Speeches and articles about the environment tend toward dry statistics, but the facts of drought, famine, and flood are talking louder. It’s hard to ignore climate change when your house is washing away.
Environmentalists
have always been with us. They range from the driest academics to the
eco-terrorists. Their arguments often involve human health, endangerment of
species, and the general disappearance of our way of living. Their message
grows more relevant with every weather report.
Poverty and famine
The latest
figures indicate that 8 men, 6 of them in the United States, hold more wealth
than the poorest half of the world’s population. Rich men live 15 years longer.
Inequality is rampant and growing. A few rich families enjoy untold luxuries
while most children are underfed!
Contrary to what most economists tell us, the reason is deeper than what we can learn from a quick look at recent economics. Most of the analyses we see indicate that everything would be fine if we could just get back to the conditions in America in, say, 1955. Piketty debunks them.
Thomas Piketty’s
collection of data shows clearly that the American situation around World War
II was nothing normal. In fact, it was a complete exception to the rest of
capitalist history. Except for that short period, inequality has always risen
under capitalism. Piketty concludes not only that capitalism creates
inequality, but that it always will.
Murder and genocide
Wealthy people
protect and extend their wealth, just as they always have, with armed police
and soldiers. No matter the prayers that we deliver and the songs that we sing,
wars are caused by economic inequality. As inequality rises, so does the danger
of war.
World War I and
World War II, and all the little wars before, between, and since, were basically
fought for economic advantage. The sole reason that World War III has not
already started is the understanding that nuclear war will have losers but no
winners. Even so, threats of nuclear belligerency have become so common that we
barely notice them. And non-nuclear war takes up much more of our current
history than peacetime.
Just because war
is impossible doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
Isolation and political
impotence
The majority of
us, here in America we casually call ourselves the 99%, are increasingly
dissatisfied with the suffering side of inequality. In several countries today,
the “have nots” are revolting against the governments that protect the “haves.”
Today’s news talks about Colombia, France, and Bolivia, but they could as
easily have mentioned half a dozen other countries.
The solution, for our side, is to take democratic control over foreign relations, economies, and environmental concerns. The tiny majority of rich people now controlling all those essential areas would rather we didn’t. Their massive propaganda machines are working to that end. They are also going to great pains to strip us of the partial democracy that we have won over the ages. Voter-rolls are being purged, polls are being closed, unions attacked, and burdensome conditions are being put on our right to speak for ourselves.
Increasingly, the
rich are relying directly on their police and soldiers. We rely on the only
thing we have, people power, to blockade their four roads to hell.
All my facts and figures come from today’s news.
–Gene Lantz, November 27, 2019
I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” program at 9AM Central Time every Saturday. If you are curious about what I really think, please check out my personal web site
I am worrying that members may resign from the United Auto Workers because they see no way to overcome the union’s problems. Leaving the union would be a disaster for those individuals and for all their brothers and sisters. Better to stay in the union and force it to change.
Here is a short
list of reform suggestions:
One-person-one-vote for critical decisions
End nepotism
No staffer control over membership deliberations
Join the rest of the labor movement, especially in politics
Full disclosure and cooperation with the membership
Meetings in most economical venues
Put “joint” activities under the same rigorous accounting oversight as regular union activities
Hold meetings in economical venues
The Longer
Explanation
The new acting
President of the United Auto Workers (UAW) is named Rory Gamble. His peers on
the International Executive Board asked him to take over after they pressured
the elected president, Gary Jones, to take a paid leave of absence. On UAW.org,
Gamble writes: “…I know recent events concerning members of our leadership have
disappointed and angered many of you….”
He is referring
to federal indictments against a number of active and retired top union leaders
and published allegations against some more, including Gary Jones. Newspapers
also reveal that other former leaders are testifying in the federal
investigation. Charges and allegations include embezzlement, corruption, and
money laundering. Two former top staffers published an op-ed calling for the
entire leadership to be fired.
The specifics in
the newspaper articles say that union officials could not account for money
spent on wrist watches, golf fees, expensive cigars, and fine liquors. I’d like
to come back to that.
Union Busters and
Their Friends
In these times,
no one should be surprised to learn that the government is trying to destroy
the UAW and its leaders. No one should be surprised that the corporate media is
doing all they can toward that same end.
