Wisconsin Labor Leaders Dropping the Ball

Sadly, but not all that surprisingly, Wisconsin labor leaders are really dropping the ball on the mass movement that developed to protest Scott Walker's union busting bill. Matthew Rothschild has a compelling and depressing piece on this:

But then, just as the crowds were swelling, all of a sudden the labor leadership seemed to lose interest in mass action.

It may be that the labor leadership in Wisconsin, which didn’t know quite what to do with all those people in the streets, has now missed its main chance.

“You’ve got to make hay when sun shines, and we soon will be paying the price for not making hay. We blinked,” says Bill Franks, a senior steward for AFT-Wisconsin. “It was a lost opportunity. We had to shut this motherfucker down.” (AFT-Wisconsin was formerly the American Federation of Teachers of Wisconsin, but it has broadened its membership to include other professionals).

Franks believes that when organized labor had 100,000 people marching in the streets, it should have called for some direct action and possibly a general strike. “You can’t put 100,000 people in jail,” he says. “When you have those numbers, the math is all of a sudden on your side.”

Franks says the labor leadership didn’t grasp the power that the outpouring represented. “At the moment when we had some general strike potential,” he says, “the bureaucrats of labor backed off and effectively got in lockstep with the Democratic Party.”

Recall efforts are fine and good, but massing 100,000 people in the streets really scares those in power and emboldens the citizenry.

Why didn’t the state AFL-CIO call for a mass protest the moment that Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickolaus all of a sudden found 14,000 missing votes in the state supreme court race to throw it to David Prosser, whom she used to work for? Pro-labor and pro-Kloppenburg people were outraged and ready to express that outrage, but the leadership provided them with no outlet.

Why didn’t the state AFL-CIO call for a mass protest when Sarah Palin came to town?

And what plans does the state AFL-CIO have in store if the Republicans try to pull a fast one and intimidate those doing the recall efforts, or out-lawyer the Democratic challengers?

Or, God forbid, when Walker’s anti-union bill finally is allowed to be implemented either by the state supreme court or after a legislative do-over?

I’m afraid the labor leadership in Wisconsin is underestimating the power there is in numbers.

All very true. I remain upset that after the bill passed, the AFL-CIO did not call for a strike. Like Barack Obama after the 2008 election, you had a huge number of motivated and inspired people ready to take the next step and retake the government. And like Obama's response, you have the big liberal institutions, now uncomfortable with mass movements tearing it down in exchange for incremental change and legal challenges. Of course, legal challenges are hardly incongruous with mass protests.But once you blow that momentum, how do you get people back on the streets again? This is what Obama is about to find out in his re-election campaign and this is what the Wisconsin AFL-CIO faces.

What's particularly outrageous is that of all movements, labor should know the power of mass movements. After all, that's what built their movement. But this was so long ago now that it is beyond anyone's personal memory. Replacing mass-action protests is institutional conservatism. That this institutional conservatism has helped lead to labor's decline over the last 40 years has not woken up AFL-CIO leaders blows the mind.

I previously stated that the Wisconsin fight is one of the biggest fights in U.S. labor history since World War II. I absolutely continue to believe that. And by dismantling one of the biggest protest movements of the last two decades, the Wisconsin AFL-CIO is doing all the can to lose the long-term war, even if they win the short-term battle in the courts.

Strike Now!!!!

I put together an article for Global Comment calling for Wisconsin workers to call a general strike, regardless of potential legal obstacles. In part:

So sympathy strikes might be illegal. But at this point, what do workers have to lose? The nation is rapidly heading toward the outlawing of labor unions. This is the last stand for American labor. Workers need to lay everything on the line here or their union is next. Plus, given Walker’s blatant illegality in passing this legislation, what good reasons do workers have to follow the law, so long they remain peaceful and respectful of law enforcement officers?

I also call for massive nonviolent resistance. Labor must deploy every move in their playbook. It is time to occupy Republican offices around the state and the nation. Sit-down strikes. Blocking streets. Business in Wisconsin must end until this law is repealed.

