TALKIN' UNION (BUT NOT TOO LOUD)

...Now, John McClellan was no great liberal and, for that matter, he was no great friend of organized labor...

...It's a heterogeneous union (from salespeople to lawyers providing legal services to the indigent), and although it's not huge, it is far-flung, with locals in some thirty states, Puerto Rico, and Canada...

...The man who made the real difference, the super-organizer, was Rupert Murdoch...

...McBride won, but Sadlowski had put on a bonny campaign, calling national attention not only to himself but to certain aspects of union management that could be improved to the marked benefit of the rank and file...

...Even then, the individual contributions of members is inevitably small...

...I am an inveterate preacher of the empirical doctrine that anyone who works for somebody else and is not a member of a union is a fool...

...A bland piece of boilerplate, you might say...

...However, the Steelworkers' outsider rule could not be struck down, Marshall continued, because it fell within the management rights of the union "to adopt and enforce reasonable rules" concerning the conduct of its members...

...the AFL-CIO asked...

...In the lower courts, Sadlowski had done well...

...The union was AFRA (only later did it add a "T" to become the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists...

...the facilities of the union...

...Seldom is it enough to mount a really srbstantial campaign, and is almost never <nough to match the resources of the incumbents...

...When he bought the paper a few years ago, the whole staff, from ad-takers to senior editors, suddenly realized that without a union they had no more rights than the Nat Hentoff writes every month about music and intermittently about First Amendment issues...

...For the dissenters, Justice Byron White reminded his brothers and sister why that 1959 Bill of Rights had been enacted in the first place...

...Well, as you'll see, that sentence turned out to be the core of the Supreme Court's majority opinion...

...What is freedom of association...

...Some 90 per cent of his campaign money came from non-members of the union...

...Okay, let's look at the historic case which shatters that bedrock principle— United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO v. Edward Sadlowski Jr...

...The staff is dependent upon and totally loyal to the leadership...

...Joining Byron White in dissent were Chief Justice Warren Burger, William Brennan, and Harry Blackmun...

...was a charter member of the USWA, remained a member for thirty-two years prior to his retirement, and receives a USWA pension, the terms of which are negotiated by USWA's officers...

...Not surprisingly, not one union boss—even among those regarded as near-socialists—had a mumbling word to say, so far as I could see, in protest against the high court's downgrading of the rank and file...

...The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had pointed out that the goal of the 1959 statute was union democracy, and there could be no union democracy unless "effective challenges can be made to the often-entrenched union leadership...

...It was introduced by Senator John McClellan, whose investigations had shown—as if this were news to working stiffs—that a good many union bosses at the time were not only corrupt but ran such totalitarian regimes that if one of the members dared to run in opposition, McClellan said, "he may be beaten, his family threatened, his property destroyed or damaged, and he may be forced out of his job...

...They have to do enough publicizing and campaigning to make themselves appear as a viable candidate before they begin to get support from any substantial number of members...

...That's the only way I—or anybody else I know in the union—could run against the man upstairs...

...Although he may yet be beatified, he is not without flaws...

...Therefore, said that court, the new union rule prohibiting all outside help violates the 1959 labor Bill of Rights...

...Yeah, but if there weren't an outsider rule, the business bosses would buy union elections...

...But now, the United States Supreme Court—in an opinion written by that certified liberal Thurgood Marshall—has ruled that any union leadership can prevent the rank and file from getting outside help in a union election...

...The rank and file had to be protected against itself lest it cast out the icons of the House of Labor...

...Try asking dissident members of the Teamsters, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and the American Federation of Teachers...

...In overturning the decisions of the lower courts this summer, Thurgood Marshall, writing for a 5-to-4 majority, conceded that "if candidates are not permitted to accept contributions from persons outside the union, their ability to criticize union policies and to mount effective challenges to union leadership may be weakened...

...It is the right of ordinary citizens who share common interests to create and control their own institutions...

...Without the shelter of such institutions, plain people are naked before the arbitrary power of the state, the employer, or other potentially hostile forces...

...I am also an inveterate inquirer into the long tenure of so many union chieftains...

...Members] had better not aspire to the presidency or the secretaryship, or they will be expelled or disciplined...

