The Books on Labor Series: A Country that Works by Andy Stern
By AndrewWilliams • Aug 14th, 2008 • Category: U.S. Politics and IssuesIn preparation for my graduate studies, focusing on labor, economic, and social histories, I am in the process of reading three recent books on the current state of the labor movement, its history, and its future: A Country that Works by SEIU chair Andy Stern, State of the Unions by St. Louis labor journalist Phil Dine, and Solidarity Divided by Industrial Relations professor Fernando Gaspasin and longtime labor organizer and DSA activist Bill Fletcher. The first of these reviews will be of the book by Stern, probably the most visible and important labor leader in the United States today.
Andy Stern didn’t come up in a working class family, but he has gone out of his way to understand them throughout a life that has been marked by family tragedy (his youngest daughter died young of a spinal defect) and unpopular but timely beliefs among certain segments of the labor establishment. He is undeniably a man of immense character. Stern understands that while he has been very successful in steering the SEIU towards being the model for labor organizing in the United States, he has his detractors, both on the anti-union right and the left (especially among AFL-CIO status quo supporters and some militants). He tries to engage all sides in his vision of the future not just for labor, but for all working people. Stern offers an agenda for working people that he lays out at the end: a tax structure that fairly taxes wealth while rewarding work, a few visions for universal health care including Medicare for all as well as offering the plans now open to Congress and the military to all, proper funding for schools and educational technology, and so on. The real provocative parts of the book come in the middle, when he discusses why he took the SEIU out of the AFL-CIO.
His plan began the year before the Change to Win founding, when at the 2004 SEIU convention in San Francisco, he gave the AFL-CIO, who he believed had become disorganized, too concerned with party politics, and not committed to a coherent vision, an ultimatum: change, or see something else built in the coming years. AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, a former SEIU chief himself, was sympathetic but had his hands tied by the other constituent groups who were strongly tied to the status quo, fearing, as Stern believes, new accountability standards and a loss of influence within the high-money, high-stakes game of party politics. To me, the defining example of the negative direction of the AFL-CIO at this point comes through a story Stern relates about United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard. He responded to the proposed agenda to grow labor’s numbers, not simply its PAC money as many unions had become content with doing, by lamenting that USW was having trouble organizing, of all things, nurses. Stern believes this sort of incoherent focus on money over a focused agenda for organizing as many people under good contracts as possible eventually led the CtW members out of the AFL-CIO to form an organization that would organize the professions each union knew best (the SEIU focuses on health care, janitors, etc; UFCW on meatpacking and food processing, and so on) and take the lion’s share of dues and put them towards organizing action. It was a strategy that has, so far, paid off. The SEIU continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and the constituent CtW unions have a new life.
Stern’s party-politics skepticism is well-founded. He relates many of his experiences in dealing with the Democratic Party in particular and how it takes labor for granted, often working against it while begging for unions to fill campaign coffers. The “New Democrat” period, from the 1988 Presidential loss to the present, has epitomized this, as big time Democratic donors have often been union busting businesspeople who are friends with party bosses (particularly the Clintons). To prove the independence of his organization, Stern has gone as far as to donate to both major parties, and has attempted to meet with as many leaders as possible, friend and foe, to discuss the interests of working people in this country as well as the world over.
I was particularly happy that Stern proposed greater international cooperation. It is not enough to simply fight trade agreements and put infinite trust in the government to solve the trade issues that undermine industry and communities in this country, all while exploiting cheap labor pools around the world. Stern has a great mind for the challenges of the globalized economy and the challenges it poses to labor and human rights interests. Instead of simply trapping jobs in this country, we should work to bring up the living standards of the countries which are ripe for outsourcing. There needs to be an enforceable standard for basic living wages the world over. Tax shelters must be shut off. Consumers must know the cost of convenience in many cases.
I can see how some socialists would not approve of Stern’s actions in building the SEIU. Sometimes he promises not to strike in return for being allowed to organize. He works with seemingly inhospitable interests. He has divided labor during a time when many think we need a strong united front. In my opinion, this overlooks the extreme necessity of the times we live in. We must be focused on making any gains possible. We currently live in an age where millions of jobs are seconds away from being sent away forever, destroying communities. Has labor done its job to prevent this? I agree with Stern that more money should have been put towards the unions themselves and not blind faith in the Democrats. It is clear that they are not always the allies we need. Of course, labor has not always been the victim in my opinion either. Individual unions have sacrificed quality of service to growth at times. The expertise that a union has in an area should be built upon. As Stern agrees, we don’t need steel getting into health care, we have others for that. Labor must be focused and resilient to face its present challenges.
