LABOR'S URGENT NEED: 'UNIONIZE THE ORGANIZED'
Lens, Sid
Labor's Urgent Need: 'Unionize the Organized' By SID LENS WITH the notable exception of John L. Lewis in his swashbuckling prime there has been no one in the hierarchy of the American labor...
...If he doesn't, he too will stay on the sidelines...
...18 million men and women enrolled in unions, by far the greatest number in history, there is less unionism and less idealism than ever before...
...Thus, the description of his own philosophy as "pragmatic idealism" underscored the fact that his present position is midway between the socialism he embraced in the past and the business unionism of the AFL he still eschews...
...Next day at 7 a.m...
...American workers do not link these economic fights with politics...
...The employer conceded that none of his employees had ever been advised of this contract, that none had ever been invited to a union meeting...
...In the sphere of political action the gap between the workers and the leadership is even more harassing...
...They took our money but we got lower wages than we're getting here now...
...Another experience similarly illustrates the gap between union leadership and the rank and file...
...But added to it now is the suspicion of unorganized men that the unions they join will not serve them but fleece them...
...They pay their dues to get higher wages...
...In 1952 millions of unionists voted for Dwight D. Eisenhower despite their leaders' endorsement of Adlai Stevenson...
...Suppose, for instance, that the AFL-CIO begins a drive on textile plants in the South...
...Shall it be the teamsters, who already have a cannery section and also the great economic power to make victory possible...
...Failure of union leadership to take a forthright position on the race question—and above all to practice it— will not only inhibit the organization of millions of workers in the South, but will keep Negroes away from labor's political committees...
...Our task, said Reuther as the CIO dissolved to merge with the AFL, is to "unionize the organized...
...It is in this larger area, involving so decisively the spirit of those who already carry union cards, that labor unity will succeed or fail...
...In a word—more effective political action and more effective organization of the unorganized...
...We didn't even know our union officers...
...American workers are the most militant on earth...
...That dream of a better way of life, beyond the level of steaks and Buicks, which was the mortar that held together labor movements like the first CIO groups and the old needle trades, is cracked and chipped...
...That was the experience at this plastic factory, which had to be abandoned as an organizing possibility...
...For the stark fact the militant leader of the UAW was emphasizing is simply that organized labor—and the leadership of organized labor—are not unionized in the deepest meaning of that word...
...the union's representatives were on hand to greet the plastic workers...
...Many own stocks and bonds, the result of years of savings, and have a tendency to "look at both sides...
...Or should they all be bypassed in favor of a brand new "organizing committee...
...The merger of AFL and CIO was meant to rescue labor from the growing avalanche of anti-labor legislation and to strengthen and advance its foothold in new industries and new areas...
...There currently is a tiny AFL union in this field, the CIO packinghouse union which has been organizing in the sugar industry, and a host of unions involved in the food processing industry, including AFL meat cutters, CIO retail and wholesale, and AFL teamsters...
...The Negro wants equality within his union (which he hasn't received in old-line organizations) and he wants a labor movement that is pledged to civil rights in housing, jobs, elections...
...In economic matters there is a common, effective bond among all unionists: they want higher wages and better conditions...
...But the union movement exercises no such political magic...
...Without exception they pointed out they had been cheated in these other organizations...
...Each election year the AFL and CIO political committees report imposing progress...
...Or, having done the organizing, shall it later submerge the two existing unions into the "organizing committee," with new leadership, separate from both current groups...
...But before such an educational program can be undertaken the rank and file unionist must have a friendly response to his union leaders...
...Unfortunately, however, a dollar doesn't buy one-half or one-hundredth of what it bought in 1934—in point of union organization—because so much of the drive in the Thirties was stoked by a burning idealism and was carried on by countless volun...
...So long as he feels he is an outsider, he may continue his allegiance to his union in economic action...
...The workers come from such a variety of political backgrounds and prejudices that their leanings are both hazy and diverse...
...The next day the union called the employer to request recognition and the start of bargaining...
...His articles on labor and world affairs have appeared in many publications, including Harper's, The Yale Review, and The Harvard Business Review...
...The union that did the legitimate organizing telephoned the other union and learned that the whole sorry story was true...
...Still, it took a three-day strike by the employees before they were visited by a representative of that union and their wages were brought up to the minimum standards set under the city-wide contract in that industry...
