Last week we posted a piece from Nick Unger about union structures, labor history and union member consciousness. Below, you can find seven responses from readers of The Murphy Institute Blog. Stay tuned for Part 2 of Nick Unger’s Series, coming soon.
From Gene Carroll at The Worker Institute at Cornell
A few years back Rutgers professor Janice Fine expressed to a forum on worker centers that “labor unions are difficult to join.” Nick Unger’s deconstruction of the Wagner Act’s impact on working class mobilization and consciousness reminded me of her keen insight. The new forms of labor organizations that have emerged (worker centers, alt. labor) with some support from but still largely independent of traditional unions, is one result of, and a reaction to, how the Wagner Act has painted unions into a corner…structurally and vision-wise. How do we make these new organizational forms sustainable without actual collective bargaining contracts and its benefits, which exist alongside of the internal contractions Nick explores? How can labor’s new forms of leverage help unions to become much less difficult to join? What is the relationshiop between the previous two questions? Thank you, brother Unger, for sharing your thinking labor.
From Jack Hustwit, Past President District 1199P
I read your piece last week and I have been thinking about it. First let me say that I agree with what you wrote. I would like to give you some reflections from my experiences as an organizer in the 70s and 80s. I was an organizer for District 1199.
Observation 1. I have found that union organization was the most fertile when workers had union roots in their family. That seems to have been the case even when the local industry left the area or became obsolete as in textiles and Anthracite Coal. When I walked into a home where a father, mother or grand parents were Union members, they got it on the spot. Not that they were all pro-union, but they understood the concept. With the decimation of the industrial labor movement starting in the late 70’s starting with the steel industries divestitures and investments over seas fewer and fewer workers had close relatives with labor union experience.
Observation 2. 1199 was a unique labor union. It emphasized the cultural aspect and the educational aspect of unionization. Most other unions ignored those things and concerted their energy on short term economic gains. This quest for immediate gratification (reference the “experimental No Strke Agreement” resulted in a membership mentality that the union was an ATM, where you put in your card and the union got you more money. The failures of unions to perpetually improve wages creates a cynicism among union members and their families. The labor movement today needs more “Roses” to go with the”Bread”. When unions rediscover the cultural needs and wishes of it’s members and their families, unions will face at least some rejuvenation.
Observation 3. We can’t underestimate the power of language. From the Lyndon Johnson Civil Rights Bills and Affirmative Action in the late 60’s the Political Right Wing learned the lesson of the failure of the segregationist south. They learned to renounce their old racist rhetoric and to change the meaning of words and phrases of the English language. For instance; terms like “reverse racism” and “white racism” became popular terms to condemn affirmative action. “Activist judges” became a euphemism for Judges who favored civil rights and affirmative action. “Reverse Discrimination” meant “affirmative action”. The right created the syndrome I like to call “the angry white man”. As part of that rewrite of the English language, labor unions were transformed into a “second boss who was only interested in taking money out of workers pockets.” The labor movement needs to recapture the real semantics of the English language. As I implied earlier, words are powerful, and those who define the meaning of words can control public sentiment.At any rate, I believe the observations listed above deserve some consideration in the dialog to rejuvenate the labor movement of the 21st century.
From Thomas Mathews
Back in the 1960s there were the so-called “labor colleges” where as fairly well-paid steelworkers we learned (along with our labor history, government and politics) of the wrongs inflicted systemically on those in the working class exploited by their employers, by their landlords, rapacious loan companies and business in general…working people totally left without influence as Americans or a voice in the condition of their work lives.
Both our instructors were socialists; an old professor at Reading’s Albright College (forgot his name) and one Mark Brown, himself a former steelworker at Reading’s American Chain & Cable. As a rank and file activist, he led a successful effort at AC&C to organize a thousand of his fellow workers into the USWA. My education at this point had amounted to staying back in 9th grade (twice) and being expelled. These two labor college instructors had opened my eyes to the real world out there and to the value of education in general…something that no teacher was ever able to get through my rock-hard head. So what has happened to worker training and education? Unlike the European labor movement where worker education is highly valued, here in the U.S. too many of organized labor’s unions leave it on the back burner or worse, ignore education entirely.
Forgive me, but I believe that in more than a few cases this is because a union’s leadership has a great fear of educated members who may wind up as “trouble-makers.” Yet others fail to see any value in education while there also remain some who are simply waiting for their own pensions to kick in and do not give a damn about the future of the union.
In line with the foregoing, we have cause to be concerned. How many labor conferences must one attend over 30 years only to hear the same bullshit over “our need to educate the rank and file”…. and how many more years are left to go?
I would appreciate anyone’s thoughts.
From Bob Wolper
Unions need better internal organizing/education, using all delivery messages, especially those being used by growing numbers of union members and workers in general. Unions also need to be more conscious of how they project message and image out to the general public because there are new members out there.
From Ike Gittlen, USW
Big topic Nick Unger. One that all unions need to struggle to address. I’m not sure history is the key to it for industrial and manufacturing unions. If you look at what’s happened through the lens of globalization, technology, media and the political environment, its a whole new landscape that 1920’s to 50’s unions were never built to deal with. You also have to look at the actual structure of union’s (locals, worksites, contracts, where members live in relation to work and each other) to begin to address the difficulties. But the central ideas of using solidarity to address social justice and economic security still hold. There are also issues around member empowerment and what kind of democratic outlets and rights are needed. If you’re saying that workers are not clear about who they are up against economically, I support that. I’m not sure all Labor Leaders have that clarity either. I support the need for education, but I’m not sure a college education is the answer. Ted Cruz graduated from an Ivy League school and someone needs to sue that school for malpractice.
