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Gods and Mortals

The AFL-CIO’s split may impact smaller state and local federations the most

By David Moberg

Chicago—The decision by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Teamsters to leave the AFL-CIO-and the resultant loss of 2.6 million members and $18 million in dues-overshadowed the 50th anniversary convention of the AFL-in late July. Yet despite the potential impact of these large unions’ departure on national politics and the federation itself, one of the main repercussions of… return to article

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    Being very much in favor of enforceable fair labor standards and wages, I am deeply concerned about the globalized labor pool and the resulting fall of the value and respect for labor in America.  I don’t see how American workers can compete in the manufacturing labor market on the basis of cost.  At best, American workers can compete at the level of quality and efficiency.

    Having worked in more than one union shop, I know that that will require a drastic change in union shop culture - with few exceptions, being only as productive as needed to keep your job under your union contract.  In order to compete, American manufacturing workers will have to show that they can make up the difference in wages with efficiency, productivity and quality.

    United States Posted by Lefty on Aug 1, 2005 at 2:00 PM

    The break up is good in one way. Clearly the “solidarity” had resulted in union bureaucrats deciding everything had to be their way or no way.

    This one way only strategy wasn’t working.It can’t not in a nation as diverse culturally as ours. Ideas that fit well in the N.E. CA. are sure failures in Texas or the South, yet because of this “one size fits all” strategy of the AFL/CIO unions are blind to this.

    Now the sides will be free to try competing methods to grow union membership and increase union influence. With a bit of competition good ideas will be recognized and bad ideas discarded. This was not possible under the old 1 big union organization.

    The reasons why people join unions, how people view unions based on location and culture, the forces opposed to unions, the forces that support unions vary dramatically from each locale.

    The very idea of having a “one size fits all” national strategy is oxymoronic as a result. For unions to grow and regain their influence they need a multi-pronged strategy that addresses local perspectives and truths.

    Personally I am amazed that Unions still try decades old union organizing tactics that worked in very liberal areas of the industrial N and NE in the very conservative, religious South. Did any Union boss ever think to try and win over the local area pastors, preachers and priests first, perhaps have several indtroductory get togethers to dispell the myths and introduce them to what a union is truly about? Did any Union ever get involved in the local culture and become “local” before dictating strategy from on high.

    What I’ve seen is local people get interested, but then their efforts are taken over by the national union, and then being forced to adopt a cookie cutter stratagy to unionize, completely ignoring local area concerns and beliefs.

    Yes I know there are many local people involved in organizing, but unfortunately they take instructions from the up and ups. The locals are basically told the “right way” to organize, even though this way hasn’t worked in a couple of decades.

    Heaven forbid any Union bigwig with his 5 figure salary consult and get a feel for the lay of the land before making an effort to organize.

    Unions seem to have decided long ago, that everywhere was laid out the same as the NE, N and CA as a result their strategies continue to fail in the parts of the country that are very different culturally and economically like the South, Texas and the West. 

    Maybe now the smaller unions will be able to be more nimble and reactive to the local conditions that hinder union growth, local conditions that vary dramatically.

    I certainly hope so.

    United States Posted by johnnyincentx on Aug 2, 2005 at 9:34 AM

    From www.votenader.org
    Nader on Jobs:
    Creation of More Jobs by Investing in America’s Future — Invest in Americans
    Since January 2001, 2.7 million jobs have been lost and more than 75% of those jobs have been high wage, high productivity manufacturing jobs. Overall 5.6% of Americans are unemployed while 10.5% of African Americans are unemployed. Unemployment among Latinos is nearly 30 per cent higher than January 20, 2001. By requiring equitable trade, investing in urgently needed local labor-intensive public works (infrastructure improvements), creating a new renewable energy efficiency policy; by fully funding education and redirecting large bureaucratic and fraudulent health expenditures toward preventive health care we can reverse this trend and create millions of new jobs.

    On Fair Trade:
    Fair Trade that Protects the Environment, Labor Rights and Consumer Needs
    NAFTA and the WTO makes commercial trade supreme over environmental, labor, and consumer standards and need to be replaced with open agreements that pull-up rather than pull down these standards. These forms of secret autocratic governance and their detailed rules are corporate-managed trade that puts short-term corporate profits as the priority. While global trade is a fact of life, trade policies must be open, democratic and not strip-mine environmental, social and labor standards. These latter standards should have their own international pull up treaties

    United States Posted by NaderRaider on Aug 2, 2005 at 1:47 PM

    Become a Naider Raider dont allow these Democratic sellouts let www.inthesetimes.com become even more of a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, the Democratic party does not stand for progressive values(although some of their politicians do). Post any news, comments, or info on Nader that you can and lets force www.inthesetimes.com to recognize him as they did not mention his name once in the entire 2004 election

    Why has the progressive media become a mouthpiece for the corporate Democrats?

    United States Posted by NaderRaider on Aug 2, 2005 at 1:52 PM

    This isn’t the first time that labor has split.  It won’t be the last.  The split is absolutely necessary in order to keep up with the effects of globalization.  It seems inevitable that the labor movement will always have to endure growing pains from within compounded with the pains of being exploited in such an aggressively capitalistic economy.  Hopefully labor will grow stronger as a result of the split and begin to hold politicans more accountable for their votes in Congress, rather than simply giving away their money and losing their numbers, while hoping for salvation from a politician.  They need to focus on growing their numbers rather than hoping for a savior in the Democratic party to rescue the movement.  That’s what Andy Stern is saying and I think that he is leading the movement in the right direction.

    United States Posted by espoir on Aug 4, 2005 at 3:49 PM

    Whether or not the split in the US labour movement means growth or further decline, will depend more on the behaviour of all the movement than on whether people support the Democratic party or not. IMO, it will be important for all players to ensure that there is unity at local levels and cooperation in industries and on campaigns that will make a difference. In general I am in favour of people being able to work in creative ways, and being free to develop new and innovative methods of doing things.

    Unity is a positive thing, but unity that stifles action and independent thought is not positive, especially if the mantra is used to stop much needed change. Anyone can see that change is needed in the USA labor movement. Only time ( and the way poeple deal with it) will tell if the split is the change that will make a positive difference. I hope for all our sakes that it does.

    Australia Posted by Jane Doe on Aug 6, 2005 at 1:12 AM

    Business unionism will continue to destroy what is left a once social movement. It doesn’t matter who leads the failed program.

    United States Posted by futureoftheunion on Sep 26, 2005 at 2:30 AM
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