[Marxism] BC: Black Labor's Voice Amidst the Madness

[Mike Friedman <mikedf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.blackcommentator.com/139/139_cover_cbtu_pf.html

For the first time since one faction of the AFL-CIO declared war on the 
other nearly a year ago, Black trade unionists from across the U.S. and 
Canada will gather later this month in an attempt to force the contenders 
for control of the labor federation to recognize the interests of African 
Americans.

?We?have a responsibility to make our voice heard in the crucial debate 
taking place now on how to make the labor movement broader, more powerful 
and more relevant to the lives of working families, especially in 
communities of color, the fastest growing sector of the labor force,? said 
Bill Lucy, President of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. The CBTU, 
with 50 chapters in 50 unions, holds its 34th annual convention in Phoenix, 
May 25 ? 30, under the theme, ?Forging a New Vision for Tough Challenges 
Ahead.?

With Big Labor getting smaller all the time, and the corporate regime in 
Washington bent on, in TransAfrica Forum executive director Bill Fletcher?s 
words, the ?annihilation? of the union movement, the term ?tough 
challenges? seems an understatement. ?They are not talking about simply the 
reduction of our numbers or power,? Fletcher told a caucus of Black 
unionists in April, ?but our total elimination.?

The language of apocalypse and fratricide dominates labor discussions, as 
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) chief Andrew Stern and four 
allied union presidents, representing about 40 percent of the AFL-CIO?s 
membership, ratchet up their campaign to drastically restructure the labor 
federation ? or leave it altogether.

"This is not organized labor. This is disorganized labor," exclaimed the 
SEIU?s Stern on May 10, laying labor?s continuing decline at the feet of 
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. The dissidents? ?Unity? conference, in Las 
Vegas, hosted by Teamsters chief James Hoffa, Jr., also included the 
leaders of the Laborers, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), and the 
hotel, restaurant, and laundry workers' union, Unite Here.

"The American labor movement at the level of the AFL-CIO has lost its way,? 
shouted Unite Here president John Wilhelm, who may be the Stern-Hoffa 
group?s designated  challenger for Sweeney?s job at the federation?s annual 
convention, in July. ?It's lost its energy. It's lost its hope. And that's 
a crime," Wilhelm shouted.

The Teamsters' Hoffa railed against ?bottom-feeding unions?like the 
Machinists that are out there trying to steal our members from the 
Teamsters, with lower, sweetheart contracts." So vitriolic was the rhetoric 
in Las Vegas, it sometimes appeared the dissidents were determined to 
achieve a ?unity? of intra-labor hatred.

The week before the verbal pyrotechnics in Las Vegas, four of the union 
presidents ? minus the UFCW chief ? demanded that AFL-CIO headquarters in 
Washington delete their members? names from lists used to coordinate 
political campaigns. Off the record, aides to the union presidents 
complained that the federation was sharing the lists with Democrats.

In an attempt to mollify the opposition, AFL-CIO president Sweeney 
terminated the jobs of one-third of the headquarters staff ? 167 employees. 
For them, the Apocalypse had already arrived. But Stern, Hoffa & Company 
were unrelenting. Writing in the dissidents? UniteToWinBlog, Stern called 
Sweeney?s firings and other counterproposals ?Unite To Win Lite,? ? a pale 
version of his own 10-point program ? and made plain that he?s out for 
Sweeney?s head:

?What is crystal clear is that even if unions representing a majority of 
members ultimately agree on a new strategy and structure that will help 
millions more workers unite with us, this AFL-CIO leadership team would not 
be the right group to carry it out.? No Labor revival without Blacks

If it sounds like the Sweeney and Stern camps have reduced Black labor to 
mere spectators to this very uncivil war ? it?s because that has been both 
sides' intention.

Sweeney did not consult with labor?s constituency groups before firing 
one-third of the federation?s staffers. And it was under Sweeney that 
labor?s ethnic and gender constituencies, including the 33-year-old 
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, were utterly frozen out of 
participation in the 2004 election cycle ? zero-funded, in favor of 527s 
and other white-controlled mechanisms.

Structurally, the opposition?s plans were perceived by Black labor to be a 
coup de grace, as BC wrote in our March 3, 2005 Cover Story, ?No Real Labor 
?Reform? Without Blacks?:

?The SEIU and Teamsters proposals include nothing resembling formal 
institutional representation for Blacks, Latinos, other minorities and 
women ? groups that comprise nearly three out of five unionized workers. It 
was specifically to include underrepresented groups that the AFL-CIO 
expanded its Executive Council from 35 to 54 seats in 1995, when John 
Sweeney was elected president. A decade later, ?reformers? place part of 
the blame for labor?s ongoing decline on the size of the Council, and would 
centralize power in the hands of consolidated union chiefs.

