Two Americas
09-16-2009, 11:02 AM
Organizing With or Without EFCA
- Jane Slaughter
Rumors circulated at the AFL-CIO convention about a possible deal on the Employee Free Choice Act. President Obama showed up to put delegates' fears to rest, but labor's cherished bill is still in limbo. One thing is for sure: organizing will go on whether EFCA passes or not. What do veteran organizers say needs to happen now? Employee Free Choice Act's prospects are bleak this year. Congress has worn itself out in the fractious health care debate - which won't end until October.
If Republicans succeed in paring down that reform, they'll be geared up to stomp on labor's cherished bill. Divided Democrats won't muster the energy for another bruising fight, one that many weren't thrilled about to begin with. And President Obama, a lukewarm EFCA supporter, is wearing out his bully pulpit on health care.
Says South Carolina AFL-CIO President Donna DeWitt, "If the unions cannot deliver something decent on health care, then labor reform is just off the table for a long time."
But organizing will go on whether EFCA passes or not. What do veteran organizers say needs to happen?
ELECTIONS YES
Sandy Pope heads a local of dozens of small Teamster shops around New York City. Unlike most, she's not sorry card check won't be part of EFCA. Pope says card check could make it almost too easy to get recognition: "It would allow people to hide from taking responsibility for getting the union in, and then when there's a fight to get a good contract, you don't have a group that's battle-tested at all, there's no group cohesion, no momentum."
Wouldn't EFCA's provision for arbitration of first contracts take care of that? Pope explodes, "That's another way to avoid going through organizing the workers! ‘Let's make this legalistic so we don't have to talk to the peons at all.' I want to have to do that part. I just don't want people to get fired."
To that end, Pope and others strongly back the EFCA provision for injunctions to put illegally fired union supporters back to work. And she'd like to see a new clause now floated by Washington negotiators: expedited elections.
A short election period is valuable, she says, because the organizing committee can hang on without getting disheartened. Her method is to organize the vast majority of the workforce to visit the boss as a group and demand recognition. If that won't fly, they seek an election on the spot or the next week.
"Even when it goes to an election we've already done something as a group," she says, "so the election period isn't so scary for people. They can just hold their breath till the vote.
"If you go into it with momentum and it's in sight, people can see it-‘Friday's the big day.' When it's dragged out, people lose sight."
JUMP ON IT
Matthew Luskin, organizing director for SEIU Healthcare Illinois-Indiana, says EFCA with quick elections could provide a one- or two-year boost to organizing in some industries, such as nursing homes, before employers develop new tactics.
Luskin cautions against making it sound easy, but believes that with seven-day elections, and with the level of desire to organize that he's seen among nursing home workers, certain types of employers can be beat. Midsize companies will need a learning curve before adapting to post-EFCA conditions.
If campaigns were up and running quickly instead of over a period of months, Luskin speculates, unions could sign up a majority, maybe call a big meeting with workers from multiple employers, and have the election a week later.
"We could overwhelm a market with short-term heavy resource investment, like what we do around presidential campaigns," he says, adding, "you could run campaigns on such a scale that it becomes easier to accept the loss rate as well. If you lose two-thirds but you've got 200 campaigns..."
Also, he notes a loss may not mean the same thing in a quick campaign rather than six months of grueling torture.
"People are so afraid of losses because when you lose you may have burnt the place out for years," he says. "A three-week flare-up might not play out the same."
But SEIU doesn't have the staff to organize hundreds of nursing homes, Luskin says, "and even if we did it probably wouldn't work." Such a blitz campaign would need to lean heavily on member-organizers, with serious training for both lost-timers and volunteers.
Asked about employer partnerships as a growth strategy, Luskin said, "With the broken system we have now, there are real pressures on unions to lessen the attack that employers bring down on workers during a campaign.
"That said, now seems like the time to take the companies head on. The labor movement has spent a lot of time looking for ways to avoid these confrontations, based on the assumption that we can't beat the boss. Quick elections and other EFCA provisions could open up enough space for us to outrun a lot of employers."
At the same time, "we're kidding ourselves if we think technical labor law reform changes what organizing is," he says. "We're building workers' capacity to fight their boss."
CONFRONTING THE CULTURE
Ed Bruno, former organizing director for the National Nurses Organizing Committee and the United Electrical Workers, is less optimistic. He warns that unions have sunk way out of workers' view.
"The folks that think if they get a bill passed, they can run out and hire 200 kids and push cards and have a big spurt in organizing, they are living in a fool's paradise," he said.
"Making that kind of change absent some kind of upheaval among the ranks of the unorganized is contrary to every social movement we know about."
Bruno says that 30 years of Reaganism have had an effect: "There's you and there's society, and you're on your own. Nobody's been brought up with the culture of collective action, organization, citizen participation. We've got to build that whole idea back up."
So how would he approach non-union workers? "Chasing cards is not a good organizing strategy," he says. "Marginal victories will look good at first but will be tough to skate by on. Rather than authorization cards, why not make them membership cards, and have people pay nominal dues? That makes them a part of something.
"It doesn't have to be a majority. People will do remarkable things if they have their own organization." Many unions, of course, don't have the patience or the provision for that kind of organizing.
