This is how Jane Slaughter, who wrote that "the founding of the Labor Party is definitely the proverbial 'big step forward,'" put the problem in 1996:
***** ...THE BREACH BETWEEN CHAPTERS AND THE MAIN ENDORSING UNIONS. Although there are exceptions, the separation between the chapters and the four initial endorsing unions seems fairly complete. If you're a member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW), United Electrical Workers (UE), Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (BMWE), or International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU), you're not very likely to be a member of a local chapter. Not much is asked of you beyond your dues.
For many or most of the delegates from those unions, the convention was probably their first LPA meeting. One OCAW delegate, asked why he was there, said, "Because my district council is having its meeting here." Attendance of both UE and OCAW members was enhanced when the unions scheduled regular district or political conferences for Cleveland June 6-9.
What's more, integration of the two types of members, chapter and endorsing union, looks difficult on a practical level: there are large areas of the country where the four relatively small unions exist not at all, or barely. (The BMWE is all over the country, but rather invisible in local labor movements. ILWU is West Coast.)
Add to this the fact that many chapters are not particularly habitable for non-leftists, and you have a problem.
This breach was apparently the reason for the segregation of the chapters into their own separate annual convention, with no decision-making power.
Without a truly common project, and other changes mentioned below, the mistrust between the chapters and the unions that we saw at the founding convention is likely to continue....
<http://solidarity.igc.org/lpa.htm#B> *****
Now, WSWS put it more harshly in 1998:
***** The delegates included 149 international union officers and other leading officials from the six endorsing unions--the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW), United Electrical Workers, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, California Nurses Association, American Federation of Government Employees, and United Mine Workers.
The leaders of these unions controlled 100 votes apiece. Another 600 delegates, wielding 1,138 votes, were the heads of central labor councils and union locals, including many from the same six unions. These lower-level officers voted in block with their international officers, giving the high-level bureaucrats control of the majority of votes, and veto power over every decision.
In contrast, each Labor Party chapter (which must have a minimum of 50 members to be recognized) was given between one and three votes. In other words, each top union bureaucrat had roughly 1,250 times the voting power of the average member of a local chapter.
The convention rules were designed to suppress democratic discussion. No resolution could be introduced from the floor unless it was first approved by a two-thirds vote of the delegates. One of the first votes was to reject an amendment that would have allowed resolutions to be brought from the floor if seconded by another delegate. At one point the chair of the constitution committee admitted that dozens of resolutions submitted in advance of the convention by members and chapters had been summarily rejected by the leadership.
There was virtually no opposition from the assembled delegates. The one time a delegate attempted to raise issues outside of the confines of the official resolutions, the chair ruled the speaker out of order and cut off his microphone. Whenever the platform wanted to end discussion, it called on its cronies positioned around the microphones to move the issue to a vote.
The rights of Labor Party members in the local chapters, which are largely populated by members of middle class "left" organizations, were further curtailed by a decision to raise the minimum number of members required to form a chapter from 50 to 250. While this was done under the pretext of encouraging recruitment, it will have the effect of reducing most of the chapters to the status of "organizing committees" and stripping them of their minimal voting rights. Some 90 percent of the 39 existing chapters fall short of the new membership requirement.
Chapter delegates complained that the national leadership was already withholding the names of people who sent in membership applications from the local chapters where the applicants lived. In some cases, even when all the requirements for charters had been met, the national leadership refused to grant them because they feared opposition.
<http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/dec1998/lp-d04.shtml> *****
Cf. "Rules for Delegate Selection and Voting Allocation," <http://www.thelaborparty.org/c_rules.html>.
Given the voting allocation, the only way you can reasonably hope to have an impact on the LP is to first climb up to the top of an international union, be it one that is already affiliated with the LP or one that you seek to have affiliate with it. If you are not a top labor official, you had better organize a gigantic LP chapter with more than 10,000 members in good standing. It doesn't make sense at all to join the LP as an individual at-large member ("Labor Party members who are not delegates of an affiliating or endorsing Union or Labor Party chapter/local organizing committee shall have the opportunity to participate as an at-large delegate. The Convention shall establish an At-Large Caucus which shall be allocated one vote for every 50 at-large members in attendance or major fraction thereof," <http://www.thelaborparty.org/c_rules.html>).
> >What's the benchmark is the LP aiming for --
>>the size of the party, the funds, etc. -- in order to run a credible
>>campaign, and when does it foresee it will reach it?
>
>You can check out that on the website if you care to, where there are clearly
>listed criteria for a local campaign to meet, including that the candidate is
>clearly seen as THE labor candidate in the race.
I've found it, and here it is, in case anyone else is interested in the subject: <http://www.thelaborparty.org/a_electo.html>. The hurdle is too high, in my opinion. First of all, "A national committee of the Labor Party will review all applications for Labor Party electoral campaigns," with an ability to block any local initiative that does not meet its approval. Aside from the problem of veto power at the top -- the top basically controlled by the leaders of affiliated international unions, C2 is unreasonable, as LP-endorsing union members may not exist where LP chapters do and vice versa. C3 presents a circular problem: you want to run an electoral campaign so as to increase members, but you are not allowed to run one unless you already have a significant number of members. And C5 -- unspecified sums of cash in hand included -- is difficult to meet if the national committee sets a high level of requirement. See below:
***** C. Campaign Resources 1. Sufficient election volunteers to cover precincts. 2. Endorsing unions represent a significant portion of area union membership, sufficient to ensure that LP candidate will be seen as the labor candidate. 3. A significant number of LP members in the district, sufficient to indicate that we can persuade district residents. 4. Credible candidate, able to articulate LP program. 5. Campaign financing plan, including cash in hand. 6. Campaign committee reflecting the demographics of the district. 7. Campaign manager prepared to carry out the campaign. 8. Campaign plan that includes tactics and goals for growth of the party. 9. Endorsements or support from local community organizations. Local party structures and State parties should notify the national Labor Party at least one year in advance, when possible, when planning to run candidates. <http://www.thelaborparty.org/a_electo.html> *****
It seems that the national committee has all the decision-making powers while giving no specific commitment in turn to devote resources raised from the endorsing international unions to an electoral campaign, if one ever gets approved by it. Most likely, there will be no electoral campaign unless and until the leaders of the endorsing unions decide it's time to run one. And here's the problem: "All of the unions that endorsed the Labor Party campaigned vigorously for Clinton and the congressional Democrats in 1996 and 1998" (@ <http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/dec1998/lp-d04.shtml>). The more vigorously the endorsing unions campaign for the Democrats in the meantime, the more difficult it will be for the LP to make any electoral headway if it ever decides to enter into electoral politics as a party.
This post is getting long, so I'm gonna respond to the rest of your comments in another post. -- Yoshie
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