?The inevitable perception is that Stern, Hoffa & Co. believe that the 
institutional inclusion of minority and female voices on the Council is at 
least partially to blame for labor?s woes. Or is it a case of the key 
constituents getting thrown out with the Executive Council bathwater? The 
CBTU?s William Lucy would like to know, but he?s not getting answers. 
?Given the fact that we?ve got millions of workers to organize, how will 
our concerns be put on the table? How will our views be shared in terms of 
our politicization and organizing in our communities?? asked Lucy, who 
estimates that close to 30 percent of organized labor is Black.

An early March meeting of the federation?s Executive Council produced 
informal assurances to Blacks that labor?s constituency organizations would 
not be shunted aside, and that local structures would be strengthened, 
should Sweeney survive the July convention, in Chicago. But the Stern-Hoffa 
camp offered no structural mechanisms to non-whites, only the promise that 
workers of color would benefit most from the remake in the long run ? the 
same message that the SEIU?s Black vice president, Gerald Hudson, conveyed 
in his February 24 letter to BC, ?Rebuilding the Union Movement to Empower 
Communities of Color.?

?We need leaders and activists at all levels of the union movement who 
reflect the membership in terms of race, gender, and other factors,? Hudson 
wrote ? but not a word about institutional Black and brown representation 
in the corridors of union power.

Questions in Stern?s ?own house?

In the second week of April, the Black caucus of Andrew Stern?s own union 
held a conference in Las Vegas ? the first opportunity for AFRAM?s full 
leadership to discuss the implications of ?reform? since June of 2004, when 
the SEIU?s annual convention gave Stern authority to withdraw from the 
AFL-CIO if he chose.

A number of papers circulated among the 400 Black caucus delegates, 
including BC?s March 3, 2005 Cover Story, a paper by a group that included 
TransAfrica?s Bill Fletcher, and Black labor consultant Dwight Kirk?s 
February 24, 2005 BC article, ?Can Labor Go Beyond Diversity Lite.? Kirk?s 
article revealed that ?55 percent (or 168,000) of the union jobs lost in 
2004 were held by black workers? and ?African American women accounted for 
70 percent of the union jobs lost by women in 2004.? Nevertheless, voters 
of color remain the most likely to support the AFL-CIO?s ?Take Back 
America? agenda. Yet ?a decade after black trade unionists successfully 
thrust color and gender into labor?s last major leadership ?makeover? they 
and their allies are now on the defensive, fighting to protect past 
diversity gains from the knives of some new ?reformers.??

Bill Fletcher, paired as a Sunday speaker with SEIU executive vice 
president Tom Woodruff, delivered a stark analysis: ?Our opponents in 
business and on the political Right wish our annihilation.  They are not 
talking about simply the reduction of our numbers or power, but our total 
elimination? In the face of such dangers, the split in labor amounts to ?a 
train wreck,? said Fletcher, a former AFL-CIO operative:

?The debate has largely taken place on Mount Olympus as a battle among the 
gods.  There has been little attempt to engage the membership in a 
discussion regarding the future of the union movement.  There has been 
little attempt to solicit from their members their own ideas?. From my 
visits around the country, I have found that local activists feel both 
alienated from and scared of this debate.  They feel that it is not about 
them and does not include them.  I would go further and say that for union 
members of color, this is especially the case.? Fletcher received a 
standing ovation from most of the delegates, while Woodruff, who kept 
largely to Stern?s 10-point program, got polite applause.

Stern did not attend the meeting of his union?s Black caucus, but 
emissaries of both warring camps circulated among the members. Stern?s 
lobbyists pressed AFRAM to hold back on any resolution, since the Black 
caucus could be expected to express grave concerns about Black constituent 
clout in the ?reformed? AFL-CIO. Representatives of SEIU leadership passed 
the word that elimination of constituent representation and funding was 
?off the table? ? but this is a war of positioning, and it remains unclear 
what ?off the table? means.

On the morning of Monday, April 11, while the AFRAM conference was still 
underway in Las Vegas, Andrew Stern, Woodruff and other senior SEIU 
officers posted a letter on the UnitedToWinBlog, in response to Dwight 
Kirk?s research on the decimation of Black union workers:

?Brother Kirk finds facts like these missing from the debate over labor?s 
future. ?Diversity,? he writes, ?has become a flabby catch-all term, no 
longer a form of empowering people who have been disenfranchised in this 
society.?

