The “They’ll-take-it-from-me” Principle

So the Democrats ran the table. They now govern from the Whitehouse to the Courthouse. The long, cold night is over and working people are looking forward with hope to a new dawn.

A lot of us unionized state employees went through a dozen cold, dark years of the Republican Administrations of Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum. We had to fight every inch of the way. Our wages and benefits barely kept up with inflation.

Then a new day dawned. A Democrat was elected to be our boss. Glory and salvation was at hand. But, Jim Doyle proceeded to freeze our wages, hike our out-of-pocket insurance premiums, cut jobs and continue $500 million in contracting out.

Rarely do we get a glimpse under the skirt of the body politic. One such opportunity came when David Dinkins was running for Mayor of New York a few years back. Dinkins, a liberal Democrat, “community leader” and designated “friend of labor” was facing a budget deficit and was making his pitch to a skeptical capitalist class. This account from the New York Times:

Addressing potential Wall Street contributors last week, Mr. Dinkins said…that looming budget gaps make it unlikely the next mayor will have much to give away. “So it may well be that I’ll have to tell some of my friends they cannot have the things they want,” he said. “But they’ll take it from me.”

And, that’s just how it went down. Dinkins was elected and he stuck it to the unions and to the “community.” And, the union bureaucracy “took it” from him. Just like Doyle stuck it to state employees, without a whimper from the bigwigs at AFSCME Council 24 and AFT-Wisconsin.

This “They’ll-take-it-from-me” principle is at the heart of the two-party shell game we call politics in this country. The fundamental problem is that the U.S. working class has no independent political voice, so our message is told by pro-capitalist union bureaucrats. And, the honchos who run the AFL-CIO/Change to Win Coalition see the unions as nothing more than muscle for the Democratic Party. They hold a union member card and a Democratic Party member card, and there’s no question which trumps. The Eleventh Commandment for these people is: Thou shalt not criticize a sitting Democrat.

Imagine the ruckus if Scott McCallum had beaten Doyle in 2002 and announced a freeze on state employee wages, a hike in insurance premiums, continued contracting out and a promise to cut 10,000 state jobs. Actually, you don’t have to imagine it. Just recall the short, stormy reign of Governor McCollum when unions rallied at the Capitol to denounce his proposed budget and then we launched the “A Deal Is A Deal” campaign. It was a rare show of unity between AFSCME, AFT-W and SEIU. And an even rarer show of rank-and-file mobilization.
Seen anything like that since the Dems took over?

And you won’t either. Because when it comes time to stick it to working people—from the Whitehouse to the Courthouse—no one can do it better than the liberal Democrats. Because, as David Dinkins told his capitalist keepers: They’ll take it from me.

Labor's Choice

Finally, this year working people have a real option at the polls. No more lesser-evilism. No more Tweedle-dee Democrats or Tweedle-dum Republicans.

The US Labor Party has a candidate for President on the ballot in 49 states. And, if the polls are to be believed, it could really happen this time: A working class President of the United States.

And, to think, it all started right here in Madison. Last year, when it became clear the Democratic majority in the House wasn’t really going to end the war or bring us single-payer health care, there was a revolt at the South Central Federation of Labor meeting. In the fracas, Jim Cavanaugh apparently forgot to decline the nomination and ended up the Labor Party’s nominee for President.

At the time no one paid much attention to our platform. For example, we called for the expropriation of private banks and the statization of the credit system. And, for a sliding scale of hours and wages, to provide good-paying jobs for everyone who wanted one. What seemed like socialist pie-in-the-sky back then now looks like good old fashioned common sense.

And we called for nationalization of the energy industry. This was when gas was only 3 bucks a gallon. And, before the Dem’s wimpy call for a tax on “windfall profits.”

And, now with Obama/Biden pledging to “maintain a residual force of troops in Iraq indefinitely,” and build up the war in Afghanistan, the Labor Party’s call for “all troops out now” resonates with those millions of voters who thought they had voted in 2006 to end the war.

When word got out about Cavanaugh’s run, union rank-and-filers across the country fanned out with nominating petitions. This in spite of a joint statement from John Sweeney and Andy Stern, ordering union members to “stick with our friends the Democrats.”

