Dine on Labor

After years on the defensive on all counts — bargaining, politics, organizing — labor is on the move on a variety of fronts. Perhaps more important than any particular issue is that labor’s enthusiasm has returned.

That’s the clear sense I get, as a result of having the opportunity recently to speak to a number of unions about the status of the labor movement and what lies ahead.

Whether it’s the Teachers, Laborers or Bricklayers, the San Diego Labor Council, Pennsylvania COPE or DC Metro Labor Council, or some of America’s key labor leaders like Rich Trumka, Gerald McEntee or Rich Trumka, there’s an optimism and drive that can’t be missed.

It’s not just the election, which they anticipate will lead to political and legislative changes that might give workers some help and labor a fairer shake, but also the sense that members are engaged and that the public at large feels the pendulum has swung too far in one direction and so policies and practices need to be redirected to establish a more-level playing field.

As someone who’s written a book on labor (State of the Unions: How Labor can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve our Economy, and Regain Political Influence) it even seems that the media is increasingly interested in discussuing these topics. Whether it’s the approaching election or Labor Day or something else, the result is the same — attention to issues that for too long have gone unreported and unexamined. Several recent developments have served to galvanize regional and national attention around matters of American jobs and control, notably the tanker refueling contract and the planned sale of Anheuser-Busch.

That said, if labor is to fully capitalize on the current political developments, socio-economic trends and public sentiments, unions and their leaders need to sharpen their efforts on two fronts: communications and values.

Harnessing the momentum will require getting out the message of why labor is as relevant as ever; of drawing the links for people between the economic anxiety affecting workers/middle class and the weakening over decades of the labor movement; of why a more-balanced industrial relations system is not just in unions’ or workers’ interest but in the national interest. This is not a difficult case to make, but it needs to be made sharply and crisply because people are busy and have a lot on their minds and these are not things they necessarily think much about.

Taking advantage of the confluence of events will also require that labor recast its diverse issues as fundamental American values, so it can compete on the all-important values terrain. Labor needs, during elections and every other time, to emphasize values of fair play, of economic justice, of people sticking together and standing up for one another, of the fate of small towns and mom-and-pop businesses and family farms being determined on the local level and not by distant corporations, of job security and hard-working people being able to support their families. Doing so will not only make labor’s hoped-for election results occur, it will also give them more meaning by providing labor with a mandate from those results.

Labor’s decline was never inevitable or pre-ordained, and the union movement has a chance now to begin to turn things around. But it must act imaginatively and robustly now if the potential improvements are to actually materialize.

I recently attended a labor forum where T-shirts were given out that read “agitate, educate, organize.” Good enough advice, but if labor is to survive, and thrive, its foremost task right now is this: communicate, communicate, communicate. The reasons for this could fill a book, (and come to think of it, just about did) but in this limited space here are four points.

1. The public regards labor as largely irrelevant. It’s anything but, but unless trade unionists explain why in a period of a growing assault on workers and the middle class labor is as important as ever, people won’t connect the dots between their own travails and labor’s weakened status
2. This election looms as tailor-made for labor’s issues to occupy center stage, if union activists and rank-and-file workers can explain why they’re everyone’s issues.
3. Crafting and communicating a clear message hasn’t necessarily been labor’s strength, but with a bevy of committed and talented communications folks now in place, it’s something that’s within labor grasp, whereas other goals such as organizing or making gains in collective bargaining are far more elusive at the moment, given the balance of power between labor and management.
4. Increasing public understanding of what labor’s all about and boosting its public image would have an impact on all aspects of labor’s activities, from organizing to negotiating to politicking.

Labor is receiving an unusual amount of attention these days, much of it focused on the fierce political battles unions are waging on behalf of various presidential hopeful in the primaries. Reporters and even some talking heads on television who generally ignore the union movement are paying at least some attention, even if much of it is to wonder about labor’s effectiveness in the campaign.

Far less talked about, but perhaps more important, is the attention labor is getting in another sphere altogether — the world of books. Suddenly, it seems, unions, workers and trade unionists are the subject of some interest. Quality books such as “U.S. Labor in Trouble: The Failure of Reform From Above, The Promise of Revival from Below,” “Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy,” “The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi” and “Global Unions: Challenging Transnational Capital Through Cross-Border Campaigns” are important for several reasons.

They reflect a renewed interest in labor that will likely seep into the broader consciousness. The subjects and subject matter, even if sometimes from the recent past, suggest the current relevance of labor, if nothing else by showing how little has changed. Perhaps most of all, they not only contain fresh ideas and thinking about labor, they spur the same by those who read and discuss the books. The importance of this may not be self-evident but in fact it can’t be overestimated. It’s through the power of ideas that change and progress take place. When conservatism seemed out of favor and lacking in relevance to today’s America, what did its advocates do? They set up think tanks, to generate new ideas that would help the movement regain influence and adherents and, eventually, political power.

The spate of books, with the above-mentioned only a sampling, comes on the heels of labor’s period of self-examination about how best to rejuvenate the union movement. This intellectual ferment, both within and about the labor movement, augurs well for its eventual revival.