Lance Compa Responds

Thanks to all the contributors for their incisive and challenging responses to “Careful What You Wish For: A Critical Appraisal of Proposals to Rebuild the Labor Movement.” Interesting that each zeroed in on Alt-labor, touching just briefly on union organizing as a civil right, minority union bargaining, digital organizing, grievance fees for non-members, and other issues. But fair enough, because Alt-labor is real and the others are mostly speculative.

I tried to credit Alt-labor for its many victories and for the energy and creativity it brings to the movement. I did not say it is “a lot of flash” (Michael Oswalt) or “counterproductive” (Stephen Lerner), nor that conventional unions are “our only option” (Amy Dean).

I did say Alt-labor is not a fix. And I defended Old Labor against notions repeated in some respondents’ comments here: “conventional unionism is not possible,” unions are “rapidly fading into irrelevance,” “existentially beset by overwhelmingly powerful forces,” and “facing potential annihilation.”

Workers do not see it that way. In late August, one thousand skilled-trades employees voted by a three to one margin in an NLRB election for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) at private contractor Bowhead’s army maintenance complex in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. They did not think they were joining an irrelevant movement about to be annihilated by overwhelming forces. The same goes for twelve thousand card dealers and other casino employees around the country who voted for United Auto Workers (UAW) representation in the last three years, twenty-five thousand private school bus system workers now with the Teamsters and other unions, ten-thousand-and-climbing university adjunct professors rapidly joining labor’s ranks, and smaller but promising breakthroughs by port truck drivers, airport service workers, digital journalists, and other sectors with organizing potential.

Unions win a solid majority of NLRB elections. The challenge is to get more elections in larger bargaining units. The NLRB’s recent faster-election rule is one positive move. In Bell Gardens, California, 250 workers at DBAValet Services Laundry won an NLRB election in late August held three weeks after Workers United filed an election petition. Unusually, more workers voted for the union than had signed cards, suggesting that we can keep building momentum when employers cannot artificially delay elections.

NLRB data for the last half of August reported many more union victories in elections that took less than a month from filing to ballot. Of course, unions lost some votes, too. The new rule does not guarantee victory. It will take time and more research to draw firm conclusions, but anecdotally, the NLRB’s action appears to be having a positive effect on new union organizing. Similarly, as Michael Oswalt mentions, the NLRB’s recent Browning-Ferris decision, making it easier to establish joint-employer responsibility, opens new potential for organizing labor agency employees and others in non-standard employment relationships.

The joint-employer breakthrough is important, but not a solution in itself. A big majority of private-sector American workers—tens of millions of them—go to work every day at a single work site for one employer. Organizing under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and winning an NLRB election is still their main vehicle for collective bargaining. We should fight to preserve and strengthen the Act and the Board, not declare them dead letters and rely on card check and Alt-labor for the movement’s future.

The Bureaucracy Problem

Chris Maisano rightly points out the dangers of bureaucratization for labor movement vibrancy. However, bureaucracy is not a dirty word. Any organization has to have charters and by-laws, leaders and committees, decision-making assemblies, financial resources and accountability, and other markers of bureaucracy to sustain itself and work effectively.

We should fight to preserve and strengthen the [NLRA] and [NLRB], not declare them dead letters . . .

It is always a matter of finding the right balance between bureaucracy and movement, ensuring that leadership is not only responsive to the base, but also that leadership leads in preparing, educating, and mobilizing members for battle—just what Bill Fletcher brought to his long work in the labor movement. Moreover, as those inside Alt-labor formations know, they are mini-bureaucracies, too, that face the same challenges.

A Note on Right-to-Work

Chris Maisano argues that it is another pipe dream to think we can reverse right-to-work in Wisconsin or Michigan or other states by electing more Democrats. To start, I did not say Democrats, I said legislators—mostly Democrats most of the time, sure, but not just them.

Ten years ago, we would have said right-to-work in Michigan and Wisconsin was an anti-union pipe dream. Then voters elected legislators who adopted it. No iron law says we cannot win back majorities and governors to turn it around again. And here, Chris Maisano is right: We cannot just relax and vote; we have to generate bottom-up workers’ action to compel legislators to act.

On Digital Organizing

In voicing doubts about online organizing, I have to admit I am on shaky ground. I have to read a physical newspaper with my coffee every morning and the very thought of Twitter terrifies me.

Ten years ago, we would have said right-to-work in Michigan and Wisconsin was an anti-union pipe dream.

As I learned from CIO veterans and then witnessed in my own years as an UE organizer, I still think organizing has to be rooted in personal interactions among employees inside the workplace. Then leaders emerge who can stand up to management, so that workers see “somebody to back me up,” not just read about it online. However, I am rethinking my skepticism after reading Michael Oswalt’s examples of creative use of social media and other digital platforms to build ties and raise consciousness. Let us do it—but do not let me get in the way.

A Final Word

This is a good debate to sharpen our thinking. We are at ten degrees of difference on focus, not 180 degrees on strategy. On key elements, we are together: fostering worker power (Stephen Lerner), linking Alt-labor and Old Labor (Michael Oswalt), bottom-up revitalization (Chris Maisano), experimenting with new forms (Amy Dean), and building social justice unionism (Bill Fletcher).

My offering is that we should not give up on the NLRA and the NLRB and conventional unions. Or maybe, because “conventional” implies passé (think conventional wisdom), we should talk instead about “rooted” unions nourished by a century’s worth of struggle. Rooted in their workplaces and in their collective bargaining relationships, rooted in their communities, they are still with us, and still capable of growth and renewed struggle today.