Workers at the General Motors die-making
plant in Flint, Michigan occupied their factory in late December 1936. Previous United Auto Workers’ efforts to
organize GM employees in Flint had faced considerable opposition from the company and
local authorities. Seeing an opportunity
in a strike at the GM Fisher Body plant in Cleveland, one of only two that made
body parts for GM cars, the UAW leadership decided to strike the second Fisher
facility in Flint. Rather than picketing
outside and permitting management to keep control of the plant, the workers
occupied the inside of the factory to halt production. Workers at a Chevrolet plant across town soon
followed suit.
The Flint sit-down action was a model of
worker self-management. The strikers in
the factories adopted consensus-based governance. Union support committees made sure the
strikers received food and other needed supplies while representatives chosen
by their fellow workers at each plant participated in negotiations with GM
management and Flint officials.
The strike lasted six weeks before General
Motors agreed to negotiate with the UAW.
The sit-down strike became a popular union tactic against employer
abuses until the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ruled them illegal
in 1939. By this time, however, the Wagner Act
guaranteed workers the right to bargain collectively with their employers and
American labor unions grew in numbers and political power over the ensuing
decades.
By contrast the state of organized labor
after thirty years of conservative policies is depressing. Labor had been steadily losing ground well
before the watershed 1981 PATCO strike and President Reagan’s mass firing of striking
air traffic controllers. The downward
spiral only accelerated afterwards. Today,
unions represent just over 10% of the U.S. workforce compared to one third of
workers in the 1950s. So-called “right
to work” laws, business opposition to the proposed Employee Free Choice Act,
and Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-union policies in Wisconsin are just a few manifestations
of the increasingly hostile environment in which unions work. A concomitant problem is worker apathy.
Of course, there are a number of reasons
why today’s workers don’t seem interested in organizing. The most significant is that our working
class doesn’t even consider itself working class. Ask almost any American, and they’ll proudly
tell you they’re “middle class.” What
they don’t realize is that if workers in this country enjoy a decent standard
of living it is due to a century and a half of struggle by organized labor. These gains have become so deeply established
we take them for granted. The eight-hour
day, child labor laws, the minimum wage, and workplace safety regulations are
all fruits of labor activism.
Another reason for the decline of unionization
is lack of awareness. When I ask my community
college students if they know what a union is, maybe half the class will raise
their hands. Many of those students are quick
to tell me they’re opposed to the idea of organized labor. They’ll tell me they think unions are a bad
idea because they’ve heard their dues would go to line the pockets of union officials or, more insidiously, that benefits such as pensions and health
insurance cut into employers’ profit margins.
This last claim underlines the sad truth
of why many workers are hostile to unions: They identify too strongly with their
employers. In an era where downsizing
and offshoring have become alarmingly commonplace, Americans’ faith in the
capitalist system remains unshaken. No
one believes they will feel the effects of neoliberal policies that seek to
minimize labor costs. If corporations
can’t maximize profit by cutting wages or benefits in the U.S. they will send
jobs to places where they can. Notwithstanding,
the Horatio Alger story of the self-made individual remains an indelible part
of our social myth. We tell ourselves, “If I just work harder, my
neighbors’ bad times won’t happen to me,” ignoring the inexorable truth that
public issues lead to private troubles.
There are signs of life, however, and
perhaps even a strong chance for revival.
The Service Employees International Union has made headway among some of
our economy’s most vulnerable workers.
The Change to Win Federation, of which SEIU is part, offers a dynamic field
organizing model superior to the ossified bureaucracy of the AFL-CIO. And it may well be possible that we can see the
first glimmers of hope on an otherwise bleak landscape. The Flint Sit-Down serves as only one
reminder of the toil and sacrifices of generations of American workers to
achieve justice. The crucible of the
Great Depression produced the modern labor movement. Let us hope that the present economic crisis
leads to its resurgence.
© 2012 The Unassuming
Scholar
No comments:
Post a Comment