When the polls started showing a groundswell of support for the Labor Party platform, the Democrats and Republicans joined forces. While taking an occasional shot at each other, they spent millions on ads telling working people: “Don’t throw your vote away.” But workers weren’t listening anymore.

Then, the proverbial October Surprise: a month before the election, the Republicans and Democrats teamed up to bail out Wall Street. Americans were pissed and confused. They turned to the Labor Party for answers….

“Hey, Ron. Wake up, man.”

“Huh? Wha…?”

“You fell asleep at your desk.”

“Oh, yeah…. Shit. Think anybody noticed?

“Nah. All the bosses are at that management retreat today. It’s just you and me, man.”

“I was havin’ this great dream….”

“Yeah, I could tell. You had this big grin on your face when I came by.”

“What time is it?”

“Just about quittin’ time. You wanna go have a beer or somethin’?”

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Labor Day, May Day 2008

It’s Labor Day again. Every culture in the Northern Hemisphere has a fall harvest festival of some kind. Time to kick back and feast on the fruits of our labor. If we’ve been lucky, the larder is fairly full and it’s time to be satisfied with ourselves. Either way, it’s also a time to make the mental adjustment, to hunker down for the long freeze that’s about to come.

On the opposite side of the calendar is May Day, also a day for traditional working class celebration. Spring festivals in the North celebrate a time of planting, hope, regeneration, rebirth and renewal. A pagan pregnant time. A time to anticipate a new beginning.

Again this year, Labor Day will be celebrated by the unions of the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coalition out at the Labor Temple on Park Street. It’s all pretty ritualized by now: Italian sausage, beer, Paul Cebar, face painting, the roll call and Ruth leading Solidarity Forever. Literature tables, staffed by familiar but older faces, overflowing with often false hope and promises. This being an election year, politicians will be out as thick as fleas on a hound.

If you were at the May Day march this past spring you’ll recall that it was conducted largely in Spanish. High school kids had made artful silkscreened signs. As we marched up West Washington, construction workers came out to wave in solidarity and a semi went past and the driver blew his horn to the rhythm of “Si, se puede.” The people in the street were young and the music was rhythmic and sexy.

The demands of the May Day marchers included health care for all and an end to the war. But the people at May Day also demanded that Sheriff Mahoney (that same Sheriff Mahoney who was heavily backed in his last election by local unions) stop harassing undocumented workers. Members of the Workers International League, Industrial Workers of the World, International Socialist Organization and assorted unaffiliated socialists marched. There was no official AFL-CIO presence at May Day.

The local labor movement (sic) has few things to celebrate this Labor Day. We almost completed the mural in the hallway of the Labor Temple. Our real estate holdings on Park Street increased in value. And we hired a full-time organizer--not to help organize unions, but to help elect Democrats. Then, on the other side of the ledger, there was Woodman’s, Superior Linen and CleanPower.

Some at Labor Day grumble that our country is being taken over by illegal immigrants from Latin America. Those who know me don’t express their bigotry to my face. But, being an old white guy, people who don’t know me assume that I share their perspective and spout off freely. “It could be worse,” I tell them. “A hundred years ago we were facing hoards of Irishmen!”

So, it’s harvest time again. If you’re one of the 10 percent of the U.S. workforce that is lucky enough to have a unionized job, chances are the larder is at least partially full, so maybe you won’t have to eat the seed before spring. If you’re among the other 90 percent, there’s May Day.

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Some Good Principles

Today we bring you the Statement of Principles of Railroad Workers United. RWU is an effort to unite the various craft unions in the railroad industry into one militant industrial union. The Principles, adopted at the founding convention this past spring, would be a solid basis for any union. You can visit the RWU’s fabulous website at http://railroadworkersunited.org/

You may know that one of RWU’s founding members is Madison’s (sometimes) own Ron Kaminkow. Ron is a (usually employed) Amtrak engineer and an (always) organizer.

