THE DIVIDED SOUL OF LABOR LEADERSHIP
Benson, H. W.
The following is excerpted from H. W. Benson's book, published last year by the Association for Union. Democracy cold entitled Democratic Rights for Union Members. Soon after George Meany became...
...The long ordeal of farm workers, extended battles with Farrah and J. P. Stevens, bitter mine strikes are not remnants of a forgotten past, they are a modern reminder that the essential role of unions and union leadership continues...
...As leaders, they wield power in national elections, in political lobbying, occasionally in mass demonstrations...
...Caputo (1963), the Brotherhood of Painters opposed the basic rights of free speech in unions...
...After assessing various analyses and criticisms—they might have done better, they could have done worse—we can- reasonably surmise that this historic transformation was achieved by a labor movement headed by a mixed bag of leaders perhaps not too different from those we know today...
...The wheel has turned full circle...
...There are unions where members' rights are respected, unions that prove that the labor movement can be strong, and clean, and democratic...
...in 1970, Jock Yablonski, leader of an insurgent group in the United Mine Workers, was killed...
...Officers and members share a common outlook on most social and political issues of the day, but when it comes to union democracy there is often a bitter conflict of interest...
...With no sign and little likelihood of renewed initiative from the nation's influential labor leaders, the prospect for reform from above seems remote...
...Most labor leaders, if they could choose at leisure, would surely opt for a clean labor movement, just as most automobile owners would prefer clean air...
...Recognizing common qualities in each other, expecting and admiring them, union leaders come to accept a tacit agreement on noninterference in each other's internal affairs...
...Eos...
...If there is any single unforgivable offense in the labor movement, it is the mortal sin of supporting internal opposition in some other leader's union...
...Running a union is a rough job, and union leaders enjoy their reputation of being "toughminded...
...In Calhoon vs...
...From the AFL-CIO no word of protest or outrage...
...Solidarity...
...and so they turn for support to the government...
...and they seek allies in the community, allies who share a common interest in democracy and who, unlike most labor leaders, are not inhibited from supporting democracy in unions...
...Don't be intimidated...
...There is nothing novel in this thought...
...Public Review has not weakened UAW officers as leaders...
...You are as good as they are...
...In this role, history sees union leaders at their most admirable: John L. Lewis carrying the CIO flag, then braving wartime hysteria to defend the miners...
...Don't complain, especially not to outsiders...
...it was developed in detail some 60 years ago by Robert Michels in his analysis of workers' leadership in European social democracy...
...The distrust of democracy remains, nicely illustrated by what David McDonald, when he was Steelworkers secretary, once said to the union's research director: "I never could trust anyone I couldn't buy...
...Walter Reuther at the battle of the overpass and in the great sit-ins...
...Nevertheless, not a single major union now emulates the UAW...
...Although their 354 union may have become dictatorial, they live in a democratic country...
...When votes were stolen in the Painters, in the Miners, and in the Steelworkers, no comment from AFL-CIO leaders...
...Stand up for your rights...
...ONE HONORABLE EXCEPTION is the United Auto Workers' union...
...but without internal union democracy, workers have no guarantee that the union will continue to protect their wage standards, pension funds, job security, health, and safety...
...To root out corruption, it was imperative to invigorate union democracy, encourage members to rise against suspect leaders, and protect those who might be victimized...
...in effect, it limits their authority only as union politicians...
...When we consider the state of union democracy in the United States, however, they begin to have more than classroom implications...
...In a hundred years, a majority of America's industrial working class, beginning as a beast of burden, rose to the status of self-respecting and respected citizens of the United States...
...In private bargaining and public negotiations, often in great strikes, they help lead the way to a better life: pensions, health insurance, better pay, shorter hours, vacations, a measure of security...
...Or even without the dizzying breezes of noble philosophical rationalization, the official may resist surrendering power simply because he has learned to love its perquisites...