What is
surprising is the commentary that follows the news releases. Writers who say
they are union members are buying into the anti-union onslaught wholeheartedly.
When Gary Jones stepped down, for instance, hardly anyone wrote on social media
about whether or not he had actually done anything wrong. Almost all of the
comments, instead, were calling for his head. The mildest among them were
saying that his salary should be cut off immediately. This is before any
official charges have been filed.
What Makes
Unionists Anti-Union?
Some union
problems are built in, even when the union is working well.
Union servicing
reps and negotiators know that their efforts are unlikely to please any union
member without pissing off another one. If the union wins a raise for someone,
for example, someone else demands to know why they didn’t get the same raise,
or a higher one.
The published
results of union ratification votes in the recent General Motors strike reveal
that 42% of those voting did not like the contract offer well enough to accept
it. They must have known that they were voting to continue the grueling strike,
but they bravely voted against the offer anyway. After the other 58% ratified
the contract, that 42% was certain to be discontent. It’s built in to contract
negotiations that somebody will be glad and somebody else will be mad.
In enforcing
union contracts, servicing reps spend a lot of time, maybe the majority of
their time, helping the very worst members. A worker who stays sober and comes
to work on time regularly may not see his/her servicing rep for months on end.
The drunk who screws up has the servicing rep on speed dial. There’s really no
way around that.
When the union is working well, seniority is strictly observed. The first people to get promotions and raises are the ones that have been on the job longest. The first ones laid off are the newest. There’s no way around that, either, because the alternative would be to let the boss decide, and he will go with his nephew every time! But seniority creates a built-in problem for unions, especially during times like the last few decades, when more people are getting laid off than hired and the membership keeps aging.
Unions aren’t
revolutionary. Hot-blooded young members with high ideals and little to lose
are always wanting their union to take on and destroy the establishment. They
are always disappointed because unions don’t want to destroy companies or
systems. They just want better treatment for their members. It’s built in.
But There are
Preventable Problems
Unions became increasingly isolated after the 1947 Taft Hartley law was passed over President Truman’s veto. The progressives in the union movement were kicked out en masse. The conservative union leaders then embraced “business unionism.” They stopped struggling for social programs like shorter working hours, increased Social Security, and national health care. Instead, they bought management’s suggestions for company-provided pensions and health care. The UAW, in what is often called the “Treaty of Detroit,” led the charge backward.
Most union members were glad. They started seeing their wages, pensions, and health care get better and better while people without unions could only enjoy a residual effect. Union officers learned to play golf with management while growing more and more isolated, not only from the working class at large, but from their own members. In the long run, it was a recipe for disaster, but in the short run, during America’s great post-war boom, it worked great for the members. To this day, many union members think the leaders of the 1950s and 1960s were some kind of geniuses.
Membership fell steadily after 1957. Disaffection, separation of union leaders from everybody else, grew worse. Membership participation in union meetings declined. Leadership became increasingly opportunist. That is, they took UAW staff jobs because they were really good jobs, not out of any commitment to the union (witness them today hurrying to testify for the union-busters). Nepotism is one of the uglier aspects of opportunism, and it is weakening the UAW.
Then came Reagan
By the late
1970s, the United States began to lose its economic hegemony over the rest of
the world. Other industrial nations rebuilt the factories that were bombed flat
during the war, and they started producing products that were as good or
better, and often cheaper, than those made in the United States. Little foreign
cars, for example, became quite trendy in America.
In the
presidential election of 1980, the employers committed to a solid plan to drive
down unit labor costs in America. They found an excellent spokesperson and
mobilized the government, the media, and most of the establishment around him.
With government help, they shipped the best American manufacturing jobs
overseas. They automated jobs away. They busted unions when they could and
passed anti-union legislation at every opportunity.
Unions, who had completely
forgotten about the historic fight to shorten working hours in response to
automation, bled members. Some of them tried to adapt through strategic mergers
with other unions and by innovative approaches to organizing. A few of them did
OK, but the UAW wasn’t one of them. Membership fell from 1,500,000 to around
400,000.
