DJ-Anarcho-Redist
16th May 2010, 15:53
Labor unions may have to abandon Obama to beat Corporate
America
By Mike Elk, AlterNet Posted on May 13, 2010
alternet .org/story/ 146705/
As president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka is emerging as
the voice of an increasingly irrelevant labor movement. As
unionized work sinks to only 7 percent of the private
sector, the labor movement is losing its influence within
the Democratic Party. To revitalize labor, Trumka must not
only challenge Democratic leaders, but wage political
battles outside the bounds of party politics by bringing
labor back to its working-class activist roots.
The failure of President Barack Obama to make a major push
on the Employee Free Choice Act -- let alone give even a
single speech dedicated to the topic -- is a telling sign of
organized labor's declining momentum inside the Beltway. As
Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson noted in February,
"For American labor, year one of Barack Obama's presidency
has been close to an unmitigated disaster." Labor ranks so
low on the president's list of priorities that a new
generation of Obama activists is now planning for a
political environment altogether devoid of the labor
movement.
The Obama administration demonstrated a clear lack of
concern for labor when it allowed nominations to the
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to be ignored in
Congress for a full 14 months. The vacant seats on NLRB
prevented the panel from issuing any decisions over this
14-month period, meaning there was no functioning court to
protect unions from the illegal practices of big
corporations. Needless to say, this was a big problem for
both labor and the country at largeâ?"imagine the president
allowing a federal circuit court to sit inactive for more
than a year. Most of the direct blame for the delay rests on
the shoulders of Republican senators. But Obama's timid
negotiations with conservatives allowed the problem to
fester. In March 2009, Obama appointed former union lawyer
Craig Becker to the NLRB, but the nomination didn't clear a
Senate Committee until October of that year. Republicans
then filibustered Becker's nomination, ultimately killing it
in the Senate by Christmas. Organized labor responded by
pushing for Obama to give Becker a recess appointment in
February, which would have filled the NRLB seat without
subjecting it to filibuster in the Senate. Obama's initial
response was a refusal: he wanted instead to cut a backroom
deal with Senate Republicans in an effort to attain some
variety of Obama's ever-elusive Holy Grail of public policy
goals, bipartisanship.
After Obama's rejection, labor had two options. It could
play nice with the administration and hope to be rewarded
for their loyalty, or it could take a stand and criticize
the White House for cutting this backroom deal. Trumka
choose the latter. He blasted the secret deal with the
Senate GOP as one that "left working people out in the
cold." He urged union members to bombard the White House
with phone calls in protest â?" the first time the AFL-CIO
had asked workers to do this during the Obama presidency. It
worked. As a result of the pressure the AFL-CIO put on the
White House, Obama was forced to grant Becker a recess
appointment during the next recess in March. Trumka risked a
lot, including much-coveted access to the White House, in
order to pressure Obama on this issue. But the White House
feared so open a denouncement from labor, and it folded
quickly, appointing Becker as soon as it could. When labor
suffered a massive loss on the Employee Free Choice Act this
year, Trumka learned an important lesson. Obama spent most
of his first year in office pretending EFCA did not exist,
mentioning the bill only in occasional throw-away lines when
he appeared before labor-dominated audiences. It was never
an issue he even pretended to put political capital behind.
But while labor fought for EFCA alone, labor leaders did not
publicly criticize the White House for failing to push their
top legislative priority. Instead, union leadership played
an inside game with Obama, hoping that by cooperating with
the White House on health care and other issues, labor would
eventually get the support for EFCA it wanted. But despite
this cooperation on Obama's signature legislative efforts,
EFCA was never scheduled for a Congressional vote, and died
with barely a whimper. In an August interview with Politico,
Trumka criticized labor leaders, saying they hadn't been
nearly aggressive enough with Democrats on the issue. Trumka
refused to let the mistake be repeated. He put Democrats who
blocked EFCA on notice when the AFL-CIO backed a primary
challenger, Lt. Governor Bill Halter, D-Arkansas, against
the incumbent Senator Blanche Lincoln. And whatever the
results of the Arkansas primary, Lincoln has moved
substantially to the left following the challenge, penning
strong financial reform legislation cracking down on
derivatives, the financial instruments that sunk AIG. Labor,
in short, has already helped secure better financial reform
by refusing to play nice. Labor is at a crossroads. Many in
the movement fear denouncing the White House more openly and
upsetting key relationships with the White House. While
union support was critical to Obama's election, everyone who
watched Obama's campaign contributions in 2008 knows that
corporate backers played a tremendous role in getting Obama
into office. Last year, the Obama campaign's own national
finance director, Penny Pritzker, wrote the president a
public letter urging him to kill the Employee Free Choice
Act. If labor takes a more critical stance against the
administration, it could force Obama to rely more heavily on
his corporate backers and set unions back even further.
