Features » August 3, 2009

Not Your Parents’ Labor Movement

Why the Republic sit-in failed to inspire other worker actions.

By David Moberg

On Dec. 9, 2008, workers at Republic Windows and Doors occupy the main entrance to the Chicago factory during a five-day sit-in. (Photo by Darren Hauck/Getty Images)

The free-market economic model drives Democratic Party policy. It denies the legitimacy of unruly democratic demands, such as a movement inspired by the Republic Windows and Doors sit-in.

Workers of Chicago-based Republic Windows and Doors captured the nation’s attention when they occupied their workplace for six days last December. Their employer gave only three days notice of the plant’s closing and showed no intention of paying their accrued vacation pay or two months of back wages, as is legally required after a notice of closing.

Republic’s bank, the publicly salvaged Bank of America, refused to extend credit to the company. In response, the 250 workers, mainly Latino and African-American, occupied the plant from December 5 to 10, preventing the company from moving the machinery out, until they received what they were owed.

Support poured in—from other unions, community groups, religious leaders and even president-elect Obama. Images of sit-down strikes from the Great Depression came to mind as the Great Recession deepened. Many observers thought Republic might be a harbinger of a new wave of labor militancy.

“These workers are to this struggle perhaps what Rosa Parks was to social justice 50 years ago,” Rev. Jesse Jackson told a rally at the plant. “This, in many ways, is the beginning of a larger movement for mass action to resist economic violence.”

A lackluster response

More than half a year later, that larger movement hasn’t materialized. Why not? It’s not for lack of reasons. Employers continue to shut down workplaces, cut wages and fight pro-union legislation. Workers in other countries frequently take direct action to fight job losses. French factory workers hold managers hostage. Brazilian and Argentine workers seize and operate businesses and, in June, British energy workers went on an unauthorized national strike.

The Republic sit-in has reverberated elsewhere, but only faintly:

—Workers at two Hartmarx men’s clothing factories in Illinois and New York voted in May to stage a sit-in if the bankrupt company and its uncooperative bank, Wells Fargo, failed to sell to a buyer who would continue production in its domestic factories. (In June, the company announced it would sell to such a buyer, Emerisque.)

—At Quad-City Die Casting in Moline, Ill., workers are protesting Wells Fargo’s refusal to lend to their employer, which could eliminate 100 jobs at the 60-year-old family-owned precision-parts maker. Quad-City employees, who belong to United Electrical Workers (UE), the proactive union that also represents Republic Windows and Doors workers, are considering a sit-in to prevent their plant’s closing.

—In April, Southern Californian warehouse workers at a distribution center for mega-retailers staged sit-ins at a temporary staffing agency and blocked a prominent intersection. These actions—organized by Warehouse Workers United, a project of the Change to Win labor federation—aimed to win organizing rights for warehouse workers and force companies such as Target and Wal-Mart to make sure that the contractors who staff the warehouses properly pay the largely temporary workforce.

Apart from these examples, few protests—let alone sit-ins—have occurred in response to widespread lay-offs and factory closings.

Republic workers were able to win due to some very specific conditions. The UE has a long history of leftist leadership. Five years ago, it helped workers throw out an ineffective “mobbed up” union. They’ve nurtured strong local leaders who have twice since brought members close to striking. The workers had a legitimate demand: Pay us what we’re owed. (Only after their victory did they begin a successful initiative to keep the plant open through a sale to Serious Materials, a producer of energy-efficient windows that promised to recognize the union.)

The union targeted two vulnerable institutions: a shady employer and a bailed-out bank refusing to make loans, thus generating publicity and support in a strongly unionized city.

One-of-a-kind issue?

There are many reasons why a new wave of militancy has not yet emerged. “I think Chicago was the aberration,” says Cornell University labor relations professor Richard Hurd. “We have very little tradition of labor militancy.”

Nelson Lichtenstein, a historian at the University of California at Santa Barbara, notes that even during the ’30s, labor militancy increased not when the economy was diving, but when it was rebounding.

Yet since 1980, unions have rarely struck or taken other direct action in either good or bad times. Their current passivity reflects the evolution of American political culture, which has been shaped by corporate and right-wing hostility to workers’ rights and unions.

Elaine Bernard, the director of the Harvard Trade Union Program, says that the rarity of Republic-style sit-down strikes can be explained by the “tremendous repression” in the United States as compared to other countries. “I’m surprised in this country, with the high level of repression, how much is happening.”