The UAW responded
to the Reagan assault mostly by embracing the “Big 3” auto companies and
declaring that the enemies of the union were not managers but, rather, were
foreign workers, especially the very successful Japanese. They pushed “buy
union-made cars,” without mentioning that most of the foreign auto companies
were unionized. They immersed themselves into company-led “jointness” ventures
and “team” production. Union editors were encouraged, even directed, to give up
their union newspapers and join forces with management.
One result was
that “joint” ventures created opportunities for corruption, and one direct
result of that is some of the UAW leaders now in jail or under indictment. They
are charged with stealing funds that were designated for joint training
programs that had poor fiscal accountability.
The other result, far worse, was that UAW leaders were more than ever isolated from the members. Instead of interacting with members at work, they built a hierarchy of union staffers around them that completed their isolation. The union staffers, who have their own separate staff union, continued to get the best that the UAW could offer, while members’ wages and benefits eroded away.
One could argue that the UAW staffers, not the members, run the union. It is true that the UAW still has a good democratic constitution with regular elections and constitutional conventions. The problem with those conventions is that they are orchestrated by the staff. While some unions prohibit staffers from even being on their convention floor, UAW staffers literally lean over every delegation during conventions. Hardly anything happens at UAW conventions that was not planned out in advance by the top UAW leaders and executed by their paid staffers.
About Those
Cigars
Readers of the many anti-UAW articles may have wondered what union leaders might have been doing with all those expensive cigars, golf fees, watches and bottles of liquor that they were supposed to have stolen. They couldn’t have worn that many wrist watches. They couldn’t have drunk and smoked that much while playing that much golf. The answer is pretty obvious. They probably used luxury items to guarantee, through small bribes, the continuing loyalty of the legions of staffers.
We end up with the situation in the UAW today. A significant number of union members are so confused and alienated that they actually vote for their own executioners. Others, possibly with the best of intentions and highest motives, are joining the media call for destroying the union!
On the Upside
No one should
overlook the fact that the General Motors workers were able to carry out a
successful 6-week strike even while the biggest and sharpest union-busting
effort since the McCarthy period was directed against them. No one should
overlook the fact that the UAW still has 400,000 intelligent members and
several hundred million dollars. No one should overlook the fact that the UAW
has one of the proudest and most progressive histories in America. No one
should fail to notice that the American people are becoming more and more aware
of just who their real enemies are and how to fight back. That’s a lot to build
on.
Short-term
Solutions for the UAW
It isn’t likely
that President Rory Gamble is going to be able to pull the union together with
a few worn platitudes about “solidarity in the ranks” and “a few bad apples.” Even
if union leaders survive the government investigation, their alienation from
the membership will continue to eat the union away.
There are two
guys who think they have found a section of the UAW constitution allowing for
the members to call a special convention and elect new leadership. They have a
Facebook page with 12,000 likes. The two guys are arguing that members should
join their effort rather than doing what has become almost traditional –
“voting with their feet” – and leaving the union.
I hope they can
pull it off, because it might help keep our union together. But just holding a
new convention under the same old system isn’t really a long-term reform. For
example, the convention delegates are already elected. Under the UAW
Constitution, they are the same ones that attended the last convention, and
they will be sitting in front of the exact same staffers.
Long-term
Solutions
Our union needs
an entirely new attitude toward its members. Staffers must stop subverting our
democracy. Members must be consulted and listened to. Top-down thinking must
go.
The union also
needs a new attitude toward the public. More and better communications are
needed. “Go it alone” must be condemned as a union strategy and “solidarity
with all workers” must become our new guideline. We need to completely get rid
of our isolated, separate, political program and join with the other unions in
the AFL-CIO.
The United Auto
Workers, once the most progressive and democratic union, must take its place
again at the head of this wonderful new progressive movement that is sweeping
America.
–Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. If you care curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site
It’s a peculiar thing for an activist to deliver such bad news, but there really aren’t any solutions for working people within our nation. Here’s why: If we won decent treatment for American working families , the cost of labor in the United States would go up. That’s exactly what the bosses keep telling us, but it’s true.
If the cost of labor went up in the United States, then the nation would suffer competitively with other nations. Eventually, the other nations would take over whatever goods and services we now offer to the world.