Labor has plenty of enemies within the Democratic Party that
would like to push the unionzed percentage of the workforce
down from 7 percent all the way to zero. Obama has already
made overtures to these factions, most notably when he
applauded the mass firing of union teachers at a school in
Rhode Island.
So labor really could pay a heavy political price for
getting tough. But going bold and getting wiped out isn't
something union workers should fear. The labor movement has
been wiped out many times in this country's history with
bullets. But each time, it has gone down fighting and risen
up again. A third-generation union miner, Trumka grew up
hearing tales of the fabled battle of Blair Mountain. In
1921, union miners went on strike throughout southern West
Virginia, shutting down the coal industry. The coal
companies went to war, and over 100 miners were killed at
Blair Mountain, with the federal government even sending in
airplanes to bomb union worker encampments. The battle of
Blair Mountain was a heavy blow to the United Mine Workers
of America (UMWA) in West Virginia, but over time, it proved
to be a pyrrhic victory. As a result of the struggle, the
UMWA strengthened its resolve -- workers knew they couldn't
cut any deals with the boss, so they focused on organizing.
It took years, but once the Wagner Act passed in 1936, the
UMWA organized the entire coal industry workforce --
hundreds of thousands of miners. It created an industry-wide
contract that prevented mine owners from pitting one mine
against another. If bullets couldn't kill organized labor,
politics can't either. The most serious threat to the labor
movement is a leadership that insists on self-defeating
compromises rather than strong demands. This was exactly how
labor officials were acting when Trumka came into the labor
movement in the early 1980s. Trumka was elected president of
the UMWA in 1982, and made the union such a force to be
reckoned with that anti-worker forces called in a bomb
threat to his wedding. In 1989, he led the successful
nine-month strike against Pittston Coal Group for cutting
off medical benefits to pensioners and the disabled. The
long strike led the UMWA to the brink of bankruptcy, and it
was fined nearly $64 million during the strike. But the
workers stood firm, and the Pittston Strike became a
rallying cry against the tide of union busting that had
swept the nation during the Reagan era. A full 37,000 miners
went out on wildcat strikes in solidarity with the Pittston
strikers. There are only two tools in the union negotiation
toolbox: strike and solidarity. These are the forces that
big corporations fear, not Capitol Hill deal-makers. People
join the labor movement out of a desire to feel a sense of
dignity and respect on the job. They gain that sense of
dignity by standing up for their rights. They form bonds of
trust, dedication and solidarity that can become stronger
even in defeat. Workers will always be willing to get back
up and fight again if their fellow workers fight with them.
All the political favors in the world won't help workers if
labor leaders don't stand up and fight. Richard Trumka knows
this and has chosen a bold, aggressive approach for
organized labor. But Trumka is just one leader, and the
economic battle is just beginning. Make no mistake: Wall
Street is taking aggressive steps to wipe out the labor
movement entirely, and Wall Street has many friends within
the administration receptive to this message. If unions bow
to those in the White House that want labor to remain silent
amid this assault, the damage to the labor movement will be
more severe and long-lasting than the fallout from taking on
the administration. Workers might not win in their political
battles today, but the real fights don't have to take place
in Washington, D.C.â?"they're in mines, fields and offices
all over the country.
Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer who writes
for Campaign for America's Future. He previously worked for
the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE).
