Australia's Workers Online: Coverage of Change to Win
You can read my article in full, here.
You can read my article in full, here.
Australia: The article will appear this Friday, 7 October, on Workers Online.
Finland: Here is my article, published by SAK, a Finnish national trade union center.
Germany: For those of you who read German, here's my article for Jungle World.
Italy: For those of you who read Italian, here's my article which appeared in Il Manifesto this week. Coming soon -- my article for Rassegna, the weekly publication of the 5.5 million member CGIL trade union federation. (Awaiting translation and publication.)
Norway: Now available in the trade union publication LO-Aktuelt Another article appeared in the daily newspaper Klassekampen.
I'm leaving St. Louis today, but I'm not leaving this subject behind.
St. Louis, Missouri struck me as an odd place to choose to hold the founding convention of new labour movement in the United States. It is not actually that easy to get to and there are few tourist attractions around to make the place particularly appealing. But when I heard that in this city, nearly a fourth (22%) of all workers belong to a trade union, I began to understand. (In the USA today, some 8% of private sector workers belong to unions, down from 35% a generation ago.) St. Louis symbolizes a time in America when workers could join unions and better their lives.
There are really two ways of looking at the founding convention of the Change to Win Federation which took place in St. Louis on Tuesday. On the one hand, some journalists called it a "dog and pony show", meaning a carefully stage managed event that was designed to cover up what was essentially an unprincipled split in the American trade union movement. The other view was that this marked a turning point in American labour history, an event comparable to the birth of the CIO in 1935. Having sat through the entire convention, I'm not sure both views are mutually exclusive.
I just sat in on a question and answer session with a relaxed Andy Stern, president of the SEIU. Stern surrounded himself with purple-clad workers from Texas and fielded questions -- including some tricky ones -- from journalists.
Stern was asked repeatedly about politics, and he confirmed that individual unions in the Change to Win federation would continue their political work. But he emphasized that workers in the USA did not have a party of their own.
He mentioned author Thomas Frank who had written that Democrats were perceived as being latte-drinking, Chardonnay-sipping owners of Volvos -- and Stern said that this was not just a perception, but the reality. The Democrats may be supportive of the workers in their hearts, he said, but not in their heads.
When asked if the coalition/federation had set any goals for how many new members it would recruit, he said that it was too early to say -- but we'd know more in the spring. But the SEIU, which now has 1.8 million members, would have 2 million in the near future, he promised.
One journalist commented that many of the things being said on the floor of this convention would have been welcomed at the AFL-CIO convention too. Was this causing him to have second thoughts? Stern replied that it would probably have the effect of making some AFL-CIO affiliates question why they weren't here.
Asked why the construction unions were exempted from the new federation's compulsory strategic sectoral efforts, he pointed out that those unions had a long history of working together -- while unions like the SEIU, the UFCW and the Teamsters had not worked together in the same way.
He spoke about how the unions, including SEIU, were giving their very best people to the new federation, giving the example of Tom Woodruff, who he called the architect of the SEIU's explosive growth. Tom would be organizing director for the new federation, he said.
Asked about whether the new federation would have a communications strategy, he talked about cellphones and the net, about his own experience as a blogger, and the SEIU's innovative PurpleOcean.org website.
The BBC website -- which makes an effort to cover the world -- has no mention of this event. I've just written to them to complain. If your local news media are not covering this convention, I urge you to write to them -- now. Tell them about this blog. Thanks.
Several delegates have gotten up to speak about the struggle to unionize bus drivers in the US who are employed by a British-based company, First Group/First Student. Now they are showing a film with British workers -- members of the Transport and General Workers Union -- expressing their solidarity. The Teamsters and SEIU have been working together very closely on this campaign, and you can find more details here: http://www.drivingupstandards.org/
It's great to see a concrete example of cross-border solidarity, or as Andy Stern says, "workers of the world unite" (or was that Karl Marx?).
Instead of eating lunch, the Leadership Council of the Change to Win coalition met for the first time. They added three people to their group, as the constitution provides. And they confirmed Edgar Romney and Anna Burger as the Secretary-Treasurer and Chair of the new federation, according to a report now being presented by James Hoffa of the Teamsters.
As Hoffa points out, this is the first time that a major union federation in America has elected a woman as its head, and Romney is the highest ranked African-American in the history of the labour movement in the USA.
The next 4 hours will include the following:
* Our covenant for growth: Joe Hansen (UFCW)
* Our commitment to growth: Doug McCarron (Carpenters), Tom Woodfruff (SEIU)
* Our commitment to electing leaders who share our values: John Wilhelm (UNITE HERE), Marite Elena Durazo (UNITE HERE)
* Our commitment to each other: Terence O'Sullivan (Laborers)
Stay tuned ... and keep sending in those emails and comments.
