Crisis of US Trade Unionism and Solutions

5
© 2013 by Dr. Victor G. Devinatz
“THE CRISIS OF US TRADE
UNIONISM AND WHAT NEEDS
TO BE DONE” *
By Dr. Victor G. Devinatz
Dr. Victor G. Devinatz is Distinguished
Professor of Management in the Depart-
ment of Management and Quantitative
Methods at Illinois State University
where he teaches courses in labor rela-
tions and human resource management.
*The following article is a revised version
of the Distinguished Professor Lecture
given by Professor Devinatz at Illinois
State University on April 26, 2012.
I. Introduction
US trade unionism is in crisis. Union density has been
declining throughout the United States since 1955, the
year of the American Federation of Labor–Congress
of Industrial Organizations (AFL—CIO) merger. With
union density peaking at more than 34 percent in 1954,1
increasing globalization over the last thirty years has
led to the dramatic weakening of the industrial unions
in the basic manufacturing sectors of the US economy
such as auto, steel and rubber. The most current statis-

tics published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
demonstrate the severity of this problem. Private sector
union density in 2011 registered only 6.9 percent2 which
is indicative of the hemorrhaging of millions of members
in manufacturing combined with labor being unable to
successfully create new bargaining units in both mature
and newly emerging industries. While much smaller
than the private sector, the public sector continues to
be a relatively bright spot for US trade unionism early
in the twenty-fi rst century’s second decade. With union
density among federal, state and municipal government
employees exceeding that found in the private sector
by fi vefold, at 37.0 percent3, public sector unionism is
relatively healthy. This might soon change, however,
with the recent attacks by state governments commenc-
ing in early 2011.
This plummeting of union density has weakened US
labor’s collective bargaining power and all but ended
utilizing the strike as an offensive and defensive weapon.
Since the BLS began keeping records in 1947, US
6
“THE CRISIS OF US TRADE UNIONISM AND WHAT NEEDS
TO BE DONE”
strike activity has hit record lows in the past two
years. In 2010, there were only 11 strikes and/or
lockouts involving 1,000 or more workers for a
total of 45,000 workers while in 2009, there were
but fi ve work stoppages (with 13,000 workers)
of that size.4 These fi gures represent a dramatic
decline from an annual average of nearly 280

strikes (comprising more than 1.4 million em-
ployees) from 1970 through 1980.5 Moreover,
the continued erosion of private sector union
density and the belief that dramatic steps had
to be taken to reverse this dismal state of affairs
was the primary motivation for dissident unions
seceding from the AFL-CIO in the summer of
2005 and subsequently establishing the Change
to Win Federation (CTW) that September.6
This crisis in US trade unionism fi rst became
apparent shortly after Ronald Reagan’s election
to the US presidency in November 1980. After
fi ring the striking air traffi c controllers in August
1981 and breaking their union, things went rap-
idly downhill for the US labor movement. In
addition to declining union density, the 1980s
were characterized by numerous lost strikes in-
cluding the 1983 Greyhound bus drivers’ work
stoppage, the 1985-1986 Local P-9 strike against
Hormel7 and the 1988 United Paperworkers
Local 14 walkout8 against International Paper.
Throughout the 1990s, unions suffered major
defeats in additional work stoppages including
Staley, Caterpillar,9 and Detroit Newspapers10 al-
though the victorious 1997 United Parcel Service
strike conducted by the Teamsters11 remained
anomalous in this bleak landscape.
In this paper, I will argue that the crisis of
US trade unionism in the early 21st century is
ultimately the crisis of business unionism which
was embraced by labor from 1945 to 1975, the
“golden age” of the US trade union movement.
This approach remained viable circa 1945 to
1975 but sowed the seeds of US trade unionism’s

