Rakesh,
As I argued, the list you mention are all criticisms are all about how the unions bargain once they have members, with almost no detailed analysis of other options and insights for organizing new workers. However important those criticisms are, they are relevant only to the tiny minority of workplaces that have unions and ignore the overwhelming problem of the nonunionized sectors and the astronomical challenge of overcoming organizing barriers. To an extent, the problem derives from Slaughter et al cutting their teeth in basic industries like auto and steel where the non-union sector was relatively small. Yet as the non-union sectors have grown, it bothers me that the LaborNotes folks have not really developed a good alternative view on organizing.
But to the specific criticism:
>On Behalf Of Rakesh Bhandari
>
> Nathan, here are some of Jane Slaughter's criticisms ("Endorsing the Lean
> Machine" New Politics vol VII, no 4 Winter 2000):
>
> 1. AFL-CIO silence about team concept in the 80s
Kirkland era. There was an attempt for a grand political compromise in the early 90s of expanding labor rights while strengthening teams in workplaces - the Dunlop Commission - but the GOP after 1994 decided to just unilaterally implement the pro-team part. And the unions vociferously fought the so-called TEAM Act, hardly silence, and Clinton ended up vetoing the bill when the GOP passed it.
In the workplace, "teams" are a pretty catch-all term in the LaborNotes parlance and really only has specific meaning in mass production assembly line industries converting to Japanese-style batch-style production. In the service sector and many other areas, group cooperation in production has always been prevalent, so the difference between having a team and not having a team is just implicit cooperation procedures versus explicit cooperation procedures.
Back in the 1994, I did research on a Team system used as part of the San Francisco Hotel contract bargaining round, where the union was militant and organized as part of the discussions setting procedures and discussing ideas for productivity in the industry. LaborNotes published an article I did on that system-- I've joked that it's probably the only favorable article on teams the magazine has ever published. But it goes to my point that there are usually good and bad things tied up in different union strategies, so I am skeptical of the catchall condemnation of "teams" without broader context.
> 2. Facing down of all rank and file challenges in both the US and abroad
> (Nicaragua, El Salvador)
Guilty as charged. Although the foreign policy of the AFL-CIO radically changed with Sweeney's ascension, surprisingly for many, it was one of the more radical changes he made. He literally shut down and shuttered all the old AFL-CIA labor foreign policy institutes, and started over with a completely new institution whose new leader themselves refers to the old institutions as "AFL-CIA." So some serious progress.
> 3. Militance only when necessary to get union recognized; then
> settles down into labor management cooperation
First, militancy to get first contract, since recognition is only half the job (and only half of unions that get recognition ever get a first contract). And again, large generalizations, betraying hard industry bias. That unions once a contract is signed agree to have workers to their utmost to promote efficiency and production is not a choice by unions, but a requirement under the law. It's worth noting that under US labor law, slowdowns are completely illegal and proof of deliberate shirking on the job as an anti-management strategy is grounds for legal dismissal. Not that those tactics are not used and they should be used, but don't mistake the langugage of cooperation - which is required by any sane union that does not want a prima facie case against them in court - with subversive resistance in practice.
And even on that level, many unions like HERE and a number of others have increasingly used organizing to challenge management violations of the contract, rather than resorting to legalistic grievances. So beyond the in practice day-to-day combat with management, there are plenty of rhetorical examples of oppositional militance I can point to even after the contract is signed.
> 4. absurd praise and respect bestowed upon successful American capitalists
Yeah, silly when it occurs. And I can point to an almost infinite line of denunciations of said same capitalists as thieving crooks making obscene amounts of money off the suffering of workers. Unions have made targetting the CEO of their opposition companies a new art form, from anti-CEO public relations to leafletting his suburban neighbors on what a scumbag their CEO neighbor is.
> 5. false hope that the firms can stay on the high road despite
> pressures of
> financial markets
Very true in some cases, but that speaks to the general problem of the Slaughter et al criticism. There is the assumption that many union leaders are "choosing" the anti-worker contract provisions they lump in as part of "teams." Unions have not had the strength they need to win the contracts they want, which is why organizing has been such a priority.
Which takes us to:
> 6. detailed criticism of the Kaiser agreement:
> despite low wages, contracting out of care, elimination of services,
> closing of hospitals, shifting of work to non licensed employees, medical
> redlining, etc. the union decided to promote Kaiser in part by
> agreeing not
> to protest hosptial closings (don't see how you speak to her criticism).