It’s a little bit easier to see in microcosm. Take, for example, the American auto industry. During the General Motors strike just concluded, management argued all the way through that they couldn’t afford to be less competitive with the transnational companies, like Nissan and Volkswagen, that are producing good cars in the United States for the United States market cheaper than General Motors. They claimed, I think, that they pay $10-$13 more per hour in unit labor costs.
Nobody really disputes that. It’s the handwriting on the wall. Eventually, those companies with the lower labor costs could drive General Motors out of business, unless we do something.
So it is in international affairs. The nations with the lowest labor costs tend to take over from those with higher costs. A lot of us would like to think that the Chinese economy has grown because of socialist planning, and maybe good planning had something to do with it, but I imagine that their unit labor costs deserve a lot of the credit. The same is true of the other rising Asian star, Vietnam.
As long as workers live in separate nations and compete with one another, then there will be pressure to drive down unit labor costs. That’s us, you and me, unit labor costs.
So there is no solution within the United States or within any of the competing nations.
That’s the bad news.
Want the Good News?
The good news is that our present idea of nation-states can be overcome with internationalism. Capitalist nation-states are fairly new in human history, and they can be overcome. The good news is that internationalism is making progress. Unionists allied with the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) recently held a big conference in Nepal. They went over the same kinds of problems that we might have discussed at an American trade union conference, but their solutions are different. Their solutions are internationalist.
More and more, we are seeing the AFL-CIO unite the progressive forces in the United States. They are also doing some good outreach in other countries. President Richard Trumka recently honored the leading Brazilian leader, Lula da Silva, even though he’s in prison. Tomorrow, American trade unionists are meeting with Mexicans in El Paso to discuss problems concerning immigration. Those are marvelous developments. They point the way forward. It’s what we need. It’s what we must have.
How Do We Get There?
Working families struggle at every level. Contract fights, elections, legislative battles, and whatever else comes up. Working families have a big stake in everything that happens, and they have to fight to get anything at all. More and more, we are seeing people fight for one another. It’s called solidarity, and it’s growing nicely.
The fights will continue and so will the solidarity. It will grow into international solidarity, too. Keep going, everybody, you’re doing great!
–Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” program every Saturday at 9 AM Central Time. They podcast it on knon.org. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site
Those of us who
have been pulling for the General Motors strikers might begin today to evaluate
what we have learned.
Striking can pay off in the current economic and political situation
General Motors employees showed incredible gumption
Union solidarity is terrific
Public solidarity with union members is rising
Union-busting can be beaten
We could have done a lot more than we did
The American people are learning which side they are on and what to do about it
On the day before voting is supposed to end, it looks like at least a 60% ratification vote.
That’s Courage!
There’s a lesson
right there. Apparently, 40% of the union members were willing to continue the
strike beyond its 6th week! Being on strike is really, really hard! Whether
one agrees with them or not on the contract, one surely must concede that they
really have guts!
The contract summary is on http://uaw.org. Some of the newspersons have written that it comes up short in providing job security and in bringing the “perma-temps” into full-time employee status. But the people who actually know what they’re talking about consider it quite a victory.
We Win!
The top American union leader, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, wrote:
“I’ve never felt prouder to be a union member. Backed by millions of brothers, sisters and friends across the country, UAW members stood together to win the fair treatment that they’ve earned over years of selfless sacrifice. I commend the UAW’s national negotiators for standing firm to deliver on what their members demanded and hope this will bring an end to one of the most courageous fights I have ever seen. This is the latest victory in a wave of collective action happening across America. Working people won’t allow greed to dictate our lives, and we won’t tolerate a system that’s been rigged against us. Bosses everywhere should take note—we’re not going to take it anymore.”
On the picket
line on day one, it was like a carnival! There were any number of people who
were not UAW strikers. Some were from other unions, but some were not union
members. Many of the passing cars honked approval.
Social media
started spouting all kinds of solidarity messages. Some of them came from the
union, but a lot of them were home-made. Political office holders and
candidates started posting “I stand with the strikers” and proud pictures of
themselves on the picket lines. Several presidential candidates were among
them.
A lot of people
were asking how they could help. Cases of water were stacked up. People brought
cookies and other snacks. In my area, one AFL-CIO unit started raising money to
help strikers with financial problems through United Way. They weren’t asked by
the union, and they didn’t ask the union. They just did it!
