SYMPOSIUM: Split to Win?: Assessing the State of the Labor Movement
Lafer, Gordon
FIRST OF ALL, let's be clear that the primary cause of labor's decline is not anything that union leaders have done one way or the other, but rather the aggressive and often illegal behavior of...
...At a time of shrinking resources, gambling a large campaign budget on a national chain is a risky endeavor...
...What it takes to win a good contract at a hotel is quite different from what it takes with a construction contractor, a hospital, or a chip manufacturer...
...All unions need to focus on those industries that are both profitable and immobile...
...Above all, it is critical for unions to organize on a larger scale and with an industry-specific focus...
...Specifics of the split may be up for debate, but there is no doubt about the general strategy that unions need to pursue...
...That said, labor leaders still face important strategic choices...
...The labor movement has always been outgunned by management, and will remain overwhelmed in terms of the money it can devote to the workers' side of the struggle...
...The labor movement has been at the forefront of promoting the economic rights of women, immigrants, and racial and ethnic minorities...
...This leads to a clear focus on the service industries, although parts of manufacturing remain rooted in the United States, for reasons of proximity to markets, suppliers, or partners...
...FIRST OF ALL, let's be clear that the primary cause of labor's decline is not anything that union leaders have done one way or the other, but rather the aggressive and often illegal behavior of private sector employers...
...On the Change to Win side, for instance, the United Food and Commercial Workers' record even in its core industry of supermarkets has been spotty at best...
...that is, those that are not likely to move abroad...
...But these strategies take a long time to develop and are very industry-specific...
...GORDON LAFER is an associate professor at the University of Oregon's Labor Education and Research Center...
...Last year, for instance, conservative estimates suggest that one out of every seventeen eligible voters in workplace elections was illegally fired, suspended, or otherwise financially penalized for his or her political views...
...In almost every industry, it has become almost impossible to win simply by striking...
...If the only thing that came out of Change to Win were that its new partners helped the UFCW develop a more effective strategy for the retail industry, this by itself would be a critical step forward for the millions of Americans who toil in this underpaid industry...
...On both sides of the split, unions need to concentrate on specific industries...
...At a time 56 DISSENT / Winter 2006 when large corporations are focused on broad international strategies, there is no way for workers to defend themselves by organizing one workplace at a time—even if these are 300- or 500-person workplaces...
...in some cases, this means that it makes sense for a variety of unions to merge together in order to successfully take on bigger and more aggressive employers...
...But it is a risk we must take if we hope to regain the dream of a decent living for the vast majority of American workers...
...The unions that have developed the most successful industry strategies—such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in the custodial industry or UNITE-HERE in hotels and casinos—have spent years learning how to contest with employers in their industry...
...But in order to learn such lessons, unions must have a strategic commitment to focusing a significant number of staff on a single industry...
...This requires intensive understanding of the industry, strong organizing in a significant percentage of the industry's workplaces, and a lot of resources...
...He is currently at work on a book about how to make labor law more democratic...
...If elections to public office were run like those in the workplace, 7.5 million American citizens would have been fired or demoted for supporting the wrong candidate...
...Instead, unions need to take on whole corporate chains or whole geographic chunks of industries...
...Although some things are universal, it is extremely hard to represent workers effectively— or to win good contracts—unless you have a deep understanding of the specifics of each industry...
...it is whether unions on both sides of the split can succeed in developing new strategies to take on the huge, profitable, and all-too-often sleazily exploitative employers that have come to dominate our economy...
...but the turn to the service sector makes this even more of a necessity, meaning that unions need to adopt organizing strategies and leadership structures that reflect a more diverse work force...
...Yet this alone is not enough...
...Under such conditions of fear and repression, the wonder is not that it's hard for workers to organize unions but that some numbers actually succeed...
...In addition, we need to take on larger targets...
...At present, the majority of union elections are conducted in units of less than fifty people...
...In response, unions have developed a range of non-strike strategies for convincing employers to do the right thing...
...For a union to organize a small number of employers in a diverse range of industries results in no ability to represent employees effectively and little ability to grow...
...It's hard to imagine a more important challenge—not just for the labor movement, but for the country as a whole...
...Certainly, there are unions doing good things on both sides of the division—the Communication Workers of America (CWA) campaigns at Cingular and Verizon, for instance, embody some of the same bargaining-to-organize strategies advocated by the Change to Win unions...
...clearly we need to concentrate on larger workplaces...
...The key question, then, is not about the split itself...
...Beyond this, even unions that are already focused on a specific sector need to develop new capacities for dealing with their employers...
...It's not yet clear whether the rupture of the AFL-CIO was necessary...
Vol. 53 • January 2006 • No. 1
