councilor.org
| Source | Dave Anderson |
| Date | 02/05/14/02:03 |
| from 'Social Policy' (www.socialpolicy.org) Spring 2001
Renewing Labor Mike Miller and Michael Eisenscher ---------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Miller has 40 years of experience working with community, religious, and labor organizations, including as a staff member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and as lead organizer for both Saul Alinskys Kansas City, Missouri, community organizing project and the San Francisco Mission Coalition Organization. In 1972, he became founding executive director of ORGANIZE! Training Center. He has written widely about his organizing experience and ideas, and has taught at UC Berkeley, Stanford, San Francisco State, Hayward State, and Notre Dame University. Michael Eisenscher (meisenscher@igc.org) is director of organizational development for the University of California Council of the American Federation of Teachers. He is a 30-year labor movement veteran, having worked for the United Electrical Workers and Communications Workers, and as a consultant and workshop leader for many other unions. His articles have appeared in many publications, and he contributed chapters Transformation of U.S. Unions (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999) and Which Director for Organized Labor? (Wayne State Press, 1999). He is a member of the National Writers' Union and United Association of Labor Educators. This article is excerpted from "Renewing Labor: A Report from the Field," which grew out of the authors work in the San Francisco Bay Area in ORGANIZE! Training Centers "Project for Labor Renewal." The full report is available for $5.00 from the authors, at 508 Johnson Ave., Pacifica, CA 94044. -----------------------------------------------------------------A strong labor movement is important for the results associated with its strength: public and corporate policies are both humanized and made responsive to the democratic will. Less discussed, but important in its own right and directly related to labor's power, is the kind of community created among the members of a union. An organizing approach develops the skills and self-confidence of many workers who assume leadership responsibilities in the union; it creates and strengthens relationships that cut across lines of racial, ethnic, and gender division; it provides a democratic forum for discussion and debate in which workers themselves create the policies for which they want to struggle; it offers membership in an organization that is an extension of the individual's most deeply held valuesone in which the member becomes a conscious participant in making social change. In addition, this approach empowers union members. By engaging them in the civic culture, democracy in society is enriched. Such organizing is distinct from the current "organizing model," widely discussed in the labor movement, which we call "mobilizing" because it fails to engage workers fully in every aspect of "owning" their union. We see the results of a mobilizing approach in the history of social democratic parties in Europe where candidates run for office on programs that are quickly abandoned when they begin to govern. Two major reasons for this are: 1) capital threatens to "strike," that is move someplace else if it is hampered in what it thinks are its rights; and 2) government comes to be seen by citizens as "the problem" because it can't deliver on what was promised by politicians when they campaigned for electoral support. On a smaller scale, this is the same problem faced by a union leader who gets elected on a reform program and then is asked, "What's the union going to do about x?" When members (or constituents) are "consumers" of programs or campaigns, they expect those whom they elect to "deliver the goods," whatever the constraints. Typically, to get elected, promises are made. Rarely does a candidate run for office and say, "I'll raise your taxes (or dues)." The result is a campaign that raises expectations without discussing constraints and the realities of the struggle for power necessary to overcome those constraints. When members are co-creators of programs, they ask themselves what is possible within the constraints their organization encounters and how willing are they to put their bodies on the line to overcome those constraints. Without a qualitatively different level of participation, e.g., one in which constituents/voters are also active participants, the problem of one set of people (leaders) delivering for another (voters, members) invariably arises. Introducing Transformation To get at these issues, we conducted extensive "one-on-one" conversations with local union leaders and, in the case of those interested in pursuing our ideas, engaged a number of them in one-day workshops that we led. Heres some of what we used to help workshop participants clarify their own thinking about obstacles to greater member involvement and to understand better the kind of organizational transformation that would be needed if real member participation was to take place. On an easel pad or chalkboard, we wrote two single columns as shown below with a lot of space between each of the words: Family Insurance company Team Law firm Congregation Social work agency Community (sometimes we added "an old ethnic neighborhood") Our questions started with the right column. The first question that we asked of each of the categories was: "What are the characteristics of a good (insurance company, law firm, social work agency)? Then we asked the same thing for each of the categories on the left side of the board. Here are some of the responses we typically got. Right side of the board: A good insurance company has low-cost policies with good benefits, pays off quickly when you have a claim, has agents who are accessible and helpful, isn't bureaucratic with lots of paperwork. A good law firm has lawyers who win in court, explain to their client what's going on, advocate effectively for the client, aren't expensive, are accessible when you call. A good social work agency provides quality service, cares about, is sensitive to and fights for the people it serves, doesn't have a lot of paperwork, isn't too expensive (or is free); etc. Left side of the board: A good family has lots of love, members support each other, mentor and sometimes challenge each other to shape up does things together, is always there for you. A good team works together, has lots of mutual support and team spirit every player knows his/her job and does it well, there aren't any egos that think they're more important than the team and consequently it wins more often than