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.