For those of you who are emailing me, sorry -- I can read your messages, but for some reason my server for answering you is not working, so I can't send out the replies I've written. If anyone knows an SMTP server I can use for today, I'd appreciate it ... please email me. Thanks.
Nobody's breaking for lunch, as journalists race around from room to room to meet and interview leaders of the seven unions which have set up this Unite to Win federation. Here in the press room, we just had the chance to do a short question and answer session with Bruce Raynor and John Wilhelm of UNITE HERE.
Some of the questions were relatively tough -- like how would adding $12 million from the Unite to Win per capita dues to the $750 million already being spent make a big difference? Raynor chose to emphasize that it was not the dollars -- though they mattered -- but the sharing of organizers and experiences that really counts.
The UNITE HERE leaders denied that talks were taking place with the National Education Association (NEA) -- which is not affiliated to the AFL-CIO, but did say that Change to Win chair Anna Burger was talking to the AFL-CIO.
Raynor gave an example of the kind of thing the unions will do by describing a strike in New Haven some years ago when the joint action by thousands of union members (from different unions) paralyzed the city and led to victory.
Jonathan Tasini is sitting right behind me doing the same thing. You can see his blog this morning here.
I'm amazed by what we can do with the new technology -- could anyone have done anything like this 5 years ago? I mean you can now read accounts of what is happening at a major trade union event by participants as the event is taking place. Extraordinary stuff.
Joe Hansen, president of the 1.4 million member United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) has just proposed adoption of the constitution for the new federation. "We are here to change course," he said. "Adoption of the constitution is the first step."
The constitution proposes what James Hoffa called a "lean, mean organizing machine" -- a federation of unions with a small bureaucracy at the center, committed to spending 75% of its income on organizing.
A small Leadership Council will run the new federation, and strategic organizing will be the focus of Change to Win's activity. The fee for membership will be only $0.25 per member per month -- far lower than what the AFL-CIO currently charges its members.
Like the CIO in the 1930s, the constitution obliges the new federation to focus on industry-wide organizing, spanning across multiple unions.
As I write these words, Anna Burger is providing delegates with a summary of the constitution.
SEUI President Andy Stern was the third union president to address the convention this morning. Wearing the union's trademark purple colours, he roused the audience with a fiery speech about the centrality of organizing new workers.
Stern was the first of the speakers to quote Karl Marx -- maybe the only time we will hear this today. Talking about the need to take on global corporations, he proposed taking the slogan of "workers of the world, unite" and turning it into a reality.
Stern's accounts of how peoples lives have been changed by being union members -- illustrated by bringing members to the attention of the audience -- were genuinely touching.
At one point Stern asked all the rank and file trade unionists in the room to come to their feet. Most of these seemed to be SEIU members. He made it clear that the new federation is for them, for the rank and file workers.
Bruce Raynor of UNITE HERE was the second major union leader to address the Change to Win coalition this morning.
Raynor is a real firebrand. He repeatedly brought the audience to their feet. "Somebody ought to go to jail for the theft of United Airlines pensions!" was a typical line.
But the main focus of his speech was the struggle to unionize Cintas, a giant uniform corporation -- a joint campaign between UNITE HERE and the Teamsters. A large number of Cintas workers addressed the crowd, speaking about the campaign -- and the victories they have recently experienced, and challenging all affiliate unions in the new federation to give them support.
Raynor emphasized the connection between the birth of this new federation and that of the CIO 70 years ago. Steel and auto workers became middle-class because of unions, he said. Laundry workers at companies like Cintas can become middle class, too, if they can get the right to form unions.
Two Cintas workers led the hundreds of participants in a chant of "No justice, no peace" and Raynor concluded, "God bless our coalition."
Teamster president James Hoffa, wearing a blue Change to Win t-shirt, was the first union president to address the founding convention of the Change to Win federation this morning.
He called the union leaders -- and the unions themselves -- the G7. (The G stands for growth, and the 7 -- for the 7 founding unions of the new federation.)
He reaffirmed the federation's commitment to spending the staggering sum of $750 million a year on organizing, and pledged that the Teamsters would never leave the new federation.
When he asked the more than 900 delegates and guests if we would succeed in organizing Wal-Mart, he was greeted with a roar of approval.
Yesterday, Monday, 26 September 2005, marked a turning point in the history of the trade union movement in the United States. Or it didn't. It all depends on who you talk to.