- Pennsylvania Among 'Terrible 10' Most Regressive Tax States
- February 4 Non-Partisan Training: HOW TO RUN FOR ELECTION BOARD IN 2013: HOW TO RUN FOR COMMITTEEPERSON IN 2014
- Republican Governors Opt-In to Medicaid Expansion
- The Reports of Unions' Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
- Ask Allyson Schwartz to run for Governor
- Mind the gap: Opting Out of Medicaid Expansion Leaves Low-income Families Behind
- Jan. 14 Workshop:HOW TO RUN FOR ELECTION BOARD IN 2013; HOW TO RUN FOR COMMITTEEPERSON IN 2014
- Seth Williams on Guns, Jasmine Rivera on School Closures @PFC Meetup Wednesday
- PA Revenue Strong Midway Through Year; Tax Cut Could Have Big Impact
- What to Make of the Fiscal Cliff Deal?
Unions to Boycott AFL-CIO Convention
Submitted by Ben Waxman on Mon, 07/25/2005 - 8:10am.
Four of the country's largest labor unions announced on Sunday that they plan to boycott the AFL-CIO convention, which begins today in Chicago. The conflict is one of the biggest in labor's history, stemming from differing opinions on the best strategy for rebuilding the strength of organized labor. The split will have broad implications for both local and national politics.
Formed in 1955 as a merger between the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the AFL-CIO represents over 13 million workers. Locally, the Philadelphia AFL-CIO has 120 affiliates who represent a combined total of over 100,000 workers. The unions who appear ready to pull out include the Service Employee International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers, and UNITE-HERE. Together, these unions represent nearly 40% of the total AFL-CIO membership.
The issues are complicated, but they center around charges from the dissident unions that too little resources are being spent on organizing new workers into unions. Along the same lines, SEIU believes that many small locals should be merged into larger organizations with more resources. According to SEIU, corporate power has become too concentrated for small unions to fight effectively. A local of 5,000 workers simply isn't powerful enough to take on a global company. Therefore, they believe many smaller unions should be merged into larger ones. In response, critics like the Communication Workers of America have derided SEIU merger proposals as anti-democratic.
Although all four unions are very powerful in many cities and certainly on the national level, none of them have a particularly strong presence locally. However, the impact of the split can already been seen and I believe it has the possibility to bring major changes to the Philadelphia labor movement.
First of all, SEIU has already begun to beef up their Philadelphia operation. Local 36, which primarily represents building service workers, has become District 36 of Local 32BJ. What does that actually mean? Local 32BJ is one of the most powerful union locals in the country with over 75,000 members. There will be an infusion of resources, both money and staff, for SEIU in Philadelphia. I wouldn't be surprised if we see multiple organizing campaigns coming out of SEIU in the next year or so.
Labor movement DYING in Philadelphia
The labor movement is dying in Philadelphia. Year after year, the number of unionized workers is falling in the city. Few Philly unions are doing any organizing and even fewer are winning. The new president of the Central Labor Council has been very supportive of organizing, but very little is changing. This is the fault of labor, and labor alone. Philadelphia politicians are generally supportive of labor and much organizing could be done here that would make a real difference in people's lives. Perhaps the AFL-CIO split will shake things up and help get things going in Philadelphia.
The building trades are not organizing and they are letting suburban contractors run massive non-union operations making city construction much less competitive with the suburbs. They seem largely content with the way things are. Some building trade leaders will be very honest and just tell you that it is not in their interest to grow in the city since they have all the members they need and since they really don't care about what happens in the suburbs.
