On “Being Reasonable”

    Our fight to secure a decent contract from the Strand Bookstore has reached a crucial point. The most recent offer put forward by the ownership contains improvements in the terms it offers current members relative to the truly hostile “final offer” we rejected in April. In several conversations with fellow Strand workers I've detected a desire to dispense with all the contentiousness and accept an offer that doesn't ask egregious concessions from current members. There exists an attitude, which is expressed nearly any time the topic of labor unions is brought up, that it is all well and good to resist attacks on your standard of living, but that the fight should never extend into purely principled ideological territory or even to attempting to secure significant gains from the employer. Thus, many people would rather give a little something up than seem greedy. There is a generalized fear that asking for too much will somehow leave one accepting nothing, and few wish to take this perceived risk for the purpose of benefiting some as of yet nonexistent coworker.

     

    There are two things I would hope everyone keeps in mind as they decide how they will vote this week. One is that the two-tier system is as much an attack on the current employees as it is on those who will come in the future. The second is that the “reasonable” thing to do is to continue fighting, not to accept the unsatisfactory if not terrible offer we are now faced with.

    At one of the informational meetings held last week it was expressed that we (relatively) long standing employees deserve a better deal as a reward for our loyalty to the company. If you think about what a two-tier system really means, however, it becomes clear that the impetus behind it is the complete opposite of one that seeks to reward anyone but the company's owners. If they wanted to reward the longstanding employees they could increase longevity payments without establishing a ceiling over the benefits of all employees who come in the future. Instead they're giving almost nothing to their current employees and setting the stage for a situation where there is a certain level of resentment among newer employees, who if they stay long enough to become union, will not be likely to engage in the type of fight we have been to protect the benefits and pay of their more senior co-workers.

    Though working class people always seem to wish to “be reasonable” the company has no such compulsion. No matter how profitable they are, they can always be more so by lowering their labor costs. Their asking us to cast our future coworkers off into a second tier is essentially a way of expressing that we are overpaid and that the second tier will represent a more healthy level of labor costs for them. Rest assured that they will wait with bated breath for us to move on, and may find ways of compelling us to do so. The next negotiation will be an exercise in trying to force us to move closer to the lower tier. Through a combination of attrition and further aggressive negotiating the company hopes to return to a single, lower tier as soon as possible.

     

    Two months ago we were faced with a “final offer” that asked for concessions from every employee and for a more pronounced two tiers. We resolved to stand united against this offer and to go beyond the act of voting. We engaged the press, picketed the store, kept each other informed and showed that we could force the company to move in our direction. By accepting the current flawed proposal, we would be forgetting a lesson we only recently learned and giving into irrational fear. That would be completely unreasonable.

Lessons for Labor from the Bad-Old-Days

     Labor unions have been in steady decline in the United States for decades now. They currently represent only about seven percent of private sector workers, where once (the late 1950s) that rate was near thirty percent. There are numerous reasons for this decline; changes in technology have meant that the same work can be done by fewer workers and that some jobs have simply ceased to exist. Capital, of course, has never let up in its fight to weaken and eliminate unions, with their potential ability to cut into its profits and lessen its freedom to determine working conditions and terms of employment. Another factor in labor's decline is its own slide into complacency and despair in what has seemed for some time an inevitable result of the world-wide shift to more precarious conditions for the working class. Recent attacks on organized labor from the American political class seem aimed at completely eviscerating the legal basis on which labor had gained power and stability in the twentieth century. Coming on the heels of decades of relentless anti-union and pro-business propaganda and the elimination and off-shoring of traditionally union jobs, these attempts to ban collective bargaining in the public sector with legislation like Wisconsin Governor Walker's “Budget Repair Bill” and the private sector through “right to work” laws currently being proposed in Ohio, Indiana and New Hampshire seem to have the potential if successful to deal an effective death blow to organized labor.