© 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
alternet .org/story/ 146705/
America
By Mike Elk, AlterNet Posted on May 13, 2010
alternet .org/story/ 146705/
As president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka is emerging as
the voice of an increasingly irrelevant labor movement. As
unionized work sinks to only 7 percent of the private
sector, the labor movement is losing its influence within
the Democratic Party. To revitalize labor, Trumka must not
only challenge Democratic leaders, but wage political
battles outside the bounds of party politics by bringing
labor back to its working-class activist roots.
The failure of President Barack Obama to make a major push
on the Employee Free Choice Act -- let alone give even a
single speech dedicated to the topic -- is a telling sign of
organized labor's declining momentum inside the Beltway. As
Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson noted in February,
"For American labor, year one of Barack Obama's presidency
has been close to an unmitigated disaster." Labor ranks so
low on the president's list of priorities that a new
generation of Obama activists is now planning for a
political environment altogether devoid of the labor
movement.
The Obama administration demonstrated a clear lack of
concern for labor when it allowed nominations to the
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to be ignored in
Congress for a full 14 months. The vacant seats on NLRB
prevented the panel from issuing any decisions over this
14-month period, meaning there was no functioning court to
protect unions from the illegal practices of big
corporations. Needless to say, this was a big problem for
both labor and the country at largeâ?"imagine the president
allowing a federal circuit court to sit inactive for more
than a year. Most of the direct blame for the delay rests on
the shoulders of Republican senators. But Obama's timid
negotiations with conservatives allowed the problem to
fester. In March 2009, Obama appointed former union lawyer
Craig Becker to the NLRB, but the nomination didn't clear a
Senate Committee until October of that year. Republicans
then filibustered Becker's nomination, ultimately killing it
in the Senate by Christmas. Organized labor responded by
pushing for Obama to give Becker a recess appointment in
February, which would have filled the NRLB seat without
subjecting it to filibuster in the Senate. Obama's initial
response was a refusal: he wanted instead to cut a backroom
deal with Senate Republicans in an effort to attain some
variety of Obama's ever-elusive Holy Grail of public policy
goals, bipartisanship.
After Obama's rejection, labor had two options. It could
play nice with the administration and hope to be rewarded
for their loyalty, or it could take a stand and criticize
the White House for cutting this backroom deal. Trumka
choose the latter. He blasted the secret deal with the
Senate GOP as one that "left working people out in the
cold." He urged union members to bombard the White House
with phone calls in protest â?" the first time the AFL-CIO
had asked workers to do this during the Obama presidency. It
worked. As a result of the pressure the AFL-CIO put on the
White House, Obama was forced to grant Becker a recess
appointment during the next recess in March. Trumka risked a
lot, including much-coveted access to the White House, in
order to pressure Obama on this issue. But the White House
feared so open a denouncement from labor, and it folded
quickly, appointing Becker as soon as it could. When labor
suffered a massive loss on the Employee Free Choice Act this
year, Trumka learned an important lesson. Obama spent most
of his first year in office pretending EFCA did not exist,
mentioning the bill only in occasional throw-away lines when
he appeared before labor-dominated audiences. It was never
an issue he even pretended to put political capital behind.
But while labor fought for EFCA alone, labor leaders did not
publicly criticize the White House for failing to push their
top legislative priority. Instead, union leadership played
an inside game with Obama, hoping that by cooperating with
the White House on health care and other issues, labor would
eventually get the support for EFCA it wanted. But despite
this cooperation on Obama's signature legislative efforts,
EFCA was never scheduled for a Congressional vote, and died
with barely a whimper. In an August interview with Politico,
Trumka criticized labor leaders, saying they hadn't been
nearly aggressive enough with Democrats on the issue. Trumka
refused to let the mistake be repeated. He put Democrats who
blocked EFCA on notice when the AFL-CIO backed a primary
challenger, Lt. Governor Bill Halter, D-Arkansas, against
the incumbent Senator Blanche Lincoln. And whatever the
results of the Arkansas primary, Lincoln has moved
substantially to the left following the challenge, penning
strong financial reform legislation cracking down on
derivatives, the financial instruments that sunk AIG. Labor,
in short, has already helped secure better financial reform
by refusing to play nice. Labor is at a crossroads. Many in
the movement fear denouncing the White House more openly and
upsetting key relationships with the White House. While
union support was critical to Obama's election, everyone who
watched Obama's campaign contributions in 2008 knows that
corporate backers played a tremendous role in getting Obama
into office. Last year, the Obama campaign's own national
finance director, Penny Pritzker, wrote the president a
public letter urging him to kill the Employee Free Choice
Act. If labor takes a more critical stance against the
administration, it could force Obama to rely more heavily on
his corporate backers and set unions back even further.