"If you want to have the right to associate and act collectively, you've got to do it," Bruno said. "The law will follow what people do."
http://labornotes.org/node/2394
- Jane Slaughter
Rumors circulated at the AFL-CIO convention about a possible deal on the Employee Free Choice Act. President Obama showed up to put delegates' fears to rest, but labor's cherished bill is still in limbo. One thing is for sure: organizing will go on whether EFCA passes or not. What do veteran organizers say needs to happen now? Employee Free Choice Act's prospects are bleak this year. Congress has worn itself out in the fractious health care debate - which won't end until October.
If Republicans succeed in paring down that reform, they'll be geared up to stomp on labor's cherished bill. Divided Democrats won't muster the energy for another bruising fight, one that many weren't thrilled about to begin with. And President Obama, a lukewarm EFCA supporter, is wearing out his bully pulpit on health care.
Says South Carolina AFL-CIO President Donna DeWitt, "If the unions cannot deliver something decent on health care, then labor reform is just off the table for a long time."
But organizing will go on whether EFCA passes or not. What do veteran organizers say needs to happen?
ELECTIONS YES
Sandy Pope heads a local of dozens of small Teamster shops around New York City. Unlike most, she's not sorry card check won't be part of EFCA. Pope says card check could make it almost too easy to get recognition: "It would allow people to hide from taking responsibility for getting the union in, and then when there's a fight to get a good contract, you don't have a group that's battle-tested at all, there's no group cohesion, no momentum."
Wouldn't EFCA's provision for arbitration of first contracts take care of that? Pope explodes, "That's another way to avoid going through organizing the workers! ‘Let's make this legalistic so we don't have to talk to the peons at all.' I want to have to do that part. I just don't want people to get fired."
To that end, Pope and others strongly back the EFCA provision for injunctions to put illegally fired union supporters back to work. And she'd like to see a new clause now floated by Washington negotiators: expedited elections.
A short election period is valuable, she says, because the organizing committee can hang on without getting disheartened. Her method is to organize the vast majority of the workforce to visit the boss as a group and demand recognition. If that won't fly, they seek an election on the spot or the next week.
"Even when it goes to an election we've already done something as a group," she says, "so the election period isn't so scary for people. They can just hold their breath till the vote.
"If you go into it with momentum and it's in sight, people can see it-‘Friday's the big day.' When it's dragged out, people lose sight."
JUMP ON IT
Matthew Luskin, organizing director for SEIU Healthcare Illinois-Indiana, says EFCA with quick elections could provide a one- or two-year boost to organizing in some industries, such as nursing homes, before employers develop new tactics.
Luskin cautions against making it sound easy, but believes that with seven-day elections, and with the level of desire to organize that he's seen among nursing home workers, certain types of employers can be beat. Midsize companies will need a learning curve before adapting to post-EFCA conditions.
If campaigns were up and running quickly instead of over a period of months, Luskin speculates, unions could sign up a majority, maybe call a big meeting with workers from multiple employers, and have the election a week later.
"We could overwhelm a market with short-term heavy resource investment, like what we do around presidential campaigns," he says, adding, "you could run campaigns on such a scale that it becomes easier to accept the loss rate as well. If you lose two-thirds but you've got 200 campaigns..."
Also, he notes a loss may not mean the same thing in a quick campaign rather than six months of grueling torture.
"People are so afraid of losses because when you lose you may have burnt the place out for years," he says. "A three-week flare-up might not play out the same."
But SEIU doesn't have the staff to organize hundreds of nursing homes, Luskin says, "and even if we did it probably wouldn't work." Such a blitz campaign would need to lean heavily on member-organizers, with serious training for both lost-timers and volunteers.
Asked about employer partnerships as a growth strategy, Luskin said, "With the broken system we have now, there are real pressures on unions to lessen the attack that employers bring down on workers during a campaign.
"That said, now seems like the time to take the companies head on. The labor movement has spent a lot of time looking for ways to avoid these confrontations, based on the assumption that we can't beat the boss. Quick elections and other EFCA provisions could open up enough space for us to outrun a lot of employers."
At the same time, "we're kidding ourselves if we think technical labor law reform changes what organizing is," he says. "We're building workers' capacity to fight their boss."
CONFRONTING THE CULTURE
Ed Bruno, former organizing director for the National Nurses Organizing Committee and the United Electrical Workers, is less optimistic. He warns that unions have sunk way out of workers' view.
"The folks that think if they get a bill passed, they can run out and hire 200 kids and push cards and have a big spurt in organizing, they are living in a fool's paradise," he said.
"Making that kind of change absent some kind of upheaval among the ranks of the unorganized is contrary to every social movement we know about."
Bruno says that 30 years of Reaganism have had an effect: "There's you and there's society, and you're on your own. Nobody's been brought up with the culture of collective action, organization, citizen participation. We've got to build that whole idea back up."
So how would he approach non-union workers? "Chasing cards is not a good organizing strategy," he says. "Marginal victories will look good at first but will be tough to skate by on. Rather than authorization cards, why not make them membership cards, and have people pay nominal dues? That makes them a part of something.
"It doesn't have to be a majority. People will do remarkable things if they have their own organization." Many unions, of course, don't have the patience or the provision for that kind of organizing.
"If you want to have the right to associate and act collectively, you've got to do it," Bruno said. "The law will follow what people do."
http://labornotes.org/node/2394