Ain't no way Jose and tell Jesus I said so.
TL
Nathan Newman wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> >
> > Nathan, it's impossible to separate organizing from real world
> > politics--this
> > merger movement will do nothing for organizing. It will only
> > make it harder to
> > organize.
>
> There I disagree. The skills needed to get already organized people to phone
> banks to support local politicians is a very different set of skills from
> supporting new organizing. There are many CLCs with good COPE programs and
> lousy organizing programs.
>
> You may be right that this restructuring will make things worse, but I am
> skeptical of that given how many CLCs do so little. The current structures
> were a product of dismantling the old CIO councils after the left-led unions
> were expelled, then creating new institutions after the AFL and CIO merged.
> Instead of the orientation to new organizing that had been the hallmark of
> the CIO councils, the new CLC structures were part and parcel of the virtual
> end of serious new organizing in the 1950s. They increasingly became
> arbitrators of turf conflicts and executors of COPE political programs - and
> often little else. Obviously, the CLC structure is not itself solely
> responsible for the drop in organized labor from 35% of the private
> workforce down to 10%, but its birth coincides with the beginning of that
> slide.
>
> The last discussion we had was about "centralization" versus
> "decentralization" but the other big issue in labor organizing is lateral
> separation between different unions in the same location. IN many mays,
> decentralization of the labor movement between different local unions helps
> encourage lack of mutual support at the local level, since any wins for one
> union does llittle for the others.
>
> The new CLC structure by centralizing control from the AFL-CIO down will
> create structures at the local level that are ideally more responsive to
> cross-union support and imperatives of new organizing, instead of being
> responsive merely to the largest unions in an area that are already
> organized.
>
> That may have bad effects in some areas where the large local unions have
> been progressive and innovative, but in other areas it will shift power from
> conservative building trades and self-satisfied large locals to those
> seeking to organize new immigrant workers and other peripheral industries
> that have little clout in such local councils, but have become a priority in
> national organizing strategies.
>
> I'm not going to bet the farm on one result or the other, but I find your
> faith in the wonders of local CLCs to be a bit odd. Has your experience
> with them been that great?
>
> --Nathan Newman