The service sector unions are doing some organizing since they, by and large, seem to have a much larger social vision, but by and large they are not winning. AFSCME DC 47 has been helping the Philadelphia Models Guild, but this is a handful of workers at a few art schools and it has been years and they still are without a contract. Either DC 47 or DC 33 lost an election a few years ago for 100+ seasonal workers at the Zoo. 1199c tried to organize at Penn in 1999, but had to pull their election petition because they weren't ready. The PFT has done some small stuff with charter schools (small units of 50 people of less, usually), but they've been getting a lot of flak from supposedly progressive people that don't think unions are for charter schools. As bizarre as this might seem, the GET-UP/AFT teaching assistant's campaign at U-Penn has been the largest campaign (1,000+) in the city AND the state for 5+ years, and it is, still without a contract. UNITE, after the Domestic Laundry strike in 2000, was supposed to do some organizing of laundry workers in the city. This was a successful recognition strike of 50 workers and showed that there could be a lot of organizing done in that sector. UNITE then proceeded drop the ball. SEIU 36 has achieved a good deal of density in Center City, but hasn't had any big wins in a while. HERE had a local busted at the faculty club at Penn in the late 90s and has been doing some organizing at the airport, but there's really very little growth here. Perhaps the new UNITE-HERE merger will help. CWA has been working on Verizon and Comcast, but no victories. UFCW isn't doing much organizing aside for anti-Wal Mart stuff. The Postal Workers in Philly union seems to have no interest in organizing. The Teamsters aren't doing a whole lot in Philly and they aren't affiliated with the Central Labor Council. TWU (transport workers) aren't organizing. There's not much health care organizing going on either. Perhaps the only real bright spot in Philly is the child care organizing that went on a couple of years back.
The bottom line is that without some really big changes, the labor movement will continue to decline in size and power in Philadelphia. The major structural impediment to growth is that even amongst the service sector locals in Philly that have some interest in growth, none of them are devoting significant resources to organizing. For real growth, a local needs to put at least 30% of their budget into organizing every year. No Philadelphia union does that.
(If you are interested in what Philadelphia unions are actually doing, check out their disclosure forms on the Department of Labor Website. It tells you their membership, their officers, their salaries, etc.. Here's the link to the website: http://erds.dol-esa.gov/query/getOrgQry.do )
Labor MUST change its attitude
Yes, FMR is right - the Models Guild & the GET-UP campaigns have been stalled because the NLRB is inadequate if not anti-labor. But, the NLRB has been a problem since 1947 when Taft-Hartley was passed and Labor has been on the decline ever since. The Democrats have never been able to (nor, possibly ever wanted to) pass a pro-labor bill and the Republicans have jumped on every chance they've had to weaken labor because they've understood that labor is the key to the Democrats' electoral success.
SEIU & HERE have been growing steadily in the *private sector* by ignoring the NLRB. AFT & AFSCME has been growing steadily in the *public sector* by using state labor boards - the obvious consequences is that both AFT & AFSCME don't have much presence in right-to-work states. There's obviously different strategy for different sectors.
But one sure loser of a strategy is to keep doing the same thing as the Machinists and the Steelworkers advocate (both unions lost tens of thousands of members in the past 2 years) while beating one's chest with calls for solidarity. What is the point of solidarity when what that actually means is the slow destruction of the labor movement presided over by a bunch of people who keep blaming others for their problems?
But, the basic point that I made up remains true - Labor in Philly will continue to decline in size and power unless there are major structural changes to the *labor movement* here. Business and government aren't going to change much - it's up to labor, and labor alone, to turn things around before it's too late.
A second point - based on what's happened in the past couple of days, it seems as though the Sweeney crowd really underestimated their opposition and overestimated their strength (as usual). The biggest problem for them is the beginnings of a revolt by local Central Labor Council and State Federation leaders who are saying they won't kick out dissident unions because they need the dissidents too much. (See Working Life on this point: http://workinglife.typepad.com/daily_blog/2005/07/a_revolt_by_the.html)
Sweeney could end up presiding over a shell of a federation and he'll have only himself to blame for not seeing what was coming down the pipe. He should not have run for re-election if this was a possibility. What did he think was going to happen? All of the dissidents would roll over and come back to the fold. It ain't 1955! (Oh, wait - the Sweeney folks still think it is).
Effect of Labor split on PA and Philly
Split worrisome for local labor: AFL-CIO turmoil could disrupt relations for Philadelphia's close-knit union community, one labor-council leader said.
Philadelphia Inquirer, July 27, 2005
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/12230451.htm
AFL-CIO split likely to hit Pa. labor hard
Pittburgh Gazette, July 27, 2005
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05208/544269.stm
UFCW pulling out could push Philly labor to the right...
This could be a pretty big hit for the Philadelphia Central Labor Council (CLC). The CLC currently doesn't represent all of the unions in Philly - notable big outsiders are the Teamsters and the Carpenters. But, the CLC does represent somewhere around 100,000 to 120,000 members in Philly and it is able to coodinate political efforts among member unions.