Labor has plenty of enemies within the Democratic Party that
would like to push the unionzed percentage of the workforce
down from 7 percent all the way to zero. Obama has already
made overtures to these factions, most notably when he
applauded the mass firing of union teachers at a school in
Rhode Island.
So labor really could pay a heavy political price for
getting tough. But going bold and getting wiped out isn't
something union workers should fear. The labor movement has
been wiped out many times in this country's history with
bullets. But each time, it has gone down fighting and risen
up again. A third-generation union miner, Trumka grew up
hearing tales of the fabled battle of Blair Mountain. In
1921, union miners went on strike throughout southern West
Virginia, shutting down the coal industry. The coal
companies went to war, and over 100 miners were killed at
Blair Mountain, with the federal government even sending in
airplanes to bomb union worker encampments. The battle of
Blair Mountain was a heavy blow to the United Mine Workers
of America (UMWA) in West Virginia, but over time, it proved
to be a pyrrhic victory. As a result of the struggle, the
UMWA strengthened its resolve -- workers knew they couldn't
cut any deals with the boss, so they focused on organizing.
It took years, but once the Wagner Act passed in 1936, the
UMWA organized the entire coal industry workforce --
hundreds of thousands of miners. It created an industry-wide
contract that prevented mine owners from pitting one mine
against another. If bullets couldn't kill organized labor,
politics can't either. The most serious threat to the labor
movement is a leadership that insists on self-defeating
compromises rather than strong demands. This was exactly how
labor officials were acting when Trumka came into the labor
movement in the early 1980s. Trumka was elected president of
the UMWA in 1982, and made the union such a force to be
reckoned with that anti-worker forces called in a bomb
threat to his wedding. In 1989, he led the successful
nine-month strike against Pittston Coal Group for cutting
off medical benefits to pensioners and the disabled. The
long strike led the UMWA to the brink of bankruptcy, and it
was fined nearly $64 million during the strike. But the
workers stood firm, and the Pittston Strike became a
rallying cry against the tide of union busting that had
swept the nation during the Reagan era. A full 37,000 miners
went out on wildcat strikes in solidarity with the Pittston
strikers. There are only two tools in the union negotiation
toolbox: strike and solidarity. These are the forces that
big corporations fear, not Capitol Hill deal-makers. People
join the labor movement out of a desire to feel a sense of
dignity and respect on the job. They gain that sense of
dignity by standing up for their rights. They form bonds of
trust, dedication and solidarity that can become stronger
even in defeat. Workers will always be willing to get back
up and fight again if their fellow workers fight with them.
All the political favors in the world won't help workers if
labor leaders don't stand up and fight. Richard Trumka knows
this and has chosen a bold, aggressive approach for
organized labor. But Trumka is just one leader, and the
economic battle is just beginning. Make no mistake: Wall
Street is taking aggressive steps to wipe out the labor
movement entirely, and Wall Street has many friends within
the administration receptive to this message. If unions bow
to those in the White House that want labor to remain silent
amid this assault, the damage to the labor movement will be
more severe and long-lasting than the fallout from taking on
the administration. Workers might not win in their political
battles today, but the real fights don't have to take place
in Washington, D.C.â?"they're in mines, fields and offices
all over the country.
Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer who writes
for Campaign for America's Future. He previously worked for
the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE).
© 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
alternet .org/story/ 146705/