Andy Stern is Still (Power) Hungry

The caption that was posted along with this picture is too funny to not pass along, "Where's me bank?" (On the left is John Wilhelm, former president of the union HERE and current Hospitality Division president of UNITE HERE; on the right is Bruce Raynor, former president of UNITE and current president of UNITE HERE; and on Raynor's shoulder is a leprechaun version of Andy Stern, president of SEIU.)

For those of you who might not know the context of this picture and why I find it hilarious, let me try to give the short version of the ongoing saga at UNITE HERE. Basically the short version, UNITE — the former union of textile workers — and HERE — the former union of hotel and foodservice employees — merged to form a single union, UNITE HERE. The merger was precipitated by the fact that HERE had been very successful at organizing members but was burning through cash while UNITE's membership had been declining but was flush with money because the union is the owner of Amalgamated Bank. All was good while the two presidents, Bruce Raynor (UNITE) and John Wilhelm (HERE)were getting along. Then, they stopped agreeing, supposedly Wilhem wasn't allowing Raynor to head the union alone but Raynor was outvoted since at least 60% of UNITE HERE members were from former HERE locals. Anyway, Raynor started talking about a "divorce" (no, literally, with all of the normative assumptions that go along with it) and the two have been trash-talking each other in the press (for the longer version see here).

Well, it turns out that in the divorce there was really a lover in the wings. Andy Stern, the obnoxious president of SEIU wants both unions to join SEIU thereby increasing his own personal power, which it seems, is all that Andy Stern is interested in. Over the past month, the former UNITE locals resigned from the UNITE HERE, and this past weekend formed a new union, Workers United. The nascent union lasted all of a day before they affiliated with Stern's SEIU with a new agreement that essentially lets SEIU raid the sectors remaining under the former HERE's jurisdiction.

It seems like Andy Stern's sole goal in life is to gain more power for himself, make his organization bigger, and be seen hobnobbing with important people (for example). He sees himself as a modern-day John L. Lewis, but in reality he is a corporate-style thug who can't even be bothered to cover the corporate double-speak when busting the union of SEIU employees.^[1]

^[1] Please note that this post is solely my (Mike's) opinion by observing events in the labor movement for the past three years. Given his style, it would make complete sense why he wants to get his grubby hands on the only union-owned bank in the country.

I Don't Hate Hillary, But...

I don't hate Hillary Clinton. I think that she gets a bad wrap for things that, if she were a man, wouldn't be questioned. I think that people are scared of her because she is a strong, intelligent and powerful woman. I am appalled at the level of "I Hate Hillary" sentiment that exists in this country because I believe that most of it is driven by peoples' fears of strong, intelligent and powerful women.

All of that being said, I hate Hillary Clinton's politics.

The fact that her campaign, largely led by Bill, has gone on an inexplicable offensive in the past couple of weeks is bad for politics and it's bad for the Democratic party. Josh Marshall has an excellent post about trying to pinpoint where he finds a problem with "Bill 2.0". He settles, it seems, largely on the fact that Bill Clinton is the leader of the Democratic Party and, as such, has an obligation to ensure the health of the party—even if that means not supporting Hillary as much as he would otherwise want to. For Josh, the problem is that Bill Clinton is thinking personally when he should be thinking professionally. His obligation to his party and, given the way that the two parties control the election of public officials in this country, also his country should come above his family obligations. Bill's actions are bad because it leads to political dynasties, not because of the actions themselves.

I respect Josh's analysis and believe that he is right about the problems of political dynasties. From very early one of my largest reservations with Hillary Clinton is the fact that, if she is elected and subsequently re-elected in 2012, two families would have controlled the Presidency for 28 years. Over a quarter of a century ruled by two families. That's bad for democracy. But, I have a bigger problem with what has happened with the Clinton campaign in the past two weeks that really gets at my intense dislike for the Clinton's politics.

That problem is this: Hillary Clinton's campaign is designed to win her the nomination at all costs and that cost might be the health of the Democratic Party. The actions of her campaign in the past couple of weeks has demonstrated that she does not mind stepping on the party if it can be a stepping stone to her nomination. In the past two weeks, Bill Clinton alleged that Obama was suppressing votes and the campaign was simultaneously claiming that the Culinary Workers Union was ordering members to vote for a particular candidate. Those lines are straight out of the corporate anti-union tactics playbook. Of course, that shouldn't be a big surprise, considering Mark Penn is one of her top advisors, and CEO of the company that runs the PR for firms such as Cintas, who has run an intense anti-union campaign against UNITE HERE, the same international with whom the Culinary Workers are federated, and whose poor worker safety led to a record fine by OSHA for a worker's death.