If this seems too radical, I ask, what would you suggest? Unions have lost almost every battle they’ve fought for over sixty years. Today, the rights of working and middle-class people have eroded to levels not seen since before World War II. The Republican Party seeks to return this nation to the hell of the late nineteenth century. If this is not the time for radical action, when would be more appropriate?

Recall

I've heard a few progressives complain about the potential of recalling Wisconsin state legislators over Scott Walker's draconian union-busting legislation. They don't like the recall because it doesn't play by Washington rules I guess. And they remember the ousting of Gray Davis in California. While I'll admit the recall is a tricky thing and can be used nefariously, was there ever a better scenario to deploy it than in Wisconsin right now? And so I'm glad to see labor and its allies begin to threaten these jerks with their jobs. We'll see how many of them support union-busting if it is going to cost them their seat.

A Joke of a Compromise

If Wisconsin Republicans think a compromise to the labor strife is only taking away collective bargaining until 2013, they are on drugs. First, if collective bargaining can return in 2013, why not keep it now? Second, this is a transparent maneuver to end the protests and wait until 2013 for collective bargaining to be permanently rejected. Once these rights are given up at all, they are very difficult to recover. Of course, there's no way that the unions will accept this. It is a sign however of potential cracks in Scott Walker's Republican followers. It also should be a sign that the unions should start asking for more than just not losing collective bargaining rights, but there's no indication of that happening.

Wisconsin and the American Labor Movement's Future

I haven't written a whole lot on the protests in Wisconsin because there are so many people on the ground doing great work. I most especially recommend Mike Elk's work at ThinkProgress (here's his latest). His Twitter feed is also first rate and has kept me informed on the latest updates, not to mention news on the American labor movement more broadly.

I've been thinking about where the Wisconsin protests fit into American labor history. I have a few points I want to make on this topic, but in general, I think it is one of the most important moments for American labor since World War II, I am confident of beating back Gov. Walker's bill to end collective bargaining for state workers, and I am not particularly optimistic about the long-term effects of the movement.

Now to talk about each of these three points.

1. Where does the Wisconsin movement fit into recent American labor history? I've come up with a list of what I think are the most important moments in American labor history since 1945. In chronological order:

1. The passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, cracking down on union activism.
2. The merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955, bringing American labor under one umbrella
3. The implementation of the Border Industrialization Program, 1965, which encouraged U.S. companies to build factories on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border. 
4. The Delano grape strike and the success of the United Farm Workers in publicizing the plight of Mexican-American farmworkers, mid 1960s-mid 1970s
5. The murder of Joseph Yablonski on the orders of United  Mine Workers president Tony Boyle in 1970 after Yablonski ran for UMWA president on a reform ticket.
6. The firing of the air traffic controllers by Ronald Reagan after they went on strike, 1981
7. The creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, 1994
8. The attempt by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to end collective bargaining rights for public employees, 2011

One might quibble with this list I suppose--maybe including another strike or two, maybe taking out the Yablonski murder. But I think it's a pretty good list. And this means that we are seeing the most important event in American labor history in almost 20 years and one of the 8 most important in the last 65 years.

Of the 7 previous events, only 1 has been a true win for workers (the UFW). Most were extremely negative. Even the AFL-CIO merger was at best neutral and I'd argue a net loss because it was the final nail in the coffin of the CIO being a progressive model of American unionism.

Not surprisingly, the trajectory of labor in America has been down, down, down.

Possibly, that changes now.

2. Walker may simply not care about getting reelected. Or even about getting recalled after he's served a year of his term. He hasn't shown the slightest sign of flinching. So far, Republicans have held strong in support of Walker's draconian bill. This is quite different from Ohio where enough Republican state legislators are fleeing from Gov. John Kasich's similar bill to make it quite unlikely it passes. Note: I will be at the big rally in Columbus on Tuesday and will be tweeting from there.

Eventually, even if these protests (today reaching up to 60,000 people!) don't faze Walker, they are going to faze his supporters who could be recalled or have to face very angry voters in less than 2 years.

