AFL-CIO national convention in Los Angeles
Organizing new workers is labor's focus
By
Shelley Ettinger
Drawing everyone to their feet, a San Antonio band that's
involved in unionizing Latino musicians played Tejano
music.
Roaring a call-and-response chant of "Union?" "Yes!" a
thousand newly organized workers marched in. Most were people
of color. They included new union members from the University
of Alaska, the Quincy Farms mushroom fields in Florida, Las
Vegas hotels and US Airways--and from labor's two grandest
recent organizing victories, at Cannon Mills/Pillowtex where it
took 25 years and among 74,000 home health workers in Los
Angeles.
This was the rousing Oct. 11 opening of the 23rd
Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, held at the Los
Angeles Convention Center.
For the next three days, some 700 delegates--representing 68
unions and 13 million workers--deliberated about the challenges
and opportunities facing the organized labor movement in the
United States.
Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Executive
Secretary-Treasurer Miguel Contreras welcomed the delegates. He
said, "You are meeting in a city where unions are working to
make change happen."
With a multi-union campaign working closely with community
groups, Los Angeles now leads the country in organizing. So far
this year, more than 90,000 Los Angeles workers have won union
representation.
In his opening speech, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said
that "for many years, Los Angeles was known as the most
anti-union town in America. Run by a tight-fisted little band
of downtown elites, this `city of angels' was a trip to hell
for working families, and every time a union organizer hit the
ground, they got ground into dust. Now, however," he said,
labor is creating "the transformation of Los Angeles from
`union free' to `Union City,'" and that is "a beautiful thing
to see."
Sweeney sounded the convention's key them: organizing. He
also touched on the need to broaden the union leadership so
that it better reflects the work force, which is majority
people of color and women, demanded enforcement and expansion
of civil-rights laws, including affirmative action, and called
for "just treatment of immigrants."
Organize!
The urgency of stepping up organizing and reaching out to
new workers--especially low-wage workers, immigrants, people of
color and women--emerged as the convention's central focus.
Congratulating the unions for "bringing in 475,000 new
members" in the last two years, Sweeney summarized the
situation: "We have brought our unions from the rim of disaster
to the cusp of greatness, but this is a fragile moment that
will shatter if we do not finish the job we started."
Although the actual number of union members is now growing
for the first time in two decades, union membership as a
percentage of the work force continues to shrink. It is now
13.9 percent.
In the eight industries that have lost the most jobs in the
last 15 years--steel, auto, etc.--four-fifths of the lost jobs
were union jobs. Conversely, in the industries that are adding
jobs the fastest--like hospitality, childcare, retail,
etc.--only one in 20 new jobs have union representation.
As part of addressing this, delegates approved a
reorganization plan to change how labor operates on the state
and local level. The revamped approach is termed the "New
Alliance." It emphasizes joint action with unorganized workers,
immigrants, community groups, and organizations representing
the oppressed.
The New Alliance is supposed to bring the unions to a higher
level of activism--especially in the streets, with the "Union
Cities" and "Street Heat" campaigns. The idea is to build
solidarity and militancy, creating a mass movement that will
deepen popular support for "freedom to choose union
membership."
As part of the commitment to "building a broad movement,"
delegates approved resolutions calling on unions to "intensify
the `Changing to Organize' process" and committing the
federation "to doubling the number of organizers trained
through the AFL-CIO Organization Institute."
Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson reported on a
solidarity trip to meet with maquiladora workers in Tijuana,
Mexico. She said Mexican workers forced by poverty to come to
the United States "are victimized by the denial of basic labor
rights and benefits" here.
Chavez-Thompson said, "Immigrant workers are a significant
and defining element in the labor movement in this country."
She announced "a new initiative to bring respect and dignity to
immigrant workers." A series of November forums about
organizing immigrant workers will open the campaign.
Delegates passed a resolution "defending the rights of
immigrant workers." The resolution called for amnesty for all
undocumented workers, and shifting government funds from
immigration enforcement to "enforcement of workers' rights and
fair labor standards."
Unfortunately, no national labor leader attended the
immigrant-rights march that took place in Washington three days
after the convention adjourned.
Before the convention's second day, on the morning of Oct.
12, delegates joined the picket line outside the New Otani
Hotel. Workers there, who are mostly immigrants, have been
fighting for union rights for several years. The New Otani
workers served delegates a tamale breakfast.
One of the most progressive actions the convention took was
to pass a resolution calling for the U.S. Navy to get out of
Vieques, Puerto Rico, and pay reparations to the people of
Vieques.
Gore endorsement
Yet, contradicting all this splendid sense of labor building
momentum for mass struggle came the effort to mobilize workers
for capitalist politicians' election campaigns. Sadly, this
diversion will hold back the urgent work of organizing.
History shows that mass, united action in the streets and at
the work places is the way to win victories for workers. But
labor leaders keep hoping that allying with supposedly
pro-labor politicians will somehow turn the anti-labor tide of
the last two decades.
