[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Fletcher on labour making Obama accountable (good luck)

[Patrick Bond]

Labor leader to Obama: "We have your back; we will not let you back up!"

Jan 09, 2009 By Bill Fletcher Jr.

Bill Fletcher Jr.'s ZSpace Page / ZSpace

The president of the Maryland and DC AFL-CIO, Fred Mason, had an idea.  
Following the electoral victory of Barack Obama he found himself 
perplexed by the enthusiastic, yet very unfocused, response of organized 
labor as to what should happen next.  While there was optimism in the 
air, what was missing was real content.  But what was especially missing 
was any sort of public display of both support AND concern by US workers 
for an incoming Administration at a point of significant economic and 
political crisis.

The traditional labor union response to incoming Administrations, 
particularly those viewed as favorable by and towards unions and 
workers, has tended to be side-bar meetings where an agenda is 
discussed.  These behind-the-scenes gatherings might have worked when 
unions were in a stronger position, but the diminishing power of workers 
and unions has resulted in such meetings having limited impact.

Mason, a long-time progressive, African American union activist and 
leader, started suggesting a different course of action.  Why not have 
unions hold or sponsor celebratory parades around the USA to make plain 
both their support for President-elect Obama, but also the important 
issues that the incoming Administration must address that have a direct 
impact on working people?

Mason received two responses to his suggestion, which is what makes this 
commentary a "good news/bad news" piece.  On the one hand, there were 
few takers on the idea of nation-wide rallies.  True to form, there were 
no explicit objections raised to the suggestion; instead, silence.  The 
failure to respond is illustrative of the crisis facing organized labor 
and the challenge to overcome it.  A movement that has over-relied on 
lobbying and small meetings has strayed light years from the notion that 
a movement is disruptive and challenging.  A social justice movement 
cannot always play by the rules, but has to call upon its members and 
supporters to make their voices heard-publicly and defiantly.  In fact, 
mobilizing our base(s) is often the only weapon that we have in order to 
win in the court of public opinion.

The silence that Mason encountered represented something far more 
dangerous than what at first glance could appear to be timidity.   
Rather, the silence was the result of years of defeat that have been 
rationalized away.  The decline of the union movement, largely the 
result of mega-economic factors (for example, globalization) combined 
with vicious political assaults (such as the mass firings of the air 
traffic controllers in 1981 by then President Ronald Reagan), is as well 
the result of internal problems that inhibit many leaders and members 
from understanding the global economic and political battlefield on 
which we operate.  Thus, when Mason suggested a nation-wide 
mobilization, the leaders' collective silence in effect said the 
following:  "If we can even mobilize our members-which many of us think 
that we cannot-we run the risk of antagonizing political and business 
leaders.  If we antagonize them, we will not be invited into meetings 
and we will be condemned to the wilderness."

What Mason recognizes, along with some other key union leaders and 
activists, is that the union movement was condemned to the wilderness a 
very long time ago by political and business leaders in the USA.  The 
problem that the union movement confronts is how to change the terms of 
the discussion and ensure that the voices of the voiceless are heard on 
a national stage and can actually shift reality.

Though Mason was unsuccessful with his first proposal-and here comes the 
good news-he won support for 'Plan B':  a union contingent in the 56th 
Presidential Inaugural Parade on January 20th under the banner 
"America's Workers United for Change."  What makes this contingent of 
more than 250 workers of particular interest in addition to it 
historical significance is that it brings together union leaders and 
activists from the AFL-CIO unions, Change to Win, the National Education 
Association, and constituency groups affiliated with the AFL-CIO.   In 
other words, despite a painful split that the union movement suffered in 
2005, Mason was able to bridge the divide and help representatives from 
both sides, plus the independent NEA, join together to convey critical 
messages to a nation-wide audience.

Workers, through their unions welcome the election of President Obama.

Workers, through their unions, are demanding immediate action by the 
incoming Administration to support an economy that works for all; 
equitable economic development through the creation of GOOD JOBS - GREEN 
JOBS; and creating GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS as a critical to enhancing the 
participation of  American workers in the global economy.

Workers, through their unions, will support the Administration in taking 
on the task  of reforming our healthcare system to provide healthcare 
for all.

Workers, through their unions and community allies must demonstrate that 
they will prepare to support the administration in meeting the great 
challenges ahead, but that they are unwilling to retreat in the face of 
the onslaught of employer attacks being felt, be they the auto loan 
issue-which is a de facto attack on auto workers-or the threats in state 
governments across the country to layoff workers and cut back on public 
services.

In this sense, this contingent is not the equivalent of a float in the 
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  While union members can look at this 
contingent with pride and see themselves after years of being treated as 
both disposable and invisible, this contingent is not mainly about 
making people feel good.  This contingent, more than anything else, is a 
public statement.  Just as the workers at Chicago's Republic Windows 
made a statement in their takeover of the plant when Bank of America 
initially cancelled loans and denied the workers the compensation they 
were due, this labor contingent is putting the incoming Administration 
on notice:  workers in the USA have had enough, and are not prepared to 
fall any deeper into despair; further retreat is simply not an option.

-------------------------------------------

Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of BlackCommentator.com, and 
a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies.  He is the 
immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum, and the co-author of 
Solidarity Divided, which analyzes the crisis in organized labor in the USA.

Also published in Black Commentator


From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3738