Since last fall, organized labor has urgently focused on defeating George Bush—described by AFL-CIO president John Sweeney as “the worst president we’ve had to deal with.” Even if Kerry should win, the labor movement faces a wrenching debate over its future starting the day after the election. Despite Sweeney’s reform victory nearly a decade ago, the labor movement has made… return to article
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Reader Comments (16)Page 1 of 1 pagesThe changes Stern proposes such as “to prevent unions from organizing in areas where other unions have started campaigns or have organized extensively” are the very infractions being committed by one of the founding members of this New Unity Partnership—Douglas J. McCarron of the Carpenters Union.
Stern is a Bush puppet whose purpose is to help Bush destroy the American Labor movement. Stern supports granting legal status to the 9 million+ illegal immigrants so that even more US citizens can have their wages eroded and/or lose their jobs.
Posted by BRaker on Aug 12, 2004 at 7:38 PM I have worked in union and non-union shops and the only difference that I have seen is that in a union shop you not only have to watch your back from the company ,you also have to watch your back from the union.
These union bigwigs have the same problem that congress and the president have,they only watch out for number ONE not the members.
Posted by Ed Pleskovitch on Aug 13, 2004 at 9:27 AM This article does a good job of covering the push toward organizing by the NUP leadership, but it leaves out any criticism of their faction. All the NUP’s plans are designed and carried out without the involvement or decisions of the members. I have been a labor union member and activist for over 15 years, and in my experience, the way to get unions moving again is to end the domination by a few officers and instead return the power to the membership. This is not wasy - it requires a lot of education and internal organizing and well as external organizing, but the alternative is unions that belong to the professional officers rather the members.
Posted by Joshua DeVries on Aug 13, 2004 at 11:07 AM The new attack on Stern and the NUP as “Bush puppets” is getting old quickly and just reflects the current trend of slapping anything “bad” with a Bush tag. If Raker isn’t an activist in the “trades” (the old craft unionism much despised for decades and targeted by the NUP) then I’d be shocked. The nativism gives it away.
As for Pleskovitch, these libertarian “voices” often have much to fear because they have much to hide....from everyone.
Freeze is more on the mark, but the age-old problem for the type of democratic unionism he hopes for often excludes staff and others who are thinking beyond the next grievance or contract....people like Stern (who comes out of the rank anf file, mind).
I find Stern to be a promoter and champion for democratic unionism, coupled with the vision of leaders with foresight (sometimes) afflicted with not having worked as a janitor. The problems with SEIU during Stern’s tenure often result from locals who have not fully embraced democratic unionism (usually in the building services base or public sector), matters which Stern has limited control. When the International decides that a local has gone too far and puts them into trusteeship, it’s the voices of like Pleskovitch and Raker who cry “foul”. And they deserve to be heard, Joshua.
The NUP is a coalition pushing for a debate about Labor’s future, with an action plan attached for once.
Posted by Matthew Vernon on Aug 13, 2004 at 12:39 PM Ed-
the only difference that I have seen is that in a union shop you not only have to watch your back from the company ,you also have to watch your back from the union.
Exactly.
My father was a steelworker(USWA local #2173) during the sixties and seventies. The steel industry was crushed during the late seventies. They struggled along thru the eighties. The Timken bearing plant here in Columbus that he worked at is now a hole in the ground.
My mother was a unionized grocery cashier in the seventies and eighties(UFCW local #1059). They were stabbed in the back by the union(after a year long strike, they capitulated *completely*)- and Columbus (Ohio) is now a non-union grocery town.
I’ve never seen any union official lose a job… unless it was for corruption.
Posted by scott on Aug 13, 2004 at 5:02 PM As a UAW Retiree I can attest that the UAW has always tried to educate the membership about the relationship between the ballot box and the bargaining table. However, these independent minded souls saw this as an attempt to control their minds/votes.
The labor laws that were passed during the FDR administration have been systematically dismantled by the Republicans, (with the complicity of some Democrats) until they are toothless. The Wagner Act said that a worker couldn’t be fired for participating in Union activity; then the Supreme Court said, replacing strikers wasn’t firing them!
So, as useless as we may believe a U.S. President is, that’s the one that appoints Judges. Judges are the ones who decide whether the Japanese have the right to dump steel in the U.S. for less than it costs to produce it. Judges decide whether a negotiated pension plan is a binding agreement. Judges picked the President in 2000.
Will Rogers once said that Republicans had a real bad fight after an election; Democrats did it before. What is wrong with Stern? Does he believe that his agenda is more urgent than winning this election? If it weren’t for Democrats, he wouldn’t have a Union!
Posted by Pete on Aug 13, 2004 at 9:39 PM I used to belong the UFCW local here (supermarket employee) till I went back to school and changed careers. I still shop in union supermarkets, refusing to undercut these employees by shopping at Wal-Mart or non-union stores.
However, how can unionism make a recovery in America when people see what happened to the UFCW workers in So. Calif? They were out a long time and didn’t get much in return. Some lost homes or cars, and many complained about the lack of info from the leadership and the quality of the leadership at the UFCW.
The best advertisement for union organizing are good contracts for already-established unions.
Posted by Brian on Aug 14, 2004 at 7:34 AM Pete says “If it weren’t for Democrats, he wouldn’t have a Union!” The truth is more that if we didnt have a union, we wouldnt have democrats. Union building in this country has always been grassroots, and thats what it needs for its future. The unions in the NUP, particularly SEIU and UNITE-HERE, are some of the most active in grassroot organizing. The mantra is ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE; not GET KERRY ELECTED. Im not saying Bush isnt bad for labor, but Kerry isnt the savior of the labor movement, ... and the NUP might be.