?We agree. And that?s one reason why our union is so committed to real 
change to give working people new strength and unity so that we can win 
real raises, health care, and dignity on the job.? The letter descends 
further into what is now SEIU boilerplate: ?A deliberate policy promoting 
real empowerment, not just symbolic diversity, has changed our [SEIU] 
International Executive Board so that it is 40 percent female (compared to 
56% of our membership) and 33 percent people of color (compared to 34% of 
our membership) ? no cause to rest on our laurels, but real progress.?

In other words, trust our example (and our numbers), but don?t expect 
structural inclusion in the New AFL-CIO.

Wall of White Noise

?Let me say that it would be a serious ?omission? for any of the sincere 
and articulate advocates of reform to assume what is in the best interest 
of black trade unionists and the coalition partners with whom we work 
regularly,? said CBTU president Bill Lucy, as he prepared for the 
organization?s May 25 ? 30 convention, in Phoenix. Embattled AFL-CIO chief 
John Sweeney and Rev. Jesse Jackson are scheduled to speak at the affair.

Blacks confront an environment in which elements of both white 
male-dominated labor camps appear to believe that minority constituency 
representation, and empowerment of largely Black and brown big city labor 
councils, is something the New AFL-CIO can do without. At times, this 
attitude is manifested in pure racial arrogance, immediately recognizable 
to all African Americans.

In early May, the SEIU?s white Secretary-Treasurer, Ann Burger, shot off a 
letter that must rank among the worst racial indiscretions committed by 
union officials in recent years.

?The SEIU is expressing our displeasure that the Congressional Black Caucus 
is giving Wal-Mart an opportunity to fashion a false image that they are 
friends of African Americans and working people generally,? wrote Burger. 
Wal-Mart is currently on a public relations and lobbying offensive, 
courting constituencies all over Capitol Hill, including the Black Caucus. 
It is true that a growing minority in the Caucus is open to contributions 
and propaganda from Wal-Mart, the evil engine of America?s ? and the 
world?s ? race to the bottom. (See BC, April 28, 2005 and May 12, 2005.) 
But the SEIU?s broadside at the Caucus as a whole was so ill-aimed, it was 
inevitably perceived as racist or incompetent ? or both, as the newspaper 
The Hill reported:

?It?s really an attempt to put CBC members in their place,? said Lanier 
Avant, chief of staff to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).

?No group of members of Congress has a stronger labor record than the CBC 
and for this kind of letter to go strictly to black lawmakers is a slap in 
the face,? he said, noting that four CBCers have perfect voting records 
with the AFL-CIO and another 21 are above the 95 percent mark. In other 
words, the white leadership of the SEIU doesn?t know how to talk to Black 
people. It is such arrogance, almost as much as the depredations of the 
Bush regime, that may be the death of organized labor in America.

Labor?s color line

Even as unions struggle to respond to forces bent on their annihilation, 
they remain deformed by racism ? the same plague that has crippled the U.S. 
labor movement at every stage in its history. Black workers, the most 
enthusiastic ?joiners? and activists, also face the most dire consequences 
of labor?s historical weaknesses. Yet, too often, their white comrades ? 
including those who proudly consider themselves ?progressives? ? seek 
?solutions? to labor?s problems at Black workers? institutional expense. 
Labor, not so big anymore, has to get its mission straight, as the CBTU?s 
Bill Lucy pointed out, in January:

?We would strongly suggest that the Federation leadership resist the call 
to reduce the size of the Executive Council. The added size of the Council 
bears no relationship to the decline in labor fortunes. Those who suggest 
that its size affects the ability to have substantive debate, to a degree 
reflect our overall problem. We do not believe labor?s problem revolves 
around structure. We believe to the extent we have a problem, it is around 
mission.

?If we define our mission, our mission will dictate the necessary 
structure. While the composition of the Executive Council may be large, it 
reflects who we want to organize, mobilize and politicize. As we talk about 
these issues as well as global solidarity, to turn inward and return to the 
structure that existed when the movement went into decline strikes me as 
unwise and unworkable in terms of our fundamental goals.? Three principles 
should guide labor?s deliberations: The Big should not dictate to the 
Small. White men should not dictate to people of color and women. And local 
struggles should not be subordinated to top-down union management.

In the New AFL-CIO envisioned by some, top-down union management will also 
be near lilly-white. That?s what got us into this mess, in the first place.

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