The death of the American labor movement

[Provost Harrison]

It's right, the trade union movement is dead...well and truly. The old institutions who funnel their money into the likes of the Democratic Party of the Labour Party are not going to represent you any more - the most you are going to get is some form of insurance and the odd bit of collective bargaining when they aren't engaged in 'I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine' with the management. Alas, the unions need to be reborn.

Even from a free market perspective it makes sense. Employers work by cartel in terms of setting wages - why not reciprocate with collective bargaining power. Equilibrium yes?

[Bosh]

Good for them. The SEIU has its **** together far more than the average American union, and its actually growing until the dinosaur industrial unions. Focusing on membership

[Dracon II]

Originally posted by Frankychan


Got a link?

NM... I wrote a thread not long ago advising apolytoners to correct my writing/choice of words/grammar and critique my opinions.

[Ghidorah]

Originally posted by Frankychan
better question:

Is there an international labor union?

The IWW - a union that has been instrumental in many of the most important gains of the labour movement in the last century.

I'm not from the US, so my knowledge of the AFL-CIO is not what it could be, but to me this sounds like a petty little power struggle between union bigwigs who need something to do because they've completely forgotten that they're actually there to protect the rights of their members.
Union membership in the western world has been slipping - partly because of vicious propaganda campaigns from government and business that have somehow convinced workers that organisation is not in their best interest; but also partly because so many of the larger unions have fallen back into bureaucratic irrelevancy, and exist as little more than a stairway for the ambitious to lever their way into major-party politics.
Lobbying politicians will never get you anywhere - so-called "labour" parties use and abuse the unions they supposedly represent, and help only when it's politically convenient.
The whole point of a union is that workers organised in numbers are an incredibly formidable power in themselves. But when your comfortable conservative unions refuse to make use of their best tool and strike, but instead just sit around being useless, you might as well not have any union at all.
A single rogue union with an active and militant rank-and-file and which is prepared to strike committedly and often, is worth an entire "labour coalition" that achieves nothing.
The established union movement desperately needs to take a long, hard look at itself rather than playing silly buggers with its leadership.

[Ramo]

I think Stern and his allies are being rather petty. While focusing on organizing is great, CtW's plans don't allocate all that much more to organizing - and besides, locals are far more effective at doing the organizing than central operations. Also, while the SEIU is growing in leaps and bounds, there's also a disturbing tendency of taking away autonomy from locals. I don't think this is as one sided a problem as some make it out to be.

OTOH, I don't think a split in the labor movement is that bad an idea. I think the world would probably be a better place if the CIO had never united with the AFL.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
Krugman seems to think that golabalisation will change politics in the US. instead of democract/ republican split as they have now, it will change to a winners/ losers party system, where the winners of globalisation (northeast and west coast liberals along with business/ wall street republicans) will join together while the losers (unions, farmers, middle america) will come together.

Except, as Thomas Frank has written, the losers are hell-bent on voting for tax cuts for the winners.

Stupid country, nuke the lot of them.

[JohnT]

When people proclaim the "death" of something, it's time to start taking bets on the resurgence of it.

[chequita guevara]

Labor wouldn't have grown in the mid-century had the Western Federation of Miners not split from the AFL and founded the CIO. I think this may be a good thing. The AFL-CIO is ossified and stuck in the mindset of the 50s, dealing with businessmen who are in the 21st Century. They can't do the job. Labor is having its ass handed to it on a platter, and these guys can't offer anything better than trying to restore the agreement with management Ruther established in '47.

I don't know enough about what the rebel platform is, but I know enough that if a strategy is losing, one should not compromise with it. In this instance, I don't agree the rebels are bargining in bad faith if they think that the other side only has a strategy for losing. You don't want to keep any part of it.

I'll be interested to see where they go with this, but for now, I think I'm on the side of the splitters. This could mark a rejuvenation of the labor movement. There are two crucial segments of labor that need to be sought after by the unions, and have been largely ignored: low-wage service workers and white collar office workers, i.e., the service industry.

[pchang]

Rebirth

I think this is could mark the rebirth, not the death.

[JohnT]

Pchang, Chegitz, and JohnT are all in teh agreement!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by techumseh
The strategy of political support for the Democrats has been a failure since the days of Ronald Reagan. Even when the Democrats win, the policies which they follow are only marginally better than the Republicans.

Indeed. I've always thought that organizations have the most sucess when they don't tie themselves to a particular politcal party, even if they may be more naturally an ally of one. By allying yourself so obviously with the Democrat party, you only prevent moderate Republicans who do believe unions are needed as a balance to business from supporting those unions. And also when you are so in the camp of a political party, that party invariably takes you for granted.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by JohnT
Pchang, Chegitz, and JohnT are all in teh agreement!

I think I just heard the crack of doom.

[Ramo]

Well, the AFL-CIO doesn't always support Dems. Sometimes, they support Republicans when they're relatively pro-union. F'r instance, they endorsed Specter against Hoeffel in '04.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Spiffor
How does it mark the death of the labor movement? It might well announce a renewal of the labour movement, as the splitters seem to be primarily from the service sector, the sector where unions are dramatically underrepresented.
And I agree with their idea that union money should be used by the union, rather than by the Democrats.

I concour with the commie scum. Union concentrating on union activies and bsusiness rather than being a P.A.C. for the Democ-rats may well revitalize the union sector.

[Ted Striker]

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