Outlines labor's hopes

...They would renew the dormant strain of political thought in American culture that seeks democracy on the job and addresses not only the size of the paycheck or even the extent of the social wage but rather the structure of power and the power of property...

...Our unions are all that stand between America and shrinking paychecks, disappearing jobs, vanishing health care, increasing inequality, and more racism, rancor, and resentment," he said...

...But what will the "or else" be...

...They are also relying much more on global solidarity with other unions to apply pressure on transnational employers...

...In claiming such rights, however, workers' advocates would do well to recognize that when the broader community grants any rights, to property or labor, there is a corollary responsibility to use those rights with the best interests of that community as a whole in mind...

...Ultimately, however, the labor movement has to be rebuilt from the ground up...

...In local areas, unions could recreate the equivalent of the CIO "flying squadrons," groups of militant workers who were ready to deploy themselves to picket lines and protests of other workers...

...The new leaders, and their supporters, have the will to make dramatic efforts to revive the labor movement...

...Gompers's old line about more schools and less jails is still valid but hardly adequate...

...They may devote as much effort to educating members and the public on issues vital to workers as to endorsing candidates...

...As Economic Policy Institute president Jeff Faux argues, they have surrendered the battle of ideas to the conservatives while trying to patch together programs that add up to an electoral majority...

...The political legacy of the New Deal has been nearly exhausted...

...Though its labor law has been rendered meaningless, some New Deal monuments, like Social Security, manage to survive...

...Union advocates of nonviolent direct action argue that society is likely to pay attention to workers' demands for rights only when there is an intolerable level of social disruption...

...Balancing centralized strategic planning with decentralized grass-roots activity is not easy, but with strong democracy and internal debate, it is at least possible...

...Most of the leaders disgruntled with the Democrats talk about trying to use their resources more effectively within the two-party framework...

...Sweeney plans to escalate AFL-CIO support for all of those actions...

...It is also true, but not sufficient, to say, as Sweeney did, that "America needs a raise...

...It is significant that the biggest recent demonstration in Washington, the Million Man March, placed virtually no demands on government or corporations and, unlike the 1963 civil rights march, had no union presence...

...Workers should have the right to reasonable hours of work without forced overtime and with substantial guaranteed annual time for leisure and family, including paid leave for care of infants or sick members of the family...

...10017...

...UMI), the Social Sciences Index, and the Social Science Source...

...They need member volunteers as well as staff to organize, if they are to be effective and operate on the large scale needed simply to prevent further loss of union density, let alone rebuild from 15.5 percent of the work force at present to the 35 percent organized at the postwar peak...

...Unlike many of the rights campaigns of liberals in past decades, worker rights represent a claim by the vast majority against a relatively small minority of managers and property owners...

...For example, instead of simply filing unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board and waiting months or years for a decision when a pro-union worker is fired, unions are likely to mount vociferous public protests, including civil disobedience, to protect workers' rights to organize...

...Sweeney's goal of making worker rights the civil rights issue of the coming decades requires articulating a broad vision that workers can accept as a just basis for their actions and demands...

...Disillusionment with politics and public life makes it difficult to organize unions or mobilize for elections, let alone demonstrations...

...Even a big, rich union like the United Auto Workers represents only about 16 percent of Caterpillar's worldwide work force, giving Cat the winning edge in the union's two long strikes in the past four years...

...Yet the law is in practice extremely hostile to workers who want to organize, strike, or show solidarity with one another...

...In the face of this transnational colossus, there is a growing sense among victims and potential critics of the futility of opposition, especially of a collective sort, and a weary conclusion that there is no alternative to free-market capitalism...

...work force by most calculations), pressing down wages and increasing inequality...

...Labor's power would be enhanced in such cases if it were coupled with industrial policies to promote technological innovation or, obviously, constraints on capital mobility...

...The Democratic party no longer provides a popular explanation, nor for the most part does the labor movement...

...Yet it is not enough to rely on rank-and-file democracy as the guarantor of truth and wisdom...

...If Sweeney wants to make workers' rights the civil rights issue of the nineties, then the cause of workers has to have a strong moral appeal...

...It must go beyond better wages to establish the legitimacy, even the primacy, of workers' rights as embodying the interests of the national community, not simply the self-interest of workers...

...In short, when the union is not a third party "insurance agent" but an organization of workers themselves, it is most likely to succeed in both the short and long run...

...Although many unions, especially in the near term, will work for Clinton and all other Democrats to beat back the Gingrichian hordes, Sweeney and Trumka have at least articulated the view that the Democrats must adopt a more worker-centered politics—or else...