Then, in the past week to stir up controversies over the fact that Obama is winning in South Carolina because he is likely to get more black votes, among the other questionable truths (h/t lmw) means that the Clinton campaign is intentionally using this race-baiting tactic because they know the saliency of race and politics in this election. This was confirmed today, when Bill Clinton subtly brought up that Jesse Jackson won S.C. in the 1984 and 1988 primaries. Feeding into perceptions that black voters are going to vote for Obama because he is black feeds straight into the kind of despicable behavior that Republicans have used against black Democratic candidates (see Harold Ford).

This win-at-all-costs politics is bad. Not only does it have the effect of suppressing voters who are not already active participants in the political process (among whom, I believe, the majority would support Democrats) but it also sells out the very base of the Democratic Party. Arguing that union bosses intimidate their own workers does nothing to help workers organize and it undermines the very institutions that are responsible for the largest and most effective political machine on the left. Claiming that Obama is going to win South Carolina because he is black, not for his politics, plays into the racial-quota race-baiting of the conservative movement. But, it is politically expedient. And, it's worked. Many of the major media outlets are covering Obama's huge margin among black voters (including the AP, CNN, Fox, and international outlets). And, it seems that Clinton's strategists agree, "Clinton campaign strategists denied any intentional effort to stir the racial debate. But they said they believe the fallout has had the effect of branding Obama as 'the black candidate,' a tag that could hurt him outside the South."

Even I have fallen into it. I have spent this entire post discussing Clinton when, in fact, the day belongs to Obama. He didn't just win South Carolina, he skunked Clinton there. His 55% percent mandate against two candidates is as high as Clinton's Michigan win against "Undecided." This is his day, his week and should be—at least until February 5th—his campaign. And, his victory speech was brilliant. It is worth watching all 17 minutes of it. But, talk about striking back with a brilliant political move, here is my favorite part of his speech:

We're up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. But we know that this is exactly what's wrong with our politics. This is why people don't believe what their leaders say anymore. This is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again. (Cheers, applause.)

But let me say this, South Carolina. What we've seen in these last weeks is that we're also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation.

It's a politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us, the assumption that young people are apathetic, the assumption that Republicans won't cross over, the assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor and that the poor don't vote, the assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate, whites can't support the African-American candidate, blacks and Latinos cannot come together.

Obama is right and his politics are good for the country. Whether I agree with him about the issues (I think, in the end, I would tend to support Edwards the most on the issues), the fact that people are engaged, involved and active in a presidential campaign is better for democracy and could help prevent useless wars and unbridled corruption in the future. Obama's campaign will mean more to the politics of this country losing this election than Clinton's will winning it.

Reject Relay!

Speaking of UNITE HERE campaigns , she is working with workers at the NY/NJ Port Authority airports (specifically, Newark and JFK) who have gotten so fed up with their company, HDS North American Retail (they operate the RELAY travel, Virgin Records and other stores) that they are asking people to boycott their own stores.

Lest someone argue that these types of corporate campaigns are all talk and no walk, well the workers did just that. On Thursday morning, to show how frustrated they were, the workers walked out on a one day strike. Although I know that we have had our trouble with one-day walkouts, this is such a cool way to demonstrate to the company (and the Port Authority who actually owns the space) how serious the workers are about organizing. While I know that I am biased because E. is working on the campaign, I think that this is the best way to combine the benefits of a "corporate comprehensive campaign" with the power of on-the-ground worker mobilization. If I can get any more information out of E. about it, I will pass it along.

But, until then, sign the petition and don't shop at Virgin Records in the airport (I know that is what everyone does when they travel).

AFL-CIO/CtW Split on Immigration

There is an interesting article in the NYT today about the split between the AFL-CIO and three of the Change to Win unions over the immigration bill before Congress. Although the article is painfully brief and seems more intent on describing a split within labor than actually dissecting why it might be that there are differences within labor, it brings up an interesting point: is the guest-worker program bad for workers who want to form unions to make their lives better, or is it good for them?

Let me preface my response by saying that I know painfully little about this particular immigration bill. I have skimmed the AFL-CIO Executive Council's statement on immigration reform. They cite three basic things that need to change:

1. The outsourcing of jobs to other countries. This sounds like the standard AFL-CIO protectionist line, but at least they have the root of the cause underlying causes correct: policies like NAFTA which absolutely restrict the movement of labor while allowing (almost) complete mobility of capital creates a disadvantageous situation from the perspective of workers to the benefit of multi-national corporations.