      What these laws seek to reverse in essence is a law passed during the height of the Great Depression called the Wagner Act. The Wagner Act transformed unions in American Society from organizations with no legal right to do what they were created to do, to legally sanctioned institutions meant to be nearly equal partners with capital in determining working conditions, pay and benefits. The Wagner Act guaranteed that when the majority of workers in a particular work place voted in favor of union representation that an election must be held to ratify the union of the employees' choice as the sole agent to bargain collectively on their behalf. It also barred intimidation of union activists and supporters by agents of the company and made it illegal for companies to hire “replacement workers” or scabs during a strike. It established the National Labor Relations board to act as arbiter between union workers and their employers when an impasse such as a strike or lockout was reached. It also established the legality of the “closed shop” where all workers in a given workplace which has chosen union representation are automatically members of the union, which can deduct dues automatically from their pay. It is important to understand how these changes fundamentally altered the role of unions; they greatly strengthened them as actors in the economy and society. Surprisingly, though I would argue that they eventually created a situation where the aforementioned complacency and despair were able to begin to corrode organized labor's more essential source of strength, the solidarity and militancy of their rank-and-file membership.

      In the century before the great depression, the industrial revolution necessitated that large numbers of the population move from agriculture or craft industry (home based manufacturing requiring great skill on the part of the craftsmen) to wage labor in factories and mills creating goods through mechanized assembly-line methods. Many who took these jobs soon became profoundly disenchanted with the dull nature of the work and the long hours and low pay in dangerous and unpleasant conditions. A natural outgrowth of this dissatisfaction was the formations of protean labor organizations, which tried through work-stoppages and other forms of protest and petition to secure shorter hours and better pay. Much of American society was hostile to these organizations from the outset. Business owners, confident that unions had no legal standing appealed to the judiciary to force them to relent in their efforts. In the courts employers tended to bring conspiracy charges against unions and they generally won. An early example of this tactic was a case brought against an association of shoe-makers in Philadelphia in the 1820s. The reasoning went that it was all well and good for an individual shoemaker to demand better pay, but when he joined with his compatriots to make the same demand he (and all of those involved) became party to a conspiracy with the potential to harm society as a whole by forcing employers to act contrary to the interests they had in their property.

      Subsequent court cases such as Commonwealth V. Hunt, lessened the strength of the conspiracy case against unions, establishing that a prosecutor must prove actions violating a particular law in order to establish the existence of a conspiracy. With conspiracy less likely to hold up in court, the new tool for putting a stop to labor activism was the injunction. An injunction allows a judge to bar a person or group of people from taking a particular action. An common injunction in a labor dispute might be barring striking workers from blocking the road that managers and replacement workers might use to gain access to a workplace. Also, though unions were no longer considered conspiracies, to bar non-union workers from a particular workplace was seen as a violation of their civil rights. Thus, collective bargaining was impossible as long as an employer was willing to use strike-breakers and fire those participating in a strike. Unsurprisingly, they nearly always were.

      Under these conditions, which persisted with little change until the passage of the Wagner Act, labor faced an uphill battle in winning any concessions from capital. The attempts currently being made by conservative politicians to enact “right-to-work” laws and limit or eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees have the potential to effectively turn the clock back to these pre-Wagner Act Days. I would argue that it is of the utmost importance to resist these attempts. However, with the unresponsive nature of America's government at the present moment, low levels of union membership in the private sector, and seemingly unprecedented hostility to organized labor in much of the population, it may be nearly impossible to prevent the success of much of this anti-union legislation.

      At this grim moment for labor it has become necessary to revive the tactics that allowed labor to maintain an upward momentum for decades, in spite of the significant obstacles it faced. Some of the tactics that brought labor success in its early days began to fade after the passage of the Wagner Act. With government backing for collective bargaining and procedures in place to arbitrate intractable disputes that were accepted by both labor and capital as generally fair and acceptable, a certain routine took hold in labor relations. With closed shops in effect union officials tended to become distant and unresponsive to their membership. Strikes became rarer and rarer for various reasons, and labor saw less of an incentive for organizing the unorganized and gaining the support of the general public. Though the Wagner Act was a crucial victory for labor it also brought about these unintended negative consequences. This general malaise in labors ranks coupled with conservative control of the government and a less stable workforce combined to bring labor to the sad state it finds itself in today.