...By relinquishing some of their own power to the Public Review Board, UAW leaders strengthened their union's democracy...
...Since 1958 the official labor record on internal reform has been bleak...
...When workers lose control of their union, and they have nowhere to turn inside the labor movement, they must look outside...
...The officials are amply equipped with power to take care of themselves under almost any conditions...
...he remains a workers' leader but simultaneously evolves into a bureaucrat...
...The leader stirs up passion against bosses...
...In their identification with a great social movement, in their capacity as workers' leaders, most union officers would surely rejoice to see a labor movement purged of corruption, wholly dedicated to its membership, honored for its democracy and enlightenment...
...In Salzhandler vs...
...But as an official, jealous of power and determined to stave off opposition, he ordinarily tries to impose a different mood in the union...
...On the other hand, AFL-CIO union leaders have consistently opposed the interests of union democracy in key court cases...
...The destiny of union democracy is frequently linked to social ideology or political platform: the program of my opponent inexorably undermines it, while mine will surely protect it...
...As leaders, union officers collectively are spokesmen for millions of wage earners...
...the A FL-CIO had abandoned the effort...
...The union leader readily slips into the state of mind of the official...
...The right of workers to organize won the support of government in the mid-1930s...
...The difficulties of union democracy cut across the lines of social and political programs...
...As tough politicians, it is difficult for them to accept the absurd notion that their role in historic events should depend upon the passing whims of workers who drop pieces of paper into ballot boxes...
...and, even if on a less heroic scale, George Meany speaking out for low-paid sweatshop workers during Nixon's wage freeze, when labor's liberal friends were silent...
...they arise not from ideology but from life, from the contrasting, sometimes antagonistic, interests of workers and their own leaders...
...But they continually fall short of their own ideal standards...
...To become an effective leader, with power, secure status, influence, and money, a union leader is compelled to develop a dual personality...
...No danger today...
...labor leadership...
...Go along...
...but they prefer not to risk unleashing the power of internal union democracy against union officials...
...but from another, it is often undemocratic and repressive in its own internal life...
...Those who lead labor are willing, when necessary, to summon their members to battle with employers...
...and through all the permutations and combinations, one thread of consistency remains: he jealously guards his own power in his union against even the remote shadow of threats, To solidify that power he apportions patronage jobs in the union, in industry, in union welfare funds...
...The right of workers to democracy in their unions was backed by federal law in 1959...
...As a classroom abstraction, his ideas percolate through the thinking even of those labor intellectuals and educators who ordinarily refrain from applying such notions to the mainstream of the American labor movement...
...In two unions, reform leaders were murdered: in 1965, Lloyd Green and Dow Wilson were assassinated when they threatened to uncover the theft of Painters insurance funds in California...
...The antiCommunist is convinced that the threat to workers' rights in their own organizations stems principally from Communist totalitarianism and from its fellow-travelers...
...And for that, he stimulates the worker's self-respect and sense of social justice, sometimes against employers, sometimes against government officials...
...Benson . finds part of the explanation of that, failure in the divided soul of U.S...
...Who knows what tomorrow may bring...
...Don't make waves...
...Spring comes only because he plants the grass seed...
...Harvey (1965), the AFL-CIO joined the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association against the right of union members to go to court in union election cases...
...He formulates programs and switches them, exchanges enemies and friends, makes and breaks alliances...
...Better hold tightly to every ounce of power, especially the right to deal with dissenters...
...Before legislation gave some federal protection to internal union democracy, many union constitutions buttressed the officialdom by outlawing caucuses, outlawing handbills, suppressing free speech, penalizing members for going to court...
...as union politicians—as distinguished from union leaders352 they are men of power, driven by the need to hold tight to that power...
...the officials implant acquiescence toward themselves...
...The opposing forces that tug at labor leadership act upon the whole labor movement, creating that great paradox: seen from one angle, the labor movement is a powerful force for democracy and social progress...