The political culture of American workers has also become even more individualistic. When unions were able to win strong contracts after World War II, many workers became comfortable with the gains from conservative business unionism. When the political right gained hegemony after 1980, neither unions nor the Democratic Party effectively mobilized workers as a class.

According to University of Massachusetts sociology professor Eve Weinbaum, when workplaces close, workers tend to blame themselves. As real wages declined in recent decades, workers sought individual solutions: longer work hours, more debt. Even though many ’60s leftists now hold union staff positions, there’s a lack of working-class leftist presence in the workplace to push for action and present an alternative explanation of events.

Workers today are often cynical about what unions or politicians can do for them. Most have little experience taking action themselves, as strikes and new organizing have declined. “The hurt and pain are still there, and you can see anger at executive pay,” sociologist Dan Clawson says. “But people don’t see how something might work and seize the opportunity.”

Labor union shrinkage

As a result of employer hostility, globalization, weak legal protection and unions’ own failures to organize new workers, unions’ share of the workforce and strength has declined. This has led many unions to retrench or find non-confrontational ways to grow. Union leaders and their lawyers often discourage direct action, fearing financial or legal repercussions, according to Bill Fletcher, co-author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice.

In many cases, unions have become closer partners with management than with the general public. Such development of a joint labor-management strategy made the autoworkers, for example, more isolated and vulnerable to attack—and less likely to win better terms in the bailout—even if they had wanted to follow Republic workers’ lead. “Autoworkers were not thinking of taking over plants and producing cars for fear the public would say, ‘We tried to help. To hell with you,’ ” says Bernard, at the Harvard Trade Union Program.

Unions do turn out members to vote disproportionately for Democrats, but labor suffers from a general political demobilization. President Obama inspired hope and political engagement. But Lichtenstein argues that “there tends to be a demobilization of the left when a Democratic president gets elected … There’s a kind of ‘let Obama do it’ attitude.”

During the ’60s, the left pressured Democratic presidents to change course on foreign and domestic policy. Since then, political scientist Sheldon Wolin argues in Democracy Incorporated, the United States has evolved toward what he calls “inverted totalitarianism.” In other words, America imposes a constricted free-market model on policy while creating a controlled illusion of democracy.

Despite the current crisis of capitalism, the leadership of a new Democratic administration and right-wing claims that Obama is a socialist, this free-market economic model still dominates policy. This model denies the legitimacy of unruly democratic demands, such as a movement inspired by the Republic sit-in. A popular movement for economic democracy may develop, but it will need more than the militant disruption of business-as-usual in the workplace. It will require dismantling the debilitating, individualized free-market mindsets of workers, unions, politicians and the American public. 

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• Reader Comments

  One of the main reasons for lack of militancy is the false assumption that Barack Obama is some kind of “friend of the people” and that he is some kind of liberal or progressive just “waiting to make his move.”

  Many working people are still convinced Barack Obama and the Democrats are going to solve their problems. How did they come to this conclusion? It’s kind of simple to determine how working people got this impression with all the liberals, progressives and much of the left intentionally obscuring the fact that Barack Obama is nothing but a Wall Street charlatan out to implement the policies of U.S. imperialism. These supporters even ignored Barack Obama’s own written words in “Foreign Policy Magazine” published by the ultra-right, reactionary voice of U.S. imperialism—- the Council on Foreign Relations.

  It is the responsibility of liberals, progressives and the left to teach working people the truth about candidates and the positions of all political parties. Instead of doing this, many liberals, progressives and the left intentionally lied about Barack Obama and the fact he works for Wall Street when they could have told the truth about him and the Democrats and still called for the election of a “lesser evil.”

  Now, the working class is in a real mess as Barack Obama and the Democrats controlling the presidency and both houses of congress (without any help from the Republicans) are forcing the working class to pay for the problems created by this economic mess… and, to make matters even worse, these same liberals, progressives and leftists who the working class needs for guidance if some kind of united people’s front is going to come into being to bring forward a real progressive alternative to what Obama and the Democrats are doing, are once again telling lies to cover up Barack Obama’s thoroughly reactionary agenda by calling for compromise on health care reform and even pushing Barack Obama’s thoroughly and completely reactionary and anti-labor “green” economic agenda.

