Unite to Win
American workers are at a crossroads.
For generations, America was a land of opportunity. When working people united our strength and spoke with one voice, we were able to create the broadest middle class in the world. Many people could support a family by working one job, not two or three, and together we won the security of affordable health care, paid time off, job training, a safe work place, and a pension on which you could retire with dignity.
Today, global corporations threaten American jobs, families, and the hopes of future generations. The middle class is shrinking, health care is becoming unaffordable, and guaranteed pensions are disappearing, yet corporate profits are booming and the rich are richer than at any time in history.
Yet now, when we need new strength and unity the most, working people find ourselves divided as never before. We are divided into union and nonunion as nearly 9 out of 10 workers are not part of the labor movement at all. We are divided within industries and employers as union members who do the same work often are divided into multiple unions that do not have a coordinated strategy. We are divided into a more unionized North where workers try to maintain hard-won gains, and an almost entirely nonunion South where employers can drive down standards virtually unchecked.
The need to adapt the labor movement for the 21st century has been discussed for years, but previous leaders failed to act, and workers paid the price. American workers cannot afford to wait any longer.
The reelection of President Bush creates new challenges for working people. We must be bold enough, strong enough, and courageous enough to give ourselves the best chance to win. To change workers' lives, union members must be involved in changing what is within our control, uniting our current strength, and then uniting millions more workers in each industry to grow stronger. That is essential to building a grassroots, democratic labor movement; taking on today's employers; and uniting a true pro-worker majority in this country.
American workers can win again, but only if we decide to act now. Our future is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice.
The following are some of SEIU's proposed principles to build 21st century unions with the strength to change workers' lives. We hope they will lead to a bold discussion at all levels of the labor movement, prompt action, and a new future for American workers.
1. Build New Strength by Stopping the "Wal-Marting" of Jobs
Good jobs are the foundation of strong and healthy families and communities. But today the Wal-Mart business model of providing low wages and few benefits, shifting jobs overseas to exploit workers under poverty conditions, and viciously opposing workers' freedom to form unions is setting a pattern that undermines good jobs for all working people at home and abroad.
Principle: A key function of the AFL-CIO should be to support a strategy to win good jobs in America that is larger than the members of any one union could accomplish on their own. The AFL-CIO should establish a center to support such projects and should allocate to the center all of its $25 million annual royalties from Union Plus credit card purchases. Challenging Wal-Mart should be its first project
2. Build New Strength by Leading a National Campaign for Quality Health Care for All
Out-of-control health care costs and declining quality have become one of the leading threats to every family in America. At any given time, 45 million people have no coverage at all, and even those that do see needed improvements in wages and other benefits undermined by the rising cost of health care. Health care costs are now a leading issue in virtually every strike or lockout.
Principle: The AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions and allies should unite behind an all-out national strategy to win access to quality health care for all. The AFL-CIO should lead a grassroots campaign for this purpose with dedicated funding, campaign staff, and other necessary resources.
3. Build New Strength by Protecting Workers' Free Choice
Independent polls show that between 40 and 50 million workers would choose to have a union if they could do so without employer intimidation, pressure from their supervisors, and the threat of firing. The laws protecting worker choice were created over 70 years ago and need to be modernized for the 21st century.
Principle: The AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions and allies must make it a top priority at both the national and local level to reestablish the right of workers to freely choose to form a union without employer interference. Far more resources and focus must be dedicated to that goal, and no elected official should receive labor support, including an AFL-CIO endorsement, unless they actively support free choice for workers.
4. Build New Strength in National Unions That Match 21st Century Employers
Today's employers are more regional, national, and International in size. While they pursue united strategies, workers' strength is divided in two key ways.
First, workers who do the same work and are in the same industry, market, or craft often are divided into multiple unions and have their strength divided in dealing with employers and public officials.
Second, many union members are divided into national unions that do not have the size, strength, resources, and focus to win for workers against today's ever larger employers.
Transportation union members are divided into 15 different unions, and the same is true in construction. There are 13 unions with significant numbers of public employees and 9 major unions in manufacturing. Health care union members are divided into more than 30 unions. In 13 of the 15 major sectors of the economy there are at least 4 significant unions, and in 9 of those sectors there are at least 6 unions.
Meanwhile, only 15 of the 65 AFL-CIO national unions have more than 250,000 members and 40 have less than 100,000. Many of these unions, even with good leadership, do not have the strength to unite more workers in their industry and change workers' lives.
At the same time, most of the 15 largest unions that now represent more than 10 million of the 13 million union members in the AFL-CIO are increasingly becoming "general unions," organizing pockets of workers in a wide variety of industries and further dividing workers' strength. In a recent four-year period, at least 16 national unions each conducted organizing elections in at least 5 different sectors.
The AFL-CIO has repeatedly produced reports during the past 20 years recognizing the need for unions to have the size, strength, and focus to win for workers in their industry, sector or craft, but the leaders of affiliated unions have not adopted meaningful reforms. True union democracy is impossible when workers who do the same type of work and deal with the same employers don't have the opportunity to decide how to pool their strength behind common strategies.
Principle: The unions of the AFL-CIO should involve union members in a process to develop and implement a plan by 2006 to 1) unite the strength of workers who do the same type of work or are in the same industry, sector, or craft to take on their employers, and 2) insure that workers are in national unions that have the strength, resources, focus, and strategy to help nonunion workers in that union's primary area of strength to join and improve workers' pay, benefits, and working conditions.
To achieve these goals, the AFL-CIO Executive Council should have the authority to recognize up to three lead national unions that have the membership, resources, focus, and strategy to win in a defined industry, craft, or employer, and should require that lead unions produce a plan to win for workers in their area of strength.
