vi ('tkv r6 -fe)ve A S~LOOSEVELT UNIVERSITYo LABOR EDUCATION DIVISIONd 430 South Michigan Avenue * Chicago, Illinois 60605 * WAbash 2-3580 ... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(5 .,, THE AMERHClAN MLOMR McWEIENJT 1131 T SESE yuEzzTJI This collection of five articles gives a picture of what is happening today in the American labor movement and what is likely to happen in the 1970's. The five authors are among the most perceptive and brilliant analysts writing about unions today. We feel that these reprints will be very useful to those who want to know about the U. S. labor movement currently and what is likely to happen during the next decade. A BALANCE SHEET OF AMERICAN UNIONS )buff) ct^ Ben B. Seligman. SOME REFLECTIONS ON ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE NEW MILITANTS (ry) rbpPeter Henle- UNION PROSPECTS AND PROGRAMS FOR THE 1970's (belge) ryb Albert A. Blum. PROPHETS: LEFT AND RIGHT (FROM THE LABOR REVOLUTION) (3 :bY1 Gus Tyler. THE U.S. WORKER IN THE SEVENTIES ow) rcki. Sam Zagoria. Frank McCallister Director INSTITUTE OF INDUSTrIAL FM:deh ~ RELATIONS LIBRARY opeiu-391 MAR 1 1976 2/12/70 UNIVERSITY OP CALIFORNIA B I R K I L E Y A Balance Sheet of American Unions By SEN B. SELIGMAN PlOOICMA.iY, and seemingly with self-sacrifice, power, altruism, virtue and increasing frequency, observers of corruption. The same unerven nixture the labor scen pronotunce the Ie-: exists in the rest of soiety, and when cay of trade unionism in America. Paul everyone places the bitch goddess of Jacbs, who at the age of 18 crawled Success on a pedestal, so do the unions on his belly across train tracks to set Yet we have always insisted that un- up a picket line, later declared that ions be like Caesar's wife-above sus- collective bargaining was dead; Solo- picion. But when Calpurnia's friends mon Barkin, a longtime leading figure are dubious characters, she, too, can in the Textile WVorkers Union, agrees be besnirched. Therein lies the trag- that unionism is moribund; and B. J. edy of the unions, for while they ought Widick, a refugee from the UAW, be- to be institutions of change, like Cal- moans the lack of zeal that unions used purnia's friends they prefr ancient to display when he was young. habits of behavior. On the other hand, Gus Tyler, As- Labor's probleTms are a compound sistant President of the International of issues and questions stemming not Ladies Garment Workers Union, sees only from bargaining, organizing, and nothing but a bright future for trade politics, but above all from the kind of unions as they move to fulfill the ap- perspective they have on socal mat- peals of white collar workers for or- ters, What indeed should labor unions ganization, press for advances in social be like? How should they behave in or- legislation, meet the job demands ot ganizing and reaching the unorganized? Negroes more than halfway, and con- What appeals on political matters tinue a long range thrust toward be- ought they be making? What social coming a genuine social movement views should they subscribe to? Which view is correct? I would sug- The late J. B. S. lardaman, once edti- gest that neither has a strangleholdi on tor for the Amalgamated Clothing the truth; in fact, a balanced analysis Workers Union and a man who at the of trade unions today must be placel age of 85 had a clearer insight into somewiere between the notions of a American labor than many a younger Jacobs at one end and a Tyler at the trade unionist, used to speak of limited other. The spectades of both are rath- versus indusive unioninus According er heavily tinted, one a dark gray, the to Hardman, a limited union was one other a cheerful pint, and neither pro- that conacrd itself with the wrker vides a clear view of the tradte union only during his eight-hour day in the movement. For like other American plant, ministering to hiu need for bet- institutions, the unions are in a sense ter wages, hours and working condi- faithful representations of the society tions and nothing more. An inclusive from which they spring: they are un- union casts its net much wider: it was even mixtures of pragmatism, idealismn, interested in the problems that affected cunnin& competence, sloth, energy, the worker where he lived, the way he 40 UNIONIUM UJ AEIucA 41 traveled to his job, the taxes he lhad to the margin can or will deal with issues pay, and what he bought at the super- that transcend the place of work. market-in short, an inclusive union Insofar as American unions con- was interested in the worker as a whole sciously pursue solutions to social and citizen. political problems, they do so without philosophy and without ideology. In U NVOrruNATLY, most union leaders the main, social issues are explored in today