Why trade unions are in decline

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The trade unions today are the weakest they've been since the formation of major industrial unions in the 1930s. Only 16 percent of U.S. workers are members of unions-even fewer are in industrial unions. There is plenty of formal democracy but little real democracy in the unions. International unions in the main are controlled top down by entrenched bureaucracies.

The decline of unions as effective defensive organizations is best seen in the government's attack on the Teamsters. In June 1988, the Justice Department filed suit to oust top union officials found violating racketeer laws.

Nine months later, a deal was struck between the officials and the government. The officials agreed to hold direct elections for officers and to create a court-appointed panel to "fight organized crime" in the The incredible acceptance of this degree of direct government interference in the running of a union is a blow to all of labor, especially those fighting for genuine rank-and-file democracy. It tightens an already established view in sections of the labor movement that the government is an ally of the rank and file and has a right to tell a union, a membership organization, how it picks its leaders.

It further legitimizes government attempts to take over unions and subordinate them to the dictates of capitalist courts and government laws. Such government intervention will make it easier for all employers to launch attacks on unions.

While all this is taking place, the fat cats running the Teamsters have signed sweetheart contracts with willing employers. This has led many rank-and-file workers to incorrectly applaud the government's "defense" of union democracy.

Officials reject fight

How can one explain this predicament of the labor movement? Why are top union officials so willing to play by the rules laid down by city, state, and federal governments? Why don't they stand up and lead the union membership in defense of our economic and political rights?

It begins with the simple fact that the labor officialdom supports the system that exploits workers: capitalism. The officialdom rejects a political fight against the capitalist class and its two parties, the Democrats and Republicans.

The labor leaders are mainly concerned about protecting their highpaid jobs and privileges by keeping their main base of support, the better-paid workers, happy.

In the 1920s, before the rise of industrial unions in the 1930s, unions only organized along craft lines—the skilled workers. Unskilled workers were considered unimportant, despite being the overwhelming majority of the working class.

Blacks, women, and most immigrants—as well as farm workers— were simply not organized. The policy of craft unionism allowed the bosses to pit workers against each other. It undermined unity and solidarity.

Today we see this same policy being followed by the labor leaders in the industrial unions who push two-tier contracts, sign big concession pacts, and retreat on defending the most oppressed sections of the unions-the less skilled, women, and minorities.

The flip side of this narrowminded policy of the officialdom is their refusal to get unions to initiate or support independent politics, including the formation of a unionbased labor party.

"Growing together"

Leon Trotsky, a central leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution, wrote about the relationship of unions and capitalist governments in a series of articles and letters written in the 1920s and 1930s before his assassination by a Stalinist agent in 1940.

In an unfinished article, "Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay," Trotsky wrote, "There is one common feature in the development, or more correctly the degeneration, of modern trade-union organizations throughout the world: it is their drawing closely to and growing together with the state power.

The "growing together" Trotsky refers to is of the union officialdom and the government-that is, the officials linking the interests of the unions with the concerns and needs of the capitalists. The goal is to make workers just like capitalists.

For example, in the airlines industry, the International Association of Machinists (IAM) top leadership is urging its members to support Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) to "save" our jobs by taking over "our" companies. Major concessions are made under the illusionary hope that "stock ownership" will lead to job security.

"The labor bureaucrats do their level best in words and deeds," Trotsky added, "to demonstrate to the 'democratic' state how reliable and indispensable they are in peacetime and in time of war.

Ranks reduced to observers In other words, the top labor officials don't see themselves as leaders of the working class against the imperialist capitalist class. They see themselves as labor functionaries of capital within the unions. They are the "sober" elements among the more "hotheaded" rank and file. They believe they are the union, not the membership.

That's why the labor tops turn more and more to pro-labor lawyers and investment bankers as the "experts" to negotiate labor's differences with the employers. The ranks become observers, at best.

Does the "growing over" of the labor unions into the capitalist state mean unions can never be transformed into revolutionary instruments for social change?

Trotsky replied: "Wholly possible are revolutionary trade unions which not only are not stockholders of imperialist policy but which set as their task the direct overthrow of the rule of capitalism. In the epoch of imperialist decay, the trade unions can be really independent only to the extent that they are conscious of being, in action, the organs of proletarian revolution."

Will this be possible? Yes, as the inevitable world recession occurs in the coming period, it will awake working people who-after the initial shocks—will fight even harder against the employers' attacks. They will turn to their unions as one of the most important weapons to fight back.

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By Malik Miah