Scoring the AFL-CIO convention: Style — 10, Substance — zero

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It was during the Great Recession, and the first year of the Obama administration, when the AFL-CIO 2009 convention met in Pittsburgh. The number of unem­ ployed had doubled over the previous 18 months and stood at a rate of 9.8 percent. Workers at Gen­ eral Motors and Chrysler were going through a gutwrenching bankruptcy restructuring imposed by the new White House—and hailed by the unions as “sav­ ing the American auto industry.” Times were grim but the leaders of organized labor were relieved and opti­ mistic now that the evil Bush had been replaced by a “friend of labor.”

When the 2013 AFL-CIO convention assembled in Los Angeles Sept. 8-11, General Motors and Chrys­ ler are again profitable—and corporations in general are making record profits and sitting on a mountain of cash. The official unemployment rate has receded below the eight percent line. The economists explain that we have long been in recovery. Yet grim times are still palpable in the House of Labor despite their friend in the highest of all places.

Much of the fall in the unemployment rate is attrib­ uted to workers’ dropping out of the labor market in despair or accepting part-time employment that doesn’t pay the bills or provide benefits. There are still 22 million looking in vain for full-time jobs. For the first time in living memory, there is massive and growing unemployment in the public sector.

Inflation-indexed real wages of the working class continue their decades-long decline as income dis­ parity favoring the wealthy is setting new records. The cynically titled Affordable Care Act—aka Obam­ aCare—which never could have passed Congress without labor’s heavy-handed lobbying, turns out to be fraught with setbacks and uncertainty even for unionized workers.

The few substantial social gains won in past strug­ gles—such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medic­ aid—are in imminent danger, not just from the Repub­ licans but especially from the White House “friend” twice elected only with indispensable labor support.

The unions themselves have been in alarming de­ cline. Less than one in eight workers today are rep­ resented by a union. In the private sector it’s less than seven percent. In recent years the number of strikes has dramatically fallen, even though nearly all employers have demanded substantial give-backs in wages, benefits, and working conditions.

As union officials shy away from actions in the work­ place they increasingly look to politics for salvation. But they continue to reject the path taken by unions in Britain, Canada, and numerous other countries, who formed parties of their own to advance working-class interests.

Except in fund-raising—union PACs and SuperPACs now dole out hundreds of millions of dollars—their political strategy differs little from that proclaimed by Sam Gompers more than a century ago: “reward your friends and punish your enemies” within the two ma­ jor boss-controlled parties. But many are beginning to wonder whether those they have rewarded so richly are not now punishing them.

Growing numbers of union office holders are start­ ing to recognize that these trends threaten not only the “Middle Class” prosperity of their members for which they have always claimed credit–but their own as well. Federation president Richard Trumka told a journalist that the more astute “feel like it’s five min­ 8 SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 2013 utes to Midnight.”

This recently manifested urgency to “do something” was reflected in a sharp departure from the same old, same old in preparing and staging the convention. Over the last several decades, typical union conven­ tions in this country had become boring, pro-forma af­ fairs, with politicians as guest speakers, and motions and resolutions adopted by voice vote after little or no debate. They are often held in prime tourist venues. The Amalgamated Transit Union, to which I pay re­ tiree dues, once held a convention afloat a chartered Caribbean cruise ship. In many cases conventions be­ came little more than junkets to reward faithful fol­ lowers of the top bureaucracy on the local union level.

Such attributes were not entirely absent in Los An­ geles. Political “friends” and even some good corpo­ rate citizens brought their blessing to the conclave. President Obama had been scheduled to address his generous supporters in person. Unfortunately, he was tied up in Washington lobbying for Congressional support for a new war against Syria, and the delegates had to be content with a video feed. Hospitality rooms offering food and beverage to hungry and thirsty del­ egates could still be found.

But the last remaining labor-beat reporter at a ma­ jor newspaper, Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times, was wowed by what he saw in Los Angeles: “At the center of the welcoming hall, brilliantly col­ ored 10-foot-tall posters of workers and union slo­ gans towered over the convention delegates. One giant orange-and-yellow poster resembled an over­ size woodcut, showing a farmworker hunched over a wheat field with bold letters, saying, ‘Workers Are the Backbone, Not the Blame.’ All this was a far cry from the dark, drab, lugubrious scenes found at many union gatherings of the past. After decades of decline, the energy and focus—and, yes, the artwork—at this week’s AFL-CIO convention signaled, as one union president put it, ‘our need to put some movement back in the labor movement.’”

Greenhouse noted a change in rhetoric as well as graphic decoration. He quoted Trumka, “At the end of the day it’s on us to build a movement not for the 99 percent but of the 99 percent. Not just the 11 percent we are right now.”

Trumka prefers the catchy if mathematically inaccu­ rate slogan of the Occupy movement to the stodgy old class formulations of past militant unionism. The ta­ boo imposed on the very concept of class by the class that rules is seldom breached even today by those who represent “working families.” Still, recognition of the need for unions to reach out to social movement and community allies is to be applauded.

Some of the allies invited to partner with, if not join the AFL-CIO, are similarly structured. The NAACP, Na­ tional Organization for Women, and the Sierra Club have mass memberships numbering in the hundreds of thousands—but are top-down formations current­ ly intimately connected with the political Establish­ ment. They too are overdue for debate that can lead to a more useful utilization of their potential.

Starting months prior to the convention, the AFL-CIO leadership invited these courted allies to join union activists in “listening sessions” to discuss what needs to be done. Thousands purportedly participat­ ed in live audience, conference call, or internet for­ mat. The listeners then prepared a list of 45 “Action Sessions” at the convention open to “delegates, com­ munity members and other stakeholders.”

The present predicament of those who need to toil head of the Orange County California AFL-CIO, was elected executive vice-president, the number three ranking office in the Federation.

Some established union-based issue groups were not given such a hearty welcome. US Labor Against the War and the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Health Care had to be content with information tables.

Greenhouse completely ignored the anger ex­ pressed in Los Angeles about the threat to so-called Taft-Hartley multi-employer health-care plans arising from interpretation of ObamaCare. Delegates passed a resolution detailing immediate steps necessary to protect these plans covering hundreds of thousands of workers and their dependents. A delegation led by Trumka was dispatched after adjournment to meet with President Obama about this urgent matter.

At least they got a prompt answer. The same White House that had granted reprieves to employers on some sections of the law without even being asked piously told labor’s leaders they couldn’t make excep­ tions to the law just to help their friends.

As all polls clearly demonstrate, the working-class majority in the USA is thoroughly disgusted with the political Establishment. Many good union people are likewise turned off by the emphasis on politics ad­ vanced by the mainstream union bureaucracy and clamor for more direct action against the bosses.

Certainly, workplace-centered direct action is the main and indespensable tool of choice in pursuing the primary mission of unions. Likewise, mass actions in the streets are essential to advancing the goals of the social and community movements tardily targeted as partners by union officialdom. But the political mo­ nopoly of the bosses and bankers makes any gains through these traditional and still needed struggles tenuous and temporary.

The problem created by those in charge of the House of Labor is not their emphasis on politics but their re­ fusal to recognize the need for class-based politics. Our side should be directly fighting for political pow­ er, not begging or bribing politicians beholden to our class enemy. There is no more important question for the American working class today than launching a party of our own. Despite their present weakness and disorientation, our unions, and the allies they now so­ licit, are the foundation upon which such a party can be built. n ... Linda McQuaid (continued from page 10: “CSF: Only right wing would gain from student federation split”)

dogged insistence on a more progressive tax system marks her as a radical on the political landscape.

Her policies on equality, housing, and the environ­ ment may rally grassroots NDP members and vot­ ers against Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and Stephen Harper’s Tories, and also against an increasingly conservative NDP establishment.

That’s why a bevy of party bureaucrats pushed and plumped for her opponent, former network TV jour­ nalist Jennifer Hollett. And that made McQuaig’s win all the sweeter. It also opens up space for the party left, including the Socialist Caucus, which actively backed her candidacy, to fight for social­ ist policies. The biggest winners in this episode are working-class people who want more democracy in the party and in the unions, and who are looking for leadership in the fight against rising inequality and deadly austerity measures.

The date for the Toronto Centre by-election is not yet set. But when it is, those who want the NDP to turn left should pull out all the stops to get Linda McQuaig elected MP. n