Statement of Principles

Unity of All Rail Crafts: For decades, the carriers have played one craft off against the other to our mutual detriment. This lack of unity has contributed greatly to our lack of power, which has in turn hampered our ability to negotiate and enforce good contracts. We are unable to effectively confront the carriers on issues of vital concern to our membership-attendance, crew fatigue, discipline, safety, etc.-because we are divided. The carriers are degrading and deskilling our crafts, implementing new technologies that threaten our jobs, our safety and livelihoods, propose the dismantling of FELA, demand drastic health care concessions, and more. In the face of this aggressive attack, is there any doubt of the need for the greatest possible cross-craft unity? Therefore, Railroad Workers United supports the greatest possible unity and cooperation between all rail crafts and unions both at the leadership level and among the rank-and-file.

An End to Inter-Union Conflict: We condemn any and all hostilities between the rail unions. The open warfare between the UTU and the BLET is especially to be condemned. We demand an immediate halt to the irresponsible and reckless name calling, mud slinging and finger pointing that the leadership has long engaged in. We favor neither union in this - or in any other -- destructive fratricide between brothers and sisters who are each others' natural allies.

Rank-and-File Democracy: Union leadership is all too often out of touch with the needs and issues of the membership. We need unions that are built upon democratic control by their members, unions that are not simply dues collection agencies for a few highly paid officials with jobs-for-life. We need constitutional provisions that include, but are by no means limited to: direct election of officers at all levels, including General Chairmen; the right to recall of officers; salary and expenditure limits; an end to special perks and privileges; proportional representation at conventions; and guarantees of protection for minority and dissenting views.
Membership Participation and Action: In addition to building unity and democracy, it is of equal importance that we build a rail labor movement based on the mass action of the members themselves. For too many years we have allowed our unions to be "led" by a small handful, while the average union member has remained uninformed, uninterested and uninvolved. In order to effectively stand up to the carriers, we must overcome the cynicism, apathy and despair of the ranks, and build in its place a union of inspired, educated, and active members who are willing to take action on the job in defense of our jobs and our unions.

Solidarity: For years, we have allowed the Carriers to whipsaw craft against craft, member against member. It's time we returned to the labor standard of "An injury to One is an Injury to All!" Only when we stand up for each other, go to bat for each other, and take action on the job in defense of each other, will we have a strong union. Remember, this is how unions were built in the first place! If the carmen on the BNSF in Seattle are under attack, we ALL are under attack. When UP engineers are threatened, we ALL are threatened. Railroad Workers United strives to rebuild this spirit of solidarity.

No to Concessionary Bargaining: After decades of concessionary bargaining, rail workers have practically come to expect lousy contracts. We say NO! to further give-backs at the bargaining table. If the union cannot at least maintain the current standard of living and working conditions for its members, it will become increasingly irrelevant in their lives. We are committed to a coordinated bargaining strategy of all rail unions. We pledge ourselves to oppose any and all concessions at the bargaining table, and pledge to build a fighting movement of rank-and-filers that includes all railroad crafts to take the necessary action to defend our jobs, our livelihoods, our rights and our union!

Lip Service to the Organizing Model

The AFL-CIO launched a bold new initiative back in 1988. They called it the Organizing Model, and it was going to revitalize the waning labor movement in this country. Never one to jump on a new thing, my union, AFT-Wisconsin, adopted the Organizing Model just this past October.

But, the Organizing Model largely never “took” with the unions of the AFL-CIO. And, for the same reasons, I fear it won’t take with the AFT-W either. And, while union officials continue to provide vigorous lip service to the Organizing Model, they continue to defend the Service Model in practice. So, it’s useful to think about why that happens.

Let’s first define the Organizing Model. It’s best understood in contrast to its alternative, usually called the Service Model. Under the Service Model, union staff, lawyers and paid officials provide services to a largely passive membership. In contrast, under the Organizing Model, an activated membership takes care of the union’s business.

The Service Model assumes that a union’s power comes from laws so that the union’s job is to enforce those laws through legal processes like grievances, arbitrations, ULPs and appeals to the NLRB or WERC. More fundamentally, under the Service Model, it is important to get labor-friendly laws on the books, so elections and lobbying are critical activities. In contrast, the Organizing Model assumes that the union’s power comes from mobilizing members and our allies to bring direct pressure on the employer.