destruction beginning in the late 1970s/early
1980s as business unionism and political action
provided diminishing returns to a faltering US
trade union movement.
US trade unionism’s serious troubles resulted
in the election of John Sweeney as the AFL-
CIO president in 1995. Serving in this position
through late summer 2009, as a union reformer,
Sweeney sought to replace a sclerotic business
unionism with a variant of social movement
unionism (SMU), combined with the adoption
of several innovative changes to the AFL-CIO’s
political involvement in the electoral arena, in an
attempt to revitalize US labor. While Sweeney’s
implementation of a version of SMU was a small
step in the right direction, I contend that for
the US trade union movement to have a fi ght-
ing chance in the 21st century, new approaches
must transcend Sweeney’s preliminary reform
efforts. Such a strategy must necessarily involve
the utilization of the rank-and-fi le’s input and a
reconceptualization of labor’s bargaining strate-
gies which would also provide the opportunity
to revitalize labor’s work in the political arena.
This paper will proceed in the following
manner. The fi rst section will briefl y discuss the
explosive growth of industrial unionism during
the New Deal era before, in the second section,
examining and analyzing the trade union move-
ment’s use of business unionism and political
action during labor’s “Golden Era” which covers
the period from 1945 to 1975. The third section
will detail the unraveling of business union-

ism circa 1977 to 1995 while the fourth section
will discuss the Sweeney administration’s and
the CTW’s implementation of a type of social
movement unionism in response to the failure
of business unionism. The penultimate section
will outline an alternative mode of trade union-
ism which must be implemented to transcend
the current form of social movement unionism
in place if there is to be a chance at revitalizing
the US trade union movement. The fi nal section
will conclude the paper.
II. The New Deal Era and the
Growth of Industrial Unionism,
1933-1945
The 1930s signaled a revival of the US trade
union movement. In an effort to resuscitate a
devastated economy, the National Industrial
Recovery Act (NIRA) was implemented in 1933,
which offered, among other provisions, legal
protection both for union organizing and for
7
LABOR LAW JOURNAL
collective bargaining among most private sector
workers. Upon the declaration of the NIRA’s
codes of fair competition being unconstitutional
in 1935, the National Labor Relations Act’s
(NLRA) passage later that same year expanded
federal coverage for private-sector collective bar-
gaining activities fi rst protected under the NIRA.

Several months after the NLRA’s passage, the
AFL convention experienced confl ict over the
federation’s organizing strategy. A number of
union leaders, such as the United Mineworkers
president, John L. Lewis, argued for the neces-
sity of creating industrial unions – that is, all of
a facility’s employees irrespective of occupation
and skill level, would be organized into a single
labor organization – in contradistinction to the
craft unions organizing just the skilled workers at
the work site. Upon walking out of the 1935 AFL
convention, nine unions established the Com-
mittee for Industrial Organization and breathed
new life into industrial unionism in the United
States. The schism within the AFL was solidifi ed
in 1938 with the establishment of the Congress
of Industrial Organizations (CIO.)
The NLRA’s passage and the CIO’s forma-
tion resulted in enormous union growth. With
manufacturing industries dominating the econ-
omy, both AFL and CIO unions targeted such
workers in steel, automotive and rubber for or-
ganizing, often vying against each other in union
certifi cation elections. Reviving militant tactics
such as the sit-down strike or plant occupation,
fi rst initiated by the Industrial Workers of the
World two decades earlier, the CIO’s industrial
unions began to grow in size, as these workers
poured into these energetic organizations upon
the conclusion of victorious collective actions.
The wave of sit-down strikes lasting from 1936
to 1938 spread beyond factories to many other
industries and was particularly effective since
employers were unable to replace strikers while

subsequently experiencing losses in business
and productivity.
It was in the immediate postwar period when
the industrial unions of the CIO began to con-
struct a nascent business unionism, defi ned as
labor organizations functioning as “businesses”
in which the unions provide workers with an
array of services including the negotiation of
collective bargaining agreements (CBA) and
contract administration in exchange for mem-
bers’ union dues. Six decades earlier, the craft
unions of the AFL had already implemented a
full-blown business unionism at the time of the
federation’s formation in 1886.
First identifi ed and named by labor theorist
Sidney Lens in the 1950s, business unionism pos-
sesses a number of characteristics distinctive to
the ideology. The fi rst feature can be described
as “a service model of unionism” where unionists
passively consume various goods and services,
including wages, benefi ts, a grievance procedure,
etc. negotiated by the union and provided by
union staff. In this capacity, union offi cials are
viewed as “executives” who are responsible for
administering the “business.” A second emphasis
is union offi cers concentrating their time and
energy on narrowly-defi ned issues appearing in
the collective bargaining agreement. Moreover,
union member complaints are only dealt with
if they represent specifi c contractual violations.
A third attribute would be the belief that labor
and management share all of the same concerns
and are partners in assuring the success of the

