The American Prospect publishes two of our nation’s most thoughtful commentators: Harold Meyerson and Robert Kuttner. They represent liberalism at its best; they are on the side of working people, and they aim for a fair and just society. Nothing “neo” about them. You might want to sign up for their “On Tap” bulletins.
Here is Harold Meyerson, with news about the union that is reviving the strike as a way to gain better wages and hours.
Meyerson on TAP
The Little Union That’s Reviving the Strike
The roll call of unions that have actually changed the trajectory of American labor is relatively short: the United Auto Workers, the Mine Workers, and other CIO unions in the 1930s and ’40s, as factory workers organized; AFSCME and the American Federation of Teachers in the 1960s and ’70s, as unions took hold in the public sector.
Today, a much smaller union, punching way above its weight, is vying to join that list. After 40 years in a desert of union decline, workers’ ultimate weapon to win what’s rightly theirs—the strike—looks to be coming back, a long-overdue development that I discuss and analyze in some detail in my article on the Prospect website today. In that piece, I note that 2021 is beginning to look like 1919 and 1946, the years in which America experienced its greatest number of strikes. To be sure, today, with the private-sector rate of unionization reduced to less than 7 percent, most of the striking is individual rather than collective: employees refusing to return to their old poor-paying no-benefit jobs, creating a worker shortage that has compelled such anti-union behemoths as Amazon and Walmart to raise their employees’ wages. In tandem with this new form of individualized collective bargaining (ours is a time that requires oxymorons), unions themselves are beginning to strike, a phenomenon not seen ever since Ronald Reagan busted the air traffic controllers union when it went on strike in 1981.
And the union leading the charge today is the BCTGM, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union, founded in the same year as the American Federation of Labor: 1886.
You’re forgiven if you haven’t heard of the BCTGM, but they’re the folks who put breakfast on your table, bread in your sandwich, and candy in your kids’ time-to-see-the-dentist mouths. This year, though, they’re also the folks who are restoring a needed level of strategic militance to American labor. In July, protesting the crazy hours they were compelled to work (in some cases, up to 84 hours a week), their members struck a Frito-Lay plant in Topeka. The following month, members struck five Nabisco factories across the nation, also to protest the plethora of hours and the dearth of benefits. They’ve done a bang-up job of pressuring those corporations to grant their workers’ demands, by both striking and publicizing the absurd schedules and conditions their members were compelled to endure.
Now, this week, BCTGM members have struck every Kellogg factory in the United States, after negotiations over schedules and benefits had produced no results. Kellogg workers have documented how they’ve been compelled to work straight through the weekend, and how some have had to work 12-to-16-hour days to keep turning out those Frosted Flakes.
Though I’ve been writing about unions for the past 40 or so years, this is the first time I’ve written anything about the BCTGM. I can tell you that since this spring, the union has had a new president, Anthony Shelton, but I can do no more than infer that this may have something to do with the union now having to produce more picket signs.
But I do know that this outburst of militance has a lot to do with the same factors that produced the strike waves of 1919 and 1946. Those were the years following the two world wars, of course, when the words “front line” still meant exposure to deadly fire. Today, as the pandemic (we hope) recedes, it refers to workers who had to show up every workday and risk contracting a potentially fatal virus. In all three cases, those workers were hailed as heroes, and in all three cases, most of the jobs to which they either returned or continued to hold offered pay and working conditions that were anything but heroic.
So—strikes then and strikes now. And this time around, with the bakers leading the way.
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
The 1960s scared the crap out of the wealth protectors. The civil rights, women’s, anti-war, and environmental movements, and the rise of public-sector unions all posed a threat to corporate dominance. They organized and adopted a multi-faceted strategy, with the old trusted strategy of divisiveness in the lead. But they also invested in ideas and bi-partisan cash. Their triumph was the Democratic Leadership Council. Centrist Democrats became Republican-lite. Maybe, just maybe, we might turn a corner.
The key word in your concluding sentence is ‘we’.
Thanks for sharing this, Diane! This is teachers teaching other workers what they need to be doing. We desperately need a major revival of the union movement in this country.