...Therefore, it was "reasonable" to keep rank-and-file dissidents in near-penury...

...In that 1959 statute, all union members were guaranteed freedom of speech and assembly so that union democracy could be achieved and maintained...

...The boss, each time we saw him, ensured solidarity...

...Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO reminds us in its ads that "all Americans—not just union members—should reflect on a fundamental human right that expresses a universal impulse: freedom of association...

...The danger is that local unions will now be encouraged to start passing all sorts of new restrictive rules on opposition activity and that the spirit of this decision will permeate many lower courts...

...Marshall granted that the high court had made it clear in Buckley v. Valeo (1976) that the First Amendment freedom of expression and association may be "diluted if it does not include the right to pool money through contributions, for funds are often essential if 'advocacy' is to be truly or optimally 'effective.' " But when it comes to second-class folk like union members, that dilution of freedom of expression and association is okay...

...Maybe I'd call my buddy Studs Terkel, and if I could persuade him my union needs regeneration, Studs might send me a twenty...

...Furthermore, White and the case record, as well as the legislative record, show that union elections "were to be modeled on the 'political elections in this country.'" The Steelworkers' outsider rule could not stand in political elections in this country...

...Then, said White, look at what it takes to run against an entrenched leadership in the Steelworkers in particular: "It goes without saying that running for office in a union with 1.3 million members spread throughout the United States and Canada requires a substantial war chest if the campaign is to be effective and to have any reasonable chance of succeeding...

...The boss paid us high school and college students with an eye to the wage scales of the Lowell textile mills of the 1890s, while reaping much good will among the customers for giving work to needy scholars...

...From fellow dissidents in the union, you say...

...Ever since, I have been on each collective bargaining committee...

...Moreover, liberals, especially of Marshall's generation, tend to feel kindly toward unions, remembering how hard it was for them to survive back then against ruthless management autocrats...

...At nineteen, I helped organize the radio station where I was then working...

...If I wanted to run against our smooth leader and break his control of the union apparatus, where could I get the money for mailings, for travel to our outposts throughout the land, for handbills...

...Nor was there any objection from the AFL-CIO itself...

...The Court has actually upheld so rigid an outsider rule that, as Justice White noted, Ed Sadlowski's/ather could not contribute to his son's campaign "even though the elder Sadlowski...

...So, in terms of legislative intent, clearly McClellan and the majorirty of Congress wanted union elections to be as open as possible, and not shrunken by such strategies as the Steelworkers' outsider rule...

...Maybe I could raise some campaign money from friends, relatives, libertarians (there's too much power from the top down under present leadership...

...Back in 1977, he was the Rocky of the steelworkers— running an insurgent campaign against Lloyd McBride, heir-designate of the union's leadership...

...In my own union, District 65, for instance, the president has reigned for some twenty-five years...

...has at its disposal...

...We are not among the economic elite of organized labor...

...Labor organizations had the right "to adopt and enforce reasonable rules as to the responsibility of every member toward the organization as an institution and to his refraining from conduct that would interfere with its performance of its legal or contractual obligations...

...Why did such long-term comrades-inliberty as Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan split on this one...

...The day after Murdoch had bought us, practically the whole shop walked down to the Lower East Side headquarters of District 65 (since affiliated with the United Auto Workers) and signed up...

...For many years, I and others tried unsuccessfully to organize the Village Voice, where I've been a columnist since the Battle of Bull Run...

...It is also likely that a good many national (or, as they like to say, international) unions will also now be prodded by their bosses to pass outsider rules and other "reasonable" ways of keeping the rank and file under control...

...Lining up behind Thurgood Marshall were Lewis Powell, William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, and Sandra O'Connor...

...etal...

...But my fellow dissidents don't have much bread...

...This inspirational tale of my small history in organized labor is a prelude to an analysis of the Supreme Court's recent sellout of the rank and file's right to truly free union elections...

...The Bill of Rights for workers, he emphasized, was not intended to incorporate "the entire body of First Amendment law" into the 1959 statute...

...Among his books is "The First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America...

...That includes the staff members who run the union paper which, in many unions, resembles a journal of hagiography even in a non-election year...

