Views » January 21, 2005

Labor’s Future is Ours

By Jeff Epton

Organized labor is the oldest, largest and most successful social movement in the United States. Organized labor has been the wave that lifted all boats, leading the way to retirement with dignity, 40-hour workweeks, two-day weekends, extra pay for overtime and access to quality healthcare for working people. Today, organized labor is still the best-funded and organized progressive force in the country. Its agenda serves broad social interests—guaranteeing workers’ rights to organize and influence workplace conditions, defending Social Security, promoting a living wage for all working people and creating a universal system of quality healthcare.

Organized labor is also in decline. Once representing one out of every three workers, it now enrolls about 13 percent of all workers. It operates in a hostile political environment, unable to match the influence that corporations exert on federal and state governments. It increasingly is confined to representing public employees and workers in a few shrinking industrial sectors. It is plagued by corruption and anti-democratic practices. And, purged of its social-movement emphasis since the McCarthy era, it primarily practices a kind of member-service unionism at the expense of a broader worker agenda.

This constellation of strengths and weaknesses fuels the debate within and outside of the AFL-CIO that Christopher Hayes outlines on page 14. As Hayes writes, a handful of larger unions, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and UNITE/HERE (a merged union representing needletrade workers and hotel and restaurant employees), have challenged the AFL-CIO to reorganize. Their proposal has stimulated the most engaged discussion of labor’s future in a generation. But the controversy has not sparked an interest in all progressive circles.

I asked a leader of United for Peace and Justice, a coalition formed to oppose the war in Iraq, if their organization had any interest in the outcome of the debate within organized labor. “No,” she said. “Labor represents less than 13 percent of workers. Their internal debates don’t affect us.”

But they do. For 28 years, In These Times has been reporting on the political efforts of peace groups, environmentalists, feminists, civil rights organizations and others. There have been victories during that time, but what stands out in many of these struggles is that groups too often fight alone, fight locally, and fight without a connection to an energized and inclusive movement.

The proportion of the workforce represented by organized labor has shrunk, but unions still represent 16 million public- and private-sector workers, many of whom engage in progressive political action. The labor movement’s leadership is changing and now includes women, people of color and low-income workers in numbers that other movements can’t match.

Unions remain a force to be reckoned with. If the AFL-CIO’s debate about its future direction leads to a revival of organized labor, that would be a first step in reviving a progresssive movement in the United States. A reinvigorated labor movement, with inclusive leadership and an expanding membership base, would boost the efforts of progressives everywhere. It could help us move beyond the current situation of isolated struggles—small groups of activists and coalitions defending past victories and scratching for small changes.

A historical fact: When unions have been strong, other social movements make gains too. It is time for all progressives, and Democrats, to recognize this.

Corporate America and the Republican Party have forged a partnership that currently decrees the contours of our economic and cultural life. If progressives ever want to counter this corporate hegemony, they must learn from the past and embrace the strength and potential of the union movement. For their part, labor leaders must refocus on their original mission—to build solidarity among all workers, to play a leading role in defining the conditions of work and to organize the unorganized.

We have no choice but to care about the future of labor. Its future is our own.

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• Reader Comments

  FYI,,,
  Sheila Sample’s original article (1)“Last Man To Concede” was answered by me with an (2)untitled letter to her, which she then answered in her article (3)“Dear John”, which in turn was then responded to by my article (4)“Dear Sheila”.
  The series of all four articles are located at:  http://www.neitherparty.com/nei_blog.taf
  Either combined or separate, they offer a pretty decent read and a pathway to more of Sheila’s powerful writing.  The articles also offer a rationale for a third political pary which aims to bring together many other third parties under one banner.  It is located at www.neitherparty.org .
  Might your readers like to be made aware of a worker-friendly third party?

  Regards,,,John

  Posted by John Rice on Jan 21, 2005 at 7:00 PM

  The Labor unions are obsolete organs of struggle.  In fact their role has been transformed into that of de facto “labor relations” branches of corporate America.  In a global economy the AFL-CIO , a national organization, is impotent.  It is no wonder that provincial attitudes prevail in strike movements. 

  Workers have achieved much greater gains in the past, all over the world, with organizations like strike committees and workers’ councils.  These are directly controlled by the workers themselves who choose delegates from among themselves to represent them.  The delegates are not professionals and their positions are revocable at all times.  The negotiations with the bosses are open, and the voting among the workers is done by raising hands,not by ballots.  Strike committees and workers’ councils have always functioned outside union control.  They have a natural tendency to spread beyond the immediately affected workers and to encourage solidarity among workers.  Historically as in the 1917-1923 period and in the late 70’s, they have been able to spread almost effortlessly across national borders.

  Unions are to be rejected.  They once played a progressive role but today they have become organs for the suppression of the class struggle.  Their decline is good news for the working class worldwide.

  Posted by rojito on Jan 22, 2005 at 3:09 AM

  Well rojito, you think unions and what they stand for are no longer needed.  What’s Americans suppose to do when all industry and electronic work is being jobbed out to foreigners
  like China and India.  What are Americans left with 5.oo dollar an hour jobs.  I wonder how that pompous ass Bush and his group of henchmen are going to run this country with the taxes they’ll get from people with 5.00 an hour jobs?

  Posted by Pat Grzybowski on Jan 22, 2005 at 7:09 AM

  The above two comments regarding labor unions underscore what is most lacking among the so-called
  labor movement today: intelligent and strategic thinking. Hard facts reveal that unions today are mostly comprised of workers in dying private industries and of apathetic public employees. Period. The AFL-CIO does a great job speaking for these workers, but that is where its role stops, dead in its tracks. The AFL-CIO simply doesn’t have the will or capacity to change. SEIU, for the most part, is a smoke-and-mirrors orgaization that has grown through mergers and brutal consolidations of locals, not real organizing. Pat Grzybowski (above) asks how Bush will run the country with the taxes from $5 an hour jobs; open your eyes, Pat: he’ll run it just the way he is at this very moment until a real labor movement is born (not reborn) in this country.  But don’t hold your breath just yet on that.

  Posted by H.P. Albarelli Jr. on Jan 22, 2005 at 12:18 PM

  Well Abarelli, my d/h belongs to the IBEW and they do a pretty good job trying to keep their union strong.  Our town alone has lost alot of industry.  Quaker Oaks, Sherwood Medical, Nestles Cat and Dog Food Manafacturers, Stetson Hat and several others whose name escape me at the moment.  They were all union.  We almost lost Wire Rope which is stronly union.  These jobs all paid high wages.  I know alot of these people had to take a couple of low paying jobs when this happened just to survive.  I really do not think Bush is a President of the people, he is a President of big buisness.

  Posted by Pat Grzybowski on Jan 22, 2005 at 7:01 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 41 posts.

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