      Before the Wagner Act dues weren't automatically collected from every employee at a workplace, they were voluntarily paid by workers who understood that the union was attempting to protect them from abuse at the hands of the boss and to bind them together in solidarity. This made the financial position of unions more precarious, but it made for union officials who were responsive to the needs of the rank-and-file. After the United Mine Workers of America negotiated a 10% pay increase for coal miners in Pennsylvania in 1901, but failed to get the coal companies to recognize the union, the companies began to increase the size of carts which the miners were paid a per-ton amount for filling. (A “miner's ton” at this time was generally close to 3,000 lbs, and a miner was paid sixty cents for each “ton” brought to the surface). The union officials has agreed not to make any more demands for a year, but the membership, incensed at the dishonesty of the companies, took it upon themselves to call strikes at individual mines without official union backing. Many simultaneously stopped paying their dues to the union. A year later the union called an industry-wide strike. In the period between the union's threat of a strike and its outset, dues began pouring back in. When the strike went into effect at least 140,000 people stopped work. The immensity of this is more impressive when you consider that it was perfectly legal for the companies to escort anyone who wanted to continue working to the mine surrounded by national guardsmen armed with machine guns. If the strike wasn't successful, many who were active could expect to find themselves on a black-list that would prevent them from finding work anywhere in the region. This type of solidarity seems to have faded in organized labor today, but without the protections enjoyed by unions in the past it may soon become absolutely necessary in opposing further attacks by capital.

      Another important way that unions found success in a hostile environment was by winning public support for their cause. It may have been legal for employers to use strong arm tactics to prevent unionization and break strikes, but when it became too obvious that they were doing so it could hurt their business when potential customers felt that labor's demands were reasonable and that companies were being abusive in resisting them. The Industrial Workers of the World, an early industrial union, was constantly attacked in the press, but were successful in winning the Lawrence Textile Strike of 1911 because the public was horrified at the striker's treatment by police (who shot and killed a young, unarmed female striker), and the suffering of the strikers' children (most of whom would have worked in the mills with their parents). Underlying this public support was a rising class consciousness in the population as a whole that has largely faded today. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries most who weren't actually union members began to feel that they had more in common with the workers than the bosses. They generally felt that the demands of workers were entirely reasonable given the immense wealth and power of the industrial capitalists of the day. Conversely, where many unions today seem content to remain static, representing workers in whatever industry they've gained a foothold, the earlier industrial unions saw it as their goal to organize as many workers as possible. They were well aware that this could only increase their power in bargaining for better conditions and pay.

      At this crucial moment for the labor movement, all who are sympathetic to labor's cause and whose personal quality of life will be affected by its success or failure should re-dedicate themselves to the core principles that have enabled it to profoundly improve the lives of the vast majority of Americans; solidarity with your co-workers and with all working people, the willingness to fight back with direct action when pushed to make concessions (whether by the employer or a demoralized union hierarchy), and a sense of pride in your work and in organizing to stand up for the dignity of that work, and in the end the dignity of all who work for a living.

Radical Networking

A massive set of protests has been planned for November 17^th in New York City. It remains to be seen whether they will evidence strong, continuing support for the Occupy movement. In recent weeks it seems that those who wish for the failure of the movement have been taking the proverbial gloves off, with more harsh police tactics in evidence as several cities (St. Louis, Burlington, Salt Lake City, Portland and others) have attempted to evict Occupy encampments from public spaces. The intense antagonism toward the movement is the inevitable result of its success in mobilizing massive numbers of people around progressive causes and capturing the media spotlight that was so reluctant to shine on it in the beginning. If the forces of reaction are successful in driving the movement out of the public squares, it will still have done much to energize the left in America and should leave it in a stronger position to win battles on policy and shift the nation's consciousness in a progressive direction.

The reason for this is an aspect of OWS that seems obvious, but hasn't been discussed much in the media. Occupy Wall Street has become (perhaps unintentionally) the best vehicle for what I'd call “radical networking” (you can call it movement-building if you really want to avoid the business school connotations of the former). OWS, with its lack of demands (actually, the important thing is that it has many) and its sharing of decision making between individuals and between multiple nodes of activity brings together causes that might have seemed distinct in the past, and allows them to coalesce into an umbrella movement that's greater than the sum of its parts.

