UFCW leaves AFL-CIO

On July 29, United Food and Commercial Workers Union President Joe Hansen announced the UFCW’s decision to disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO. It was a move that came as no surprise to many who have followed the labor movement and the debate between Service Employees President Andrew Stern and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

The question is whether this benefits the 1.4 million members of the UFCW, who have for the most part not been a part of this process. Or does it make the workers more vulnerable?

Does the UFCW need the help of the entire union movement, undivided and unfractured, to galvanize the kind of power needed to organize the million-plus low-paid workers at Wal-Mart? How can the members of the UFCW—-mostly service workers, many lower-paid women, Black, Latin@ and immigrant workers—defend themselves and reverse the relentless attacks that have lowered wages and battered the right to health care and pensions?

What do the 70,000 Southern Calif or nia grocery workers who spent close to five months in 2003-2004 on strike and locked out to defend health benefits think about this move? What were the real lessons of that strike for the labor movement?

Health care and the war

One of the primary issues in the California grocery strike was health care. The billion-dollar grocery industry want ed to force draconian cuts in workers’ health-care plans. Wal-Mart, the low-wage, no-benefit prototype of capitalist organization in the era of high technology, was touted as the reason for cutting benefits and introducing a two-tier wage system.

Health care is important not only to those workers who have a union but to all workers. Over 43 million workers are estimated to be uninsured. Labor cannot fight this battle effectively on a one-by-one basis, contract to contract. It cannot even be effec tively fought on an industry-wide basis.

Even with the tremendous courage that workers have shown and the self-sacrifice of many union organizers, the battle is much too costly and sometimes unachievable at a time when workers are on the defensive. What is needed is the massive mobilization of all the workers, at the work place and in the community, to take this demand to the very doorstep of the White House.

And health care cannot be won without challenging endless war. Close to $186 billion is currently being spent on the Iraq war. (costofwar.com) Not only are the sons and daughters of workers here, and countless thousands of Iraqi people, paying the ultimate cost in this war, but it is also money stolen from workers’ pockets.

Fight racism; support immigrant and community rights

Labor must fight racism and strengthen its relationship to community struggles, whether they be against police brutality or for immigrant rights. This was the strength of last October’s Million Worker March, which was led by Black workers. It is the first step to building the kind of solidarity needed to organize multi-billion-dollar giants like Wal-Mart, where community support is key.

Neither the Democratic nor Repub lican Party, which both serve the interests of the corporations and the banks, is the solution for labor. This was clearly illustrated during the Kerry presidential campaign. Even though he was neither pro-worker nor against the war, unions on both sides of the debate in the AFL-CIO split, shamefully poured millions of dollars into his campaign.

What is needed in this period of capitalist development, marked by increasing recklessness and greed, is to build a new movement that will take on the demands of the workers in their own name and fight against racism. It must make this struggle political and on a class-wide basis. This is the recipe for success—not division and split.

The writer is a labor activist who served as an elected shop steward in UFCW for 26 years. She worked as a packer in a food-processing plant for 15 years and successfully fought to retain health-care benefits for workers. Black helped to mobilize Maryland and D.C. workers for the Million Worker March.