...But the history of the labor movement and the experience of workers under various social regimes have shown that there is always the need to defend workers' democracy regardlessof who leads or claims to lead the working class, whether that leadership is procapitalist, prosocialist, or proCommunist...
...In Brennan vs...
...But they find the cleanup requirements too disagreeable...
...Most of these practices are now illegal, but are often continued by subterfuge...
...he is certain that the whole problem will vanish as soon as the old misleadership is replaced by a new, genuinely revolutionary, leadership...
...Under Walter Reuther, the union established a Public Review Board composed of respected persons outside the labor movement and independent of the union power structure, known for their attachment to democratic principles and their sympathy for unions...
...Soon after George Meany became its president, the AFL embarked on a campaign against corruption in unions, a battle that was continued by the newly merged A FL-CIO when it expelled the Teamsters and other unions and adopted Ethical Practices Codes...
...The Board serves as an impartial highest court with jurisdiction over complaints and appeals, except those relating to collective-bargaining policy...
...unionism rose swiftly and spectacularly...
...he organizes, seeks support during tough negotiations and strikes, calls them out to vote in public elections...
...If there is to be hope and help, it must come from somewhere else...
...A self-image —workers' tribune and nation's statesman—is surely implanted in the consciousness of every competent labor leader, bringing justified pride, a sense of fulfillment, the satisfaction of leading a useful life...
...With this power, the officers are transformed into a union supreme court that can cut down critics and bolster supporters at every level of union structure...
...he is confident that union democracy will be adequately served so long as a general laborite-democratic policy prevails in the nation...
...Obsessed with the notion that his union can prosper best under his leadership, he feels in his bones that he and his followers must continue to hold power, come what may...
...The sorcerer's apprentice could conjure up the rushing waters but lacked the secret of controlling their power...
...by 1959...
...As a last-ditch defense against challenge, a union officialdom is protected by the right of most international executive boards to rule on disputes and appeals...
...But there is still the unfinished task of rooting out corruption where it is entrenched, of restoring democratic rights where they are suppressed...
...It is armed with authority to overturn decisions of the union's top bodies including the International Executive Board...
...Sit down, shut up...
...They take shelter behind a bureaucratic stockade against the savage thrust of democracy...
...As a leader he often sets out to arouse his members...
...Faced with new massive exposures in the building trades, on the waterfront, and elsewhere, Federation leaders took no public notice and remained silent...
...As a politician he demands personal loyalty from the union staff, which almost everywhere in the labor movement becomes the administration's political machine...
...He cultivates the qualities of a responsible public statesman but also those of a crafty politician...
...They had tried reform and had abandoned it as hopeless...
...As a politician, the union officer develops special talents, sometimes those of a bureaucrat, sometimes of a dictator, but always the ability to maintain and strengthen his own base...
...progress has come, but slowly, slowly...
...The leadership of, 353 say, the Machinists, the Steelworkers, or the big electrical unions would not crumble if their members gained access to a truly nonpartisan union appeals body...
...Barhowski (1975), the Steelworkers intervened to argue against allowing unionists recourse in court against arbitrary and irrational decisions of the Secretary of Labor on election complaints...
...The left-wing revolutionary is equally convinced that union democracy is endangered simply because the dominant labor leaders are, in his opinion, agents of the imperialist bourgeoisie in the ranks of the working class...
...Rejection of the public review principle, in all likelihood, arises out of an ingrained, almost pathological, distrust of the unpredictable consequences of democracy...
...Oppositionists were ruled off the ballot, elections were stolen, trusteeships were arbitrarily imposed upon rebel locals...
...As he performs memorable deeds, he can easily imagine that his personal talents alone assured success, not the power of the social movement he represents...
...In the 30 years since the end of World War II, not one major union is reported to have taken any significant lasting step to strengthen the rights of members in their unions, except the UAW with its Public Review Board...
Vol. 27 • July 1980 • No. 3
