> From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 02:51:10 -0500
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Organizing for Numbers -- Or For Power?
>
> Labor Notes
>
> Organizing for Numbers -- Or For Power?
>
> by Jane Slaughter
>
> October 2002
>
> Why, seven years into the "new AFL-CIO," have organized labor's
> numbers continued to dwindle? Peter Olney, writing in New Labor
> Forum, notes that despite the national AFL-CIO's vigorous shaming,
> coaxing and cajoling of its affiliates, federation membership fell by
> 68,000 in five years. The AFL-CIO, well aware of the alarming
> numbers, has called for a "National Organizing Summit" early next
> year.
>
> New Labor Forum, a twice-yearly journal published at Queens College
> in New York, devoted a chunk of its spring/summer issue to some
> challenging articles about two of unions' strategies for survival:
> organizing and mergers. Often, the failure of the former-either
> through unsuccessful campaigns or through lack of trying-has led to
> the latter.
>
> Here's a summary of proposals in three of the articles about
> organizing. To order the whole issue, see below.
>
> What are the elements of an action program that will build unions'
> numbers, density, and power?
>
> 1. Organize the factories. Both Jack Metzgar and Peter Olney argue
> that manufacturing is not only still a vital part of the U.S. economy
> but also vital to union survival.
>
> Metzgar notes that, contrary to impressions, manufacturing is far
> from over in the U.S. There are about 19 million manufacturing jobs
> here, two million more than in 1955. The percentage of the workforce
> engaged in manufacturing has fallen from a third to about 16 percent
> since then, but that's mostly because the service sector has been
> growing so fast.
>
> Unions' grip on manufacturing, on the other hand, is loosening daily.
> Metzgar notes that once over half of factory workers were union
> members; now it's only 14.8%. In 1985 there were 5 million union
> factory workers; today, fewer than 3 million.
>
> Metzgar told Labor Notes, "If manufacturing was still 50% organized,
> we'd have 6 or 7 million unionists we don't have now, and overall
> union density (private and public sectors) would be 18% or 19%,
> versus 13.5% now. So, if unions are committed to 'organizing at an
> unprecedented pace and scale' (as the AFL-CIO urges), manufacturing
> workers is a large group to ignore or give up on.
>
> "I also think there's a kernel of truth to the idea that factory
> workers are easier to organize because they're more culturally
> disposed to unions and to collective action. Many nonunion factory
> workers have some experience (through parents or relatives, if not
> direct experience) with unions (not all of it good, unfortunately).
> So in terms of organizing soil, manufacturing should provide a bit
> more 'ease of opportunity' than other sectors.
>
> "For particular unions, like the UAW and the Steelworkers, organizing
> factory workers is an urgent necessity because they are losing
> density in areas of their traditional strength. In auto, it's the
> transplants and auto parts. In steel, it's the mini-mills, which now
> must have half or more of all steel employment, almost all of it
> nonunion. Wages and benefits at the auto transplants and steel
> mini-mills generally mimic, without equaling, union standards, but
> history argues that eventually this process will be reversed--the
> nonunion sector will start pulling down union standards--if that is
> not already happening."
>
> Metzgar's article cites a 1998-99 study by Kate Bronfenbrenner of
> Cornell University, who has studied organizing for years, of seven
> unions that organize in manufacturing, only two, the UAW and UNITE
> (needle trades), were winning a majority of their campaigns. The
> Carpenters, Machinists, and PACE (paper, oil, chemical and other
> workers) won a third or less; the Steelworkers 43%; the IUE
> (Electronic Workers, now merged into the Communication Workers--CWA)
> a piteous 17%.
>
> In a September 12 interview with Labor Notes, Bronfenbrenner talked
> about why unions are not doing more to organize manufacturing
> workers: "There's no question that it is harder to organize in
> manufacturing, because of capital's mobility. Workers are terrified.
> When the employer says 'we're going to move to Mexico or China,' it
> is real.
>
> "So all the manufacturing unions are shifting into industries that
> are easier to organize or moving to healthcare, like the
> Steelworkers' alliance with the California Nurses Association. But if
> we give up on manufacturing, then we give up on the core of the
> economy.
>
> "Manufacturing will always be with us. It is a myth that we're moving
> to a high-wage, high-skill, white-collar economy. There are still
> lots of pink collars, lots of gray collars [utilities], still a lot
> of blue-collar. So many of these other jobs are ancillary to
> manufacturing-distribution of goods, selling of goods, suppliers,
> companies that feed the workers in the plants or launder their
> uniforms, service occupations that serve the workers in those
> communities.
>
> "It's the factory jobs that are really the tax base of the community.
> If they're union, they're the good jobs, the long-term ones, the ones
> that have health insurance and pensions and are most likely to be
> full-time. If you give up on the best jobs, then the pension in the
> family goes, and the health insurance in the family goes, and the
> taxes to the school district go too."
>
> Olney observes that when the Service Employees (SEIU) organized
> 74,000 home care workers in Los Angeles County, the media called the
> victory one of the most significant since the UAW's 1937 sit-down
> strike in Flint, Michigan, which wrested recognition from General
> Motors. That, says Olney, is an example, of confusing numbers with
> strategic significance. "If auto workers strike, the economy
> crumbles," he notes. "If home care workers strike, they hurt their
> own relatives and the poor."
>
> Olney argues that unions must address "the power points of the
> economy," not only manufacturing but also distribution: trucking, air
> freight, courier, and warehousing. Yes, factory workers who try to
> organize are vulnerable to shutdowns, but many other factors besides
> wages go into a company's decision on where to locate, such as
> product perishability and proximity to suppliers. (Even General
> Motors continues to build new factories in the U.S.-in Michigan!)