Purveyors of the Service Model blame the members for their inactivity. “Sure, I’d like to mobilize members,” a local union official said to me after a recent workshop. “But look at ‘em. They’re like this apathetic lump. Hell, they don’t even come to monthly union meetings. How am I gonna get ‘em to a rally or picket line?”

“Well,” says I, “when was the last time the union asked members to come to a rally or picket line?” The answer, of course, was “never,” but he chose to change the subject.

A fundamental prerequisite for mobilizing members is that we have to buy into the activities, and take ownership, of the union. We need meaningful information and a democratic decision-making process that allows us to decide what actions to take.

These conditions simply don’t exist in most unions today. Important decisions usually are made by a small group of insiders, usually in relative secrecy. Leaders and staff rationalize their undemocratic mode of operation by saying members are uninformed and apathetic and that meetings and votes are a waste of time. And, of course, there’s always the possibility that we members might even make the wrong decision! But it really comes down to their unwillingness to give up the power and privilege that goes with their position in a union based on the Service Model.

Moreover, if you believe the basic assumptions of the Service Model, you really see no role for a mobilized membership. When pushed, practitioners of the Service Model are completely flummoxed at the notion of mobilizing large numbers of people to do anything. Why go through all the effort of organizing a rally when what you really need to do is pick up the phone and call the lawyer?

Of course, there is one circumstance under which even labor leaders steeped in the Service Model can mobilize members: to elect Democrats. So, for example, while local unions had no presence at this year’s May Day rally in Madison and only a pathetic presence at a rally to fight the decert at Woodman’s, they manage to mobilize dozens of members for Saturday house-calls in support of Obama. But, this makes the point: Under the Service Model, there is no role for members other than to pay dues and elect Democrats.

For the Organizing Model to become anything more than lip service, two things have to happen. First, we need to institutionalize real rank-and-file democracy in our unions. That, frankly, will require something of a revolution in most cases. Staff and officials aren’t going to just give up the power and privilege that comes with decision-making.

Second, we need to re-define our notion of the source of a union’s power. The place to start, it seems to me, is to understand that legal processes (the presumed basis for power in the Service Model) don’t work for working people. The record shows that we can’t organize under the NLRB, we can’t get decent contracts by filing ULPs and we can’t get justice on the shop floor through arbitrations. The Service Model is a miserable failure. We need to get back to the old labor principle, in the words of the Wobbly slogan, “Direct Action Gets the Goods.”

But, again, there are powerful forces within our ranks with an interest in maintaining the status quo. The Labor Dems know that they can’t win elections without organized labor. So, a shift to an Organizing Model will bring us into direct conflict with those who believe the proper role for unions is as an adjunct of the Democratic Party. Again, this change will require something of a revolution in the labor movement.

That revolution didn’t occur in the AFL-CIO, and so the Organizing Model was a dead letter in 1988. And it won’t happen in our unions today without a rank-and-file rebellion.

Spitzer's Crimes

Ex-governor Elliot Spitzer is being punished for the wrong crime. He should be brought to justice as the guy who tried to bust Transport Workers Union Local 100 during their 3-day strike in December 2005. The guy who fined the union $1 million a day and threw union president Roger Toussaint in jail.

Of course, those aren’t crimes in capitalist America. Rather, he’s being hounded for the essentially victimless crime of being “John Number 9.”

If we can imagine Spitzer ever ending up in the dock for his crimes against the working class, we can imagine Toussaint and much of the leadership of Local 100 joining him. Their equally stupid crime was to endorse Spitzer in his run for governor, only months after he tried to bust their union.

But, we here in Wisconsin don’t have to travel all the way to NY to bask in stupidity. Take our Governor Doyle (please). Objectively speaking, he’s the most anti-labor governor in living memory. In his first term he froze state employee wages, cut benefits and promised to cut 20% of the unionized state workforce. Plus, when he came into office he locked into place all of the state’s cumulated tax breaks for the rich and draconian welfare programs for the poor.

Not to be outdone by our Local 100 brothers and sisters in NY, state employee unions, including AFSCME and AFT-W, endorsed Doyle’s re-election in 2006 and the state AFL-CIO poured big bucks into his campaign.

