Business Unionism: A Smedley Butler "Racket?"

Brian Walsh served as vice president of VT-NEA.  He is a graduate student at the Labor Center of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and is currently teaching high school and interning at the Vermont Workers Center.   These are his workshop remarks at The People's Convention in Burlington VT today.

I was asked to provide a little historical analysis, and I started thinking about Smedley Butler.  He was a marine, I guess a good one - he killed some people, got a bunch of medals and became a general.  But after he retired he wrote a little book called War Is A Racket.  According to Butler, a “racket” is “something that is not what it seems to be, … conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many.”  By that definition, I think a pretty good argument can be made that most unions today, including public sector unions, are “rackets” too.  

That’s harsh, but Butler’s definition begins by saying a “racket” is something that is “not what it seems ….”  Unions were created to protect workers’ rights, including the right to a decent living, at their workplace and beyond.  Unfortunately, most unions today, are doing a poor job at protecting anyone’s rights, except perhaps the “right” of employers, be they public or private sector, to squeeze and oppress their employees.  There’s a war on against labor, and labor is losing.

Although the NLRA, better known as the “Wagner Act,” guaranteed unions legal recognition, it’s purpose was to maintain “labor peace.”  In other words, the law made labor part of the system in order to ensure that that system kept working.  Although some unions, mostly CIO, remained militant into World War II and beyond, laws such as 1947’s Taft-Hartley Act, and agreements like UAW’s 1950 GM contract, the infamous “Treaty of Detroit,” insured labor would not regain the offensive.  Thus in retreat, the business-union model, where union members are “serviced” by staff, was created.  In return for concessionary contracts, unions, and their officials were granted relative autonomy. 

That’s where the second part of Butler’s definition - “[benefiting] the very few at the expense of the very many” - applies.  In case you haven’t noticed, working for a union can be profitable - salaries are often 50 to 100 percent higher than those of members paying those salaries.  I’m not saying that union staff don’t deserve their pay, but I do think they have the duty to help members fight for their human rights, not encourage them to accept ruling class paradigms about everyone needing to “tighten their belts;” but then, unions would have to change the ways they do business.  They would have to abandon their stale business unionism, and empower, encourage and equip their members to fight and win. 

I know there are some union leaders and staff willing to help their members do what is necessary.  Unfortunately, those people are in the minority; the system demands “labor peace,” and it is difficult to convince people bringing home six-figure paychecks and Cadillac benefits to jeopardize their jobs by helping members fight the war they need to win.  And there, as Hamlet famously stated, lies “the rub.” 

Since too many union officials prioritize the status quo - which benefits their individual interests over workers’ collective rights - it is up to members to change union priorities.  However, too often members are unequipped or unready to take the actions needed to move their unions forward.  Therefore, as scholar and social activist Staughton Lynd explained in his concise work Solidarity Unionism: Rebuilding the Labor Movement from Below, small, informal groups of workers, and their supporters, whom he called “parallel unionism,” are needed to push those unions. 

That’s what  happened in Chicago, as the “parallel union” - CORE - became the driving force behind the transformation of the Chicago Teacher’s Union - formerly a status quo-loving AFT local - into an organization willing to fight the neoliberal takeover of the Chicago Public Schools.  Obviously, it will not be an easy fight; Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the corporations seeking to privatize public schools are well-financed and powerful. 

CORE’s vision - protecting education as a human right and a public good - will need to be broad enough to attract sufficient class and community support needed for success.  Although odds are against Chicago’s teachers, the path they’ve chosen is the only one that can win; “business as usual” unionism is clearly destined to lose in our life-and-death struggle against the neoliberal takeover of our public good.

Rights: Use'm or Lose'm

It is one thing to have rights, another to have a mechanism for exercising those rights, and yet a third to actually exercise them.

On the first and second points, there is an active national effort to destroy our limited rights to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances" (expressed in the first amendment) and due process (as in the fourteenth amendment aka just and sufficient cause.)  We as teachers typically exercise those rights through our unions and through an orderly grievance process spelled out in collective bargaining agreements, rather than avail ourselves of remedies available through the legal system. 