2. Gaming of the current immigration system by corporations. Currently, the only agency responsible for overseeing the proper treatment of undocumented workers is the NLRB. Undocumented workers have no recourse to fair treatment and, thus, corporations use this to their advantage to strike fear into their workers meaning that workers have everything to lose — their job, income, residency, etc. — while the corporations can simply write off any penalties as a "cost of doing business."


3. The creation of a guest-worker program create a second-class citizenry in the United States. Here, the AFL-CIO aruges that:
   

   Guestworker programs are bad public policy and operate to the detriment of workers, in the both the public and private sector, and of working families in the U.S. The abuses suffered by workers in the first such program, the post World-War II Bracero program, are well documented. The negative effects of the modern versions of the “guestworker” construct—such as the H1-B and H2-B programs—are all too evident today. Workers around the country are witnessing the transformation of formerly well-paying, permanent jobs into temporary jobs with little or no benefits, which employers are staffing with vulnerable foreign workers who have no real enforceable rights through the guestworker programs. These modern programs have had a major and substantial detrimental effect on important sectors of our economy.

   
   Essentially, the AFL-CIO is looking at the macro-economic picture and looking at high supply driving down demand, and, thus, the value of labor to corporations. As the NYT article points out, labor was behind Democratic efforts to get the number of guest-worker visas halved.

At the same time, it seems like the three Change to Win unions backing this bill — the SEIU, UNITE HERE, and United Farm Workers — are making the same argument that the AFL-CIO is making. While there is no formal statement of policy similar to the AFL-CIO Executive Council statement (probably stemming from the fact that the CtW has very little cohesion, even on this issue the Teamsters are splitting from the federation as it seems they are wont to do), the letter to Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy from CtW chair Anna Burger is probably the closest thing to the AFL-CIO statement. Both unions are asking for the same things: a full path to citizenship, preventing guest-worker programs to turn into a second-class citizenry, and, most importantly, an avenue for workers to become full citizens of the country.

One could argue that these are really different arguments wrapped in the same veneer of PR double-speak, but I actually believe that the two positions, contrary to the coverage by the NYT are not that dissimilar. What I believe is different is the general goal of the two groups. On the one hand, the AFL-CIO sees the globalization of capital flows without the attendant globalization of labor flows as the essential problem. Their solution, however, would only seem to exacerbate the situation. Mandating that immigrants become citizens of the United States reveals the essentially protectionist argument; while the AFL-CIO is willing to concede that all laborers should have exactly the same protections as long as they reside in the United States. Instead, what the AFL-CIO needs to be doing is making it possible to organize multinational unions and bring protections through the very mechanisms that tie workers together. Currently organizing labor action internationally illegally, so the AFL-CIO says this is an impediment to organizing. If I have my labor history correct, striking itself was illegal before the success of the AFL, the CIO and Wobblies in the 1930s (among others, I am sure).

On the other hand, SEIU, UNITE HERE and the UFW are accepting the guest-worker program essentially, I believe, because it lessens one of the greatest impediments to organizing in the low-wage service sector: the problem of documentation. Employers such as SWIFT use the threat of deportation and ICE crackdowns as a threat against joining unions. And, why are the low-wage service sector jobs so terrible? Because they don't have the ability to collective organize and demand more from their employers. People talk about the glory of manufacturing jobs, but they were looked at with just as much disdain as current service jobs are. They aren't better jobs because they are more "manly" or because they involve machines and big parts; they are better jobs because the UAW, USW, UMWA, and other manufacturing unions fought hard to make those good jobs. The service-sector unions believe that the guest worker program will reduce the barrier of fear and lower the threshold for workers to talk to each other and act collectively to better their lives and working conditions. Of course this, too, comes at a cost: the service sector unions must be willing to accept the potentially terrible conditions that get placed on this guest-worker program which could turn it into a new racist Bracero program designed to undercut costs of all labor in the United States while simultaneously making it virtually impossible for workers to organize.

This problem, like that of trade (which I have discussed previously) is one which is virtually inescapable because the kinds of institutions and policies that we are using as tools to deal with this issue are outdated to the kind of problem that we confront. Both the AFL-CIO and the service-sector unions are confronting the problem with old tactics: the AFL-CIO gave up its anti-immigrant protectionist stance to form a pro-immigrant protectionist stance while the service-sector unions are willing to compromise to eliminate one of the obstacles of organizing with the leap of faith that it will be a step towards larger policy changes. Without organizing across national lines and only using legislation as a piece of a strategy rather than the entire strategy itself, these projects cannot have the kind of positive and sustained impact either the AFL-CIO or the service sector wants. Until labor confronts the issues that are presented by the international flow of capital with a sustained and effective campaign to assert workers' rights in that flow, we are doomed to be sticking our thumbs in the dikes of globalization.