>
> In addition, when supplier chains are organized on a "just-in-time"
> basis, as is now the norm, a strike threat at a supplier plant
> becomes a powerful tool to force management to recognize a union
> there. The UAW's short strikes at supplier Johnson Controls in June,
> which shut down five Big Three assembly plants, were examples of this
> power. The AFL-CIO, Olney says, could help unions figure out which
> manufacturing sectors and which companies are most organizable,
> taking into account their place in the supply chain and factors that
> limit management's ability to relocate to low-wage areas.
>
> The reality, though, is that "most industrial unions have given up on
> organizing manufacturing workers." Olney credits AFL-CIO leaders with
> trying to convince manufacturing unions to organize their core
> jurisdictions. But their suggestions have largely fallen on deaf ears.
>
> 2. Reform the labor laws. Olney argues that organizing on a
> significant scale can't happen without laws that help, or at least
> don't hinder. The AFL-CIO has concluded that the Republican
> domination of Washington means that no reform is possible, and has
> ignored the reform bills put forward by Senator Paul Wellstone and
> Congressman Bernie Sanders.
>
> Olney argues that labor should begin now to educate members about the
> need for new labor laws, so that a massive effort is possible once
> the political climate shifts in favor of labor. He points out that
> the AFL-CIO does have a huge political apparatus in place, one that
> has been more successful, in some senses, than "changing to
> organize." That apparatus could fight for labor law reform.
>
> 3. Build non-union forms of worker power. Olney argues that workers
> who are uniting to win gains from their employers-even if they don't
> yet have a majority of the workforce or signed contracts-are part of
> the labor movement too. He points to CWA's organizing among workers
> at IBM and at high-tech companies in Seattle, both of which have
> created stable organizations that are not yet unions, and to the
> Longshore union's work with a mutual aid society of bike messengers
> in San Francisco. The ILWU now has contracts at two messenger
> companies, but the bike messengers' group continues to exist, with
> its own spirit of camaraderie.
>
> Olney wants such differently-organized workers, and those who have
> participated in failed organizing drives at their shops, to be
> counted as "members, voters, and officers of existing unions."
>
> (For information on what "nonmajority unions" can achieve, see Labor
> Notes' July, August, and September issues on this site.)
>
> 4. Seek out black workers for organizing. Olney notes that attitude
> polls always find that African American workers are the most
> supportive of union organizing. They are 11 percent of the population
> but 17 percent of union membership, partly because black workers are
> concentrated in sectors that are more highly organized than some
> others.
>
> Olney wants black union leaders to join with black community
> organizations to organize-which would not only bring more workers
> into unions but also be a powerful community economic development
> strategy. "Move the black community's history of struggle into
> labor's column," Olney says.
>
> 5. Use solidarity to win strikes. It should be obvious: when
> non-union workers see what labor is capable of, at its best and
> winning, they are more likely to take the risk of organizing
> themselves. John Sweeney's remark has been quoted often: that the
> successful 1997 UPS strike was worth a million house calls.
>
> Olney says strikes are "in danger of becoming a lost art," and that
> winning strikes through labor and community solidarity should be a
> principal focus of central labor councils.
>
> 6. "Salt" the workplace with organizers. Training and hiring new
> professional organizers, Olney argues, is not as important as
> encouraging potential organizers to take jobs themselves, in target
> workplaces. This "salting"-taking a job with the intent to
> organize-was one factor in the massive drives of the 1930s.
>
> Salters Carey Dall and Jonathon Cohen tell of their experience in San
> Francisco's bike messenger industry. The reason for their success,
> they say simply, is that "a fellow worker resonates much better than
> a 'staff hack.'" The shared experience of the daily insults of the
> job, the social bonding after work-these, according to Dall and
> Cohen, make it much more effective to organize from the inside than
> from the outside.
>
> They are also at pains to say that one task of salts is to promote
> rank and file leaders, by showing how to be such leaders themselves.
> If existing union officials fear that their locals will get stirred
> up by new members and new leaders, those officials won't be able to
> work well with salts. Ideally, a drive initiated by salts will be
> member-run and democratic-which in turn will breathe new life into
> "stale and shrinking unions." It's win-win-if the stale and shrunk
> can take the heat.
>
> Which brings us back to Olney's key point: "Bringing in millions of
> new workers is important, but the quality of that organizing and the
> fate of those workers once organized is the key to building power."
> This point alone would stand a book's worth of discussion. Union
> density-the percentage of the workforce that's organized-is not the
> only determinant of union power, Olney notes. He mentions the
> powerful national strikes by public workers and truckers in France in
> the mid-1990s that paralyzed the country-though total union density
> was only 9.1%.
>
> We need numbers-badly. But we also need our numbers to be
> strategically placed, to know how to fight, and to be willing to
> fight-both leaders and members.
>
> To order a single issue of New Labor Forum, send $10 to Queens
> College Labor Resource Center, 25 W. 43rd St., New York, NY 10036, or
> visit http://www.qc.edu/newlaborforum/html/10_toc.html. Another
> interesting pair of articles in the spring/summer issue is Kim
> Moody's argument that union mergers do not necessarily increase union
> power-and can even weaken it--and Bob Kirkman's view of successful
> mergers-and swapping of members with other unions-by the SEIU.
>
> <http://www.labornotes.org/archives/2002/10/g.html>
> --
> Yoshie
>
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