Our summer issue this year is all over the waterfront from the United States to Canada to Greece and beyond, as well as on the waterfront itself when you read the excellent review on Herb Mills’ Presente.
Diving in, we start with our long-time contributors ben Asher and Bat Sarah, who continue to enlighten and wrestle with the relationship between moral spirituality and saving democracy, while Professor Ed Martin comes at as pointedly as he looks at the way late-stage capitalism creates a huge precarious and informal economy of peril for workers. Mary Rowles, a seasoned communicator, union official and careful observer, shares her experience for several months teacingh English to immigrants in Greece and in doing so puts us in their place and offers an intimate view of the migrant experience and future. Ernie Dumas has long been considered the dean of political reporters in Arkansas, while contributing insights and amazing historical memory from that vantage point to sundry US publications, and takes the opportunity of reflecting on former Senator David Pryor’s death to Zelig-like examine much of our shared local and national political history.
Unions are in the news these days, both popular and militant. Ken Reiman does credit to the notion of labor centrality in our economy and public life with a look at how Teamster reform president Ron Carey almost thirty years ago set American on notice with his detailed exposition of the great 1997 Teamsters’ strike at United Parcel Service. SEIU, the UAW, and today’s Teamsters are trying to seize the time today, just as Carey did then for a minute. Steve Early, a regular contributor, is back with a review that links labor and climate, where he has both a journalistic and personal interest living in Richmond in the shadow of the giant Chevron refinery. I enjoyed the sidebar fact that the two editors, were former ACORN organizer, Jeff Ordower, and the director of an ACORN Oral History project, Lindsay Zafir, in the small world in which we all work and live. My head snapped back at the title: Power Lines. I remember fondly and well my friend and comrade Paul Wellstone’s book, Powerlines, from his period as something of a community organizer / academic before his career as Minnesota’s Senator. As I mentioned, esteemed ILWU scholar and historian Robert Cherny, whose book on Harry Bridges we reviewed recently, shares a review of ILWU activist, steward, and scholar Herb Mills and his historical novel which details one of the ILWU’s strikes and successes on the waterfront.
Phil Mattera takes a look back at his experience tracking corporate crimes and penalties, finding a trillion dollars has been paid in the last decade by corporate scofflaws, many of them repeat offenders. Drummond Pike finds hope, even if little expectation, that a new economic theory of “limitarianism” could narrow the wealth divide. By the way, James Mumm’s review this issue also looks at recent contributions in progressive economics, something we should all salute. Gregory Squires reminds us that Fathers’ Day is personal, not just another notation on the calendar. Speaking of personal and professional, John Anderson shares his memories of great ACORN conventions and his excitement at the coming 20th anniversary convention for ACORN Canada, which coincidentally is happening on Fathers’ Day, as my family has frequently reminded me. In Backstory, I scratch my head looking for what the future augurs from the Starbucks bargaining and the UAW’s assault on Southern auto plants.
There’s plenty in this issue to keep your feet dry when you’re not at the beach this summer and to keep your brain buzzing.
Excerpt From
Ron Carey and the Teamsters: How a UPS Driver Became the Greatest Union Reformer of the Twentieth Century by Putting Members First - by Ken Reiman
On Sunday, August 3, both sides met at Wells’s office again to try to avert a strike. “We were at the mediator’s office all day,” remembered Wilson. “There was some optimism to reach a deal. Then it just didn’t come together. UPS wanted some concessions, but Ron was not in a concessionary mood.”
Read more: EXCERPT - Labor Nationalism, Ron Carey, and the Teamsters UPS Strike in 1997
Advocates: Partners or Adversaries?
Review of Power Lines: Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement, edited by Jeff Ordower and Lindsay Zafir (The New Press, 2024)
On a Tuesday night in May, a familiar scene played out in the city council chambers of Richmond, California. For the last 20 years, since members of the anti-Chevron Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) first got elected to the council, any measure before that body affecting the city’s largest employer and business taxpayer has been hotly debated.
