Excerpt
The Introduction
Things were breaking up after a news conference at the National Press Club in downtown Washington D.C., where the Teamsters had made their case yet again for getting out from under what they regarded as the onerous federal stewardship they'd been subjected to since 1989. Seated in the back row, I'm trying to shove the handouts and my notebook and other times into my shoulder bag when I hear this booming voice:
“Hey Phil, where've you been?”
I glance up and see none other than the Teamster's president, James P. Hoffa, son of the legendary Jimmy Hoffa, shoulders about six feet wide, looking me right in the eye. I glance up and see James P. Hoffa, son of the legendary Jimmy Hoffa, shoulders about six feet wide, looking me right in the eyeThe man's not making small talk; he's got a message to deliver, so he doesn't bother waiting for a reply.
“You used to write about me,” Hoffa continues, still smiling but a trace of menace creeping into this tone. “Remember, Barbara's watching. She reads everything.”
Barbara would be his sister, Barbara Hoffa Crancer, who had returned to school after having kids and is now a judge in St. Louis. My paper's her hometown paper. Mrs. Crancer is a nice lady, to be sure, but there's something mildly unsettling about the notion of her reporting to her brother on whatever I write. Or miss.
His point made, Hoffa pivots and leaves the room, followed by his somewhat surprised entourage of union attorneys, advisers, and Teamsters officials.
I shook my head. Here's the bearer of one of the fabled names in labor history—make that in American history—presiding over the storied International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 1.4 million members strong, and he's not only aware of what some individual reporter writes or doesn't write, he's practically pleading for more coverage.
Now it's true that I hadn't published a word about him for several years, in part because post-9/11 reporting exigencies meant spending time with then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Indeed, the once-proud American labor movement has faded before our eyes, wounded on all frontsThe thing is, I could have written about Rumsfeld every day for 20 years, asked questions at each of his frequent Pentagon press briefings, and he still wouldn't have had the vaguest idea who the hell I was—or cared enough to find out. But after I ignored Hoffa for all this time, he not only remembers, he's what, hurt?
This, of course, has nothing to do with personalities—Hoffa is no more sentimental than Rumsfeld—and everything to do with the institutions they represent. Rumsfeld was constantly harassed by droves of reporters, so his imperative was to ward them off. If Hoffa is plaintively looking for a reporter's glance to be aimed his way, it's because the attention of any assignment editor or producer worth his or her salt is focused elsewhere and not on a labor movement in precipitous decline.
Indeed, the once-proud American labor movement has faded before our eyes, wounded on all fronts. It represents a shrinking share of the workforce. It has an ever-tougher time holding its own in collective bargaining with employers. It has proven utterly incapable of stemming the flight of good jobs overseas. It endures crushing political defeats, including the 2004 presidential election when despite a then-jobless recovery and an unpopular war, it couldn't push its candidate over the top. At the same time, labor itself is fragmenting. Its recent split into two competing federations deprives the union movement of the one attribute it retained—unity—making it all the more vulnerable as its adversaries gain in strength.
The unraveling of the labor movement is no small matter. Unions have had a lead role in establishing many of the most fundamental and valued features of today's society. The eight-hour workday, five-day workweek, paid vacations, retirement and health-care benefits, safety regulations, bans on sweatshops or child labor, protections against employment discrimination, and other workplace advances now taken for granted were the result of struggles—invariably protracted, often bloody, and sometimes even deadly—by workers and their unions.
Labor also has played an integral part in the expansion of the middle class, a phenomenon that helped define America and that has been key to assuring its political and social stability. The breakthrough contracts Hoffa's father negotiated in the 1950s reverberated well beyond labor's immediate ranks, exerting upward pressure on the incomes and benefits of tens of millions of working families. That was possible because of the leverage wielded at the time by labor, which represented 35 percent of all workers and an even higher portion in key industries.
In a profound sense, the labor movement has been an In a profound sense, the labor movement has been an indispensable part of the history and fabric of the United Statesindispensable part of the history and fabric of the United States in ways extending far beyond the workplace. This is due in large measure to the peculiar nature of trade unionism in this country. The goal of unions in much of Europe and elsewhere has been to overthrow—or at least fundamentally alter—the social order and economic system, but America's unions have fought to improve and expand them,and to do so incrementally at that. Having bought into the system, they haven't tried to redefine or disparage the American dream, but rather they have allowed more people to realize it by raising the living standards of workers, integrating waves of immigrants from around the world, and narrowing racial and religious divides. Though often faced with strenuous opposition from entrenched and privileged interests, unions have helped create the social and economic mobility that has set the United States apart from more stratified European societies.
It is no overstatement to say that labor has contributed mightily to what has made America work—and what has made it unique.
Yet despite this backdrop, labor's current plight is both broadly misunderstood and badly underrated...
End of Excerpt
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