Unions Grow Democracy - But Only the Democratic Ones

Union density in the private sector is now below seven percent. Wonder why democracy seems thin on the ground these days? The decline of unionism is a big part of it. 

Alan Grayson by email blast:

When I was elected to Congress in 2008, I asked to join the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). Why? Because I was a government employee. The AFGE negotiates benefits for government employees, including me. If I were going to benefit from that, I felt that I should pay my dues. I'm not the "free rider" type.

I was told that this was an unusual request. In fact, no one could remember any Member of Congress making that request before. That didn't bother me in the least. I joined the AFGE, and paid my dues.

There is another, deeper reason why I wanted to join the union: I don't see a lot of other organizations fighting for the common good.

After I was elected again in November, I was inundated with correspondence from all sorts of groups who wanted me to do something for them. Not for us. For them. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. Now, to be fair, some of these requests were for worthwhile causes. More were not. Either way, it was "gimme."

With one exception.

Here is a letter that I received from Joseph Hansen, the President of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW):

Congratulations on your election to the 113th Congress.

The American people spoke loud and clear on Election Day.

They want a Congress that works for all Americans, not just a wealthy few.

They want a Congress that fights for Main Street, not Wall Street.

They want a Congress that helps create good-paying jobs that can support a family.

They want a Congress that balances the budget responsibly, by asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share while protecting programs like Social Security and Medicare.

They want a Congress that protects the rights of workers, women, and minorities.

Most of all, they want a Congress that works with President Obama to give more families access to the American Dream.

I look forward to working with you toward that end.

Sincerely, Joseph T. Hansen.

Amen to that, brother. Yes, President Hansen, I look forward to working with you toward that end.

You see what's missing from this UFCW letter? Gimme, gimme, gimme.

On the letterhead of the UFCW's stationery is the motto, "A VOICE for working America." That's something that I would be proud to have on my stationery, too.

This is a time of hyper-partisan warfare, when selfishness parades itself as a virtue. But amidst all that smoke there are still some of us - the UFCW, me - who can discern the bare outlines of something called "the common good." The common good -- that's our flag. And that's why unions are different.

But not all unions are equally democratic or equally effective.

Eric Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Alec MacGillis’ profile of the recently deceased union activist Jerry Tucker has led to a lot of discussion in labor circles over the last week. Tucker was an activist for a different kind of union, one that eschewed the board room and the lawyers for direct action, worker empowerment, and union democracy. In other words, MacGillis wonders if Tucker is “The Man Who Could Have Saved Organized Labor.”

Tucker himself was quite an amazing individual. A committed anti-racist, Tucker led what was seen as an impossible but successful campaign to defeat a right to work law in Missouri in 1978. He promoted work-to-rule tactics, which are ways workers can slow down production or otherwise drive employers crazy without breaking the contract or the law. He won struggle after struggle, becoming a hero for those wanting a rejuvenated and active labor movement. For all of this, Tucker was loathed by many leaders of the United Auto Workers, his home union, because work-to-rule and direct democracy challenged bureaucratic union structures and the AFL-CIO’s preferred strategy of working out issues with lawyers in Washington and the state capitals.

As MacGillis states, what Tucker recognized is that the corporation is always the enemy of the worker. When union leadership wanted to be chummy with politicians and corporate bosses, Tucker understood that the only real bulwark for long-term union success was the kind of mass mobilization and individual empowerment for the collective good that spawned the great period of American unionization in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.

That lesson is just as strong today. Union executives, even of so-called progressive and organizing-centric unions like SEIU, are as wary of grassroots organizing and union democracy as they were in the George Meany and Lane Kirkland eras. It’s hardly surprising that the big union stories of 2012 have followed a track of success for grassroots movements and failure for institutionalized structures. The Chicago Teachers Union was the big win last year precisely because of its extremely democratic nature. The Madison protests showed the power of militant grassroots protests. The decision to channel those protests into the recall Scott Walker campaign was a giant mistake, especially when the Democratic candidate to replace him wasn’t even strongly pro-union. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO found itself completely taken aback by the Michigan right to work law and from what I can tell, nothing on the ground is happening there to challenge this.
 
In short, for American labor to revive itself, we need more Jerry Tuckers and less Andy Sterns.