When SEIU & the Teamsters left the AFL-CIO, that really only meant that SEIU 36 was out of the CLC, which is a loss of about 5,000 workers. (The Teamsters aren't part of the Philly CLC, and neither are the Carpenters).
The UFCW pulling out is a bigger deal b/c it means that UFCW 1776 is out with represents about 21,000 workers. That means that somewhere between 25 and 20% of the local CLC has broken off.
If other Change to Win members go, it could get much worse. The Laborers could split with about 8,000 Philly workers and UNITE-HERE could go as well, taking 12,000+ with them. Now we're talking a pretty big hit on the local labor council.
If they did leave, the remaining 10 big unions in the CLC would be, ranked in size:
Teachers: 30,000 members (industrial union of philly public school employees)
AFSCME 1199c: 12,000 members, (industrial union of health care workers)
AFSCME DC 33: 10,000 members, (industrial union of blue collar city workers)
AFSCME DC 47: 6,000 members, (industrial union of white collar city workers)
CWA: 6,200 members (industrial union of communication workers)
TWU: 5,200 members (industrial union of SEPTA workers)
IBEW #98: 4,700 members (craft union of electricians)
Painters: 4,600 members (craft union of painters)
Plumbers: 4,500 members (craft union of plumbers)
Sheet Metal Workers: 3,700 members (craft union of sheet metal workers)
So, basically the Central Labor Council would be losing close to 46,000 service sector unions that have been on the whole progressive. I predict that the Central Labor Council will veer to the right unless the local leadership is able to keep the dissident unions in the council.
Info on UFCW pulling out:
http://www.ufcw.org/press_room/index.cfm?pressReleaseID=159
http://workinglife.typepad.com/daily_blog/2005/07/ufcw_out.html
How does this play out in Philly?
It was with interest that I read that one of the prevailing reasons for the schism was the appropriation of too much of the ALF-CIO's funds going to support the DNC and not enough going towards grass-roots organizing of new locals.
Given that the unions are the backbone of support for the DNC, especially in big cities like Philly and Boston, how do you think this will effect the next mayoral election cycle?
not so simple
It is true that few unions are doing enough to organize new workers in Philadelphia. However, to say that it is solely the fault of "labor and labor alone" is to over simplify the situation. Two of the organizing drives that you mentioned, the Models Guild and GET UP were both successful as organizing efforts but were slowed or stopped by outside forces. The Models Guild is an effort in which all of the workers in question at several local art schools voted to have the union. One of the universities appealed to the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB), disputing that these life models were school employees, claiming that they were contractors. The regional NRLB found for the University. The story does not end their, though. Local activists (Student Labor Action Project) teamed up with the union to agitate against the school administration, encouraging the school to recognize the workers and begin bargaining a contract. Moore College of Design is currently talking with the union. This is clearly a case where the prevailing political climate at the NRLB was to blame, not the union. In the case of GET UP (graduate employees at Penn), after years of struggle a union election was held at Penn. An overwhelming percentage (maybe as much as 80%!) of the graduate employees voted to join the union. However, before the votes could be counted, Penn also challenged the status of the workers (claiming that they were students, not workers) with the NRLB. This appeal had the ballots impounded. While awaiting a decision on their status, a similar case (NYU) wound its way through the long NRLB process. The NRLB reversed its previous decision on graduate employee unionization (the difference of the vote of the new Bush appointee to the 5 member panel) and stripped these workers (NYU graduate employees and Penn alike) of their right to be protected by a union. This union, despite this serious road block, continues to organize and agitate for better working conditions, pay and benefits.
...uh...ok
I have to disagree. The NRLB did, at one point, serve as a protector of worker rights (labor and FDR cooperated in the war effort). For the second half of the 20th Century it was at least a unbiased mediator between labor and capital. It wasn't until the Regan locked out the air traffic controllers that the NRLB and the US government took a hostile stance toward labor.
