The Way I See It: Perspectives on the Labor Movement From the People in It
“Old timers know what it’s all about. Younger people don’t understand. They say someone’s taking my dues and not doing anything. The union can only do so much. You have to speak and not be spoken to. You have a voice. How to use it. Subdued. I try to teach them to use the same tactics management uses. A lot need to be educated on what it is to be in a union and what their rights are.” Union steward.
Instead, union reps went to worksites to settle one grievance or another about a pay rate, or a health and safety violation. You had a problem? You called the rep. Many reps called themselves “business agents” or BAs. No new organizing. We’ve got plenty of members. No political action. We’ve got the money to write checks to the Democrats. But the world got bigger, the corporations richer, the Republicans stronger. And suddenly unions realized they weren’t playing with a full deck.
“The goals of the union? To service members. To see that we win very good contracts to keep up with wages and problems. OSHA, benefits, wages at each worksite. . . . Our local and unions work hard for the membership. If there wasn’t a union to speak up for you, you wouldn’t have a voice. Non union people don’t have a union. Management just acts those ways. The union can file a grievance. That added voice is like having your private attorney when you need one. People are not always treated fairly. . . . It shouldn’t be that way. It shouldn’t always be punitive. Union is about peoples’ rights.” Union steward.
PATCO busted. P-9 busted. Eastern Airlines busted. Battles on all fronts where battles had not been waged for an entire generation. Unions had grown fat and lazy. In the news and in the flesh, workers saw only flabby, cigar-chomping, suited white men called “union officials” and “business agents” driving away in Lincolns and Caddies, off to the golf course or the club. You couldn’t tell them from those corporate executives they were supposed to combat. This was the leadership. Then there is the rank-and-file–the membership. Rank-and-file is a military term we grew ashamed to use when we couldn’t even stand in formation as we got slaughtered during the 80’s.
“We’ve been lied to so many times. They think–members–think the union is a big farce. They don’t attend meetings. Nothing is accomplished. Too many reps come in the front door. They talk to management and we never see them on the floor. When we see a rep talk to management and ignore members, that’s the idea that comes through–that the company owns the union. We don’t win many grievances. We have valid grievances and don’t win. Most of the time the union agrees with the company and people feel they’re being screwed. . . . Most members want to be treated respectfully–like union members–brothers and sisters working together. But we don’t have anyone backing us.” Union steward.
Or so I thought, even from the inside where we can see it up close. But we aren’t allowed to say such things. Then I started taking a closer look at myself–a young woman–and at my co-workers, many of them under 40, white, black, latino, men and women, many from the membership. We are not those men. We are the new blood, the hope, the energy and the spirit. The passion. The essence of change. Even when the romantic view wears off, when I can no longer work the 12-hour days and back down to 8 or 10, or when I can only turn out 10 people for a rally instead of 100, I can still say, fortified with something better–cynicism–that I am more DESPERATE than those old men ever were, and that makes my commitment truer, deeper.