|
Taking Care of Business catapults the reader through a panorama of American social and labor history of the past 125 years. The book focuses on Samuel Gompers, George Meany, and Lane Kirkland, who were leaders of the national AFL-and then the AFL-CIO-for 85 of its 117-year history. Inspired by current AFL-CIO president John Sweeney's remarks in 1997 that the labor movement is "back from the dead," Paul Buhle examines how collaboration with national industrial and political leaders became the "business" of the national labor leadership over the past century. While collaboration brought the leaders individual prominence, the American working class paid a steep price, Buhle argues. The individuals, reform efforts and strategic options that were sacrificed over the years were often what the labor movement most needed to keep it energetic, meaningful to its members, and growing. For Buhle, the bureaucratized labor movement in general, and these leaders in particular, are responsible for the demise of union strength and the decline in unionized jobs and benefits for American workers.
Buhle is not reserved in his view that the persistent squashing of internal democracy by labor bureaucrats has critically weakened the labor movement. He credibly argues that Gompers' evolution toward business unionism, during his early years heading the AFL, set the terms for the next hundred years of labor bureaucracy. At the same time, Buhle documents how persistent squabbling among local unions, leaders, reformers, and political factions contributed to the development and eventual ossification of layers of bureaucracy. Buhle's own vision of the failings of the labor movement over the past century is reflected in his observation that the failed socialist opposition to Gompers in the 1890s needed "to base themselves upon the principle of solidarity and the promise of industrial unionism (or social solidarity), as the Knights [of Labor] had done and the Industrial Workers of the World soon would do" (pp. 59-60).
In Buhle's view, labor leadership racism, xenophobia, and anti-communism have been fundamental to the labor movement's failure to promote social solidarity. Buhle provocatively illuminates how, throughout their careers, Gompers, Meany, Kirkland, and even John L. Lewis and Walter Reuther in the CIO yearned for respectability and sought personal aggrandizement in the name of advancing the cause of the working (white) man. Buhle, however, underplays the power of external forces and the inability of labor leaders to control them. The interface between the values and attitudes of labor's national leaders and external events-economic downturns, world wars and the Cold War, driven by the engine of American industrial development and imperial expansion-stimulated the collaboration that debilitated working-class solidarity. Over and over, Buhle points to "the leaders' calculated sacrifice of union members' own interests to a share of the promised imperial benefits and to the shared psychological satisfactions of a personal superiority of the white 'aristocrat of labor' over the lowly, whether 'foreign,' female or non-white" (p. 19).
In the case of Gompers, Buhle argues that fear of chaos and violence also had a powerful conservatizing effect. Gompers' experience as a young trade unionist in New York City's Tompkins Square Riot of 1874 led him, throughout his long career, to seek to avoid anything like it again. From the 1930s through the 1970s, Meany operated with much the same conservatism, although rooted more in contempt than fear. Buhle notes that "Meany's mental division of 'us'-white male workers-and 'them' (everyone else)...served him well in the eras of uncontested craft privilege." It also led him into ongoing conflict with emerging black union leaders like A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in the 1930s. It "would appear again during the purge of Communist sympathizers during the Cold War years, when Meany could count on avowedly racist support, and still later during Meany's assault upon the peace and justice movements of the 1960s and 1970s, when the rhetoric had to be adjusted but the familiar right-wing allies appeared" (p. 118).
Buhle's descriptions of the pro-war and, later, international anti-communist activities of the AFL-CIO on behalf of the U.S. government-though not necessarily new-make the case that "empire and its ideology cannot be isolated from other defining issues of the labor movement" (p. 4). Particularly in the case of international affairs, the labor movement had little ability to affect, much less control, external forces, so labor leaders consciously chose to collaborate. With no lack of irony, Buhle describes socialists and communists from the 1920s and 1930s, like Jay Lovestone and Irving Brown, reemerging in the post-McCarthy period as spooks, spies and speechwriters on behalf of order in the Cold War world, and finding their own brands of respectability in the national labor bureaucracy, on behalf of the U.S. military-industrial complex.
"From 1980 onward, international spending by the AFL-CIO exceeded its domestic budget," notes Buhle (p. 226). Kirkland was far more interested in the AFL-CIO serving as an arm of the U.S. government in fighting the Cold War than in addressing shifts in the domestic economy that resulted in losses of well-compensated unionized industrial jobs to other countries, and dramatic declines in total union membership.
Buhle's knowledge of the American working class and the political forces it unleashed is encyclopedic. His synthesis of the work of recent generations of labor and social historians in documenting the lost opportunities for labor unions to address broad social concerns and remake themselves into vibrant and inclusive class organizations is impressive. This is a dense, provocative book, and at times hard-going, in spite of Buhle's generally lively writing style-because he brings in so much information. Inclusion of a bibliography, as a guide to further reading, would have been helpful, but the footnotes are a useful resource. There is an idealism-"the promise of a new, more inclusive, and more vigorous [post-1995 labor] movement" (p. 1)-that clearly impelled Buhle to write this book and that informs his portrayal of the groups systematically excluded and driven from organized labor for much of the past century: women, new immigrants, workers of color, reformers, and communists and other left-wingers. His idealism is shared, at least in part, by this reviewer, one of the "cohort of idealistic youngsters in the 1960s-1980s [who] answered the call of a failing labor movement" (p. 203).
However, Buhle does not address how to square his view of what the labor movement might be with the "pragmatic" (an ugly word in Buhle's vocabulary) day-to-day realities of meeting the bread-and-butter needs of dues-paying union members. Stimulating social solidarity by keeping a majority of members active on issues, and mediating among different points of view, requires leadership skills and commitment from local union leaders that is hard to find, particularly when they have to pursue workplace grievances, negotiate improved wages and benefits, and preserve jobs effectively. The leaders of the national labor bureaucracy that Buhle describes were far removed from the day-to-day demands of union members. National labor leaders felt justified in their political choices, whether they reflected rank-and-file members' attitudes or were taken because the rank-and-file did not know better.
