>For all their faults, I don't doubt the AFL would be thrilled
>to see the unorganized organized, preferably while
>affiliating with the AFL. They would not be thrilled to
>see new unions consorting with the likes of Ralph
>Nader, however, or supporting rank-and-file movements
>in their own affiliates.
Funny you should say that, since at the National Lawyers Guild's workshop on rank-and-file union democracy, organized by Public Citizen's main union democracy guy, he along with a number of other union democracy lawyers noted that while most unions are hardly thrilled at union democracy, in many cases they have encouraged union democracy efforts in other unions they work with when the corruption interferes with strong organizing efforts. As well, some internationals have essentially stepped back and encouraged union democracy activists to take out corrupt local leadership.
There are plenty of examples of international unions protecting undemocratic local leadership and maintaining undemocratic procedures at the national level, so this is not an argument for how the present union movement fully supports union democracy. But it is an argument that there is more texture than the flat caricature of union leadership often depicted. A lot of progressive union leaders are not thrilled with threats to their own power, but many of them are increasingly willing to risk it to promote more rank-and-file power in hopes of expanding overall union strength - both a progressive and self-interested stance for those union leaders who want more than absolute power in powerless declining institutions. Sharing power with an empowered rank-and-file can be attractive even to self-interested power-seeking leaders in an expanding union movement.
-- Nathan Newman