On the issue of growth, I am sure that you are making stuff up. Neither UNITE HERE, nor AFT nor AFSCME are growing and haven't been for some time. Even SEIU is only growing at 1% -2%. AND even if your claims were true, the facts beg some nuance in your conclusions. SEIU is growing, objectively, because they have the best organizing plan. It is also true that SEIU is growing, objectively, because the historic and economic trends are in their favor. We are a service ecomony, now, right? We have yet to find a way to outsource janitorial serves, the changing of bed pans or babysitting. In fact, to correct something that I said earlier, the Steelworkers are growing. The United Steel Workers, this year became the nations largest industrial union when the merged with the Paper Allied Chemical and Energy workers (PACE). BUT, they are not growing in terms of new workers, and have little room to grow from new organizing. Have you heard of any new steel plant opening up any where outside of China? What about all of those oil refineries being built? In fact, industry tends to shed workers due to technological adavnce. If we have as many refineries as we did in 1980 and the technology has advanced one has to conclude that the same refineries are producing more with fewer workers. With AFSCME (Assoc. Federal, State, County, Municipal Employees) they face a shrinking work force too, and budget cutting mania only promises to further erode social services and the pool of workers that they can organize (though the public sector is the most heavily unionized sector in America...thanks to their good organizing). AFT and the labor movement in general are still trying to find ways to organize sub-contracted, part-time and temp workers (both GET UP/ AFT and Models Guild/AFSCME are perfect examples of the structural barriers to organizing) against all legal odds.
I don't doubt that Philly labor will continue to see hard times and likely decline before it gets better (the labor movement will never die as long as workers fight back, unions or not). I am also sure that Andy Stern has some answers, however, organizing is not a panecea for the unions as a whole.
Finally to touch on your final, oversimplified assumption; SEIU needs the labor councils too! We are stronger together. SEIU leaders are telling me that they want to remain a part of labor councils because labor councils (CLC's) serve a very real role. The Philadelphia Labor Council has the access and real political power that no single union will ever have. To have a labor council president call up the mayor or a representative carries some serious weight and is extremely useful to SEIU and every other union. That said, both SEIU locals and labor councils are accountable to their international organizations. The split will not make any ones work any easier.
A fairly informative analysis
of the split (although not Philly focused) -- particularly when you consider the source:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB112243080451697041-MS8mHyS2ZgD...
Would be interested in hearing responses to what the article says.
Not much. It might give some
Not much. It might give some cover to some of the more progressive unions that will want to support a moderately progressive candidate - but that'll depend on whether or not the local Central Labor Council stays together and coordinates political efforts with dissident unions.
The Teamsters in Philly will probably support a pretty far right person given their frequent endorsement of Republicans in the past. The building trades will likewise probably go for the most right wing person in the Democratic primary. The FOP is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO and plays its own game anyway. Same goes for the Carpenters. SEIU may go for someone left of center (i.e. not Dougherty). UFCW is a toss-up - it was quite progressive at one time. TWU (SEPTA workers) will probably back a left of center person. Philly's UNITE-HERE, which emerges from the union of HERE 274 and PA-NJ Unite Joint Board, is now in trusteeship and will probably not matter much. But perhaps the schism will give the AFSCME locals inspiration to back someone decent. It'll all depend on who actually runs.
Rumor has it that Dougherty is just amassing a war-chest and that Fattah is just making noise to keep people out. Jannie Blackwell has no hope. Some progressives are wishing Blackwell will run because if she does then she'll have to give up her council seat. Bona fide campaigns seem only to be coming from Saidel, Nutter and Evans. Saidel would probably attract a broad base of labor support while Evans would probably lose the teachers since he's opposed them on vouchers in the past. Nutter could swing an enlightened labor-liberal coalition.
FACTS on the state of labor
FMR says, "On the issue of growth, I am sure that you are making stuff up."
Actually, AFT grew from 987,144 to 1,048,535 from 2003 to 2005 and AFSCME grew from 1,291,107 to 1,305,635 over the same period. SEIU has grown from 625,000 to 1.4 million in the past 25 years, which yes it is an annualized rate of growth between 1 and 2%, but that's pretty damn good when you're that big (and the rest of the labor movement is declining). Also, SEIU just picked up close to 100,000 in two big healthcare campaigns in the mid-west. UNITE-HERE has had uneven growth, but they've picked up 100,000 new workers in the past 5 years.