Posted by Sean on Aug 14, 2004 at 4:58 PM It was FDR who said, “If I were a worker in a shop or factory the first thing I would do is join a Union”. It was FDR who put in the NRA(National Recovery Act) Workers have the right to bargain collectively. It was The Wagner Act, passed by Democrats, that made that a law in 1935. If Bush is re-elected there won’t be a SEIU, or UNITE-HERE or NUP!
Posted by Pete on Aug 14, 2004 at 6:01 PM I have never been a member of a union. I have always been an independent contractor or an employee contributing to public employee retirement systems or a lawyer or a manager.
My father was a member of the carpenters’ union in Bakersfield, CA in the 40s and 50s. That union went on strike every winter--when it was too rainy and foggy to do any construction anyway--and my family with four children and one breadwinner survived, somehow, on 50-lb. bags of pinto beans bought during the summer. I learned a lot then, mainly to get educated so I would never have to count on a union.
However, the alternative we see playing itself out now is unbelievable. Not just union members--everyone but the rich, whose Republican numbers are separating themselves by tax breaks and judicial decisions from the lives of all the rest of us more every day--all of us may soon find ourselves surviving on the likes of 50-lb. bags of pinto beans. I therefore agree with Stern. We never saw the greed and total disdain of anyone but the rich that we are seeing now, when we had strong unions.
I have also seen SEIU at work in the political arena, and that union knows what has to be done. People who speak Spanish are sent to organize in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods, buses are provided to send organizers, and organization at the shop level is provided to get workers to help in political campaigns. If they can do that in a political field, I believe in trusting them more than I would ever trust any politician, even a Democrat. This doesn’t mean we all don’t have to watch our backs. We do. But at least I know where to look to watch my back regarding SEIU. I don’t know where to look to watch my back, when jobs are outsourced and Bush and Cheney and the Republicans continue to benefit financially from it and give tax breaks to the companies who do it.
I also have come to think that if we don’t believe what greed we have seen in the past four years, we will think this has been paradise compared to what we will see if Bush is reelected. I am on the first plane to a European country to escape if that happens. This is Berlin in 1936. The militaristic ideas and the view that young Americans are expendable and torture is justifiable, plus secrecy of what is happening is required, are all too scary to deal with for another four years. That Bush will get worse, too, is predictable if similarly unbelievable.
So defeating Bush is indeed not enough, but it has to be done to give democracy in America any chance at all.
Yours in newfound solidarity,
Brenda Barnes
Posted by Brenda Barnes on Aug 15, 2004 at 6:51 AM All of this is very distressing. The current dilemma we face as a nation of workers is that the presumed “campaign” forged to combat that decline, (if it deserves such a name), isn’t how hard we can hit each other over the head, publicly or privately. The blame game doesn’t work, nor will polite, piecemeal reforms. Secondly, far too much of labor’s dirty laundry has surfaced for far too many NON-unionied workers to remain blind to charges of corruption, indifference, and ineffectuality. If Prez Sweeney has the horses to do so, nothing short of a revolution within the organization can do the job. This means returning unions to far much more local control over how things are done at the shop floor level, and as one person said, it must NEVER be true that a dues-paying, card-carrying union member has as much to look out for from his steward as he does from management. It is pathetic how dysfunctional unions have become. I seriously doubt if the current leadership has the guts to do what’s got to be done to change course. These are sad days for organized labor. One can’t help think that those who gave their lives for workers’ rights must be churning in their graves.
Posted by Mike Broderick on Aug 16, 2004 at 3:43 PM Generally, this is a very perceptive article by David Moberg.
However, Mr. Moberg continues his tendency to inexplicably suck up to the NUP’s leadership establishment by again scribbling not even one word about the crying need for some hint of internal union democracy at the grass roots level within the NUP.
Posted by Ishamel on Aug 18, 2004 at 10:54 AM What many non-union workers do not realize is that even though they don’t belong to any union, they are getting paid more, and getting better benefits, and working under better conditions, because of unions. If non-union employers did not make some token attempt to offer ‘competitive’ pay and benefits compared to unionized competitors, they would have trouble hiring good workers, because those workers would flock to the union shop.
Posted by Evolver on Aug 18, 2004 at 9:07 PM When I graduated high school, during the Reagan years, I was denied the ability to go to college. My father was disabled and I was told that I could not get a college loan because of it. When I felt I had nowhere to turn, the union took me in and give me the means to make a living. I will not sit idly by and watch the republicans destroy what I have. I have been, and will continue to fight tooth and nail to stop this insanity that the Bush administration considers “good for the economy.” All of these people who say that you have to watch your back from your union, never were union people to begin with. I spit on them.
Posted by David Lawson on Sep 4, 2004 at 12:53 PM Ed-
The only difference that I have seen is that in a union shop you not only have to watch your back from the company, you also have to watch your back from the union.
I agree and you can’t get rid of the crappy workers. Our high wages are sending our companies to other countries. Unions had a purpose back then, it is time to re-thing Made in America, It cost too much. I’m a Vet and believe in America but, unions are outdated. If they keep it up most of our goods will be made somewhere else, and that’s not helping the economy.
Posted by Bart on Oct 28, 2004 at 5:57 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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