My school district in New York went on strike early October in the 1970s. We were out for about eight weeks. At the time it was the longest school district strike in the state. Eight local teachers went to jail for a weekend as we were in violation of the Taylor Law. The law provides for mediation and binding arbitration to give voice to unions, but work stoppages are made punishable with fines and jail time. I was fined two days pay for every day on strike. I didn’t see a paycheck until the end of February. It was for $9.32. Both AFT and NYSUT were fierce at that time, and they were both hands on and supportive. BTW, Randi Weingarten’s mother, who taught 3rd grade, was one of our striking teachers.
Strikes in school districts in the 1970s were common. When we went back to work, we would get up to picket with other school districts in the county that were in a labor dispute. We would go to another school district to picket at the end of the day as well. This went on for several years until Reagan put a damper on the teacher labor movement when he fired all the air traffic controllers.
My school district had a strike in the early 1980s. We picketed outside of our individual schools. Fortunately the weather was good and we were on strike for less than a week. It was really strange picketing in front of the school as the scabs were bussed in to take our place. Surprisingly, the parents were mostly on the teachers’ side or at least they were not openly hostile to the strike. One veteran teacher at my school crossed the picket line and refused to support the strike. There were no repercussions against this “rat,” he got the raise and all the benefits we fought for. Oh well, the man has departed this earth, I should not be bitter that he betrayed his fellow teachers at this juncture in time.
I got asked by a nearby district to be a scab. I declined not only because I agreed with the teachers but because as a substitute teacher( at the time) in my own district nextdoor, I didn’t need the reputation as a scab. The person who called understood perfectly and, I suspect, had had several conversations along the same lines. The contract was agreed on before the teachers went on strike.
“After 40 years in a desert of union decline…….” end quote. I would amend that statement with: after decades of a war on unions and the intentional and organized destruction of unions. The power elite in this country is rabidly anti-union and will do everything and anything to cripple and destroy unions. The GOP is 100% anti-union while the Democrats (especially corporate Democrats) give lip service to unions but do little or nothing to actually bolster unions. We need pro union legislation and more pro union legislators like AOC and Bernie.
Unions are being revived as more people are realizing that collective bargaining works, and all the power should not be in the hands of management. Kaiser Permanente nurses and John Deere employees are threatening to walk out along with some unions in Hollywood.https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/576456-more-than-100k-workers-threaten-strikes-as-unions-flex-muscles
nicely caught: we often use passive language with union membership, using words which suggest that people simply choose not to join unions, but we SHOULD be alternately using direct, accusatory language against those who foment “war on unions” and who push the intentional destruction of unions.
“Unions are being revived…” — It will be interesting to see how much of this new activism will be directed against health measures like vaccines and masks!
Gotta revive union songs.
https://genius.com/Woody-guthrie-im-gonna-join-that-one-big-union-you-gotta-go-down-and-join-the-union-lyrics
I’m gonna join that one big union
I’m gonna join it by myself
Don’t want nobody to join it for me
I’m gonna join the one big union by myself
And if that road gets rough and rocky
And the hills get steep and high
We will sing as we go marching
And we’ll win the one big union by-and-by
You gotta join that one big union
You gotta join it by yourself
Everybody here will join it with you
You gotta join that one big union by yourself
Brothers gotta join that one big union
Brothers gotta join it by hisself
Everybody here will join it with him
Brothers join that one big union by hisself
Sisters gotta join that one big union
Sisters gotta join it by yourself
Everybody here will join it with her
Sisters gotta join that one big union by herself
And if that road gets rough and rocky
And the hills get steep and high
We will sing as we go marching
And we’ll win the one big union by-and-by
Thanks, Arthur. I posted Pete Seeger singing “Union Maid,” above, but the post is in moderation.
Yes, indeed. Power to the people, right on! The best union CD I know of is “Coal Mining Women,” with several songs by the late Hazel Dickens. (Note: “Women” not “Woman”) Best union movie I know of is “Matewan”, with Hazel in a singing role. Both are available online and on YouTube.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declared in their 1986 Pastoral Letter “Economic Justice for All” that the right of workers to organize in labor unions is a constitutional First Amendment right to free association and free assembly. America’s mainstream Christian, Jewish, and other churches have taken strong official stances in support of union organizing and collective bargaining as a basic human and civil right and as the most needed tool for rebuilding America’s Middle Class and restoring economic equality. Here’s what America’s churches say:
“Governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labor unions. The repeated calls issued within the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers’ associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored today even more than in the past.”
