Un-accomplishments in a Union Town--Part 1

We here in Madison, Wisconsin, have one of the better labor councils around. The South Central Federation of Labor represents 35,000 dues paying members, the organization is run democratically and well. Many of our local activists are leaders of national organizations. By current standards, that earns us the reputation as a “Union Town.”

Each January the Fed publishes a list of accomplishments over the past year. It’s impressive. It includes mobilizing in support of struggling unions, educational events and electoral victories. No doubt, the working people in the Madison area are better off because of some of those accomplishments.

Yet, if we’re as good as it gets, why do we keep losing? Contract battles, political action and organizing…across the board. And if we’re doing what we do well and still keep losing, it seems that we must be doing the wrong things.

I always thought that a forward-looking movement would want to focus on urgent work that still needs to be done. Perhaps, in addition to publishing a list of accomplishments, we should be publishing an annual list of Un-accomplishments.

Such a list would, of course, draw fire. It would imply criticism of organizations and their leadership. It would come off as “negative” and the compiler might be castigated for airing dirty laundry and undermining the labor movement.

So be it. In this and the next two edition of LaborLeft we will lay out a list of Un-accomplishments in this Union Town, obviously not as an effort to undermine unions, but as a way to focus our attention on the urgent work to be done. And, while this list is specific to Madison, Wisconsin, we suspect that a similar list could be compiled anywhere in the country.

But the goal here is to build a more militant labor movement. So, in upcoming posts we will offer alternatives to business (unionism) as usual. More importantly, this is a forum so that you and other unionists can weigh in on the issues. It’s an opportunity and a challenge. For, if there’s a solution to our current state of affairs, it will come from people like you.

In this first article we will discuss recent contract settlements. The next will focus on organizing. The final article in the series will consider political action.

The Slow Slide

Madison city teachers, represented by an NEA local, recently settled for a 1 percent a year raise. Last winter local Steelworkers settled with Goodyear for a 2-tier wage and benefit structure and the loss of unionized jobs.

In 2004, members of UFCW Local 538 accepted a contract with Tyson Foods that froze wages, set up a 2-tier system and cut benefits. The “agreement” came just short of the first anniversary of a bitter strike when, under the law, scabs could have voted to decertify the union.

IBEW Local 2304, perhaps one of the better-run unions in the area, recently settled with Madison Gas and Electric for a modest wage increase and a 2-tier retirement system.

Madison is the home of a large number of state employees, represented by AFSCME, AFT, SEIU, Building Trades and a host of unaffiliated unions. We did relatively well in the most recent contract, averaging about 9 percent over two years. Of course, it was an election year, so we expected no less. But this comes after the previous contract that saw a first year wage freeze, a 1 percent raise in the second year and a huge increase in out-of-pocket health insurance costs. All things taken into account, average real wages for state employees went down by about 8 percent over the past four years.

Obviously, if we didn't have unions, the cuts would have been sudden and more severe. Indeed, without unions, we wouldn't have had decent wages and benefits to cut. But, there's no denying the fact that the general trend is in the wrong direction.

Ironically, some of the bright spots were among non-union workers. Under pressure from unions and radical students, many hourly workers at the University of Wisconsin got a “living wage” raise and many “limited term” jobs were converted to permanent unionized jobs. And one of the largest janitorial firms in the city and a large commercial laundry gave modest raises to their workers as “fix-ups” to undercut union organizing campaigns.

The Quality of the Fight

So, on average, the standard of living for unionized workers in this Union Town continues to slide. But it would be incorrect to say workers accepted concessions without a fight.

The Steelworkers struck Goodyear for 12 weeks. Tyson workers held out for almost a year. IBEW organized large informational picket lines and publicly embarrassed MG&E management. Many state employee locals worked without a new contract for two years during which time Teaching Assistants went on strike and a militant rank-and-file coalition organized a number of creative events to embarrass the Governor.

Union members proved they were ready and willing to fight concessions. The problem is that the tactics and strategies they used just didn’t work.

Several hundred Steelworkers and supporters from other unions massed on the picket lines in front of the Goodyear plant. A lone cop stood at the side of the gate while union marshals escorted scabs across the line. When some of us got a little aggressive in front of scab cars, union officials warned us off. I was told, “We don’t want bad publicity or an injunction.” Throughout the strike, the union engaged in protectionist China-bashing, as though Chinese workers somehow were responsible for their plight. Meanwhile, Goodyear kept up limited scab production while strike benefits stretched thin and insurance ran out.

Area unions organized mass support for the beleaguered Tyson strikers. There were huge rallies at the plant gate on Sundays, when the plant was closed. Come Monday morning, the picket lines were thinned and union officials made sure that scabs could get in to take their members’ jobs. There was a feeble attempt at a boycott of Tyson products. But the union wasn’t even able to compile a list of items to be boycotted. At one point we were told to buy Hormel products instead, an ironic reminder for those of us who organized support for the bitter strike against that company in 1984. Meanwhile, Tyson kept up scab production as the 1-year anniversary approached.

Officials of the state employee and teachers’ unions never utter the S-word. It’s illegal for government employees to strike in Wisconsin. This, although there was a massive and effective (and illegal) strike led by AFSCME Council 24 in 1977 and several short strikes by Teaching Assistants at the University of Wisconsin over the years. The TAs struck again in opposition to the zero/1 proposal and a coalition of rank-and-file activists pulled off several direct actions. But the official public employee union strategy seems to be to hold out for a long time and then accept whatever the employer chooses to offer us.

To add insult to injury, shortly after having the zero/1 and increased health insurance costs contract rammed down our collective throat, state employees began getting mailings and automated phone calls from our union urging us to support the re-election of the “friend of labor” Governor.

The point is: many unionists in our area are ready to fight back to stop our sliding standard of living. But what we are doing simply doesn’t work.

It’s not enough to just criticize the status quo. Starting next month, LaborLeft will begin a series entitled How to Win Strikes. Watch for it.

In the meantime, this is a forum. So weigh in on the issues raised here by clicking on “comments” at the end of this article. Click on the envelope icon to send this to a fellow union activist.

In solidarity,

Ron Blascoe
Steward, AFT 4848