  And you wonder why the working class hasn’t taken a more united and militant stand in defense of its own rights and livelihoods.

  And, in fact, at the very head of these pro-Obama, pro-Democrats is the entire labor leadership on every level from the locals to the area labor councils to the state feds right on up to the very top with Sweeney, Trumka and Stern… with very few exceptions… and these people are all playing the same game right over again putting Barack Obama’s and the Democrat’s political futures and fortunes before initiating any kind of struggles aimed at protecting and defending the standard of living of the working class and the rights of all working people.

  Under these circumstances, I don’t understand why you need look for any reasons why there is a lack of united militant action on the part of the working class since the only other way the working class is going to get direction if its liberal, progressive and left in leadership are not going to provide this clarity and direction is from the ground up through rank-and-file and grassroots community initiatives—- and with these same liberals, progressives and leftists being as anti-communist as they are pro-Obama and pro-Democrat it will take considerable time for these rank-and-file and grassroots efforts to form and take hold… they will take hold because workers have no choice but to fight back… but, it is going to be a while in coming since even what is left of the CPUSA—- its top leadership—- is still slobbering over Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid while extolling the virtues of these labor fakers at the helm of the U.S. labor movement who don’t even know what class they represent who don’t even have any concept of socialized health care and probably never heard of Eugene Debs much less Tommy Douglas… they think they represent the middle class even though the working class pays their middle-class salaries.

  Look at how these same “labor leaders” and their middle-class liberals, progressives and leftists have sold us out on health care reform and remained silent as Israel slaughtered the Palestinians in Gaza Strip—- almost alone among the world’s labor unions.

  Really, should we expect that there would have been more “Republic” type sit-ins? Under the circumstances, we should consider ourselves fortunate there was even the “Republic sit-in” to kind of begin to point the way.

  Now, what is going to happen with this huge St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant powered by clean, green hydro employing 2,000 workers that Ford wants to close so that it can begin importing Ford Rangers from its brand new plant in Thailand as soon as Barack Obama and the Democrats provide Ford the deal the company wants?

  Shall we all wait to see what John Sweeney, Richard Trumka, Robert Borosage and Sam Webb intend to do? No doubt they will be tooling around in Ford Rangers imported from Thailand filled with campaign literature to re-elect Barack Obama.

  Alan L. Maki
  Director of Organizing,
  Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

  amaki000@centurytel.net

  http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

  Posted by alanmaki on Aug 4, 2009 at 2:30 PM

  And you wonder why the working class hasn’t taken a more united and militant stand in defense of its own rights and livelihoods.

  Posted by Daniel Adams on Aug 4, 2009 at 9:35 PM

  And then there’s the self destruction of the labor movement as evidenced by the factional strife between Unite and HERE.

  Posted by Michael Rothman on Aug 6, 2009 at 4:10 PM

  On July 7th about 300 workers and supporters marched on the Grand Hyatt in downtown San Antonio. For the first time in San Antonio’s history hotel workers stood up for themselves. Facing a very negative anti-union labor consultant the workers voted to boycott the NLRB sanctioned election. (they had previously signed up 62% of the work force) In my view there will be a growing labor militancy as the democrats and their so-called opposition from the GOP continue oppressing worker’s rights and wage increases!

  I do not think that either Change To Win or AFL-CIO leadership has the vision or cojones to divorce themselves from the Democrats. This is another reason why America’s working class gains are so minimal. Workers in their own local unions and through local conflicts will have to pave the way for more militant actions! The leadership cannot be counted on to “take the lead!”

  While I agree with the author to some degree, the fact is things are heating up and workers are being forced to take action. This will not result in hundreds of job actions across the nation, but there will be more activity than in previous years!

  What is truly needed is for the left to come together and organize a viable alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. At present we are much too divided and going in too many different directions! The current “healthcare reform” movement is living proof of this. HCAN diluted the movement for single payer and has only served to confuse the people. Perhaps this was their intent, I don’t know. I do know that allowing the HMOs to remain in control of our healthcare is a serious mistake!

  Posted by Frank Valdez on Aug 10, 2009 at 4:24 PM

  There’s a pretty simple reason there isn’t more labor militancy in the United States: because the Taft-Hartley act made it illegal.

  Posted by Tom Agnew on Oct 31, 2009 at 11:21 PM

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• Too Important to Fail
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• Gross Inaccuracies
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