In consultation with the affected workers, the AFL-CIO should have the authority to require coordinated bargaining and to merge or revoke union charters, transfer responsibilities to unions for whom that industry or craft is their primary area of strength, and prevent any merger that would further divide workers' strength.
The unions of the AFL-CIO should work together to raise pay and benefit standards in each industry. Where the members of a union have clearly established contract standards in an industry or market or with a particular employer, no other union should be permitted to sign contracts that undermine those standards.
5. Build New Strength Where Unions Already Have Some Strength
One urgent need is to unite all workers in each industry, sector, or craft where union members already have some strength.
Principle: Lead unions whose members have built strength in an industry or craft should be required to develop a strategic plan to help more workers organize and build new strength and unity in that sector.
To concentrate resources to help carry out those strategic plans, the AFL-CIO should return to those unions half of what they now pay in AFL-CIO dues ("per capita") each year. Those unions' plans must include using at least 10% of their national union revenue for organizing and uniting more workers in their particular industry, sector, or craft by 2006, 15% in 2008, and at least 20% beginning in 2010. Their local unions would have to be using at least 10% of their income for this purpose by 2008 and at least 15% by 2010.
These changes will build new strength for workers by reallocating from union members' current dues at least $2 billion over the next five years for uniting more workers with us in each industry, sector or craft.
6. Build New Strength Where Unions Have Little Strength Now
The economy has changed substantially in the 50 years since the founding of the AFL-CIO. Globalization and new technologies have reshaped work. In whole sectors of the economy, such as finance, insurance, and non-food retail, workers are in unions in other countries but have less union history in the United States.
In addition, few workers have unions in certain regions of the country, especially in the South, Southwest, and Rocky Mountain states. That undermines standards won in more unionized parts of the nation, produces more anti-worker politicians who dominate national policy, and makes it difficult to elect pro-worker candidates in national elections.
Principle: Key unions that have seen massive changes in their own industries that have left them with few opportunities for uniting more workers with our movement should have the option of being provided additional, matching resources to focus on uniting workers and building strength in new and growing sectors.
The AFL-CIO should help workers create new unions in sectors where they are needed and experiment with non-traditional forms of organization in industries with little history of unions.
The unions of the AFL-CIO should jointly develop a strategy to help workers in highly nonunion regions to join strong national unions for their industry or craft.
7. Build New Strength in Politics
The members and unions of the AFL-CIO have in the last decade become more active and effective in political action. Using political action to create opportunities for more workers to unite with us and then using that new strength to change workers' lives through legislation and bargaining is a proven and essential strategy.
Principle: Member involvement and alliances with other organizations that share our goals should be the engines of our political action efforts. The AFL-CIO should allocate at least 10% more resources to its political member-mobilization fund and involve members in achieving 1) public policies that help more workers unite with us and 2) other major national legislative goals, such as health care and good American jobs, that improve the lives of all workers.
8. Build New Strength at the Local Level
National strategies to change workers' lives cannot succeed without vibrant, democratic, and accountable local labor movements. Uniting the strength of members in each local union, in each community, and in alliances with other community organizations is crucial to growing stronger and winning changes on issues that affect everyone.
Principle: Key leaders of the AFL-CIO's community-based organizations, the Central Labor Councils, have proposed that every local labor council be required to have a strategic plan for political action, supporting organizing campaigns by unions that are uniting workers in their industry or craft, and developing deep and ongoing community alliances. Their proposal calls for all unions in a metropolitan area to be required to participate in and support the local labor council, and for the councils to be accountable to the affiliated unions and the AFL-CIO for carrying out their strategic plans. Their proposal also calls for the AFL-CIO to ensure that each council is provided with training to help carry out its plan and develop the next generation of leaders. This proposal should serve as a starting point for a renewed discussion about how to build strong local labor movements and community alliances. Consideration should also be given to new ways of bringing together stewards and other activists from all unions in a local area to help develop and carry out their council's strategic plan.
9. Build New Strength by Drawing on Our Diversity
In today's America, no labor organization can be strong and united unless it draws on the diversity of our workforce and our communities. The AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions must be leaders in demonstrating that regardless of the color of your skin, the language that you speak, or your age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, or immigration status, you are empowered to play an active role as a member or leader.
Principle: The AFL-CIO and each of its affiliated unions should have concrete goals and training programs to insure that the diversity of their membership is reflected in membership participation, elected leadership, staff, and conventions and other decision-making bodies.
10. Build New Strength by Uniting a Global Labor Movement
The big corporations that dominate today's economy have gone global, moving from country to country, without national loyalties, to find and exploit the cheapest labor. "American" companies now do much of their production in countries such as China, Mexico, and India, while corporations originally from Europe and Japan are shifting operations to the U.S. where the rate of unionization and standards for pay, health care benefits, and pensions are so much lower. Global corporations have won trade agreements that make it easier for them to move production from place to place, while providing no rights to help workers improve pay, working conditions, and job security. The result of globalization is that workers in any one country cannot set and maintain high labor standards without uniting to raise standards everywhere.
Principle: U.S. unions must join with others around the world to form a global labor movement that unites workers by industry, sector, and craft to have the strength to win for workers for common employers. Friendly relationships between national labor federations, along with occasional international expressions of support during particular union crises, are not enough. Unions in each country that have the focus and the capacity to effectively use resources to build strength in their industry or craft must jointly carry out international strategies to unite all the workers in their area of strength to win higher standards and stop the corporations' global race to the bottom. In addition, a new global labor movement must fight for trade agreements that raise labor and environmental standards to the highest level instead of bringing them down to the lowest.
posted by Dan at 10:17
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