It’s doubtful that Spitzer will ever be prosecuted for hiring a hooker, let alone his crimes against the working class. As a defense lawyer on the News Hour glibly put it, if they prosecute John Number 9, what are they going to do about Johns Number 1 through 8? Obviously, there are some other big names on the Madam’s list—people who can afford upwards of $7,000 to get laid—who would have to stand trial with Spitzer as co-defendants. That won’t happen.

The pertinent questions for us in the labor movement are:

How long we will continue to allow leaders in our own ranks to support anti-labor politicians like Spitzer and Doyle?

And, who here needs an independent working class political party?

Unons sacrifice Madison janitors for Dems

The campaign to organize Madison janitors is dead, sacrificed on the alter of the Democratic Party.

As we noted here before, one fatal flaw of Business Unions is their inability to learn from defeats. In this case, the SEIU isn’t even admitting defeat. Instead, they announced that the organizing drive at CleanPower has simply “entered a new phase”—a phase curiously characterized by the organizers leaving town.

But we here at LaborLeft have no need to obfuscate. The unvarnished truth is that the SEIU and AFSCME took a dive on this one. They put the interest of Governor Doyle and the Democratic Party ahead of the interests of the janitors.

Recall that the SEIU’s strategy was to get the state to deny the new contract to CleanPower in favor of a more union-tolerant outfit. After a lot of hard work by a lot of dedicated people, they had the legal grounds for denying the contract to CleanPower and they began campaigning to get the state to do the right thing.

But the campaign had a strange twist. While the union and supporters held several aggressive actions, they never targeted Jim Doyle. Instead of picketing the Governor’s Office, they had us picketing the Risser Building. Instead of occupying the Governor’s Conference Room, we occupied conference rooms at the DOA building. Instead of demanding that Doyle cancel the contract, they demanded that minor civil servants at DOA cancel it.

This wasn’t oversight. On several occasions it was pointed out that the decision to dump CleanPower could be made by the Governor. This is a cabinet form of government and those DOA bureaucrats work for him. And it was an election year, so that Doyle might be sensitive to labor demands. But SEIU organizers could not utter the “D-word.” In the end, Doyle gave the contract to CleanPower even as the state AFL-CIO was campaigning to get him re-elected.

But let’s not forget that those janitors who clean state office buildings used to be AFSCME members. It was Republican Tommy Thompson who contracted out those jobs back in 1990. So, the naïve among us might assume that Doyle, the first Democrat to hold the office in 16 years, would reverse Thompson’s decision and make them unionized state employees again.

Doyle didn’t do that, of course. But, then, AFSCME made no visible demand that he do so. One might envision a campaign where, after his first election, AFSCME officials would meet privately with Doyle and demand that he reverse Thompson’s decision to contract out. And, if he didn’t do it, the union would steadily increase the heat through public exposure, leaflets and picket lines until he did so.

But, there’s an axiom of Business Unionism: “Never criticize a sitting Democrat.” If that means that a few hundred janitors have to continue working for poverty wages, well, labor has its priorities.

Resond to this article.

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LaborLeft New Year's Resolutions

Ah, the New Year. Time for renewal and hope. Time for new beginnings. Time for some New Year’s Resolutions. Here are some from a LaborLeft perspective.

Organize downtown hotels Since the internationals won’t do it, the Fed needs to establish an independent organizing committee to target unorganized shops. Recruit and train salts and establish internal organizing committees in a half-dozen hotels. Aim to have (non-majority, if necessary) unions in place and negotiating contracts by this time next year.

Start a free, weekly Union Labor News Kinda like Isthmus, but about working people, with news and views from the local, national and international labor movement. Bilingual, of course. Start with a monthly and build up to weekly. Hit up unions to defray costs.

Run independent labor candidates Start with one or two statewide or national offices. Any run would generate a Labor Platform and establish the idea that working people don’t need the “twin-parties of Big Business” to do our politics for us. Cavanaugh for Congress.

Floss This year for sure, we should all start flossing regularly. You know it’s the right thing to do. And, not just before the annual check-up either.

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