...I wanted you to know that what follows is not written by a liberal or a libertarian (they are seldom the same) who has only an abstract knowledge of trade unionism...

...At last, the shop was converted...

...The next year, with McBride in office and wanting to stay there, the leadership got a rule put in the union constitution, as printed above, that prevents Sadlowski or any other opponent of the incumbent from ever again getting so much as a nickel from Studs or the candidate's own mother...

...Union members are entitled to some rights "equivalent to the rights established by the First Amendment," but not all such rights...

...Competence has nothing to do with it one way or another...

...I was a regional officer for the union in New England for a while, and I'm still an active member, taking particular pleasure in flashing the card when a television producer says there's no pay, only glory, for appearing on a particular program...

...But how, asked the Court of Appeals, can you launch effective challenges without outside help...

...I tell him the contract says different...

...But Justice White scotched that one by quoting the seasoned labor authority, Clyde Summers: "Opposition candidates customarily finance their campaigns in the first instances out of their own pockets and out of loans or gifts from friends...

...Remember Ed Sadlowski...

...Herman Benson, the dauntless head of the Association for Union Democracy, which keeps box scores on the freedoms of union members, told James Wechsler of the New York Post after the Supreme Court decision: "Every day I get calls from all over the country from people engaged in local contests, charging stolen ballots, beatings, and other violations...

...The way it stands now, the Supreme Court has made it exceedingly difficult— and in some cases, impossible—for labor leaders to be challenged...

...The First Amendment rights of free association in elections outside the shop are now denied them as union members...

...Brennan is almost always a libertarian first...

...It had supported the Steelworkers' officialdom against the union dissenters in the case...

...And Ed Sadlowski asks a New York Times reporter: "How can you campaign in Lackawanna, New York, if you can't afford to take a bus...

...On June 14, 1982, the Supreme Court ruled that this Steelworkers' union abridgment of its members' right to campaign for office is entirely constitutional...

...No problem, says Justice White: "A requirement of disclosure of all contributions, together with a ceiling on contributions, would avoid outside corruption without trampling on the rights of members to raise reasonable sums for election campaigns...

...furniture...

...That AFL-CIO ad also reminds us, nonetheless, that "freedom of association is obviously the bedrock principle of trade unionism...

...That Sadlowski was able to make himself heard at all in a union with 1.3 million members spread throughout the United States and Canada was due to outside financial help...

...Look at the odds, continued White, facing a union member running against an incumbent who wants to stay in office: "Such a leadership...

...Can you name, by way of illustration, another potentially hostile force...

...Emphasis added...

...With outside help...

...They get contributions from sympathetic union members, but at the beginning they may have few open supporters and they do not have a large organization to solicit contributions...

...Sadlowski got support, for instance, from that well-known tool of the capitalist class, Studs Terkel...

...Our union was not recognized, of course, until we threatened to strike—just at the start of the Christmas season...

...If the dissident has any real support, say entrenched union leaders in rebuttal, he'll get the money he needs from his fellow workers...

...But the elder Sadlowski is no longer an active member, so he can't give his son a nickel...

...So here, with the full AFL-CIO, in all its majestic Uriah Heep devotion to democracy, supporting the outsider rule, Marshall yielded to his liberal instincts...

...All their leadership has to do is ram a rule through that is like that of the United Steelworkers: "No candidate [in a union election] and supporter of a candidate may solicit or accept financial support, or any other direct or indirect support of any kind (except an individual's volunteered personal time) from any non-member...

...We had no officers in our union, by the way...

...But no one can afford to run against him...

...Sadlowski and several other free souls sued, claiming that the new rule violated the "Bill of Rights" for union members enacted into law as part of the LaborManagement Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA...

...This, of course, is the same AFL-CIO which, on August 30, placed uplifting newspaper ads throughout the nation under the title Freedom of Association...

...Marshall is a fulltime liberal and a sometime libertarian...

...Yet it is inconceivable that he intended his Labor Bill of Rights to be interpreted in a way that guarantees labor leaders permanent tenure...

...The Supreme Court, in upholding so rigid a rule against outsider contributions, has made it exceedingly difficult for rank-and-file insurgents to challenge union leaders There was one other provision in that Bill of Rights...