Yard signs of
solidarity started going up, and lots of people were asking how to get one.
Beating Union
Busting
The newspersons talked
more about this strike than they usually talk about anything to do with the
union movement. They completely missed the important part, though.
What they could
have said was that the 2019 General Motors strike represented an all-out union
busting effort by General Motors, other corporations, right-wing ideologues,
and the federal government. The result was an historic victory for working
families!
Most of the
coverage came from two Detroit newspapers. Every article and opinion piece
always included the government’s investigations of top UAW leaders on charges
of corruption, money laundering, and embezzlement. Investigations had been
going on for a while, but they really hit the news on September 15, when the
strike began!
Writers on our
side, people like me, didn’t talk about these investigations because we
recognized them for what they are: union busting. They were hoping to divide
the strikers from one another, from their leadership, and from their growing
public support. Now that the strike is over, I expect the fanfare to fizzle.
We Could Have
Done More
I am a long-time UAW member from the aerospace section. I did not expect the UAW leadership to utilize the lessons that won unprecedented victories for the teachers of West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona. I hoped they would, but I didn’t expect it and, unfortunately, they met my low expectations.;
Basically, all
the UAW leadership did was call a strike and set up the financial structure to
pay the members who carried out their strike duties. What might they have done?
They
could have organized their retirees and other supporters to join the pickets
and carry out other solidarity actions
They
might have suggested that supporters could carry out informational pickets at
car dealerships
They
might have had an ongoing union educational program for off-duty strikers
They
might have had social events for strikers, and even for supporters
But, as far as I
could tell, they didn’t.
Contrast the General Motors strike with the Chicago Teachers strike that started just as the autoworkers were winding down. The Chicago Teachers held a national solidarity day, today, in which everybody published selfies of themselves or their organizations. Their hashtag, #putitinwriting, will give them thousands if not millions, of contact information for supporters all over the world! If they should decide on expanding the strike or, for example, on raising money, they now have an incredible base of support!
If the Chicago
School Board doesn’t cave soon, we are likely get a real lesson in modern
fighting tactics from the Chicago teachers!
Summing Up
News coverage of
the 2019 General Motors strike will continue to nit pick over the contract
details. A few of them might discuss the strike tactics. But they will continue
to miss the historic importance: The American people are ready to fight, and we
are learning how to win!
–Gene Lantz
I’m usually on http://knon.org/workers-beat every Saturday at 9AM, unless a tornado destroys the studio. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site.
Today, while
Corporate America, dark money, and an even darker government are trying to
destroy the United Auto Workers, it would be good to consider what it means for
all of us. To do that, look back in American history to a time before the UAW
became the first great success of the Committee for Industrial Organization.
In 1935, nearly all American unions were weak. They were divided by craft. Only the most elite and skillful, nearly all white men, were even considered for union membership. The few unionized African Americans were isolated in segregated unions. White and black unions in the same workplace even scabbed on each other! The many child laborers, of course, had no union representation at all.
Color and gender lines were broken once and forever in the union. The UAW organized industrially. That is, everybody who worked in the industry was a candidate for membership. Their anti-discrimination pattern and their militant action were followed in the great upsurge that followed, and working people in America gained unprecedented power.
Everything we have won can be taken away from us if we don’t fight
The UAW never limited itself to contract battles. They threw themselves into the political fight against the fascism that was growing in America and around the world. In the 1960s, the UAW organized its retirees into a national organization that fought for, and won, Medicare and Medicaid!
The civil rights we won are being shredded today
The explosion of
worker power went far beyond improving wages and benefits. America’s civil
rights also surged forward, and the UAW was more than just a great example to
follow.
The UAW supported
the civil rights movement. If you have looked at photos and videos of the
American civil rights movement that began in 1954, you may wonder who was that
white man in the front ranks? He was the President of the United Auto Workers!
The first version of Dr King’s “I Have A Dream” speech was written in his
Detroit office, which was in the UAW’s Solidarity House. The United Farm
Workers’ first big contribution was $10,000 delivered to Cesar Chavez and
Dolores Huerta in California by UAW Representative Pancho Medrano of Dallas,
Texas!