...The most important thing we can do starting right now, today, is to organize every working woman and man who needs a better deal and a new voice . . . . If anyone denies American workers their constitutional right to freedom of association, we will use old-fashioned mass demonstrations as well as sophisticated corporate campaigns to make worker rights the civil rights issue of the 1990s...

...Please include 55 cents postage...

...Indeed, one of Sweeney's main tasks will be to nudge unions to boost their budgets for organizing from an average of less than 5 percent of their income to 30 percent or more, as both SEIU and UNITE (formed from a merger of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union) have done...

...But the election contest gave new legitimacy to some heretofore heretical ideas: internal challenges to leaders, blunt self-criticism of shortcomings, and more democratic dialogue over the future of unions...

...Even low-income unorganized workers who favor collective approaches for the severe problems they experience at work do not typically think of unions as possible solutions...

...They are likely to be slightly more selective about which Democrat gets money and to exercise more control over their own political operations...

...Workers deserve such rights because they are minimum requirements for what we want to create as "the American way of life...

...Such a dramatic increase in the scale of organizing, combined with strategic targeting of entire industries, corporations or regions instead of organizing worksite by worksite, could change the entire climate of organizing...

...The fund will likely be used to encourage ambitious multiunion organizing projects that might otherwise not get started, like the Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project or a campaign to organize Silicon Valley, or to encourage organizing in strategic sectors, like health care...

...With a populist workers' rights movement, workers would implicitly insist on a citizenship that extends through the door of the workplace...

...Some unions already have turned with fervor to campaigns that rely on public allies, regulatory pressure, and spreading the cost of labor disputes to allies and customers of the employer with whom they're fighting...

...A workers' bill of rights would include freedom of expression on the job and the right to organize a union without interference from employers...

...The leaders of unions with about 56 percent of AFL-CIO members, notably AFSCME (public workers) and the Service Employees (SEIU), not only forced former president Lane Kirkland to resign, but, more important, opened a public debate in the AFL-CIO about strategy...

...But the Sweeney regime in the near term is not likely to represent a dramatic political break with the past, except to train larger numbers of more sophisticated political organizers and polish an often creaky political machine...

...Not content with having weakened most traditional labor weapons, they are trying to outlaw new tools unions have developed (like corporate campaigns that use stockholder pressure tactics...

...Yet to secure these rights for American workers in the new global economy, unions will have to fight to extend them to workers everywhere, through international trade and human rights agreements as well as direct pressure on transnational corporations...

...It could become a much more public activity, reinforced by the recognition that others are taking the same step...

...Now we're going to change America...

...As employers fight back, Sweeney intends to raise the stakes...

...These rights represent a claim not just for freedom but for power...

...Fundamentally, Sweeney, Trumka and Chavez-Thompson want labor to be a social movement again...

...Yet at the same time, there is a need to push power and responsibility down into the hands of members...

...That work should provide "fair" pay that reflects not just what the market will bear but what someone reasonably needs for a good life...

...Only a slim plurality of those polled sided with unions over management, through a solid majority (52 to 17 percent) said they supported workers against management...

...Creative strategies have become more important...

...Chavez-Thompson is also the first person of color and the second woman, following Donahue's secretary-treasurer, Barbara Easterling, to hold an executive position in an American labor federation...

...Trends in world trade and finance, reinforced by the demands of transnational corporations, have pushed countries inexorably towards unfettered free market economic policies...

...If Sweeney and company can change the labor movement, then there is a chance that America can change as well...

...These plans highlight a certain irony...

...Republicans have been working to dismantle remaining worker protections—trying to slash budgets for enforcement of worker rights and occupational safety...

...Nobody, least of allAmerican corporations, seems to be looking out for jobs and incomes of American workers, as the gales of globalism sweep through the economy...

...Most workers face a panoply of economic problems: stagnant or declining real incomes, growing inequality of both wealth and income, increased insecurity about both jobs and retirement income, worries about employment and education prospects for children, and increased pressure on the job, from mandatory overtime to intensified workloads...

...Only by organizing will the full vision of worker rights begin to emerge and have any chance to be realized...

...Politics in this country continues to be fought out in the language of rights, but the rights of workers are rarely asserted...

...Yet most existing unions do not mobilize their members to take control of their organization and to take action on their own behalf...

...Sweeney has plans for the AFL-CIO to establish new funds to support high-profile, difficult labor disputes—like the "war zone" battles of the past several years involving several unions in Decatur, Illinois...

