> So why the curiosity? As for partnership with employers willing to
> cut a deal-- again what else is new?
-When Andy Stern talks about "a new partnership with employers," he -probably has his own experience of success in mind -- e.g.: -What should be noted is, though, that the sector in which Stern's -union SEIU organizes the best is one of the few where such -partnership -- bosses and workers lobbying the state for fatter -contracts -- can make sense. That cannot be generalized across -sectors.
Although given the number of industries receiving some kind of federal money -- construction, agribusiness, high technology, social services, health care, etc. -- that's enough workers to add tens of millions of workers to the labor movement. Fighting for a living wage whereever government money is involved should be a large focus of the labor movement.
But that's not really where partnerships end. A lot of the game is working to strengthen the unionized sector while kicking the ass of anti-union companies. This was the model that Sidney Hillman pioneered long ago in the garment industry. He created a partnership with core employers friendly to unionization, then worked to drive the sweatshops out of business. SEIU is working to implement this in partnership with the giant service companies Aramark, Compass and Sodexho-- who have signed card checks with the union -- while seeking to drive the sweatshops out of the industry.
-The CtW leaders may have some ideas of organizing service workers in -the private sector (would their ideas work when the state makes more -cutbacks?), but neither they nor the remaining AFL-CIO leaders offer -much in the way of strategy with regard to "the sectors most damaged -by capital's ever increasing mobility and neoliberal motives."
Why are poverty-wage service workers less damanged by capitalism?
Yes, CtW has focused on the industries where it's harder for capitalism to move those jobs overseas or automate them. Some joked at their convention that the motto was "we shall not be moved." So what? Why not start where workers have the strongest leverage? Once more of the service sector is organized, it becomes far easier to put pressure on the more mobile sectors that still depend on services.
Capitalists are not embarassed to seek expansion where there is least resistance, before moving onto harder targets. Wal-Mart didn't start by building stores in urban areas. They started by building in non-union, more rural areas where they could build up density and economies of scale, so now as they assault the bastions of unionized labor, they have a far larger warchest for the battle. Labor needs to do the same, organizing those sectors most vulnerable to concentrated organizing -- those receiving public funds or companies that cannot easily runaway from organizing -- before being able to fully take on the larger global production chain.
Not that there isn't a lot that the UAW or other incumbent unions can't do where they presently have some strength. The UAW has actually been doing some smart organizing to leverage themselves into parts suppliers and other subcontractors, but they need to devote more resources to organizing to be really effective.
Nathan Newman