Before the UAW, most American workers were no better off than day laborers. Corporate America has never forgiven the union for its part in bringing dignity into our workplaces. They would like nothing better than to destroy the UAW and the entire American labor movement. That’s why we have to fight!
–Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON radio’s “Workers Beat” at 9 AM Central Time every Saturday. They podcast on http://knon.org. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site
Yesterday, I met with a futurist researcher named Mike Courtney. He wanted to interview me, he said, for a paper he’s writing on “unions and automation.”
Me and Mike Courtney having coffee and opinions
I gave Courtney fair warning. I told him that my views don’t represent anybody but me, but I have AN AWFUL LOT of opinions.
This futurist said that some automation is apparently “good,” but some of it is also “bad.” He wanted to try to find the line distinguishing “good” from “bad” automation. He figured a union man’s opinion would assist.
I told him that unions usually oppose automation, but we’re wrong when we do. As far as I can tell, unions either do nothing about automation or they try to negotiate with corporations to ease the pain when automation is inevitable. Good examples, I told him, were probably the Mine Workers and the Dock Workers on the Pacific Coast. I understand that both of them were decimated by automation, but not until after they had negotiated as good a deal as they thought possible. In my own local union, our Negotiating Committee Chairman once set up a “New Technology Committee” to try to advise negotiators what to do about automation. I consider that just about as good as any union does nowadays. At least they tried.
I could have told him that the machines I started running in 1978 replaced 16 conventional machines and, thus, 15 jobs. The machines that eventually replaced mine, as I retired, each replaced six of the ones I ran. Five more jobs lost to automation.
I did tell him what I did as an accountant. This was back before IBM introduced their 360 mainframe to take over jobs. I started a process of bill-paying that was all computerized. The machine compared what we thought we should pay with what the vendor was requesting. If they agreed, the bill was paid as soon as it was due. If they didn’t agree, then the accountant had to reconcile them and stick reconciliation data, positive or negative numbers, back into the machine. The machine just compared two sets of data and kicked out the ones needing reconciliation. I guess I would have seen the Accounting Department decimated if I hadn’t gotten bored and quit.
I think that Futurist Courtney was a little bit surprised when I insisted that unions were wrong to oppose automation. After all, I said, automation does what capitalism does best — lowering the unit price of the products we need or want.
The only problem with automation is how its benefit is allocated. Right now, all the benefit accrues to the capitalist in charge. Workers get nothing but layoff notices or, if they are lucky, they get to stay at work and do something even more mindless and boring than what they had before.
The automation genius of today is Jeff Bezos of Amazon. He has tens of thousands of employees worldwide. They do pitifully repetitious tasks and get paid very little. Besos, last I heard, makes $215,000,000 a day!
The solution to the problems that automation causes is not to oppose it. The solution is to grab some of the benefit. The way to do that is to shorten the working day every time productivity goes up. It’s the amount of wealth that an average worker produces in an average hour. Productivity is a statistic that the Bureau of Statistics gives out, I think, every quarter. It’s often around 2%.
Productivity aggregates, like a saving account aggregates. If you put the quarterly increases into a spreadsheet, you would see that an American worker today makes more than 4 times as much wealth in an hour than he/she did at the end of World War II. If the unions had known what they were doing, they would have demanded cuts in the working day so that they wouldn’t have lost 70% of their members, as they did.
The worst part about it, I told the futurist, is that union leaders figured this out long ago. From 1937 to 1947, the heyday of the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO) they demanded “30 for 40 with no cut in pay” every time they negotiated a contract. It meant that workers should work only 30 hours a week but continue to get paid the same that they made in 40 hours.
My own CIO union, the Auto Workers, had resolutions for “30 for 40” in every convention up to 1957. Then it disappeared. If you asked union leaders today about cutting working hours, I don’t think they would know what you are talking about.
My friend Tom Berry knows. He does a forum in North Dallas every Saturday evening. And every Saturday evening he gets up and says that Americans should demand a 6-hour day. It works out mathematically, you see: instead of 3 8-hour shifts we would have 4 6-hour shifts. Unions would be bigger and periodic unemployment would be less of a problem.
There are other advantages, too. Some researchers think that shortening the working day, completely by itself and for no other reason, would increase hourly productivity. People would just do their jobs better.
Another advantage might be that people with more leisure time might create even better ways to improve our quality of life.