...Without it the country faces a harsh, brutal, and chaotic future...

...20 • DISSENT American Questions include education and work that goes beyond jobs in the for-profit business world—for all who want and need it...

...The actual debate was often shallow and oblique, and even interim incumbent Thomas Donahue agreed with most of challenger Sweeney's proposals to beef up organizing, politics, and strategic assistance to affiliated unions...

...Big corporations are bigger than ever, often spanning the globe with production facilities, willing to spend lavishly to fight unions, and often sufficiently diversified so that a battle on one front can be easily weathered...

...q WINTER • 1996 • 21...

...They call for a direct voice in affairs of work and public life...

...The lessons from the best organizing campaigns— reinforced by polling data—suggest that unions can organize despite the legal, political, and economic odds if workers are encouraged to act like a union from the beginning, developing a sense of power and the commitment that comes with struggling to create their own, democratic union...

...When direct action works, it adds an aura of heroism and moral fervor that can inspire other workers and potential allies...

...A workers' bill of rights might start with the right to meaningful work—broadly defined to Index 1994 - 1995 Dissent is indexed in Academic Abstracts, the Infotrak Academic Index, Magazine Article Summaries, the PAIS Bulletin, University Microfilms, Inc...

...House Republicans voted to eliminate wage floors for private contractors hired by the govWINTER • 1996 • 17 American Questions ernment and to reduce tax credits for low-wage workers...

...Local unions must also be strengthened as primary centers of activity...

...That lack of framework makes them vulnerable to the simple, persuasive but dangerously wrong ideology of the right: government and high taxes are the problem, not the solution, and the country is going to pot because of too many uppity (fill in the blank with the scapegoats du jour...

...Without more members, unions will have little political clout and little bargaining power...

...Unions must become more democratic...

...The American labor movement has been weak in part because it is so fragmented...

...He can also play an enlarged public role as a tribune for working people...

...Through these rights, workers assert that they are not like other factors of production, that the market is a tool to be used to serve people's needs, not a tyranny to which people must submit...

...It was the bravado of victory speeches, to be sure, but there was just enough truth—or plausibility—in his statement to take it seriously...

...Though Sweeney's extemporaneous speaking style is often mushy and uninspiring, he can call for help from stemwinding secretary-treasurer Richard Trumka (former Mineworkers president) and from Linda Chavez-Thompson, a former AFSCME vicepresident in the newly created post of executive vice-president...

...At SEIU Sweeney approved the use of civil disobedience and disruptive direct action as a tactic when workers' legal rights to organize were abused, and the AFL-CIO is likely to encourage more such actions...

...That means becoming the core institution defending workers in general, advocating their rights, and helping them win greater power for themselves at work and in politics...

...As labor lawyer and author Tom Geoghegan has argued, violation of basic worker rights, like the right to organize, should be subject to the same severe punitive damages now provided for civil rights violations...

...Sweeney's regime is likely to—indeed, it must— bring about a new centralization of the American labor movement (as well as encourage more union mergers, such as the planned unification of the UAW, Machinists and Steelworkers...

...Yet it is reasonable to start with the simpler, narrow demand for the right to organize without fear of reprisal...

...Facing the new challenge of global capitalism, the goal of unions remains taking wages and working conditions out of competition...

...Now the question is, can they find the means...

...Sweeney sounded the call for a renewed movement in his acceptance speech...

...All workers should have a right to a safe and healthy workplace and to assured health care and adequate pensions, whether through their jobs or public programs...

...In a dramatic nod to the civil rights movement, Sweeney also wants to recruit a thousand organizers for a "union summer" of organizing in 1996...

...Unorganized workers respond best when approached personally at home, especially by unionized workers from other workplaces...

...The universality of such rights, transcending ethnicity, gender, and nationality, gives them a special legitimacy and provides a common focus for unity among otherwise antagonistic groups...

...They must demonstrate that they have new solutions for new problems, and they will need a much more ideologically informed and democratically involved rank and file to forge new public policies and centers of working-class power...

...Unions have become distant, often anonymous insurance agents for many workers, doing nothing to make them feel part of a broader social family of working people...

...Direct action risks public backlash, especially if a campaign does not build its case well in advance, but pusillanimity in cases where rights are abused and ignored typically entails the greater risk of failure...

...This might seem tame, but for the stuffy central organization of the American labor movement, it was nearly revolutionary...

...Ultimately, however, the new regime will need to tackle the question: what does labor want...

...Readers and librarians who wish to receive a copy of the index for Volumes 41 and 42 of Dissent (Winter 1994 through Fall 1995) may write to Dissent, 521 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1700, N.Y., N.Y...