Review of Presente: A Dockworker Story (Brooklyn: Hard Ball Press, 2023).
Herb Mills, the author of Presente: A Dockworker Story, was a longtime member and officer of ILWU Local 10, the longshore local for the San Francisco Bay area. The ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) has always stood on the Left of the US labor movement and has always had a strong commitment to social justice, both in the US and elsewhere in the world. One of the ILWU's Ten Guiding Principles states, in part, "Workers are workers the world over," and the ILWU has acted on that principle. In 1936, when Italy invaded Ethiopia, ILWU members refused to load scrap iron for Italy. Two years later, when Japan had invaded China, ILWU members refused to load scrap iron to Japan. In 1978, ILWU members refused to load munitions for the Pinochet regime in Chile.
Apologies are in order in advance when I say that perhaps unions are now facing both the best of times and worst of times.
The best over recent years were very good. A win against Amazon, finally, was notched by the Amazon Labor Union. Workers United, SEIU, won over 400 NLRB certification elections and has entered negotiations, finally, with Starbucks over a first collective bargaining agreement several years after the first victory. The newly invigorated United Auto Workers won a certification election in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at Volkswagen, finally, the first major win against a foreign automaker and the first in the South in decades. In recent years, new leadership has now come to major unions like the Teamsters, UAW, and SEIU, which may be nimbler in taking advantage of the moment. Labor activists are stirring with new energy as evidenced by record crowds at the Labor Notes conference in Chicago. Wages are rising and the job market, especially in the United States is robust, which, although not as tight as during the pandemic, is an opportunity for many workers and their unions to lock in gains. The NLRB has been more aggressive and more productive in pushing forward workers’ rights than any organizer has seen in decades. The American people in survey after survey are showing more love for unions and ranking their popularity over 60%, finally, the highest in years!
That’s the good news, but there’s also a lot of rain during these sunny days. The Amazon Labor Union also lost several elections, has been plagued by internal conflict and dissent, and just announced that they had affiliated with the Teamsters in hopes of survival and more support towards a first contract. The UAW won one, and then lost one at Mercedes in Alabama, despite filing heavy and hoping to see momentum carry it forward. Workers United is at the table with Starbucks, but any expectations for an eventual contract have to be tempered with a recognition that 400 or 450 stores organized is still the tail wagging the dog when there are 9000 in the USA. SEIU, like the AFL-CIO, has new leadership, but has adopted the same goal of one-million new members of a decade, which essentially guarantees that the union density in its burgeoning service sector industries will fall, rather than increase at only 100,000 new members gained per year. The NLRB rises and falls with the presidential elections, so it’s important to get out and vote, since there is no sure thing in those ballot boxes either.
Simply put, when we’re talking about organizing workers and unions, there’s never a sure thing or an easy road to follow. Momentum certainly gets a lot of attention in politics and sports to explain phenomena that surprise and surpass expectations. In organizing, we do everything we can to build a sense of a happening or momentum in going forward from initial organizing committees to elections. It is vitally important, but that is not what wins elections. Just like in sports, you can’t win with just a good offense, you also need a good defense to go with it to win. Without great person-to-person home visits and inoculation, it is difficult for workers to sustain momentum against a fierce and concentrated company campaign, whether they are operating in your face or behind the scenes. UAW’s Sean Fain once again showed the power of his leadership after his union’s recent loss in Alabama. He made no excuses, and he was clear that lessons were learned. One critical lesson was that momentum was not enough to win. Cards signed on QR codes are not as solid as those gained through the efforts of fellow workers or organizers going hard on preparation to offset the expected company campaign.
The glass half full is also the glass half empty. Experienced organizers know that workers often go two steps forward and one step back; that actions trigger reactions. We don’t always win, and we are always favored to lose, because the field of battle is uneven and the forces at play are never equal. No victory is every permanent, but neither is a defeat. The only thing we can ever guarantee workers is the right to fight, whether in good times or bad times. Either way, it’s not magic or momentum, but hard work with people, and peoples deep and collective commitments that allow us to come together and succeed.