating how each union spends its money ignores one fundamental point – individual unions are responsible to their memberships, not to the federation they join.  While union democracy has always been preached more than practiced, union effectiveness will not be helped by putting even more distance between leaders and members (and more power in the hands of professional staff).  Action that doesn’t grow out of participation, input and a shared sense of purpose by the rank and file will prove fragile and limited no matter what by-laws are adopted.  Equally to the point, it will prove impossible to enforce, as seen by SEIUs’, Teamsters’ and UFCW’s refusal to abide by majority rule in the AFL-CIO.

Strategic unity of action also requires internal education and mobilization, it requires broad-based membership programs, a strong shop steward structure, a sense by members that it is truly their union.  Yet under the CTW proposals, that activity would likely have to be curtailed, as would many community outreach programs, and local and national political coalitions – for if 70 percent of all union funds are spent on organizing, less will be available for all other arenas.  Another criticism in this spirit is to note that the effect of a smaller leadership body would be a leadership less reflective of working people – organized or unorganized.  The expansion of the AFL-CIO Executive Council in recent years has been part of an attempt to include more women, more blacks, more Latinos; it is a process that needs to be expanded at all levels of labor, not reversed.

Stating these criticisms does not mean that the AFL-CIO itself is above criticism.  In fact, one positive outcome of the split has been to shake the Federation out of its complacency, as is evident it its taking the long overdue step of establishing industry coordinating committees.  Moreover, some CTW plans, such as projected national organizing campaign like Walmart’s, can only be beneficial – as is its challenge to a pessimism that sees labor’s decline as irreversible.  On the other hand, one serious danger is that this divide will lead unions to compete with each other over members, contracts, and political influence, which could only benefit employers.

Positive or negative, labor’s organizational divide is a fact that cannot be wished away.  What can and should be done, however, is for local union leaders, shop stewards, other workplace union activists – all largely ignored and uninvolved by both sides in this year’s debates – to make a conscious effort to play a more active role in charting labor’s course, in building bottom-up solidarity.  The Meatpackers and Packinghouse unions each had strong national leadership and active, engaged memberships who saw their immediate struggles as part of a broader movement for social justice.  The defeats they suffered came in part because that combination was not found widely enough in that era’s labor movement – each part of that combination will be needed to win in the even sharper struggles likely to be ahead of us.

--Kurt Stand, Petersburg, Virginia

Submitted to Junge Welt August 2005