So I don't think the bill as it stands will pass. The unions have already said they are willing to compromise on the financial portions of the bill and that what brought them to the streets were its union-busting measures. I think Wisconsin public sector unions still have collective bargaining going forward.

3. I am hopeful but not incredibly optimistic about the long-term implications of this movement. The stakes are huge. Everyone knows this. If Walker wins, we can expect public employees to lose their collective bargaining rights in nearly every state immediately, or as soon as Republicans take power in the state, whichever comes first. If the unions win, Republican efforts to destroy public sector unions take a blow.

But I worry that this blow to right-wing intentions will only be temporary. Walker is a blowhard and an idiot. I doubt the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is real happy with him right now, even though they want the unions gone. Rather than do what business and Republicans have done for the last 40 years--slowly repeal worker rights without getting workers so mad they will take to the streets in a mass movement--Walker has given up the game.

What will turn the American labor movement around is the unions building on Madison to retake America for working people. That takes organization, resources, and a lot of people power. We've had it in the past. We haven't had it for a long time.

That the unions are so willing to compromise on the financial side of Walker's bill worries me--rather than argue for higher taxes on corporations and the rich, they are willing to see their rights be slowly eroded. That's the win as it stands now. To still get screwed on pensions and health care. That's hardly a win. That's a loss versus a catastrophic humiliating defeat.

One lesson from Egypt or any other protest movement is that once you've built momentum and people power, you have a whole lot more leverage to change the rules of the game. At this point, I think the unions need to be demanding more than just survival. It's time to start talking about who needs to pay for budget deficits and who is at fault for creating them.

Moreover, if the win here is sheer survival, Walker is going to be back next year with the budget and Republicans in Wisconsin and around the nation will continue their slow repeal of worker rights. So that's not a long-term win at all now.

This very moment is the time to start reversing the national rhetoric about budgets, taxes, and working people. Now is when things have to change. This is the movement! We may never see this opportunity again. Progressives need to build off this union struggle for change around the nation. If it doesn't happen now, when does it happen? When are progressives going to have more people mobilized than we do right now? When are people going to more conscious of how capital and the Republican Party want to destroy them than at this very moment? It could be a very, very long time before we have this another opportunity like this to retake America.

Unfortunately, I am skeptical whether union leaders, union members, non-unionized workers, students, and other progressives organizations are ready and willing to capitalize on the Wisconsin movement to create larger-scale social and economic change.

I plead with you to prove me wrong.

You Can Bet That Conservatives Will Go After the Recall Next

The Republican attempt to return America to the Gilded Age could have consequences due to one of the measures created by Progressives to ensure that we wouldn't be ruled by complete idiots--the recall. In Wisconsin, home state of Robert LaFollette and many other icons of the Progressive Era, voters can recall an elected official after they have served a year in office. While that means that voters cannot current recall Gov. Walker, they can initiate recall proceedings against 8 of Walker's Republican supporters. And while the recall has served Republican interests in the past (eliminating Gray Davis for instance), there is no place for it in their return to oligarchic rule. I strongly believe that if Walker gets his union-busting bill through, he may well go after the recall next.

Bringing Back the Gilded Age

By now, most of you have heard of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's threat to replace state workers with the National Guard if he can't unilaterally destroy worker benefits and create a right-to-work state.

I want to emphasize Walker's specific intent in bringing up the National Guard. Conservatives have done their homework. In their desire to recapture the plutocracy of the Gilded Age, they  know how their ancestors crushed labor--through government sanctioned force. The Great Strike of 1877, the Homestead Strike of 1892, the Pullman Strike of 1894--these were all solved with state or federal violence. As Lila Shapiro wrote today, the last time a governor called out the National Guard to end a labor dispute in Wisconsin was in 1886 when soldiers fired into a crowd of unarmed picketers in Milwaukee fighting for an 8 hour day.* I don't know anything specific about this episode, but it was clearly related to the Knights of Labor-led struggle for that cause that ended with the Haymarket bomb.