Historically, the fight for shorter hours defined our worldwide labor movement. Getting the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1935 was the best thing we ever did. It said that employers had to pay their blue-collar workers overtime if they worked us more than 40 hours in a week. That’s all it said, but it was great.
But shortening the working hours has passed completely out of our collective consciousness. Most of the workers in my union don’t even want shorter hours. They grab up all the overtime they can get, just to pay their bills. A major social change like shorter working hours just doesn’t seem real to them, and that’s the union’s fault. Automation is killing American labor, and we have no program to deal with it.
–Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON Radio’s “Workers Beat” talk show at 9 AM Central Time every Saturday. The podcast it on knon.org. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site.
I love my union dearly. The United Auto, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) is largely responsible for some of the greatest leaps forward in the history of the American labor movement. But I’m terrified that we’re in trouble today.
Sing the union’s praise!
The UAW’s main contract, and one of the most important union contracts in America, expires September 14. They have decided to target General Motors then demand the same contract from Ford and Fiat/Chrysler. It’s called “pattern bargaining” and it has made the autoworkers some of the best-represented workers in American history.
Workers in Aerospace, like me, and other UAW-represented workers have done pretty well, too, but not as well as the auto workers. 151,000 of them face the contract expiration that looms over us right now. They voted by impressive margins to authorize strikes if the union negotiators decide it’s needed.
Trouble in the News
Just making everything worse, FBI and IRS agents are investigating the possibility of corruption at the highest levels. I believe 9 from the upper echelons of the union have already been convicted or pled guilty. It is fascinating to speculate on how people will react to this bad news.
I know how the Trotskyites of the 4th International feel, because I read several of their posts. They are full of glee. They call the union a “criminal conspiracy” and, apparently, can’t wait for more convictions.
A quite different reaction came from People’s World, a news service loosely associated with the Communist Party, USA. They aren’t happy with the news and want to minimize its effect on the contract negotiations. That’s my attitude, too.
Whatever some union officials may have done, if indeed they did, there’s no reason to penalize 151,000 ordinary workers for it. The government of the United States is clearly against working families, and hitting the headlines with their investigation during contract negotiations is clearly anti-worker.
UAW leaders haven’t said much to the public about the investigation. President Gary Jones has made it clear that they are focusing on the negotiations and trying to get the best possible contract. That’s exactly right, in my book.
Something Worries Me More
The UAW leadership hasn’t said a lot about the investigation, but that isn’t my main concern. What worries me to death is that they haven’t said much about the negotiations either!
I’ve been writing for some time about the recent upturn in some union activities. The most notable successes were the school employees in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona last year. But there are other, smaller successes, too. All of them involve mobilizing union members, their families, their friends, their churches, their community organizations, and even their political representatives.
Everybody who reads labor news knows that such broad mobilizations can win, and are probably the only possible way to win in today’s world. “Go it alone” is discredited. I don’t want to see the mighty UAW go alone into disaster, but I’m afraid that might happen.
So What Can You Do?
If the UAW leadership isn’t asking you for help, what do you do? All I could think of was to sound the alarm and start asking people if they would be willing to help when and if the union asks.
I made up a sort-of pledge that says, “We are backing the United Auto Workers union in negotiations with the auto industry. Many of the best things in American labor history came from the UAW. Standing with the UAW is standing for America!
I’ve given them out all over my area. Who knows if they will help? Who knows if they will ever even be needed? I can’t just stand by, and I hope you can’t either!
–Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON radio’s “Workers Beat” program at 9 AM Central Time every Saturday. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site
“American Factory,” Netflix documentary by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, 110 minutes
General Motors leaves a lot of Dayton, Ohio, workers adrift
when they shut down a big factory. In 2014, a Chinese company buys it and
starts hiring. They bring in a number of their veteran workers to show the
Americans how to manufacture automobile glass the Chinese way. The film makers
follow the workers, both Chinese and American, and managers, both Chinese and
American, around the workplace and during visits to China, and let them have
their say.
The film was recommended by the AFL-CIO, but that doesn’t
mean it’s a propaganda vehicle for our side. In an extra attachment, the two
documentarians explain their lack of bias to Barack and Michelle Obama.
