AFL-CIO Leaders hand victory to employers

AFL-CIO Leadership Give the Employers Another Victory

By Richard Mellor
Member, AFSCME Local 444, Oakland CA


I wrote an article at the end of the last century
that was quite popular among some Union
activists. It was titled The Crisis Within. I
explained that the reason for the continued
setbacks and defeats for organized labor was the
failure of our leaders, the heads of the AFL-CIO,
to go on the offensive. I commented that if the
policy makers of the AFL-CIO were the heads of
major corporations they would have been fired
long ago for failing to produce adequate returns.

Some Union activists were fooled for a moment
when there was a revolt within the AFL-CIO
bureaucracy in 1995 and John Sweeney, formerly
President of SEIU, ousted Lane Kirkland in what
was the first contested election for the
Presidency of the Federation in the 20th century.
Sweeney and his supporters, Richard Trumka of the
UMW and Linda Chavez-Thompson of AFSCME who
joined Sweeney in the leadership, were elected on
a program that claimed Labor could not continue
to fight, "...only defensive battles" and that
"...we cannot wait for change in the political
climate to provide us with the opportunities to
grow. We must first organize despite the law if
we are ever to organize with the law. (1)
Richard Trumka said on October 26th 1995, "While
we are always willing to negotiate as equals, the
era of union busting, contract trashing and
strike breaking is at an end. Today, we say that
when you pick a fight with any of us, you pick a
fight with all of us! And that when you push us,
we will push back." In the light of the recent
grocery strike defeat one would think Trumka
would feel a little embarrassed but like the
bourgeois politicians they look up to, they
reject accountability.

Here we are in 2004 and nothing has changed.
60,000 grocery workers, members of the UFCW, have
just accepted a concessionary contract after five
months on strike. On October 11th 2003, workers
struck Vons and Pavilion's stores owned by
Safeway. In solidarity with Safeway, Albertson's
and Ralph's, the other chains in negotiations,
locked out their employees. The employers know
how important unity in action is you see. The
strike dragged on and the employers refused to
back down despite the Union leadership offering
millions in concessions. The strike was isolated
to southern California because contracts were
still in place in the north so the union
leadership refused to strike these stores; it
would not be fair play to violate a contract.
Were the higher officials in the labor movement
to work under the contracts they force on their
members they would see that the employers violate
them all the time.

Instead, they organized a boycott against Safeway
and sent pickets to northern California to
leaflet stores urging consumers not to shop
there. Shoppers were told to go to Albertsons,
the chain that locked out their members in
solidarity with Safeway. The CEO of Safeway was
demonized and blamed for the strike much like
Lorenzo was during the Eastern Airlines strike.
Rather than a struggle between labor and capital
the struggle is simply the product of a "greedy"
CEO.

So despite the promises of the Sweeney slate in
the 1995 election, the heads of Organized Labor
continue to confront the employers with tactics
that have repeatedly failed, with disastrous
consequences for their members. The problem is
that the heads of Organized Labor actually do see
themselves as CEO's. Their job as heads of the
Unions is to supply labor at the best price to
the employers. They have the same worldview as
the employer which means they defend the market
and profits in the last analysis. In all aspects
of political and economic life they have no
independent view separate and distinct from those
of the strategists of capital and the bankers and
traders of wall Street..

This subordination of working-class interests to
those of the employers permeates the entire Labor
Movement. Art Pulaski, Secretary Treasurer of
the 2 million member California State Labor
Federation enthusiastically backed Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger's $15 billion bond measure
to ease the state's financial crisis. "We want
to work with the governor to get the state out of
financial crisis", says Pulaski. He adds, "It's
really the best option for the short-term
crisis."(2) I have a question for brother
Pulaski: What is his strategy for the long-term?
How can it benefit working people for our leaders
to "work with" big business politicians? If they
were doing their job, they would be working
against them. But for the heads of Organized
Labor that can only mean chaos. For them it is
the employers that are the creators of all wealth
and not Labor, as is the case. The rights of the
employers must be guaranteed in the last
analysis.

In order to justify their position and their
continued failure to produce the goods, the union
leadership blames the rank and file. Terrified
of the potential power of their own members they
appeal to the liberal wing of the capitalist
class and their progressive friends. Stewart
Acuff, director of organizing at the AFL-CIO,
wrote a commentary recently appealing to the
progressive community. (3) He is somewhat
concerned at the present state of affairs within
Organized Labor and the increased aggressiveness
of the employers. Like all labor officials he
has great esteem for liberal academics and quotes
statistics from Cornell University's Kate
Bronfenbrenner documenting employer resistance to
union organizing drives. The facts are,
"astounding and frightening" writes Acuff, "Šand
the effects on our society of depriving workers
of a fundamental human right are devastating."
Brother Acuff then goes on to give some examples
of this devastation.

Brother Acuff is incensed at the treatment
workers receive trying to organize unions, after
all, members are the source of their income.
"The moral catastrophe of firing an immigrant
laundry worker because she tried to form a union
to get health care for her kids must become a
public crisis", he writes. Drawing the necessary
conclusion he continues, "Today, that sort of
abuse is business as usual, and we must find ways
to disrupt it." This is all well and good, but
the AFL-CIO is doing precious little to prevent
employers from eliminating health benefits and
passing increased medical costs on to their
workers. The recent grocery strike over just
this issue didn't see much disruption by the
AFL-CIO outside of southern California and the
workers immediately involved, a strategy that
lead to defeat. I would like to read what
Brother Acuff has written about the AFL-CIO's
strategy for the grocery strike or for all the
defeated struggles over the past period. I am
not hopeful, I am convinced he has gone along
with the program in every instance.

Instead of a policy of disruption, brother Acuff,
writing primarily on organizing drives, informs
us that, "We spent last summer sitting the
Democratic presidential candidates down with
small groups of workers so they could hear the
horror stories themselves. Not only have the
candidates pledged to support labor law reform,
but where appropriate, they have agreed to
intervene with abusive employers." I know it's
hard not to laugh at the statement above but this
man is one of our top officials. We just have to
sit these big business politicians down with some
working folk, that'll do it.

This is the strategy of the AFL-CIO as mapped out
by Brother Acuff and his colleagues. Look to any
force in society but don't unleash the power of
the working class, and obey the law at all times.
In the article quoted here he appeals desperately
to the progressive community for help. But he
has some plans for within the AFL-CIO too. He
writes, "Internally, we have to teach Union
members that there is an all-out, coordinated
assault on their collective bargaining rights and
the rights of other workers to organize."

Brother Acuff is going to "teach" workers.
Perhaps the esteemed Cornell scholar will assist
him. It is hard for me to contain my anger at
such arrogance. Does this well-paid, high placed
Union official who rubs shoulders with big
business politicians and members of academia have
a clue about what the people who pay his salary
are thinking? I think not. As if workers need
educating about the employers' all-out assault.
I can assure brother Acuff that the grocery
workers have felt first hand the employers
resolve. The Detroit Teamsters who fought the
press bosses, UAW members, machinists, and
millions of workers who are abused every day on
the job are well aware of the "coordinated
assault" of the employers on our standard of
living. We are also aware of the impotence of the
trade union leadership in the face of this
assault.

The aftermath of the grocery strike will mean
more demoralization and further hostility and
division on the job as newer hires find
themselves doing the same job for less money.
They will blame the Union for this. Naturally,
they were an easy target as they couldn't vote on
the contract and the Union officials, whose inept
handling of the strike led to this situation,
don't have to face them every day on the job.
Isolating themselves from the members is rule
number one for our officials.

The defeat of the grocery workers has set us
back. But the employers will not stop here, as
any worker knows. Understanding that we have to
fight the boss in some way or another is not
difficult for working people to understand,
accepting that we have to fight our own leaders
is much more complicated and harder to do, after
all, they're supposed to be on our side. But
this is a battle that cannot be avoided in the
long run. A first and important step in the
struggle against the employers and the failed
policies of our leaders is to reject what they
tell us is 'realistic' what is realistic for the
employers and the trade union leadership is
accepting that as workers we have to compete in
the labor market in order to offer the employer
the best deal; the deal that will assist them in
gaining market share over their rivals.

In this scenario we compete with each other for
who can work fastest and cheapest and with the
least impediments to profit talking. The result
is a never-ending race to the bottom for working
people.

We must demand not what the employers and the
labor leaders tell us is realistic but what we
need to live a decent life and provide a healthy
and productive environment for ourselves, our
families and our communities. In order to
reverse the decline in living standards we must
return to the methods that built the unions in
the first place; mass picketing, workplace
occupations, drawing all sections of the working
class in to the struggle against the employers
and the rejection of blind obedience to the
employers' laws.

It is important for activists in the movement to
assist in struggles of working people wherever
they occur in Unions or out. Where we are in
Unions and the opportunity arises to lead,
participate or assist in struggles outside the
official union structures we should do this also.
There are thousands of trade union activists,
socialists and other anti-capitalists in this
country separated most frequently by the scourge
of sectarianism, this weakens our ability to
assist the working class in the struggle against
the capitalist's offensive; driving back this
offensive is the first step along the road to
freeing ourselves from the dictatorship that big
business holds over society.




(1) A New Voice For American Workers: A Summary
of Proposals From The Unions supporting John
Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Linda Chavez Thompson
June 28, 1995
(2) Labor, tech Groups Back Bond Measure, San Francisco Chronicle, 2-6-04
(3) Standing Up For Worker's Rights, 2-11-04 http://www.commondreams.org

March 2004