...There's no denying the change wrought simply by the first challenge ever to an incumbent AFL-CIO president...

...Workers should have the right to strike or take other collective action on these issues, or to support fellow workers, without being fired or permanently replaced...

...It will take a fight, as in the civil rights movement or the CIO organizing drive, to organize on a grand scale, but that fight could precipitate a huge shift toward more humane politics inAmerica...

...Within unions, there is a need to revive—formally or informally—the old ideal of the union steward system, where there is a strong union representative for every few WINTER • 1996 • 19 American Questions dozen workers...

...Though productivity continues to rise and American corporations are increasingly competitive in the world economy, workers do not benefit...

...Indeed, they should be protected not only from discrimination but from any firing without just cause...

...Other coalitions, such as Jobs With Justice or the anti-NAFTA or single-payer health care campaigns, need to be encouraged, with unions more willing to participate without insisting on control...

...Most are already guaranteed in many European countries...

...He wants to establish a special project to organize the South...

...Union officials must become movement leaders more than organizational administrators (or petty autocrats...

...Even for much of manufacturing, global competitive pressures do not doom workers' demands, since in many highly automated industries, productivity is high and direct labor costs are relatively tiny...

...But neither the Democrats nor organized labor can go on citing those achievements as a reason for workers' continued support...

...He plans to set up a new strategic action center that will help locate more corporate vulnerabilities to labor pressure and to monitor global corporations more closely...

...A few union leaders, and more lower-level officials, support third party initiatives, like Labor Party Advocates (through which organizer Tony Mazzocchi wants to advance a labor agenda, not to run candidates...

...It would include a right to discuss and bargain about all conditions of work, including what have been traditionally called managerial prerogatives...

...Freer trade and faster capital mobility have created new competition among the world's lessskilled workers (which includes roughly 70 percent of the U.S...

...But the AFLCIO president has little power and a relatively small budget...

...they must educate and mobilize their members...

...They are more frequently employing inside campaigns, where workers stay on the job and protest or "work to rule," effectively slowing production...

...After many months of escalating campaigns against big real estate developers and managers in Washington, D.C., SEIU's Justice for Janitors campaign began blocking bridges into the city from the suburbs...

...18 • DISSENT American Questions The trampled rights of workers then are likely to become political issues, not private tragedies...

...For much of the growing service sector, it is not an implausible goal if more workers were organized, and many are ripe for organizing, since they now work for very poor pay and under unpleasant, insecure conditions...

...They are critical for democracy, community and even families to flourish...

...Achieving and giving substance to these rights would radically challenge the culture of contemporary American capitalism, but such rights are hardly incompatible with capitalism...

...He can define issues, provide some incentives for action, appeal for cooperation, and highlight 16 • DISSENT American Questions important causes and promising models...

...Abandoning the notion of the past few decades that the AFL-CIO had no role to play in organizing, Sweeney wants to establish a $20 million a year fund for organizing...

...Central labor councils of unions in a metropolitan area need to be revived...

...Sixty-one-year-old Sweeney, a genial, portly man described even by opponents as "sweet," can do something despite his limited formal powers...

...Remaking the labor movement depends on the 78 unions in the federation drastically changing themselves and uniting behind a new strategy...

...The time is ripe for this new crusade in many regards...

...Though the fund can serve as a catalyst for organizing, participating unions will have to provide the vast bulk of funds themselves...

...It was a statement to those real estate magnates—and suburbanites who profit from the District but do not pay taxes in it—that if the needs of janitors and the District's citizens are not met, business will not go on as usual...

...Some unions may run, or at least support, rival Democratic primary candidates in order to shift the party more towards workers' concerns...

...Political analyst Guy Molyneux, who took part in an extensive focus group survey of union members' political attitudes last summer, was stunned at the workers' lack of any explanatory framework—even a crude Keynesian ideology— that would help them make sense of what was happening to them...

...With her election, organized labor, whose leaders and members are still disproportionately white men, symbolically recognized how important both women and people of color will be for its growth...

...Sweeney, whose own union is the fastest growing in the AFL-CIO, rightly wants to make organizing labor's top priority...

...He can set a tone for organized labor...

...Donahue denounced this as likely to "marginalize" the labor movement...

...According to a survey conducted by Peter D. Hart Associates for the AFL-CIO, whereas only one-third of Americans are strongly hostile toward unions and a majority see unions as good for their members, by a wide margin Americans do not see unions as helping either the nation or workers as a whole...