By the way. It pains me to burst this bubble, because the ue was the conscience of the us labor movement for decades... but does anyone on this list know how badly the ue has been run? They have shrunk by the hundreds of thousands since their heyday in the fifties. Not all just by offshoring--- PA turnpike workers were historically a UE shop, and so I always used to chat with turnpike workers about the union while paying tolls there (as I often am). They've never had a single good thing to say about their union, and the teamsters successfully raided the turnpikers from them a couple years ago.
The UE is, officially, down to like 8,000 members, but one of their highups told me straight-up in williamsburg a few years back that the real number was more like a third of that and declining. A good friend of mine's dad works in the UE's main plant, in Eerie, and word is that when that plant eventually shuts the Ue will be over for good. They've apparently been losing money every single year since 1954, and are close to zero in the bank account now. Apparenlty their organizers health plan is now being run through the steelworkers and some organizers think this a strong sign they will eventually be amalgamated into the uswa on far weaker terms than they could've negotiated in a decade ago.
This all brings me no joy, because the truth is they have carried a stronger left banner than any other us union. But, it turns out, sometimes merely having the correct left line is insufficient to actually winning real struggles an organizations members want to win. Sometimes leftists come into power in small countries and find out a similar thing. The tension of running a non-capitalist program inside capitalism pressures in on all institutions, be they countries flipping off neoliberalism or unions in the belly of the best or co-ops or collectives.
But why are folks like doug so sympathetic for left governments in the third world that face such pressures, but so dismissive for actually-existing organizing unions that represent janitors and doormen and hospital dieticians and rad techs in his neighborhood? Also, do these heroic third-world governments ever pay economists, lawyers, and so forth, far more than their own lowest-level employees? Why might they do so? Are there any plausible rational reasons inside actually-existing capitalism besides their nefarious secret evil fifth column desires?
The contrasted trajectory of the two main commie unions of the fifties--- UE and 1199---- is one of the great, unwritten tales of our country's real labor history (along with how did maoists drive the mob out of HERE). The labor geeks and professors are too busy talking about P9 and tdu to ever get to it. But these two different organizations say a great deal about success and failure as one confronts historic, devastating setback for the working class.
> While part of me agrees with your point, what about unions like UE,
> where -- if I'm not mistaken -- the union president is only allowed to
> make as much as the highest-paid member? Now, UE is nowhere near as
> big as SEIU, but they also have a far better reputation when it comes
> to union democracy and so forth. Why must we assume that a well-run
> union has to be ruled over by some well-paid Ivy Leaguer?
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