Let's take the "shifting of work to non-licensed employees" which is about moving work from Registered Nurses (covered by the California Nurses Association, a non-signer of the Kaiser pact) to LPNs and other hospital personnel (covered by SEIU 250). That obviously goes to the internal fight between the unions, which I am not happy about, but is very relevant. I know good people on both sides of the SEIU 250-CNA divide and they can both justify their version of the feud (and most will agree that their respective top union leadership have been childish and self-destructive).
As to the rest, that is happening in every hospital system. The unions do not have the strength to fight it yet, which is the whole point as non-union HMOs grow in the state and challenge Kaiser with even worse working conditions with no union protection whatsoever. They are fighting desperately to organize systems like Catholic West and other HMOs, but to do so they have strategically decided to make pushing members (including union members) of those other HMOs to Kaiser as part of their organizing strategy against those other HMO systems.
Now, it may not be the right strategy and there are compromises involved, but any strategy beats no strategy. And as noted, the Slaughter folks aside from general calls to militancy don't generally have an indepth organizing alternative at hand.
If a union is negotiating concessionary contracts without organizing, they are merely negotiating the slowness of their euthanasia. Which is what the LaborNotes folks rightly criticized about the basic industry unions in the 80s. But when that strategy is based on strengthening organizing, both at the company one negotiates with and as a strategy for expanding union density in the whole industry, short-term compromises may payoff with long-term increased worker power. That is a very different situation that needs a different mode of critical analysis.
> 7. counsel against use of the radical language of worker solidarity
They can cite examples. On most picketlines and organizing campaigns I have seen or been involved in, language is incredibly militant and tough. There are a few companies, usually on the high-end of the workforce, where people like their company (Disney is one example), so militant workers rights language does get mixed with "making a Better Disney" style rhetoric. But then again, most people take a certain pride in their work; they may hate their boss but often are proud of what they and their co-workers produce at the end of the day.
So unions do make a mistake when they don't distinguish between fighting the management versus fighting "the company", with which many workers identify given their collective work.
> 8. overemphasis on numbers as workers may organized in structureless,
> albeit dues paying, unions and present members are sacrificed
This is my biggest beef with the Slaughter et al folks. Guess what, "service" for workers already organized has to be sacrificed to free up resources to dedicate to organizing non-union workplaces, or else unions won't have the union density to protect anyone's rights. Unions under Meany and Kirland used to spend less than 5% of their resources on organizing because they were do dedicated to servicing their existing members needs. Slaughter et al may have a more radical vision of where to spend those resources on existing members, but it is as myopic.
I am an "organize the unorganized" fundamentalist. Many unions are increasingly strengthening their member-based organizing to both assist new organizing and takeover the grievance functions that staff are no longer focusing on as much. Combined with strong education for the need for organizing, the short-term servicing of existing members is an inevitable strategy if new unions are going to be organized. But as organizing grows and more members get involved in organizing, the results may be better servicing with more rank-and-file involvement. This is the model HERE has promoted with quite strong success.
> 9. acquiesence in reengieerning, speedup , deskilling, quality
> circles that
> filch job knowledge, rigid standaridization, increased
> contracting out, use
> of part imers and temporaries, long an dnon standard hours, computer
> monitoring, temas, just-in-time schedules--that is the lean workplace.
Most of this was happening despite the union efforts, not because they chose it. As said, the question is not what was lost at the bargaining table, but what was it traded off for?
Then again, some unions have been effective in fighting these exact areas. For a lot of reasons, Ford wanted to separate its internal parts division into a separate company, largely so that it could sell parts to other car companies without being seen as completely under the thumb of Ford management (not attractive to companies dependant on it). So the UAW negotiated a system where the company was contracted out, but all the workers stay Ford employees under the Ford union contract- a rather innovative reverse of the typical temp-contracting system.
And unions have fought many winning battles. The current strike of Boeing technical and engineering staff is largely because the machinists won such a good contract last year that the separate technical/engineering workers were feeling screwed.
> 10. political victory hollow since Gore pushes the WTO, guts welfare, and
> seeks to privatize social security.
I will skip for your sake and mine another exigis of the strategic gains from supporting the Dems, other than to note that nowhere does Gore support social security privatization.
-- Nathan Newman