...A poll of secondary union leaders indicated that at least one-quarter were pro-Eisenhower, and at the lower levels it must have been even greater...
...No simple problem this—or the scores of others of similar or greater magnitude...
...men who had been in unions before become the hard-core barrier that prevents further unionization...
...In the larger plants, with higher wage levels and more skilled workers, the chances are that former union members would take an opposite, pro-union, position, and enlist in the cause...
...Unfortunately this is no isolated example...
...But on the larger canvas, it seems clear that the decline of union idealism and the simultaneous decline of the American Left constitute a towering barrier to organized labor...
...It listed the benefits of organization, attached an application card, and promised to have representatives drop around the following morning to confer with the workers and receive their signed cards...
...Most union political committees are paper organizations...
...Quite apart from the question of whether labor should have its own party or not, the principle persists that before there can be any step-up in political activity the rank-and-file unionist must "belong" as part of his organization...
...Assume that an organizing campaign is mapped for the agricultural industry...
...neither group was suspicious of the other...
...It is this problem, more than any other, that will be the greatest barrier confronting John Livingston, director of organization in the merged AFL-CIO...
...II In the retail field, which has nearly five million organizable workers but less than a half million union members, there are six unions in the field and at least three others which claim partial jurisdiction...
...On what basis and percentage...
...In a real sense the idealism that labor's brass manifests on this question is a barometer of its total idealism...
...What kind of organizational structure can weld such forces into an effective unit...
...But he will certainly be apathetic about ringing doorbells in political campaigns...
...The workers and their leaders seemed indissolubly wedded...
...It makes the organization of the unorganized many times more difficult than it was in the Thirties...
...But compared to the task of "unionizing the organized," this problem seems small indeed...
...And they will have a long way to go to overcome the anxiety about "unions being rackets...
...Lens Is the author of three books, "Left, Right, and Center," "The Counterfeit Revolution," and, soon to be published, "A World In Revolution...
...Shall it first work out a merger between the old CIO textile union and its AFL counterpart, and merely assign organizers to the merged group...
...Their interest in political subjects like foreign policy, tax legislation, government spending, control of natural resources—all of which affect their five or ten cents an hour raise quite substantially—is lukewarm at best...
...The organizers working in the new drive will be paid $120 to $150 a week plus expenses, perhaps $10,000 a year in all...
...But, significantly, the only five employees who had ever belonged to a union before refused to sign up...
...Some are tenants who feel hostility to landlords...
...If he gets these he will be an enthusiastic participant both in organizing the unorganized and in ringing doorbells...
...The reasons are simple...
...Their strikes equal the combined total in 27 other leading industrial nations of the "free world...
...III Experiences of this kind give some credence to the carefully cultivated drive by much of our press to persuade the public that "unions are rackets...
...If it is to be an organizing committee, must it agree in advance to re-allocate the newly-enrolled workers into these nine internationals at some future date...
...That fear still exists in unorganized fields...
...Shall each group of organized workers, say in a department store, be divided into the competing international unions, or shall there be a single group paying per capita taxes to each of the rival organizations...
...But political education is another matter...
...Against its wishes the newly arrived union was obliged to withdraw from the scene, but it did ask that the union in control send over a business agent to see that the contract terms were observed and the workers informed that they belonged to the organization because their boss was paying the dues...
...It would take a towering effort to educate them to a common political approach...
...Or shall it form a separate "organizing committee," enroll the three-quarters of the industry still un-organized, and then reassign them to the existing rival international unions...
...Shall it be the agricultural union...
...We paid our dues for nothing," they said...
...They will be untouched by the fires that sparked their counterparts of yesterday...
...the United States loses more man-days of labor as a result of strikes than any nation...
...Today that reservoir is near depletion...
...Unlike other countries, in the United States few workers tie their economic plight in the factory to a common political objective...
...Labor's Urgent Need: 'Unionize the Organized' By SID LENS WITH the notable exception of John L. Lewis in his swashbuckling prime there has been no one in the hierarchy of the American labor movement capable of coining a new, or giving freshness to an old, phrase with the aptness and insight of Walter Reuther...
...To its surprise—and the astonishment of the employees—the union was told that management had been signing contracts with another union for three years...