Here's the thing--Republicans want Haymarket back. They want Pullman. They want Homestead. They want excuses to use the military to fire into crowds of protesters. Now, I don't think Walker is going to be successful. Unions and their supporters have come out in droves to protest Walker's actions. On the other hand, his extremist rhetoric may still force significant setbacks to state workers. For Republicans, those setbacks are but a step on the road to return America to 1886.

*Yes, I understand the irony of linking to an article about unions on a purportedly progressive website that treats its writers like academic adjuncts. I hate Huff Post with 12 shades of passion. But the article was good. So I link to it with this explanation.

University of Wisconsin Dumps Nike

It's been a long time since we've heard about the anti-sweatshop movement. Student groups of the late 90s were all over labor conditions. Sadly, most student-activists today don't think too much about working-class issues. Their commitment to the environment should be lauded, but they don't seem to have much consciousness about the people making the products they buy. Another way of putting this is that I like having organic peanut butter in the school cafeteria too, but it doesn't mean much if the people on the peanut farms live in shacks.

However, there are exceptions. I was surprised to read today that the University of Wisconsin has terminated its contract with Nike because Honduran factories that make Nike shoes refuse to pay workers severance pay after the factories closed. That's a real victory that will cost Nike millions.

Of course, Wisconsin now has to find a shoe company with better factories. I'm not sure they exist. However, the only thing that's going to make companies treat workers in better (except for government regulations, which ain't going to happen in Honduras) is consumer pressure. And a double kudos to the students who remain committed to improving the lives of working-class people.

Nike continues to claim blamelessness, saying that they subcontract their shoes and clothing out and thus have no responsibility for working conditions. This is a morally baseless argument. Obviously, the subcontractors would do more for their workers if Nike forced them to. Nike's major reason for not directly employing the manufactures is to avoid responsibility for them and to create ever greater profits on the backs of poorly paid, overworked, and exploited workers in the developing world.

Historical Image of the Day

Robert LaFollette, Senator from Wisconsin, 1906-25.

Fighting Bob LaFollette was perhaps the prototypical Progressive senator. Deeply concerned with the changes rapid industrialization and urbanization had caused the United States, no one worked harder to make life decent for Americans in the early twentieth century than LaFollette.

When LaFollette entered the Senate in 1906, he came into a body controlled by corporate interests. We often see 1901 as this hard line between the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, but we all know how seniority works in the U.S. Senate--all the committee heads in 1906 had long tenures during the most corrupt era in American history, opposed many Progressive reforms, and liked the good old days of bribery that they profited off of. So when LaFollette entered, he was a nobody, exiled to marginal committees to limit his influence. But he wasn't a good boy--he was loud and toured around the nation exposing corruption within Congress and rallying for progressive causes. Because of this, he quickly became a leader of the Progressive movement in the Senate, giving him much more power than his lack of seniority normally would have allowed.

LaFollette worked for any number of issues, mostly surrounding improving conditions for the working class. He opposed child labor and supported women's suffrage. He was an early proponent of social security, laying the groundwork for Roosevelt to pass that legislation in the 1930s. He actively opposed U.S. imperialism in Latin America at a time when few cared. He believed in government ownership of utilities, assisting people like Nebraska senator George Norris on issues like government-owned power that would bring the 20th century to rural Americans, as well as pro-labor laws that workers would eventually see help them in the 1930s.

His steadfast opposition to World War I brought great scorn down upon him, with people such as Theodore Roosevelt calling him a traitor and others labeling him a German sympathizer. Nonetheless, he survived the war and the Red Scare, standing up for working people throughout the period, including vociferously opposing the imprisonment of socialist leader Eugene Debs for speaking out against the war.

A 1982 historians poll of the greatest senators ever ranked LaFollette tied for first with Henry Clay. That's a remarkable achievement given the people who have served in that body.

Historical Image of the Day

As you can see in the caption to the photo, this building was the first office of Local 538 of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen, a local at the Oscar Meyer plant in Madison, Wisconsin.

Historical Image of the Day

Ice delivery to the home of Fred Pabst, beer tycoon. Milwaukee, 1901.