not. A good congregation has people in it who care about one another, watch out for one another, respect the privacy of one another but are available to help, provides meaning for its members who share a common faith, respects and cherishes the diversity of its members, gets as many people as possible involved in the life of the congregation, reaches outside itself to care for its community. We then asked if the groups on the right side of the board have the same characteristics as the ones on the left, and the answer was invariably "no." Asked if the reverse were true of those institutions on the left side, the answer was "yes." Good families, teams, and congregations also incorporate the best attributes of good law firms, insurance companies, and social work agenciesthey provide benefits for their members, have leaders who are accessible, advocate effectively in each other's behalf, watch out for their members' interests, care about people, and don't have much paperwork. "Who makes most of the decisions in each?" was one of our next questions. On the right, it is the professionals; on the left, it is the membersor at least the members are significantly involved (as in a professional athletic team). We pushed this point further, developing the contrast between "consumers" and "co-creators" of an enterprise. Then the $64,000 question: "If we draw a line across the easel pad connecting the two sets of categories, where is your union on that spectrum?" Invariably, the union was far to the right. Then we asked, "Where would you like your union to be?" Equally invariably, participants wanted it far on the leftespecially when it was clear that the groupings on the left can do the things that are done by those on the right or, if it is something beyond their capacity, can hire professionals to do specific things. Results of the Project In two unions, we had the opportunity to implement some of our ideas, and the comments of the presidents of these locals attest to the projects impact. In July, 1999, United Transportation Union Local 1741 chairman Jim Harford said, "Had you asked me three or four months ago if we would have more than 80% of our summer driver membership attending our first two negotiating sessions with our employer, Laidlaw Inc., I would have thought you were wrong if not a little crazy. Had you asked me then if our local would be on the road to substantially increasing member participation and overcoming internal divisions based on race/ethnicity, years of driving (and, therefore, income), age, and other internal sources of conflict, I would have said, 'You are wrong.' But that is happening as well." Speaking of the impact of the Project for Labor Renewal on himself, he said, "Concepts presented by PLR have made it possible for me to understand better why we haven't been able to get participation on the part of our membership in our union. My juices are stirring because I see hope for rebuilding our local." Of PLR's impact on other officers and leaders, Harford said, "We've got higher morale in our core leadership. There is more unity among our leaders. Active leaders are excited. And of the impact on his local's members, "They are participating in new ways, excited and gaining a new sense of pride in their union, and stepping forward to take greater responsibility for the local. New leadership is beginning to emerge from the membership." Of her experience with PLR, Office and Professional Employees Union Local 3's secretary/treasurer and business manager (and a national leader in the AFL-CIOs caucus, Pride At Work) Nancy Wohlforth said, "I have had the opportunity to attend many trainings and seminars aimed at changing our unions. To date, the PLR approach is the only one that provides a concrete way to achieve this goal. Already in Local 3, we have seen new members become involved, new people getting excited about the union, andwith PLR's assistancewe are beginning to chart a new course for our union. It would be tragic to see this work stopped because of lack of funding. I really believe in the project not only for the labor movement as a whole, but, more selfishly, because of how it has revitalized me personally. Instead of lamenting in the dark, I can finally see a real way that our union can change." "More and Better" versus Transformation There are many activities in the labor movement today that are making a difference in levels of member participation and in the effectiveness of the union as a voice for democratic values and the broad interests of members, in particular, and working people, in general. We are encouraged by these changes, beginning with some of those going on at the AFL-CIO itself under the leadership of president John Sweeney. But we believe that when totals are added up, "more and better" is not going to be sufficient. For example, labor movement "density," the portion of the workforce organized, continues to decline even though in 1999 there was a gain in total membership in unions. (The workforce is growing faster than the increase in union membership.) The best efforts of the "new voice" leadership over the last five years have failed to reverse the trend, though it has clearly slowed the rate of decline. Many leaders told us that "the union" was a topic of regular dinner conversation when they were growing up. The centrality of union membership to their mothers and fathers was an important part of what shaped these leaders. With only 14% of workers in unions (9% in the private sector), as opposed to the 35% who were in unions when the cohorts we talked with (mostly in their 40s and 50s) were growing up, a rupture is occurring in the intergenerational transmission of union values, which, if not reversed, has profound implications for the future of the labor movement. The changes that we are talking about will come with members for whom their union becomes a communitya source of deep meaning and a cause for which they are willing to make sacrifices. While we support the results of "more and better," we do not think they will build the power labor needs to realize its deepest values, create a better society, and defend the interests of working people. These require a fully revitalized and independent labor movement, one that is capable of involving millions of people in organizing, expanding benefits and prerogatives where there are collective bargaining contracts, lobbying, voting, demonstrating, boycotting, and otherwise expressing itself on all matters affecting working people, and influencing the culture of families in ways that produce future generations of union-oriented workers. Social Policy 2001 |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho