A Modest Proposal for Sweeney and Clinton:

The Quick Vote

Many progressives, liberals, socialists and other lefties often complain about the stagnant state of organized labor in the United States. For the most part, they've been correct. Declining numbers, reduced power, an old guard incapable of breathing any life into the unionized 15% of the work force all point to a "movement" which is only moving backwards in numbers and influence. The massive and active membership of the AFL and CIO unions in the 40s, 50s, 60s and early 70s was able to have real influence over big ticket government and social issues such as tax reform, civil rights, economic policy, and foreign policy (although often on the wrong side of the fence on the last).

After wielding much influence and facing generally friendly administrations for four decades, the union moment was unprepared for the Reagan administration. For many reasons, they were unable to cope with the outright aggressiveness of an administration which wanted to crush the labor movement and wasted no time in proving so by permanently replacing striking PATCO workers. The labor movement did little. Lane Kirkland and the docile AFL-CIO leadership spent the next 15 years asleep while all working Americans were pillaged.

"Can't unions just organize more?"

It's a good question. A question which the AFL-CIO leadership under the newly elected President John Sweeney will attempt to answer in the affirmative. Sweeney has proposed to spend millions more a year on organizing, to

train 1,000 new organizers in a year, to spend more money on corporate campaigns, and to set up networks which will attack companies on an industry wide basis. Good ideas. These plans, coupled with one subtle change in U.S. labor law, would undoubtedly add millions to organized labor's ranks in a few years.

This is a scenario that is repeated thousands of times a year in union organizing drives across the country. An organizer gets a few names and addresses of workers at a plant that is interested in organizing. The organizer goes and visits these workers at home, hoping to get additional names and addresses of workers that are seen as leaders in the plant. The organizers goes to those workers' homes and has the same conversations with them. By talking to the workers, giving them small assignments and correctly assessing their commitment and competence, the organizer then has an "in plant committee" which will lead the campaign against the boss. This committee's first assignment is to have their co-workers sign union cards or public declarations of support for the union. If the organizer has correctly identified the leadership, 70 to 80 percent of the plant could be signed up in about one to two weeks, depending upon the size of the bargaining unit. If the bosses finds out about the card signing campaign, they will often then start their anti-union campaign and rhetoric.

If the committee is lucky enough to have a tight lipped plant or an incredulous boss, the bosses' first knowledge of the campaign comes when he receives a letter from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), stating that there has been a petition filed for recognition of the union. Unfortunately, the bosses usually have a pretty good notion of what is happening before this notice arrives.

The boss can then try to stall for time by disputing the union's definition of the bargaining unit. If, for example, the union claims that "all production and maintenance employees" be included in the bargaining unit while excluding "all supervisors as defined in the National Labor Relation Act", the company can take issue with this definition and, possibly, prove to the hearing officer that one or more hearings are needed to define the bargaining unit. Many corporations are now downsizing to the point where supervisors are fewer and workers are taking on more responsibility or "lead" positions. If these "leads" have much more authority than other hourly workers then they will be excluded from the unit. In order to come to this conclusion, the NLRB has already spent about one to three weeks. In the mean time, your 70 to 80 percent majority is being attacked by the boss. Maybe you've lost 5 to 6 percent.

After the NLRB regional director finally comes to a decision, which takes about two more weeks after the close of the hearings, an election date is set. This is usually about three weeks after the decision is reached. Again, the bosses have at least three more weeks to whittle away at your majority. If the in-plant committee is strong and active, the workers might still win. If not, then the bosses will win, mostly because they've had three weeks since the NLRB ruling to work on that majority.

Even if a union drive does not have to go through the maze of hearing, waiting for a ruling, waiting for an election, but instead immediately gets a date for an election, the workers, by law, must wait approximately 45 days for the election to take place. Here is where elections are either lost or won.

The Quick Vote

I am, for example, currently working on a campaign where 80% of the workers signed a public declaration of support for the union rather than a union card. Copies of these petitions were delivered to the boss on September 15. The workers asked for voluntary recognition of the union without the need for an election. The boss, of course, refused. The same day, the union filed a petition for an election with the NLRB. After about 12 days, the company and the union agreed on a bargaining unit without the need for any hearings. Even though this was a relatively quick agreement, the workers still have to wait until October 27th to vote! Almost four weeks will elapse from the time a bargaining unit was agreed on before the workers will have the opportunity to vote for a union they already said they wanted to join and have bargain on their behalf.

It is here that one small change in labor law could benefit the labor movement immensely. This one change would be: one week after the agreement between the union and company on the appropriate bargaining unit is reached, an election is held.

It is within the four week time period that the boss will run his strongest campaign and have a better than even chance of winning.

70% of the time, the boss will hire a "labor consultant", otherwise known as a union buster. These "professionals" will lie (The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled they can lie during campaigns.), coerce, plant drugs on workers, pit one against the other, tear friendships apart, teach the boss and supervisors how to threaten without breaking the law, teach the management how to talk about strikes, e.g. how the outsider union will call you out on strike, etc. All this expert knowledge for about $4,000 to $7,000 a day. Busting fledging organizing drives is a one billion dollar a year industry. The

four week period before the vote means millions for the union busters. And these guys are good.

Only about half of all union elections are won by the unions.

And this is after the organizer has a solid majority of 70 to 80 percent signed on. The bosses' campaign is geared towards convincing adults that they made a mistake by signing a union card, that they will suffer violence at the hands of the outsider union, etc. Here are some excerpts from a union buster's letter which does not break the law but comes close:

"When it comes to negotiating a union contract, the law does not require us to agree to anything. If we should refuse to agree to any union demand, the only way the union could put pressure on us would be to call an economic strike. You would lose both pay and benefits.... The potential of a strike can only threaten the job security we all look for...."

With three to four weeks to think about this, a worker might get scared and vote against their own interests.

Many unions have been organizing at levels unprecedented since the CIO drives. The Steelworkers, UNITE, United Electrical Workers, and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, to name a few, are winning elections and winning big. These workers and their unions are now using some very effective and aggressive techniques to fight the union busters. Many of these techniques come from the IWW and the CIO organizing drives: by having a visible and confrontational committee in the plant, workers have a better chance of beating the most expensive union buster because the workers experience their own power. They see that they can beat the boss consistently with confrontation and action. But these canny and expensive techniques only go so far; the

deck is still stacked in favor of the bosses. A "level playing field" requires a change in labor law.

Ideally, if a majority of adults in a workplace sign a union card, they should be granted a union, just as they are in some provinces in Canada. But this approach would be a futile waste of time and scarce resources with this conservative Congress. A much more winnable goal would be a one week time limit on elections. A quicker election schedule would lead to an explosion of union victories across the nation, especially in the south which still needs organizing badly.

How winnable would this minor change be?

Well, we do finally have something to thank the Republicans and conservative Democrats for: their immensely unpopular proposals for cuts in Medicaid and Social Security to pay for a tax break for the richest Americans. The uproar has been so great and the potential political dividends so large for even centrist Democrats that even Bill Clinton shouldn't miss the point. One hopes that Clinton will learn from this lesson that government policies which directly impact working class Americans still resonate loudly with voters. He could even use the argument that speedy elections would save taxpayers millions of dollars in unfair labor practice charges that arise from extended campaigns.

It is no secret that American workers are fed up with their employers' lack of loyalty and greed. A moderately anti-corporate stance by Clinton on this one issue would be a windfall for the labor movement. It could revitalize labor's support for him in the upcoming election. If Sweeney and the newly elected leadership apply pressure to Clinton and the Democrats on this one issue, we could see some real movement. If Clinton refuses then the labor movement will

continue to become more militant and offensive in its organizing efforts. It's obvious that a demand for extensive labor law reform in the age of the Dunlop Commission will fail. This one change, however, would do much to breath new life into organizing. Make no mistake about it: either with or without labor law reform, the new labor movement will still be organizing.

Post Script

At the time, Kurt Anderson was Co-Chair of Chicago DSA and an organizer for the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers Union. The plant which he used as an example had its election on Friday, October 27, 1995. OCAW won with 65% of the vote. It was a quick election.

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