— POPE BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical “Caritas in Veritate,” 2009
“[The unions’] task is to defend the existential interests of workers in all sectors where their rights are concerned. The experience of history teaches that organizations of this type are an indispensable element of social life, especially in modern industrialized societies. [Unions] are indeed a mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice, for the just rights of working people in accordance with their individual professions.”
— POPE JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical “On Human Work,” 1981
Other denominations, Christian and Jewish alike, have taken official positions supporting unions. Here are some examples:
“We reaffirm our position that workers have the right to organize by a free and democratic vote of the workers involved.”
— AMERICAN BAPTIST CHURCHES in the U.S.A. Resolution, 1981
“Jewish leaders, along with our Catholic and Protestant counterparts, have always supported the labor movement and the rights of employees to form unions for the purpose of engaging in collective bargaining and attaining fairness in the workplace. We believe that the permanent replacement of striking workers upsets the balance of power needed for collective bargaining, destroys the dignity of working people and undermines the democratic values of this nation.”
— CENTRAL CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RABBIS, Preamble to the Workplace Fairness Resolution, adopted at the 104th Annual Convention, June 1993
“We believe in the right of laboring men to organize for protection against unjust conditions and to secure a more adequate share of the fruits of the toil.”
— DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, Resolution on the Church and Labor, 1938
“Free collective bargaining has proved its values in our free society whenever the parties engaged in collective bargaining have acted in good faith to reach equitable and moral solutions of problems dealing with wages and working conditions.”
— CHRISTIAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH,Discipline doctrine, adopted 1982
“The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America commits itself to advocacy with corporations, businesses, congregations and church-related institutions to protect the rights of workers, support the collective bargaining process, and protect the right to strike.”
— EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, Resolution adopted at Churchwide Assembly, 1991
“Justice demands that social institutions guarantee all persons the opportunity to participate actively in economic decision making that affects them. All workers — including undocumented, migrant and farm workers — have the right to choose to organize for the purposes of collective bargaining.”
— PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH U.S.A, “Principles of Vocation and Work,” adopted at General Assembly, 1995
“The Unitarian Universalist Association urges its member congregations and individual Unitarian Universalists in the United States… to work specifically in favor of mechanisms such as: reform of labor legislation and employment standards to provide greater protection for workers, including the right to organize and bargain collectively, protection from unsafe working conditions and protections from unjust dismissal.”
— UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST ASSOCIATION OF CONGREGATIONS, adopted at General Assembly, 1997
“The 21st General Synod reaffirms the heritage of the United Church of Christ as an advocate for democratic, participatory and inclusive economic policies in both public and private sectors, including … the responsibility of workers to organize unions for collective bargaining with employers regarding wages, benefits and working conditions, and to participate in efforts further to democratize, reform and expand the labor movement domestically and abroad.”
— UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, “Resolution Affirming Democratic Principles in an Emerging Global Economy,” adopted at 21st General Synod, 1997
Amen to all this!!!
Thank you for this, but a search online–for example “evangelicals and unions”–will show that some faith groups believe (or have been commanded to believe) just the opposite.
Not for nothing , what happened to the Pro Act. That answer is not really needed.
Although the media is making a lot of noise about these strikes as part of a narrative of imaginary worker shortages. Compared to the post WW2 years these strikes are infinitesimally smaller in size and number. Strangely even the labor media has neglected to mention the longest strike in America now going on for over 5 1/2 years . 1800 members of the IBEW in NYC striking against Charter / Spectrum formerly Time Warner Cable .
Without Federal labor law reform all it takes is an intransigent employer to break a union. As Kurt Anderson documents; a few years before Reagan the Washington Post led the way breaking up the powerful Pressman’s Union. They tried to enlist the NY Times to join them, the Times refused. If a labor union had succeeded in doing that, they would be charged with multiple violations of Taft Harley and Landrum Griffen.
So Reagan can rot in hell but the demise of labor was set in stone long before him. As I sit here hearing the corporate media’s incessant nonsense about worker shortages , wages and inflation. This morning we had Steve Rattner (a crook banned from trading who writes in the NYTimes and appears on Morning Joe )asserting that low wage workers are staying out of the labor force because they were able to squirrel away stimulus money. You don’t have to be right or bright to be an economist. If those low wage workers had that much financial skill , they would not be low wage workers.
I think I remember seeing this movie before.
Hartley