I’m back in New York after ten days in Amherst, for the summer residency of the ULA Labor Studies program at UMass. The program is fantastic. The campus is beautiful. The curriculum is vital. The faculty is brilliant. The student body is awesome.
The community of students is really the reason to enroll in this program. It’s a great mix of union staffers, elected officers and rank-and-filers (many of whom are having their tuition paid for by their employers!). THis is exactly what I wanted: the opportunity to step away from my work twice a year and see the forest from the trees; to make the connections between public sector and private, the building trades and the service sector, globalization and our CLCs and global federations.
Just one example of why I’m glad I met all these people these last two weeks: the Machinists in the program were great guys (and gals). We’re talking about seasoned activists who organized dozens of shops and negotiated their first contracts. No nonsense, take-no-prisoners, been-there-done-that kinda guys who understandably must bristle at Andy Stern and arrogant little whiteboy technocrats in suits (like me!) who come along and say that everything must change. What a waste that we’ve argued ourselves into these corners instead of working together to figure out the way forward.
My take on The Split? At least it’s finally fucking happening. No more agonizing over what-ifs. No more waiting for the other shoe to drop. No more hiring freezes. Just do it and move on, already.
SEIU is out, but that’s no surprise. Teamsters are out, but that’s not a huge surprise given their history of moving in and out of the federation. UFCW is poised to quit, and that’s a shock. That’s America’s neighborhood union, and generally pretty cautious and conservative. Unite Here is keeping mum, and my gut tells me they’re staying put.
The federation is fundamentally weakened. The previously announced staff and department cuts are definite now, and likely to be deepened. With two of their major affiliates out of the AFL-CIO, the building trades might walk out the door, too.
Meanwhile, many of the affiliated national unions within SEIU and the Teamsters (like NAGE) are mulling their own splits, to go back into the federation. Additionally, the Central Labor Councils and state feds are surely gearing up for civil wars as locals of the renegade international unions either secede and take their per capita dues with them, or else fight to stay inside the local bodies only to watch loyal locals of the loyal IUs secede in order to avoid associating with such disloyal elements.
In his infinite wisdom, John Sweeney pushed through a resolution increasing the per capita dues to Central Labor Councils while demanding that non-AFL-CIO unions be refused membership into the CLCs, so that loyal unions are taxed at a higher rate in order to keep the CLCs financially viable while the house of labor demolishes itself (I’m sure that my old boss is crossing his fingers for a Unite-Here disaffiliation so he can avoid paying per-cap to the NYC CLC).
What is so wrong with allowing unity where we can achieve it? Wasn’t the big problem (according to the NUP one year ago) the lack of central authority and vision at the federation level? So why split and defund the fed and allow every union to go in its own direction?
And didn’t the CWA (and others) agree with the NUP that the lack of collaboration at the local level hurt Labor? So why force this split on our Central Labor Councils and force the duplication of efforts of two separate labor councils in each region?
Are Change to Win even bothering with creating a new federation? Are they simply letting he renegade international unions pocket the per-cap dues that would have gone to the AFL-CIO, the CLCs and the state feds and just letting every union do its own thing — the central criticism that sparked this whole debate in the first place.
We have enough enemies. Wal-Mart, Wholefoods, JetBlue, Cintas, Marriott, FedEx. Can we focus on those bastards instead of organizing against each other? What’s so painful about a principled agreement to go our own ways for awhile, but to unite where we can and avoid raiding or undercutting each other?