Yes, as teachers and public employees we labor under restrictions that do not apply to the general public, but historically we have had certain rights and protections pertaining to our chosen profession.  State by state, those rights and protections are being systematically stripped away, a death by a thousand cuts.

Both the rights (expressed through collective bargaining) and the mechanism for expressing those rights (a system of grievances and arbitration which sits outside the court system) are being abrogated.  My view is that this allows deferred compensation such as pensions to be treated as a piggy bank by unscrupulous politicians.  The disempowerment of workers facilitates our rightward lurch towards a capitalist/fascist dystopia.

On the third point, for those of us who have not yet experienced the cataclysm which is North Carolina, Wisconsin or Michigan, rights mean nothing whatsoever if they are not actively enforced.  Every act of meek submission to authority is another nail in the coffin of teacher voice.

Too many of us view teaching as apolitical, on the excuse that conflict will hurt our students.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  As government employees OUR JOBS ARE POLITICAL!  That is reality.  It goes against our natures, as the sort of human beings who enter a service profession, to embrace conflict.

The bottom line is that the conflict has embraced us.

It is not our fault.  It becomes our fault if we don't push back by whatever means are at our disposal.  Yes, some of those means are political.  The venues can be corrupt and scary.  Activism and leadership require courage - the courage to live with the consequences of your inevitable mistakes.

Those who would destroy our profession, "destroy the village to save the village," fail to realize that every act of disempowerment promulgated against educators, students, and citizens is a distraction from our core mission and a disruption of school culture and community.  Culture and community are critical to a successful education system. 

I don't believe we should be blaming teachers by complaining about their passivity.  This is a symptom of an increasingly dysfunctional and totalitarian political culture.  Rather, we should acknowledge the harsh realities of citizenship and government employment, and as compassionate leaders help nurture engagement. 

You're Fired!

I've met an incredible artist and human being here at Netrroots - Paradise Gray.  A Democracy for America Scholar, he is my roommate here in Providence.  He is a Hip Hop producer and activist who uses video for the political empowerment of urban youth.  His artistic partner is singer Jasiri X, who is featured in the video below.  As a musician, this style was outside my experience, but once I got know their work, I could see the extraordinary technical mastery, the bold political commitment, and best of all the universal appeal.  

Enjoy, look up Jasiri X on YouTube - there are dozens of powerful videos. Please share and tweet.

Awakening a Sleeping Giant

NEA vice president Lily Eskelsen's Netroots Nation keynote last night addressed the attacks on NEA.  She spoke of how we are on the front lines, because eliminate us, and the 1% takes away the largest single institution defending the middle class.

I saw this coming years ago.  I always believed that my union should be much more proactive in reaching out and embracing the aspirations of other working people, even if that occasionally meant compromising some of our institutional priorities.  I believed that vigorous action when others, such as private sector unions, were the front line would protect our union. 

Too late.

This why I have always had an interest in progressive causes and have tried to learn from leaders of other unions. It’s why I provide as much support as possible to groups like the Vermont Workers Center.

There is a tension between my interest in collateral circulation with other activists and my union's need for control.  In internal conversations concerning member engagement one point always stands out:

The problem with membership engagement is that you end up with....engaged members.

Engaged members make mistakes.  Engaged members may not have enough experience because they haven't had a chance to make mistakes.  They may do things that contradict the leadership, either accidentally or on purpose.  But if they just pay other people to be activists, they never learn how to be active themselves.  Lurking in the background: an awakened membership may well make different demands on its own leadership.

In order to have a truly engaged and effective membership, union leadership and staff have to give up control.  Engagement is the only recourse in the present crisis.  The equation looks like this:  There is a tradeoff between institutional control and member engagement.  Member engagement is the last, best source of power in the current struggle.  For our union, therefore, survival involves giving up control.  That's scary for some people.

Real organizing means helping people to find their own voice, not teaching them to parrot yours.  What better group to do this than an organization of teachers?

Awaken a sleeping giant of engaged teachers.  It's the only way.

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