NEWS & LETTERS, August - September 2009
Union dilemma after card check defeat
Detroit--The defeat of the "Card Check" provision in the Employee Free Choice Act reflects the weakened position of unions in the U.S. and the divisions in the union movement itself. Organized labor had trumpeted it as its number one priority to make it easier to organize unions. If the card check provision had passed, workers in an unorganized workplace would have forced management to recognize a union if 50% of the workers signed cards supporting unionization.
Labor leaders claimed partial victory in this defeat because some provisions of the bill remain, including: shortening the time that management could harass, threaten and fire union supporters; organizers being able to talk to workers on company property; monitors to oversee the election process; and constraints on a company's ability to delay recognition of a union once it has been approved by the workers. But card check, the heart of the legislation, was cut out, and reflected the success of the multi-million dollar national campaign waged by business and its lobbyists.
While lip service came from both President Obama and Labor Secretary Solis in support of card check, it was not a priority. The administration did not mobilize to pass it, despite the fact that labor was such a vital factor in Obama's election.
The coalition of unions that left the AFL-CIO four years ago, headed by SEIU President Andy Stern and calling itself Change to Win, vowed to provide visionary leadership to restore labor's militant reputation and organize the unorganized.
While the discontent of the member unions (SEIU, Teamsters, Farm Workers, Food and Commercial Workers, Carpenters, Laborers and Unite Here) with the faltering AFL-CIO was certainly justified under the lackluster leadership of President John Sweeney and Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka, the coalition achieved nothing besides division within its own ranks, most recently through the efforts of Stern to take over Unite Here and a hospital workers union in California.
Because union resources were devoted to internal squabbles, the union movement's leadership squandered an important opportunity to achieve card check. Some are even declaring that Stern is uniting the labor movement in the U.S. against him.
This fragmented and declining union movement is facing the most critical and crisis-ridden objective situation in its history. Unemployment is at record levels, higher than 10% in 15 states and still rising, with no end in sight. Millions of workers and their families are losing their homes, pensions and healthcare.
Tent cities like those during the Great Depression of the 1930s are springing up everywhere, despite unemployment compensation being extended to 79 weeks in the hardest hit states. This will all get worse, despite Obama's economic lackeys who proclaim that the "bottom" of the recession has been reached.
Unemployment compensation, however, is a very thin lifeline for the unemployed, enabling some to live only at the poverty level. This will not long be tolerated, and despair and resentment can quickly lead to revolt. Congress fears that the working-class ferment can escalate to rebellion. This is what they hope to prevent.
Labor leaders decry this economic decline, but offer no solutions. They know that rank-and-file rebellion means the end of their misleading behavior. Their long history of betrayals of the working class, at no time more concessionary than in recent years, will never be forgotten.
While Rich Trumka is expected to succeed John Sweeney as president of the AFL-CIO at the union convention in Pittsburgh Sept. 14-17, and has selected Elizabeth Shuler to be his running mate as Secretary-Treasurer, the first woman to be nominated for that position, it means little in terms of the union's descent.
Trumka, who has been Sweeney's second-in-command for 14 years, is not the same fighter he was as president of the UMW. While he waged huge battles against the coal operators, he could not halt the decline and near extinction of the UMW. He will preside over the same fate for the AFL-CIO unless there is radical change. No one expects that from Trumka.
--Andy Phillips
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