In Buhle's story, the impulse for "order" is a major determinant of the growth of the labor bureaucracy and its resulting problems and, therefore, is negative. He does not distinguish, however, between the repressive and stultifying effects of seeking and imposing "order" in labor unions and the advantages for union members that come with local union stability. It may be a subtle distinction for outsiders, but it is important for members to feel secure in the knowledge that their workplace problems and contractual needs will be addressed in a timely manner, and that debates and resolutions will translate into action. Most rank-and-file workers want stability and security and look to their labor union to achieve them, whether through contractual protections like job security language or other means, like permanent civil service status in the public sector. Buhle shows how, even in the more progressive unions like the UAW, members' demands for retirement benefits-ensuring their own economic security in the face of declines in the auto industry in the 1970s-diverted union resources away from new organizing and development of effective strategies to protect unionized jobs. Union leaders became "ever more dependent on backrooms [sic] allies and arrangements" (p. 195), and used pressure from the members to rationalize their slide into business unionism.
The challenge facing American labor unions in the twenty-first century is whether they want to and will transform themselves into effective organizations on behalf of working people, and as Buhle argues, that means more than "negotiation and enforcement of existing contracts" (p. 196). Good rhetoric and the best intentions coming from the top of labor's bureaucracy will not accomplish the task. Taking Care of Business shows that very clearly. Those of us inside the labor movement, rank-and-file activists and paid staff, have to define-at the local union level-what inclusion and vigor mean, and balance them with achieving sufficient stability to meet members' expectations that their union will defend them in the workplace, achieve steady improvements in wages and benefits, and preserve their jobs.
Promoting internal activism, organizing new members, and building external alliances while negotiating good contracts and defending workers on the job are extremely time and energy consuming. These activities require leaders who will take risks and are willing to accept the possibility of being defeated and needing to go back to "the job." (For middle-aged men and women who as labor leaders run meetings, solve members' problems and travel to attend conventions, returning to their regular jobs such as driving a truck, cleaning, or working in an office or on an assembly line may not be very appealing.) These activities also require leaders who will listen to new ideas instead of always justifying the old ones, who will consciously work at walking the fine line between stability and change so they do not slip into becoming bureaucrats. (And maybe we would have a wider pool to choose from if we did not demand that they give up their family life!). We do not have enough models we can look to, and the contemporary examples Buhle has chosen are locals like P-9 in Austin, Minnesota that have challenged management and fought the "good"-but usually losing-fight.
Sweeney, in a significant national shift, both as president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and as president of the AFL-CIO, has emphasized the importance of new organizing, particularly in nontraditional sectors and among workers not traditionally included in the trade union fold-women, people of color, and new immigrants. This is a strategy that has been embraced by national unions working in the service sector, both public and private. It is a strategy that speaks to the question of inclusion and may bring new vitality to local unions, but top-down implementation of new strategies-even with the best intentions-will not accomplish needed change. The impulses have to be nurtured and implemented at the local union level. The existing per capita distribution of members' dues should be reexamined in this light. Under current arrangements, shares of local union members' dues go to their national union and the regional body and to local, state and the national federations of labor. Financial resources should be redirected to the local union or regional level to facilitate organizing and activism. Internal fiscal controls should be tightened. The resulting administrative bureaucracy will be tolerable if there are tighter fiscal controls and financial accountability to members increases.
Unions also have to come to grips with the fact that the expectations of the workforce have changed. As Buhle says, "The millions of new jobs in fast foods or similar merchandizing or the white collar business sector, all seem daunting prospects at best for unionization" (p. 262). Workers at the lowest economic level are reasonable targets to organize, not only because they have so little to lose, but also because what they want is more similar to the demands of the post-depression, post-World War II working-class-basic economic security. Many working- and lower-middle- class workers, however, want more. After the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, they want a larger share, and they want it now. They have bought into the idea of meritocracy at work and its decollectivizing effects. They go home to their privatized worlds of TV and Internet surfing. They work as individual contractors and in all sorts of contingent work arrangements. They would rather move across town than fight to change the world they live in. Local unions have to address these changed conditions and expectations and have to strategize about how to cope with the inevitable end of the economic expansion.
A greater emphasis on job preservation-or, more accurately, unionized employment preservation (i.e., "follow-the-work" campaigns and organizing of newly emerging sectors)-will enhance union efforts at membership mobilization, organizing, and building community ties. Rank-and-file union members will need to talk about the importance to working people of the services they provide, or the significance of their unionized jobs to the economic well-being of their communities. Developing a cadre of activists who will be vocal and militant about their jobs and who can be mobilized to take action more often than election day or at contract negotiation time, but also against destructive decisions by employers and local elected officials, is critical. Buhle cites two successful examples, in Madison, Wisconsin and Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota (pp. 252-6). Local unions must do internal education and build coalitions around comprehensive living wage legislation; worker-friendly trade policies and tax policies; access to health care, social services, and child care; and preserving Social Security and Medicare.
Changing 125 years of bad habits will take time. Writing about the emerging American working class of the 1870s and its divergent constituencies, Buhle says, "Meaningful alliance among reformers and working people, black and white, would require both patience and understanding" (p. 27). That observation holds equally true today, as labor must step outside its traditional boundaries, reconfigure itself, and ally with community groups and other reformers around issues of mutual concern. Taking Care of Business illuminates many of the mistakes of the past and the tragedies that resulted. Rebuilding the labor movement will happen one local union at a time.
.
|