Best Campaign Slogan. Ever.

Yesterday, I joined E. and members of UNITE HERE in the NY Pride parade. We received much applause and thumbs-up as we went down the street under signs that said, "SleepWithTheRightPeople.org" I swear, that has to be the best campaign sign, ever. Sleep With The Right People is a partnership between the LBGT community (including Pride at Work) and UNITE HERE, including the Hotel Workers Rising campaign (which also has a great slogan: Lifting one another above the poverty line).

It was a very interesting event that was both uplifting and sad. It was great to see how much support there is for things as basic as recognizing partnerships or for TBLG couples to be able to adopt children; but it is also sad recognizing how little will there is, politically, for such systematic change. The moment of silence an hour into the parade was a stark reminder of the reality of our current world. Calling attention to the discrimination against TBLG folks is, I guess, the first step in making sure that moment of silence becomes increasingly less of a contemporary and more of a historical issue.

Shameless Hijacking of a Discussion Thread...

Since I apparently used tags that are not allowed in Blogger's comments, I am shamelessly directing a great discussion from Dave's blog to this one... I hope its not too shameless. But, anyway, on Dave's blog, I see Dave's post having two different "themes":

1. He is tired of being lectured about the dying labor movement by mostly white and mostly male aging baby-boomers that oversaw that very decline.


2. He is deeply skeptical of the ability of "corporate campaigns" to succeed as a force for organizing labor in this country

On the first point, I cannot agree with Dave more. I am tired of being told how great the labor movement used to be and how our generation "just doesn't understand." I am frustrated by the fact that, as I try and learn in the Movement, I am continually told that I have no clue what I am talking about or that I am a kid "playing union." I think that at some time or another, all of us in the grad labor movement have faced this -- and I am a straight, white male. I see Dave's criticism arising partly from the fact that labor leaders, union bosses to the rank-and-file leadership, have become complacent over the past fourty years by failing to incorporate employees from new economic sectors into their "good-ol' boys" club. Even as many of these boomers complain of the decline of the labor movement, Dave rightly points out that there has been an expansion in the public and service sector employment by unions that largely employ women and minorities (though it is important to note that the presidents of AFSCME, the UFCW, SEIU, and UNITE HERE are all white males).

But, on the second point, I find Dave's analysis a little bit more problematic. On the one hand, he argues that the decline of the labor movement is becoming perilous because we have been following the same old tactics of the boomers straight off the metaphorical cliff. On the other, Dave is skeptical of one of the new tactics that has been employed to try and reverse this decline. It is a point that Dave has made before, which sadly died with the Green Blog of Revolution, about the effectiveness of a labor strategy that does not incorporate job actions. I have two arguments. I believe the first falls in line with what Patrick and Wobblie have argued, and I have previously discussed on my blog; in short, the labor movement will be stronger and succeed more by building a strong community-based organizing model and working with organizations like the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. I think that we all agree on this point.

My second argument addresses the tactics of "comprehensive campaigns" themselves. In the past direct labor action has succeeded because it was aimed at the bottom line of the corporations. In a period of mass accumulation, shutting down a plant for a day, week, month, year cost the corporation money. This is still true for our "white and tight" brothers and (some) sisters in the building trades. But, as corporations in the United States shift from making their their money by mass accumulation and much more from flexible accumulation and non-productive service work, then organizing a direct work action does not really affect the bottom line of the corporation. But, just as the CIO used new tactics of plant shut-downs compared to the AFL method of limiting the labor pool by controlling apprenticeships into the trades, the new economy requires new tactics be designed. Because so many corporations now rely on their images, the building a comprehensive campaign can be an effective way to start hitting the bottom line of corporations. And, where infrastructure has not been privatized, political pressure by highlighting the negative impacts of the corporation are entirely appropriate.

Which brings up Wobblie's point -- flinging poo 'til something sticks is not the best way to implement this tactic. Particularly in conservative Scottsdale. But, at the same time, at least the UFCW is organizing. At least they see the importance of building these connections. And, they have also taken a strong stand and their leadership has learned from their members at Smithfield and SWIFT plants and have, more effectively than any other attempt thus far, linked immigration to labor rights. And, with strong organizing with comprehensive campaign tactics, UNITE HERE has built a strong model in both Las Vegas and the Hotel Worker's Rising campaign. At different times, both of these efforts could probably have been accused of "flinging poo" but, overall, have given labor great hope in the past couple of decades. So, to the extent that the mistakes along the way are contained (see UFCW's TESCO campaign in Scottsdale) we should not discount the tactic of comprehensive campaigns.