By Richard Hurd
Richard Hurd is a professor of labor studies at Cornell University.
December 1, 2004
When the AFL-CIO executive council gathered in Washington several weeks
ago to assess the damage in the wake of President Bush's reelection, it
was not the organization's president, John Sweeney, who grabbed the
headlines, but Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International
Union.
Stern, who eight years ago succeeded Sweeney at SEIU, chose this
opportunity to turn up the heat on his mentor. Arguing that the future
of the labor movement is in peril and that the AFL-CIO is an antiquated
body unprepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century, Stern and a
group of like-minded union leaders pressed for a dramatic makeover in
labor's structure and strategic priorities. Their insistence that the
AFL-CIO must be transformed — or must get out of the way — has outraged
old-time, tradition-bound unionists and has ignited an internal feud
that threatens to split the movement into warring factions.
These are difficult times for labor, and not just because of the
election. The union share of the workforce has dropped to 8% in the
private sector, the lowest level in 100 years and less than one-fourth
of the post-World War II peak. Industrial unions have suffered under
the weight of globalization, while their counterparts in
transportation, communications and utilities have been weakened by
deregulation. On top of this, labor faces an inhospitable legal
environment made worse by an antagonistic president and Congress.
Stern and his colleagues in what they're calling the New Unity
Partnership argue that the growing crisis requires an aggressive
response — including not just massive reallocation of resources into
recruitment of new members but substantial restructuring as well. They
have proposed collapsing the nation's 60-plus unions into no more than
20 powerful mega-unions, each with a clearly defined industry focus.
This presumably would allow labor to translate growth directly into
power within a market, in contrast to the current arrangement in which
unions have multiple jurisdictions and often compete with each other
for new members.
Stern has also suggested that the AFL-CIO's
authority over its affiliates should be strengthened in order to
orchestrate the mergers, and even to shift units from one union to
another. This proposal has angered those labor leaders who embrace the
tradition of national union autonomy on strategic issues related to
bargaining and organizing. The International Assn. of Machinists has
even authorized its president, R. Thomas Buffenbarger, to withdraw from
the AFL-CIO if Stern's proposals are adopted.
Buffenbarger
apparently sees this as more than a disagreement over strategy; he
views it as a takeover attempt by a group of elitist intellectuals.
Stern — along with his New Unity Partnership colleagues Bruce Raynor of
the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and John
Wilhelm of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International
Union — represents a new breed of progressive union leaders, all with
Ivy League degrees and experience as campus activists in the 1960s and
early 1970s. Buffenbarger was quoted in the New York Times as saying
that the Ivy League-educated union leaders talk down to the rest.
Other labor leaders have also voiced displeasure, including United
Steelworkers of America President Leo Gerard, who has described the
efforts of the NUP as presumptuous. Gerard's declaration that "I don't
need a lecture about mergers" reflects a view shared by many more
traditional leaders, including most of those from smaller unions who
fear being gobbled up in any major restructuring.
It is not
just the traditionalists who are uneasy; several high-visibility union
officials with progressive credentials have also attacked the plan.
Among them is Larry Cohen, who is expected to be the next president of
the Communications Workers of America. Though he backs increased
resources for organizing, Cohen supports equal attention to political
initiatives such as labor law reform and rejects the restructuring idea
as top-down engineering that would undermine union democracy. This
position is shared by the American Federation of Teachers and other
public-sector unions.
To date, opponents have offered no clear
alternative to the NUP proposal other than the status quo — and Stern
has threatened that if the basic restructuring concept is not adopted,
he will secede from the AFL-CIO to "build something stronger." Or, the
NUP may put up a candidate of its own for the AFL-CIO presidency at
next July's convention.
Those who believe that unions play a
productive role can only hope that labor leaders take this opportunity
to engage in productive debate about the future. If instead they lock
into narrow positions that provoke internecine warfare, the outcome can
only be destructive. In the 1930s the legendary president of the United
Mine Workers of America, John L. Lewis, orchestrated a split in labor
and formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
The CIO
focused on organizing and led a dynamic period of union growth. But
that was during the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt — not George W. Bush —
with friendlier labor law and widespread worker militancy fueling the
expansion. A rupture in today's environment could well lead to the
demise of unions rather than their rebirth.