On
only the second sunny weekend of the year in Portland, Oregon, 60 plus
labor activists decided to spend their Saturday at the Electricians
union hall (IBEW Local 48), at the United Labor Strategy Meeting -- an
event unlike any other happening in the country. What made the meeting
unique was both its perspective and the diversity of unions that
participated.
The
meeting was initiated by the Stewards Council of Laborers Union, Local
483 and was endorsed by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 49
and co-sponsored by the Southwest Washington Labor Council, Painters 10,
and the Mt. Hood Community College Faculty Association. Jobs With
Justice helped build the event while the 51,000-member SEIU 503 sent a
speaker. Many other unions were well represented also. Although the
majority of attendees were rank-and-file union activists, there were
several local union presidents and vice presidents, union staff
organizers, regional organizers, and other union leaders present.
Ed
Henderson, Business Agent of International Longshore and Warehouse Union
(ILWU) Local 10 in San Francisco, came to speak on the attack his union
is facing by being sued by the Pacific Maritime Association. The
employers group filed the suit because the rank-and-file members of
Local 10 refused to work on April 4, 2011, as part of a national day of
action in solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin.
The
United Labor Strategy Meeting was based upon and was modeled after a
resolution by the San Francisco Labor Council, calling on the AFL-CIO
and Change to Win union federations to organize massive demonstrations
to demand a federal public works/jobs program, no cuts to education and
social services, no concessions by public workers, and no cuts to Social
Security and Medicare, all to be paid for by taxing Wall Street and the
wealthy.
The
specific nature of the demands as well as their proposed solution is
what separates the perspective of this meeting from others. In
particular, the demands were carefully crafted to reflect the most
pressing concerns of most Americans, as evidenced by poll after poll.
Because of their overwhelming popularity, these are the issues that have
the potential to activate millions of working people. And they have
already been embraced by the AFL-CIO, which has the capacity to organize
massive demonstrations. So in this respect, these demands can unite the
entire labor movement and galvanize it into action.
The
conference concluded with an action plan: those who attended agreed to
propose resolutions in their union locals, central labor councils and
state labor federations that would call on the AFL-CIO and Change to Win
to organize massive demonstrations to demand that the government
implement these basic, popular demands.
The
focus of this conference was sharp: it avoided including a long list of
demands on all types of issues that, while morally compelling to many
people, are divisive within the labor movement and thus would serve as
obstacles to inspiring working people to act. The purpose of this
conference was to spark action, not generate a list of subjective
preferences that would simply reflect the moral standing of the
attendees.
Once
the united labor movement is activated and mobilized for these demands,
the consciousness of working people will undergo a change. Just as
soldiers on the battlefield develop lifelong friendships, working people
putting up a fight for demands that are in everyone's interests develop
a deep camaraderie with one another. And in this context they begin to
develop a deeper sympathy for the different particular types of
exploitation that various sectors of the labor movement are subjected
to: for example, racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia. This is
because the united struggle of working people towards a common goal
breaks down artificial and social barriers. When workers collectively
fight for jobs, they'll realize that their commonality is much deeper
than their differences in relation to ethnicity, nationality, sexual
orientation, race or gender. This dynamic is the basis for truly
widening labor's perspective, but it requires mobilizing to put up a
fight first. For this reason, pushing unions to wage a real fight in
their own defense was one of the central ideas of the Portland
conference.
The
labor movement is also plagued by organizational divisions, whether it
be the AFL-CIO/Change to Win split or the ongoing jurisdictional
squabbling that infects public sector unions, the building trades, and
private sector unions. All these divisions are despised by rank-and-file
workers everywhere, since they are obvious failures of union policy
that negatively affect all workers' standards of living.
To
help overcome divisions at the Portland meeting, breakout groups were
first set up according to union sector: building trades, public workers,
and private sector. These groups each discussed how barriers could be
overcome between unions, what issues all unions could agree on, and how
to achieve these goals. Predictably, the report-backs from the breakout
groups announced that money for jobs was the main uniting demand, since
building trades workers have suffered from high unemployment during the
recession, while public workers are being laid off or suffer from hiring
freezes, resulting in higher work loads for the remaining
workforce. The breakout groups commented favorably on the San Francisco
Labor Council resolution, the main principles of which were made
available to all attendees at the sign-in table.
Another
central focus of the breakout groups was how labor's reliance on the
Democrats was preventing progress for working people, since many union
leaders still believe that making deals with Democrats can bring
sufficient results. However, that notion is fading rapidly as Democratic
governors and Democratic politicians across the country are going after
public sector workers health care and pensions, as well as bargaining
rights. But as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka explained at the
National Press Club, "[w]e have a jobs crisis which after three years is
still raging, squeezing families, devastating our poorest communities
and stunting the futures of young adults. Yet politicians of both
parties tell us that we can -- and should -- do nothing." (January 19,
2011). The Democrats' lack of response to the Great Recession has led
Trumka to also call for a strong, independent labor movement.
For
an independent labor movement to be powerful enough to effect political
change, labor unions must organize actions that can galvanize both labor
and community groups. At the Portland meeting several strategies were
discussed for unions to be more independently powerful. For example,
Wisconsin-style mass demonstrations to protect public employees;
labor-initiated state ballot measures that addressed the states' deficit
crises by taxing the rich; organizing public forums, door knocking, and
phone banks to educate the public for the need for progressive
taxation; and a protracted effort by unions for a massive public works
campaign to create millions of jobs.
Again,
these demands are not radical departures from the stated goals of the
labor movement. The AFL-CIO has gone on record demanding that the
federal government create millions of jobs by taxing Wall Street and
demanding that there be no cuts to Social Security and Medicare, while
arguing that the best way to fight the deficit is to create jobs. The
California Teachers Association is waging an aggressive campaign to tax
the wealthy, which, if enacted, would bring $20 billion of revenue into
California's budget. National Nurses United (NNU) is demanding that Wall
Street pay for the Great Recession, with slogans such as: "Heal
America! Tax Wall Street!" It recently opened a campaign to push for
this demand, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle: "'It's not
about Obama or the Republicans -- it's about the system,' said [NNU
President] DeMoro, who wants to narrow the power gap between the
wealthiest Americans and everyone else. "You can't accomplish that by
going through the political parties.'" (June 24, 2011).
The
purpose of the Portland meeting was for union activists in Oregon and
Washington to encourage their unions to wage an aggressive fight for
these demands. Oregon already has the experience of labor unions working
together to pass a temporary "tax the rich and corporations" bill by
means of a statewide ballot measure that helped close the gap of the
deficit of the previous budget. Although the mainstream Oregon media
said that the law would never pass, unions pursued a determined campaign
to explain the growing inequalities in wealth and the declining tax
rates of the wealthy and the corporations. Union activists were
energized by the campaign and filled phone banks to the brim to educate
others about it. But a new budget deficit in Oregon requires that a new,
permanent tax be implemented, to protect both social services and the
wages and benefits of public workers.
At
the end of the Portland meeting an action plan was adopted. The strategy
of the conference was for attendees to agree to organize within their
unions to pass resolutions modeled on the one passed by the San
Francisco Labor Council. Using the resolution as an organizing tool,
attendees were encouraged to talk with their co-workers, stewards, and
leadership about working to put the ideas of the resolution into action.
A continuations committee was announced and a majority of the attendees
agreed to attend future meetings to encourage their unions to ignite a
campaign to achieve these demands. At the end of the day all present
were inspired by their experience and were excited about working with
the committee to make future victories possible. The meeting in Portland
was in many ways an example for other cities to follow. Similar
strategy meetings could be held, organized over similar principles, with
the overall goal to unite the labor movement over demands that will
certainly spur their members into action.
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for
Workers Action (
www.workerscompass.org) He can be reached at
Email address removed
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org)