I'll give you an example from my own experience. A few weeks ago, wanting to do more than march in general support of OWS, I joined one of its many autonomous “working groups” who meet outside of Zuccotti Park and attempt to use the same horizontal decision making process that the General Assembly does to come to agreement about issues that fall under the purview of their particular group's focus. I am a union shop steward at my workplace and feel strongly that organized labor is a powerful and positive social force that can be credited with much of the progress that occurred in American social relations in the twentieth century. I hoped that organized labor might be able to bring to bear some of its institutional resources in service of the Occupy cause, and that Occupy's freshness and energy might play some part in re-vitalizing the state of organized labor. Days before I signed up for the Labor Outreach Committee, my union (The United Auto Workers) officially endorsed Occupy Wall Street. When New York City's Mayor Mike Bloomberg had tried to clear Zuccotti Park on the pretext of a cleaning of the area, members of my union, both rank-and-file and paid officials of the international went to the park in the wee hours of morning to stand down the NYPD. I was exceedingly proud.

The OWS Labor Outreach Committee is dedicated to getting more rank-and-file union workers involved with the Occupy movement and using the momentum of OWS to aid organized labor in its varied battles. Occupy supporters, some union members and some simply sympathetic to the struggles of working class people, have joined picket lines in support of locked-out Teamsters at the Sotheby's auction house and demonstrations for Communications and Electrical workers fighting to get a decent contract out of Verizon. It seemed that my hopes had been realized when a week ago the New York Times ran a story under the headline, “Occupy Movement Inspires Unions to Embrace Bold Tactics.” Labor has been on the retreat for decades. It has lost members to outsourcing as well as to legislative attacks. At the same time it has lost the sympathy of many who would benefit from its power as they accept fear-mongering pro-business propaganda as gospel. (I'll be surprised if I don't get at least one hateful comment after revealing that I am one of those scary 'union thugs') With Occupy Wall Street entering the picture it seems like there is finally a chance that the momentum will be in the other direction.

Because OWS isn't solely focused on one issue it can marshal the energies, talents and enthusiasm of all its supporters in service of all of the more narrow progressive causes that others have fought for for years. Since OWS has focused on issues of economic inequality and class power it has avoided the single-issue tunnel vision that has hamstrung the left for decades. Since the ascendancy of the post-1960's right-wing in America, the left has generally seemed willing to give much ground on the broad issue of economic justice and has instead focused on an array of secondary problems. Without the recognition that all of these problems relate directly to the way in which economic power is distributed in society, the left allowed itself to become balkanized into multiple, often mutually hostile groups dedicated to their own pet issue or brand of identity politics. Occupy Wall Street seems to me to be ushering in a new era of radical networking, welcoming all of those who fight against one or another of the ill-effects of economic injustice, the corporate power that thrives on it and the political corruption bred by it. It facilitates their ability to act in a concert with each other. Each specific cause gives purpose and focus to the movement as a whole, and the movement as a whole lends power to each of its parts. Unions who lend their support will gain allies in their workplace struggles, while they lend support to those opposing Hydraulic Fracturing in the Marcellus Shale, who will fight against unfair foreclosures and the corporate “reform” of the public school system. I think that this is a great thing, and hope that the Occupy Movement can maintain its momentum. If you're near NYC, come out Thursday and be a part of it.