Even without editorializing from the film makers, there are
some really hard-hitting scenes in the movie. One of the Americans explains how
happy he is to get the new job, how affectionate he feels toward his new
Chinese co-workers as he settles in, and then, later, how lost and miserable he
is when he gets fired for causing a 3-second delay.
The Chinese and American workers try to figure each other
out. The Autoworkers union tries to regain the membership they lost from
General Motors (the organizing drive could have easily made a good separate
movie). The American managers try to cope with the hard demands of the Chinese
owners. Some quit, some get fired, and some get laid off as the factory becomes
more and more efficient. At least one of the American managers is bitter about being
dumped. Another one, speaking Mandarin and probably thinking it won’t get
translated, shows himself to be far nastier toward the American workers than
the Chinese ever tried to be.
In a trip to a Chinese factory, the American managers try to
adjust to an entirely different culture and mentality. The always-neutral film
makers just record it all without comment.
The Chinese workers were on 12-hour shifts and some of them were
only able to see their families for a few days out of every year. They were
amazingly efficient and fanatically hard-working. Nobody commented on it, but all
of them were also quite young.
–Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON radio’s “Workers Beat” talk show at 9 AM Central Time every Saturday. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal page
The Texas AFL-CIO convention was depressing, even though it showed continuous improvement in labor’s aggressiveness and strategic action.
If you aren’t subscribing to Ed Sills’ regular labor e-blasts (write ed@texasaflcio.org), then you aren’t staying up with Texas working people. Ed sent out a good comprehensive report and it was upbeat. I assume that eventually it will be on http://texasaflcio.org. Every participant I talked to was upbeat. “Pumped” was the word they used.
Some of the best
parts of the convention were the resolutions passed and the opening speech by
President Rick Levy. Levy said we are at a crossroads and it is time for Texas
labor to “Go big or go home.” In other words, we are in an extraordinary
situation with unusual problems and challenges that have to be met aggressively
and with our best thinking. I really liked that.
The other thing I really liked was the resolutions. Ed Sills summarized all of them, but I’ll mention just one: “Support for the concept of Medicare for All.” That resolution put Texas out front.
Off the Record
I had two
personal conversations that were real zingers. One of them evaluated how to
measure success for a Central Labor Council and the other evaluated today’s
possibilities for working people.
All of the
Central Labor Council leaders, of course, were at the convention. One of them
told me that the true measure of local work is whether or not they can shut
down the economy. If a Central Labor Council can’t shut down its local economy,
then it hasn’t reached its potential, he said. He agreed with me that none of
them in Texas has, but that’s where the bar must be set.
There are a lot
of professional organizers at these things, and nearly all of the speakers said
that the labor movement must, in so many words, “organize or die.” No argument
anywhere, BUT: When I talk to union leaders individually and off the record,
they tell me that they really don’t have time to organize. The American labor
movement is tied up with servicing their members, settling grievances, and
negotiating with bosses. Organizing is almost an afterthought and is usually
shunted off to one or two individuals, almost as a sideline. The best thing said
at the convention about organizing was that we have to make every member an
organizer. It’s true but it’s going to be really hard to do.
But one organizer
had an entirely different story. A short informal conversation with him made
the entire 3-day convention worthwhile for me. This guy talked about turning
labor actions over to the members, about looking high and low for allies, and
about all things being possible when the members come together and run their
own show. The most prominent example of that recently has been the teachers of
West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona. I talked about that in another blog. I
was absolutely delighted to see another union applying those lessons so well!
I put all kinds
of photos and videos on my Facebook page “Gene Lantz.”
So why was I
depressed?
On the way to San
Antonio for the convention, I was agonizing over the advances that fascism is
making in America. We are heading for an awful crossroads and we will either
emerge with fascism or a new, extended democracy. The other thing I thought about
on the way to San Antonio was the youth of Puerto Rico, who were overthrowing
their government with a general strike.
I expected the
speakers to deal directly with the danger of fascism and the solution,
nationwide labor actions. No matter how good the Texas AFL-CIO convention was,
and it was certainly good by any usual measure, if it didn’t deal with those
two phenomena, it worried me. These are not normal times.
–Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON radio at 9 AM every Saturday morning Central Time. If you want to know what I really think, glance over my personal web site
genelantz 