The Steelworkers declined from 625,646 to 564,377 from 2003 to 2005. I don't think PACE is growing, but please correct me if I am wrong.
On the issue of the NLRB: You're in la-la land if you think the state was in favor of labor organizing from 1947 to the PATCO strike. Pretty much every book that has been written about this topic has concluded that Taft-Hartley in 1947 represented a dramatic shift against labor and this was especially the case since Wagner in 1935 had been a massive movement in favor of labor. Remember, the Wagner Act specifically *encouraged* collective bargaining. Remember what Taft-Hartley did - made unions liable for ULP's, gave employer's free reign to run anti-union campaigns, prohibited secondary boycotts, etc. Look, the proof is in the pudding - the labor movement declined throughout the post-war period in power and size.
But, what's your point here anyway - that labor would benefit from a better legal/political environment? Yes, sure - but how is that going to happen? SEIU seems to have been able to create that kind of enviroment in certain states and seems to be winning by organizing. Does "The Sweeney Team" have a compelling plan of their own?
On the local labor councils: Yes, SEIU can benefit from unity, but don't underestimate the costs of unifying with the conservative unions. In Philadelphia, the building trades wanted the 30 million dollar tax give-away for Comcast last year. SEIU opposed it and there were lots of problems and there's still lots of bad blood. Looking back, it was ridiculous. Comcast CEO David Cohen, Rendell's former chief of staff when he screwed the city unions in the 90s, asked the building trades council for help for lobbying with this big corporate give-away, ostensibly in exchange for union construction jobs. And the building trades obliged - the building trades council president appeared in a TV ad with a Comcast executive and the chair of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce to advocate for the tax break. But, why did the building trades need to do that? Any sky-scraper built in the city was going to be union anyway! And, Comcast didn't need 30 million - they're building it anyway without the give-away! SEIU stired up an opposition and sunk it - thank goodness.
And, what *concrete* benefits are the service sector unions getting from being allied with conservative unions? They don't do much to help other unions. Look, again, the proof is in the pudding - the labor movement is decling in Philadelphia in size and power. If someone's got some sort of strategic plan for union growth in the city that capitalizes on unity, please advance it. But, many unions are not only uninterested in growing themselves - they're not interested in others growing because it 'rocks the boat.' They've got a good deal - lots of construction, decent contracts - who wants troublesome organizing drives?
My initial point still stands: the fate of labor lies with labor and labor alone. No one will rescue it; there will be no spontaneous uprising of consumers and citizens to demand labor rights and labor standards - business will seek the elimination of labor - the government will play a neutral role, at best.
If you want to read some books about the history of the labor movement, check out:
Melvyn Dubofsky, The State and Labor in Modern America
Irving Berstein, The New Deal Collective Bargaining Policy
Alan McAdams, Power and Politics in Labor Legislation
Mike Davis, Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the US Working Class
Paul Buhle, Taking care of business: Samuel Gompers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the tradegy of American Labor
For union membership levels (at least the ones reported to the AFL-CIO), see: http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/convention/2005/upload/mem...
For union membership levels (as reported to the Department of Labor), see:
http://erds.dol-esa.gov/query/getOrgQry.do
WSJ news section gets many things right
The news reporters at the WSJ, which are unionized, get much right in this article. The reporters are entirely different than the editorial page editors - there's a firewall between the two.
SEIU, as anyone who is honest will admit, is doing some amazing things and thinking outside the box. Many union leaders were willing to sit idly by and let SEIU's growth be the only thing to hold back labor looking like it was hemoraging totally out of control. But, when SEIU began organizing *the labor movement* and started thinking creatively about *labor*, then some people got annoyed - hey, now it meant that their own per capitas and insitutions might be affected. AFT and AFSMCE have been growing in the public sector, and perhaps they have the right strategy for themselves, but there's really no one else, save perhaps UNITE-HERE, that can say much to what SEIU has done in the private sector.
I'm confident that this split, while instigated by the Change to Win Coalition, could have been avoided if Sweeney would have honored his promise and not run for re-election. Somebody, like the McEntee, or Raynor, or Sullivan, could have been elected and held the ship together. But, Sweeney and the big unions that supported him (AFT, AFSCME, UAW) underestimated the strength and resolve of their opposition.