Advice From an Ally That OWS Should Ignore

I have been increasingly interested and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement that sprung up in New York about a month ago and in a short time began to spread to the far corners of the United States and the world. I haven't been able to properly “Occupy” Zucotti park as I work full time, but I have made it to most of the larger actions; the march halfway across the Brooklyn bridge (followed by the paddy wagon ride to One Police Plaza), the huge labor solidarity march the following week and the convergence on Times Square this past weekend. It seems that the usual dismissive criticisms and back-handed compliments from supposed allies have failed to overshadow tangible victories, like the one that occurred last Friday when thousands converged in the dawn hours to prevent the police from emptying the park. With each victory the movement draws more sympathizers into the fold, but simultaneously rankles the very powerful interests and institutions that are threatened by this type of nascent mass-movement. I'm surprised and heartened by the movement's success. In the end, however, if either tangible reforms or revolutionary change are going to be affected by the Occupy movement it is important that we not only preach to the liberal left/ choir, but win enough converts to our general point of view to either pressure the political establishment to enact legislative change, or circumvent the existing structures and organize around some other socioeconomic structure. So far, I fear that what the Occupy movement has achieved so far is unifying and activating the roughly half of the nation's population that shares a generally progressive view. And this is important in itself. What of the other half? Those who have a profoundly different view of what constitutes “justice” or “fairness”. The ones who shout at us as we march down the streets of Manhattan to “Stop protesting, and get off your asses!”

When I saw a piece by George Lakoff in Truthout this week (http://www.truth-out.org/how-frame-yourself-framing-memo-occupy-wall-street/1319031142), billed as his advice to Occupy Wall Street on how to present itself to the world at large, I was interested. I was familiar his ideas about how political ideas exist within cognitive frames. He describes how the political world views of most individuals are not based on rational inquiry but on an emotional response based on a cognitive framework. The framework is a set of arbitrary moral judgments. Lakoff's work in this field has always seemed generally valid to me. The left sees individuals as irrevocably part of a larger society. The right sees the individual as autonomous and ultimately responsible for his own actions. The left sees a need for nurturing and collective decision making, while the right looks only for the individual's right to act freely, responsibly and in self-interest. In identifying these important root differences in point of view I feel that Lakoff has been particularly astute. I've always been frustrated by the fact that no amount of economic statistics on income inequality or social mobility can cut through the typical conservative's ironclad belief that it is the individual's personal responsibility to find work, to the extent that if there were five jobs available to the twenty six million un- and underemployed in America, it would be the individual's responsibility to be one of the five most educated, hard-working and diligent applicants, and if they weren't, there would be no right to complain or petition government to help them in their situation. Lakoff in his short essay proposes to have some insight into how we can circumvent the conservative framework and become a more truly mass-movement. In my opinion though, he seems to ignore the basis of his own ideas when formulating his advice.

Lakoff goes on to claim that what the Occupy movement needs to do in order to win hearts and minds is to cram its own goals and principles into a superficially conservative framework and then expect conservatives to be bamboozled into agreeing. It seems to me that this is doomed to failure and shouldn't be seriously considered by anyone involved. He claims that Occupy Wall street should declare itself a “moral” movement and go on to explain to its detractors that it is society's moral duty to nurture the individual. He himself, however, has already clearly explained why this is next to impossible. A conservative's morality is based on a framework where free-will decisions are either punished with destitution or rewarded with wealth. For the society to “nurture” the individual in hope of insuring her success is doomed to failure and at any rate, rife with moral hazard. I would like to propose a different tack in trying to reach out to those who don't already agree with the general left-leaning point of view of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Simply by coming into existence, Occupy Wall Street has begun to challenge the overall conservative ideological framework, not by attempting to work within it, but by loudly and clearly presenting the opposite framework. It has shown with the thousands that have shown up at Liberty Square and marched and rallied for more specific causes (Labor rights, a legally-enforced living wage, foreclosure relief and affordable housing, environmental concerns about hydro-fracking and the nuclear industry) that the conservative framework's deficiencies left-unchallenged have produced suffering in the 99% that will no longer be met with apathy. It has always seemed to me not that the vast majority of Americans are conservative in their world view, but that those who are are louder, more consistent and supported by most of the powerful institutions of the media. Now, with the Internet technology as a world-straddling megaphone and a multiple physical spaces delineated as breeding grounds for activism, consciousness-raising and civil disobedience, our side just might have the power to push back and win a significant number of converts. I fear that following Mr. Lakoff's advice would simply dampen this energy and if anything, reinforce conservative's belief that their framework is so superior to ours that we must adopt it even as we try to fight it.