Unions in your minds

1
Unions in your minds

• What are Unions About?

• What is your image of a union leader?

2
Voss and FantasiaRelational Analysis
Material Conditions The System of Rules
Governing Unions The Balance of Power between
Workers and Employers
Symbolic The Place of Unions in the Public
Imagination Special Interest or Social
Justice Consumer or Worker
Type of Person Bureaucrat, Strongman, Militant
3
Business/Push Button Unionism

• Material
• Negotiation and Enforcement of Long-Term
  Contracts
• Grievance resolution based on legalistic
  contract language
• Focus on servicing existing union membership
• -- Cooperative relationship with employers
• -- Distance from the Rank and File
• -- Antiradicalism
• Type of Person
• Bureaucrat or Strongman
• Symbolic
• Unions as special interests

4
Labor and the Cold War

• Funded by USIA USAID
• American Institute for Free labor Development in
  Latin America (AIFLD), Asia-American Free Labor
  Institute
• African American Labor Center.
• 1983 National Endowment for Democracy
• Labor, Business, Republican and Democratic
  Parties
• In the 1980s, roughly half of the AFL-CIOs
  budget came from the state department.

5
Intervention

• Guatemala 1954
• Chile 1973
• Central America 1980s
• Kissinger-Kirkland
• South Africa Buthelezi,
• Attempts to undercut anti apartheid Congress of
  South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the rest
  of the liberation movement.
• Solidarity Poland
• Support for conservative, sometimes pro-business
  unions
• Attempts to undercut their more leftist rivals

6
What happened?

• Employee Based Welfare State
• Globalization
• Corporate Counter Attack

7
The unsustainability of the private welfare
state Healthcare cost per vehicle
8
Globalization

• U.S.--from 1950-1990
• international trade went from 9 to 25 of U.S.
  GNP
• Foreign Direct Investment from 5 of U.S. GDP in
  1970 to 30 in 2000

9
10,000 Pontiac LeMans Early 1990s

• 3,000 to South Korea for labor and assembly
• 1,750 to Japan for advanced components
• 750 to Germany for styling and design engineering
• 400 to Taiwan for small components
• 250 to Britain for advertising and marketing
  services
• 50 to Ireland and Barbados for data processing
• Leaving about 3,800 to U.S inputs

10
Impact of Globalization

• Exit and Threat of Exit
• Maytag Galesburg
• Heightened competition
• Investors finally got news from Maytag that they
  can cheer today The home appliance maker said it
  was going to close a facility in Galesburg
  Illinois and lay off 1,600 workers, or about 8
  of its total staff.
• The announcement sent shares of Maytag soaring by
  more than 7. What Wall Street liked is that
  Maytag is finally moving its production to a low
  cost country....

11
Corporate Counterattack

• Number of Decertification Elections
• 1969 293
• 1975 516
• 1983 922
• Number of Labor Violations
• 1970 10,000
• 1975 16,000
• 1982 32,000
• Number Fired for Union Activity
• 1970 8,000
• 1975 11,000
• 1982 18,000

12
Social Movement Unionism

• 1. Organize from the bottom up
• 2. Rely on Corporate Campaigns
• 3. Willing to look beyond routine NLRB path to
  recognition
• 4. Strong Orientation to Social Justice
• 5. Creative and Innovative in Style
• 6. Self-Expanding Sees actions as part of a
  long term process
• What might this mean in practice? You are trying
  to organize janitors