assume potures that dem- ad hoc fashion and then only when onstrate a sense of unease with the in- they press on occupational interests. clusive approach. Their achievements, Unions consequently become spokes- rather, have been in areas they know men for their own members and for no best--organizing and collective bargain- one else. Seldom have unions in the ing. And indeed, in these areas, few la- 20th century stepped outside the boun- bor leaders can be faulted. Over the daries of occuipation. It has remained years, they have evolved techniques for for reformers, radicals, academics, and attaining limited objectives in ways civil rights protagonists to take tup the that Professor Jack Barbash, of the IUni- cry of social change. In the main, un- * ersity of Wisconsin, has de.scribe(d as ions, despite the exception of the 1930's, quite rational: negotiations have been join the mainstream of reform only regularized, they are conducted at neui- after a good deal off prodding, particu- tral sites, and they are based on a kind larly by interested staff persons. Exam- of "common law." Moreover, the insti- ples are Solomon Barkin's work on tutional apparatus has been rational- area redevelopment and Nelson Cruiik- ized. utilizing a semi-professional staff .shank's interest in social security. of self-trained expxerts, spiced with Only after they had done the essential sprinklings of fully trained profession- spade work with legislators andl after als. All this has been imposed by the they had published the issues involvel, requirements of growth, for to contend did union leaders go along, oftentimes successfully with the bureaucracies of reluctantly. business, it has been necessary for the The roots of this condition, onie that unions to become bureaucracies, al-so. has led many observers to announce, Buit having reached this level of prematurelv I suspect, that tinions are development, limitedl unionism has moribund before their time, may be seeme(d to many labor leaders a com- traced far back into the industrial his- fortable enough haven. Why wrestle tory of our nation. Plaguted for decades with the problems of poverty, organiz- by a virtually illegal status, it was not ing white collar workers or making uintil the 1930's that unions began to room for Negro workers on uinion jobs, attain a measure of legality. Little when the safe and sane thing to do is wonder that the Notris-LaGuardia Act to worry solely about shop) matters? of 1932 (which outlawed the capricious Some trade unionists, particuilarly in use of injunctions) and Section 7A of the btuilding trades, have always re- the National Recovery Act, were bailed jected inclusive unionism, thereby turn- as Labor's Magna C.hartas. For once, -a r away from the one element that unionist could display his loyalties wouiJ convert tradke uinions into a la- openly and an organi2er did not have bor movement in the sense that there to look over his shoulder as he walkedl is a never-endioig concern with the to- (town Main Str-eet. tal qutality of daily experience. Ameri- Most organited workers up to that can labor organiiations comprise rather time belongedl to the AFL, which was a trade union movement that only at character'ized by an unshakeable at- 42 2 MInSMF.AM-JUNrE/JVU.Y, 1969 tachment to the excluisive virtues of only a third of the respondents. Abot collective bargaining and the use of a third thought that President John- economic power. Its outlook shaped by son was dIoing as well as he could, the cautiotus notions of a Samuiel (Gom- while another large group thought that pers, the AFL believe(d in self-help as the war in southeast Asia should be an article of atbsolute faith. Its experi- escalated. Accorditg to the polls, these ences with hostile governments im- views are also those of the imajority of pelled the AFL to reject any andi all the population. The portrait that forms of fedleral intervention in labor- emerges is solidly middle clavs. management affairs. Meanwhile, the Nothing that took place (luring the workers were acquiring a middle class Great Depression has- really altered la- outlook; they became entirely commit- bor's middle class perspective despite ted to the idea of private property antd the (Iramatic breakthroughi in the mass the viability of the capitalist order. production industries by th-e CU1). The They wanted to be respectable and ac- latter's effort, of cours, was crticial for cepted by the rest of society. Socialist growth and expansion. rhe tunwilling- ideas on how labor unions should func- ness of the AFL Exectutive CAouncil to Iioni were rejected. Class consciousness confront the (demand for organizing was not the American worker's metier workers in industries that hadl become and as a consequence he organized him.