...The AFL's Labor's League for Political Education said it had helped elect 154 Congressmen and 18 of 30 endorsed Senators...
...20 employees signed union application cards...
...teers, including some Communists, who often worked around the clock without pay and usually without expenses...
...Union education in this sphere is almost axiomatic...
...The textile problem is doubtless quite simple compared to some of the others...
...The men at the lathe, in the mines, stores, and offices often have diverse outside interests...
...This is particularly true of the Negro segment of the union movement...
...There was a reservoir of good will and idealism that drew hundreds of organizers into the fold, often with little or no pay...
...Without a measure of the burning idealism that typified the Thirties, the new drives of the Fifties will probably prove sterile...
...An organizing drive was begun in a factory with 25 workers...
...This attitude overlooks, of course, the innumerable examples of decent unionism which represent the great majority...
...it entails little leadership energy...
...In the formative days of the CIO no one thought of it as "a racket" Dues were only $1 a month...
...But those strikes are always for limited economic objectives, like a five or ten cents an hour pay raise...
...IV In one or two instances labor's money and endorsement may spell the difference between victory and defeat, but ordinarily the worker votes for Democratic candidates because of the feeling carried over from New Deal days that the Democrats represent the "poor man," rather than because of anything his union tells him...
...It was at the last convention of the CIO, when the hall was heavy with the nostalgia of the great struggles of the Thirties, that Reuther coined a new phrase which may, more than any other, emphasize labor's difficulties in the Fifties...
...Shall it be the meat cutters and packinghouse unions now on the verge of uniting...
...As employer he had paid the dues for each worker, just to be left alone, unhindered by union grievances or rates...
...With SID LENS knows the problems of labor firsthand...
...Under such circumstances an organizing dollar today can hardly be expected to go as far as a few pennies did two decades ago...
...The route to these goals must lead through such indirect paths as the democratization of many unions, providing the rank and file with a feeling of participation, elimination of racketeers, extended educational programs, and vast alterations both in structure and outlook that will truly re-shape American labor...
...In the mid-term Congressional elections of 1954 the CIO Political Action Committee claimed that it had helped elect 126 Congressmen of 256 endorsed, and 16 Senators of the 26 who carried a PAC tag of approval...
...But in all too many cases the experience is quite the reverse...
...They have a common relationship toward the employer...
...He is a labor leader in Chicago—director of Local 329, AFL...
...In the Thirties the great impediment to organization was fear—fear of being discharged, fear of being beaten on the picket line...
...Members of many unions have little or no understanding of labor principles...
...He may vote for the new union contract and perhaps support his picket line during a strike...
...Two organizing experiences drawn from the recent activity of a local union in Chicago illustrate the problem: The organizers of this union distributed circulars one evening after work to a group of 200 workers in a plastic factory...
...Some union officials believe that pouring $8 million into an organizing drive, now that labor is "united," will lead to a bonanza of new members...
...A Union at Your Plant...
...The organizers were almost all men who had just left the shops themselves, raw-boned, unpolished, but fervent and sincere...
...This play by Reuther on the traditional cry of labor to unionize the unorganized reveals more of labor's plight and problems, in three words, than can be found in learned tomes on the subject...
...There were no initiation fees...
...Since the big farm operators often have their own canneries intertwined with their agricultural activity, which international union shall be granted organizing rights over the whole area...
...it waits to be rekindled with new fuel from new sources...
...The circular was routine: "At last," it said...
...Comparable situations prevail, particularly in the low-paying industries hardly touched by unionization...
...Livingston is confronted with painful headaches, whichever path he chooses...
...It dooms labor's political action to pretty much a stand-still operation...
...In the months to come, however, both these tasks will revolve around the ability to "unionize the organized...
...There are some exceptions, but the general pattern is one of weakness rather than strength...
...The spirit has died out...
...So long as he is sullen and unhappy, so long as he feels "left out," he will remain on the side lines and refuse to participate...
...Such figures are always taken up by the right-wing press as a barometer of the "overpowering might of labor...
...There are, of course, countless problems of jurisdiction and structure that inhibit unionization of 37 million potential union members...
...Some own property and are landlords on the side...
...As usual, three or four of the unorganized signed applications...
Vol. 20 • March 1956 • No. 3