Next time: State of the Unions by Phil Dine, a book discussing recent setbacks in labor and possible ways to turn it around while improving our economy.
Print This Post
AndrewWilliams is a graduate of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, where he was involved with the Green Party of North Carolina. He currently works full time in Burlington, NC and volunteers part-time with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee union (AFL-CIO). He plans on starting grad school next year. This is his first foray into journalism.
Email this author | All posts by AndrewWilliams
Rather than taking the product of Stern’s slick PR department (you don’t really think he wrote the book himself do you?) as truth, you should check out how Stern is destroying democracy in SEIU and selling out members’ interests to curry favor with big business. That’s why the corporate press loves Stern. A few places to start:
www.seiuvoice.org
www.reformseiu.org
www.democracy4seiu.org
www.calnurses.org/seiu-watch/
www.uniondemocracy.org
www.labornotes.org
www.bensonsudblog.blogspot.com
I have to agree with Jimmy, just look at the way the SEIU treated the Teacher’s Union down in Puerto Rico. The whole union movenment in America needs to be realigned and reshaped, not just expanded.
This leads me to the next book I’ll be reviewing: what leverage does labor even hold in today’s economy, be they the SEIU or a union focused more on politics like most AFL-CIOers or more militant groups who want to hold the line that was seen in past union power movements? In a country where the labor laws are so brutally skewed in favor of management and in a world where there are so many ways to outsource and offshore to escape a union contract, and with the coming backlash against the EFCA (It’s already begun in my state, the state GOP has been editorializing in local papers against it) by moneyed interests who have controlled the mainstream debate (the perspective that the majority of people are likely getting at this point), what can possibly be done at this moment to improve the condictions of working people? For reform of labor laws to come, unions can’t just reform themselves along lines as defined for them by the unions themselves.
I ask you to consider the following: could, say, the tactics of the Cal Nurses gain the support of the majority of Americans at this point? Also, what is better at this time under current labor laws: that more people become unionized and likely see at least some sort of improvement in their situation over their previous unorganized state, or that the labor movement retreats from the primacy of the needs of the average worker and puts its energies first into attempting the same reforms that have been thrown around by militants for years now?
Keep in mind, I’m coming at this as someone who grew up in a state with 2% unionization and a ban on collective bargaining by public employees. My tendencies are almost always to mitigate the encroachment of the right before expanding the fight. You can’t be a leftist in the south without constantly being on the defensive, unless you want to slide into irrelevancy like most socialist groups in the region (ex: despite the death of the truck industry b/c of fuel prices and the overwhelming ability to outsource more jobs to exploited countries, some socialist groups in NC continue to fight a recent union contract with Daimler subsidiary Freightliner). I am a reformist, not a revolutionary, but I more than welcome the debate on which tactics for union strength are best in America today given the precarious state of labor rights and the negative effects of accumulated capital power and globalization. I would think one point Stern’s book made clear could be agreed on: you can’t have the same organizing tactics in every industry. There are definite physical characteristics and possibilities for mining vs. nursing vs. manufacturing.
The next book I am reviewing comes from a mainstream journalist who has covered the competing sides of the union movement. Here are some questions he addresses to consider until then: how do unions present themselves to the masses these days? What do recent decisions like Kentucky River and events like the Sago mine say about the current power of labor over laws that affect it?
Andrew says “I am a reformist, not a revolutionary.” What does that mean in practice? I ask only because I think many people on the Left are confused as to the meaning of those two terms.
The SEIU is sponsoring not only the Democratic National Convention, but the Republican National Convention. Hard to believe, but true. See for yourself:http://www.msp2008.com/donors
“Andrew says “I am a reformist, not a revolutionary.” What does that mean in practice? I ask only because I think many people on the Left are confused as to the meaning of those two terms.”
For me to fully explain what I mean by this would take an entire article. I don’t identify as a Marxist at all (once again, that would take much more than this space to explain in any fair sense). My path towards understanding what I believe in is probably very unorthodox compared to most of YDS since I come from a farm state which has constantly had about 2% unionization (and with little chance of rising). I believe in equality and democracy but understand that to better achieve that result, tactics have to be adopted to the population and its peculiarities. In my case, the tools for achieving certain ends are vastly different than what is available in, say, New York or California or even Maryland or Ohio. I believe that the most realistic way to gain the small victories that will lead to greater equality and the extension of true democracy will come not out of gradual reform, not of some overly idealistic triumph of ideology. I’m going to wrap this up before I say too much, I should really form this into an article.
[…] deals between labor and capital is what I found so problematic in Andrew Holt Williams’ review of A Country that Works. Socialists understand that union members are more militant and committed to organized labor as a […]