The union song , above, by Florence Reese, underscores the complete divide many of us grew up with between workers and their labor unions and the bosses. Like many things I learned on my parents’ knees, this model of class struggle may be subject to revision. Some of you may know that, as total labor union membership and share of the workforce has dropped dramatically over the last many years, unions have developed competing labor federations: the AFL-CIO rooted in a long complex history and a newer federation Change to Win (CTW) .

Initially the differences between the AFL-CIO and CTW seemed to be about how to organize new workers. CTW unions, like the Teamsters, the Service Employees and Unite-Here wanted to devote more money and resources to organizing new members than the AFL was prepared to. As time has gone by however, it appears that Change to Win has changed in another way. They’ve abandoned the old paradigm of workers vs. bosses and changed. Will they win?

The Service Employees International Union (Andy Stern Pres.) and Unite-Here (Bruce Raynor & John Wilhelm, Co-Presidents) have embarked on a new era of labor-management relations. While their reasons for doing so are clear and understandable (to me at least) not everyone is clapping and there appear to be some very unpalatable outcomes.

In brief, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, (subscription required, sorry)

Two of the nation's largest labor unions have struck confidential agreements with large employers that give the companies the right to designate which of their locations, and how many workers, the unions can seek to organize.
The agreements are raising questions about union transparency and workers' rights. A summary document put together by the unions says it is critical to the success of the partnership "that we honor the confidentiality and not publicly disclose the existence of these agreements." That includes not disclosing them to union members. [emphasis added by me]

[The full WSJ article has been reposted here by SEIU Voice a group opposed to Andy Stern’s leadership and to some of the outcomes of the secret deals.]

The secret deals show a new level of cooperation between unions and employers:

The unions gave up the right to strike and to post derogatory language about the companies on bulletin boards. With Compass.[one of the employers], the unions agreed to these restrictions "anywhere in the world." In exchange, the companies agree not to oppose union organizing at the designated locations.

But limits are also set. "Local unions are not free [emphasis added by me, again] to engage in organizing activities at any Compass or Sodexho locations unless the sites have been designated," says the confidential summary.

My view: What has motivated Change to Win to make these deals with management is desperation. They’ve concluded they cannot grow their unions under the current system. Union organizing is expensive. When bosses oppose the union, they can and do bring huge pressures on their workers to vote against union representation. The National Labor Relations Board, which runs representation elections, has built up a huge body of anti-union labor law. (For a good introduction to the problems posed by Mr. Bush's anti-Labor Dept and anti-union NLRB try American Rights At Work a union oriented research web site.)As a result, unions mostly lose representation elections. It will take a strongly pro-labor Congress and President to undo this. But Change to Win is holding its breathe. Are they right?

NB: I asked Change To Win, Unite-Here and SEIU for comments for this post. So far, no response. I do hope they are not just wishing this would "softly and suddenly vanish away," because it won't.. Representatives of SEIU & Unite-Here replied in detail. Change To Win rep said it had no comment. See my next post for comments.

The advantages and difficulties of the secret deals have created a huge rift in the Service Employees International Union between Mr. Stern and Sal Rosselli leader of its West Coast health care workers. For an excellent, sympathetic account of this dispute try “Labor’s Love Lost" a New Republic article by Bradford Plumer. (See also this San Francisco Bay Guardian story. One outcome of this has been attempts by Mr. Stern to seize control of the dissident locals and protests against his moves by 100 leftist intellectuals many of whom are leftist household names. (pdf, sorry) who wrote Mr. Stern the “Dear Andy” letter, below.

We are writing to you as journalists, authors, political activists, and educators who are committed to organized labor because of its important role in social justice struggles in the U.S. Some of us have longstanding ties to SEIU and have done research, writing, or labor education work involving its members, organizers, and local leaders. Those of us who deal with graduate students or undergraduates have encouraged younger people to pursue internships or full-time job opportunities with SEIU and other Change To Win or AFL-CIO unions. A number of us belong to unions ourselves. Many of us have been part of community-labor coalitions or campus-based groups like Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice (when it was still active) because we support organizing and bargaining by janitors, cafeteria workers, and other service sector employees.

We are writing to express our deep concern about SEIU's threatened trusteeship over its third largest local, United Healthcare Workers (UHW). We believe that there must always be room within organized labor for legitimate and principled dissent, if our movement is to survive and grow.

Putting UHW under trusteeship would send a very troubling message and be viewed, by many, as a sign that internal democracy is not valued or tolerated within SEIU. In our view, this would have negative consequences for the workers directly affected, the SEIU itself, and the labor movement as a whole. We strongly urge you to avoid such a tragedy.

The advantage of the Change to Win secret-deal Strategy is that unions get bigger. The disadvantages are that union and worker democracy are discarded, unprincipled secret deals can be imposed by management and
union leadership, those employees not designated for organizing are effectively excluded from unions. For myself, I am concerned that what we may have here is a change to lose.

(Caveat, I have some family and personal ties to and affection for the Change To Win several unions and to some of their employees and leaders.)

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