And so, on Oct. 13, the convention delegates voted
overwhelmingly to endorse Vice President Al Gore for president
in 2000. Gore is the millionaire heir of Tennessee
tobacco-plantation wealth. He and President Bill Clinton
supported the anti-labor North American Free Trade Agreement.
They signed onto the worst piece of anti-worker legislation in
60 years: welfare repeal. They let anti-scab legislation
die.
But Gore courted the unions for years. And in recent weeks,
President Clinton had applied heavy pressure directly on
Sweeney to swing the house of labor into the Gore camp. By
succumbing to this pressure, Sweeney has put labor in the
unprecedented position of getting involved before the election
year has even started, taking a side in the presidential
primaries. His prestige and the AFL-CIO's clout are now on the
line.
Most important, millions of dollars and thousands of hours
that could be spent organizing will go down the drain of the
Gore campaign.
Two of the federation's biggest unions--the Teamsters and
the Auto Workers--declined to join in the Gore endorsement. But
this was only a disagreement on tactics and timing; both will
eventually endorse a candidate. There is even some speculation
that under the new Hoffa leadership the Teamsters might endorse
a Republican, as the union did in the 1970s and 1980s.
Whoever is elected president--Gore or Bradley, Bush or
McCain--will represent the ruling capitalist class and not the
workers.
The Gore endorsement wasn't the only grievous misstep at the
convention. Delegates also passed a resolution calling on the
U.S. government to ease the blockade of Cuba only to allow food
and medicine into that country--while taking "every step to
support a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba." These are
code words for supporting counter-revolution against a country
where the workers are in power--a country with which the U.S.
labor movement should stand in solidarity.
In this same vein, the convention awarded a "human rights
award" posthumously to former AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland,
who died in August. Kirkland's years leading the U.S. labor
movement were so disastrous that Sweeney himself mounted a
mutiny that ousted him in 1995. Ironically, the award was for
Kirkland's international efforts--which also led to disaster,
for workers in Poland and Eastern Europe, where he cooperated
closely with the CIA to overturn socialism. The result today is
high unemployment, homelessness, hunger, falling life
expectancy and a steep decline in the status of women.
Also on the international front, there was discussion of
global capital, "free trade," and how they are impoverishing
workers worldwide. Several officials, including Sweeney, called
on the unions to mobilize tens of thousands to march in Seattle
in November when the World Trade Organization meets there.
However--again, contrary to real solidarity--the People's
Republic of China was presented as a key target.
In the category of missed opportunities: The convention took
no action on a resolution demanding a new trial for political
prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The San Francisco Labor Council had
proposed the resolution.
One of the convention's most distressing omissions was the
issue of workfare. In February 1997 the AFL-CIO Executive
Council had passed a resolution denouncing the Clinton-Gore
welfare repeal, demanding full labor rights for workfare
workers, and calling on the unions to organize workfare
workers.
Although workfare workers' groups, such as Workfairness in
New York, took hope from the resolution, its promise was never
realized. The unions have not organized workfare workers. At
the convention, there was barely a mention of the issue at all.
Two sentences hidden in a long policy statement even used the
Clinton-Gore phrase "moving from welfare to work" to refer to
workfare.
Related events
The weekend before the convention itself opened, a series of
related events had drawn thousands. The first was a labor
teach-in at the University of California-Los Angeles. Then, on
Oct. 9, nearly 10,000 people filled the Convention Center for a
"Working Families Convocation." The vast majority were
rank-and-file workers and their families, mostly Latino, from
the Los Angeles area. Speakers included the Rev. Jesse Jackson,
John Sweeney, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters and several other office
holders.
The AFL-CIO constituency groups that represent specially
oppressed workers also met over the weekend. They include the
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Latin American Council for
Labor Advancement, Coalition of Labor Union Women and Pride At
Work.
The constituency groups and the Jewish Labor Committee
sponsored an Oct. 10 conference on "hate crimes." Conference
participants addressed how the labor movement can deepen its
involvement in the fight against racism and racist violence,
sexism, and homophobia and anti-gay violence.
The featured speaker was Ismael Ileto. Ileto, a Teamster,
works at UPS. His brother Joseph Ileto was a member of the
Letter Carriers union who was shot to death in August by a
racist who had earlier shot at children at a Jewish community
center.
On Oct. 8 and Oct. 10, union officials visited a dozen
religious congregations as part of a "labor in the pulpits"
program. This program is jointly sponsored by the AFL-CIO and
the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. The idea,
according to a statement titled "A New Vision for Social
Justice," is "bringing together union members and their faith
communities to rediscover their common bonds: social justice,
equality, economic justice and fair treatment in the work
place."
Sweeney announced that a new AFL-CIO "Internet community"
will go online Dec. 1. It is called Workingfamilies.com. It
will provide an email and Internet portal to union members for
$15 a month. Unlike AOL, Compuserve and the rest,
Workingfamilies.com will feature labor news and mobilization
alerts. Also starting Dec. 1, the federation will offer new
computers at discounted rates for union members.
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