There was a fairly good structure for that time. And the difficulties of work and the attitudes of management did make the need for a union obvious. The trades are having the same issues that manufacturing unions are experiencing with both a change in membership and workplace environment. What we need to think about is a form of union that fits today’s world and appeals to a different worker attitude towards it. There is no question that politics is a barrier to solidarity, so any new model has to include a unified vision of how workplace and larger issues come together. Part of that is structure, but it goes far beyond that.
From Martin Morand
“The generation that builds it really gets it; they were there. But what of those who come later? How do they get the word? This is not a problem unique to unions. Tribes, religions, nationalities and countries, gangs, armies and political groups, all need transmission structures, creation stories and rituals to solidify identity and make membership a cultural force.”
Yes, BUT! There is a degree to which the problem of the epigones, the second and later generations, is peculiarly accentuated in our US labor union culture. We “progressives” have come to value the concept of “choice” in many aspects of our social culture. Many of us are conscious of the crippling effects of a two-party-only political system which reduces choice to a “lesser of evils.” Too many of us fail to make the connection between that very limited political system and the equally narrowly limited labor relations system of exclusivity among union choices for workers.
You cite, quite appropriately, Jefferson and Mao. What you do not point our attention to is the relatively unique form which our unions take – partially a product of Wagner as it is a product of our political system. In most of the industrialized world a newly hired worker has a choice. S/he is “organized” (recruited) by a steward from a Communist, a Socialist, a Catholic, a “Conservative” (i.e. AFL-CIO-like) union. And may elect to join and pay dues to “none of the above.” {I tried to describe this situation as I had found it in a garment factory in Milan to some US trade unionists. They insisted it could not work. Saw it as a form of anti-union right-to-work. That, somehow, unions there were doing better than here did not penetrate.}
You wisely suggest. “It might be easier to start ongoing conversations broken up into more focused parts.” I highlight a few:
• The role of the Wagner Act (not Taft-Hartley) in setting in motion labor’s current consciousness deficit problem”
YES, but… Wagner was copied – word-for-word – in Canada. The same capitalist corporations. “Our” unions – starting in the 19th Century with the Molders of NORTH AMERICA, the Knights, the AF ‘n’L, the C of IO. Nevertheless the CLC is Not a copy of AFL-CIO! Howcum? Partly dumb luck. Too damn cold for a plantation economy (the most profitable export thing we had going when we declared our “independence”) built on slavery. So a more class conscious workforce not blinded by color. Example: No UAW. Canadians would not sit still for the deal done in Detroit to “win” a contract by introducing a permanent two tier workforce. Better example: You dismiss “(not Taft-Hartley)” – but when a T-H -like amendment was introduced in British Columbia; unions did not “lobby”. They threatened a general strike. And BUSINESS said to governing party, “Forget it!” With T-H came the silencing of the left into lambs. It is not just a coincidence that the bestest US union president, a self-avowed Marxist, is a Canadian.
• The structure of all American unions set in place under the Wagner Act made transmitting consciousness to succeeding generations of union members much less likely.
“Structure” meaning lack of choice. We claim to understand that there is something fundamentally wrong – demobilizing – in a one-party system. But ???
• … the impact of the “poison pill” aspects of the Wagner Act
Besides the non-Communist oath there was a ban on class solidarity actions such as sympathy strikes and boycotts.
• The grievance procedure institutionalizes this partnership for production, lubricated by dues check-off and its bastard spawn, the agency shop.
Checkoff – a system whereby “recruiting” is done by the HR office.
• after World War 2
ONE MORE THING -unmentioned re WWII. Canada was in earlier than we. But NO “No Strike pledge.”
From Bruce E. Bernstein
Thanks for writing this, Nick. It was thought provoking. Some brief disjointed comments:
— Overall the issue presenting itself is not simply “trade union consciousness” or “labor consciousness” but “class consciousness.” This started deteriorating in the US in the 1980s. I remember visiting Nick at the old Amalgamated building sometime in the mid 80s and he was talking about building “a culture of solidarity.” The phrase stuck with me, and it is valid for unions, but not limited to unions. Many “social” institutions in our society require this. the dominant culture has congealed into a philosophy of libertarianism / individualism.
— Martin Morand makes an interesting point in comparing the structure of French and Italian trade unionism to that of the US, but is his claim accurate that the French / Italian structure prevails “in most of the industrialized world”?
— My experiences leave me skeptical about alternatives to the dues checkoff model. Dues check-off means worker organizations have a self-funded structural economic base and are not dependent on foundations, which are, at the end of the day, controlled by capital. Dues check-off provides an independent space for organizing. One can argue that it is a Gramschian structure! Alternatives include the IWW model, still extant and gaining popularity with younger organizers… but they can rarely get contracts. Similarly, I don’t think people should idealize the “worker center” model. If worker centers are independent of unions, they rely on foundations, or, worse, they rely on lawsuits! They gather a number of workers together and sue the employer — and then take a piece of the settlement. There is nothing wrong with this as a tactic but it is not an effective strategy nor effective as a structural alternative to dues checkoff.