business, even when management has no de-
sire to work with the unions. Fourth, the labor
organization is treated as a large bureaucracy
headed by union leaders who are physically and
ideologically separated from the rank-and-fi le
workers through the presence of professional
staff. In this setting, union leaders develop the
organization’s policies while the members’ major
role is to consume services provided by union
offi cials and staff. Moreover, the members are
not expected to regularly participate in union
affairs unless specifi cally called upon to do so
by union offi cers.12
From 1945 to 1975, business unionism suc-
cessfully increased wages and benefi ts for the
union membership through collective bargain-
ing. These improvements obtained by the indus-
trial unions were transferred to other unionized
companies’ workers within the same industry
through pattern bargaining. Industrial unions
in auto and steel, for example, utilized pattern
bargaining by targeting a particular employer to
8
TO BE DONE”
obtain what the union considered to be a strong
contract. Once that agreement was fi nalized,
negotiations commenced with another major
employer in the same industry, trying to attain
a contract at least as good as the fi rst agreement.

Pattern bargaining not only functioned within
an industry, but also between industries, as ad-
vancements achieved by one labor organization
in an industry inspired unions in other industries
to negotiate comparable agreements. From
the late 1940s through the early 1980s, pattern
bargaining was crucial in taking wages out of
competition and in maintaining union power.
George Meany, the AFL-CIO’s fi rst president
(1955-1979) and a former plumber, was the
quintessential business unionist committed to
craft privilege who had virtually no interest in
organizing the unorganized even though a chief
reason motivating the 1955 AFL-CIO merger
was to encourage the unionization efforts of
member unions. With union density dropping
from its peak of 35 percent at the time of the
AFL-CIO merger to 27.4 percent in 1971, Meany
hardly appeared upset. When asked in 1972, why
union density was falling, he hastily responded,
“I don’t know, I don’t care.”13
Meany’s regime was best characterized for
its venomous anti-Communism at home and
abroad and for his resolute support for both US
foreign policy and the nation’s involvement in
the Vietnam War. Additionally, he unceasingly
defended race privilege in the work place while
offering feeble support for both civil rights and
the integration of the essentially lily-white craft
unions. Furthermore, he excoriated and often
viciously attacked extremely liberal Democrats,
peace demonstrators, environmentalists, femi-
nists and gay activists. And as reported in his
offi cial biography, Meany bragged that he never

walked a picket line in his life.14
In an attempt to defend union gains that were
being jeopardized by declines in union density,
the AFL-CIO made ambitious, through unsuc-
cessful, attempts to modify labor legislation.
The federation’s fi rst defeat occurred in March
1977 when a bill to legalize “common situs”
picketing, that is the union having the right to
picket other contractors and subcontractors at a
construction site when its dispute involved only
one subcontractor, lost on a narrow vote in the
heavily Democratic 95th Congress. This result
did not auger well for the AFL-CIO’s more
important reform effort, the Labor Law Reform
Bill, which attempted to put more teeth in the
NLRA. Although the bill cruised through the
House by a margin of 257 to 163 in October
1977, it fell two votes short of cloture in the Sen-
ate on June 15, 1978.15
III. The Unraveling of US Business
Unionism from the Late 1970’s
to 1995
The two legislative losses in 1977 and 1978 were
just the beginning of more serious problems
for labor. Business unionism began to unravel
by the early 1980s with the US trade union
movement confronted by a host of economic
and political changes. While business unionism
possessed intrinsic weaknesses, these structural
limitations had remained hidden for more than
three decades. From 1945 through 1975, four
factors had resulted in business unionism suc-

cessfully raising union members’ living stan-
dards. First, overall union density remained
fairly healthy, in the range of 35 percent from
1945 to 1955 but falling to 25 percent in 1975,
with the basic manufacturing industries com-
prising the core of union strength and a public
sector union membership rapidly expanding
during the 1960s and the 1970s. Second, due to
the United States dominating world markets in
the postwar era and the country experiencing
signifi cant economic growth, union infl uence
fl ourished because of this favorable climate.
Third, despite signifi cant legislative defeats with
the implementation of the anti-labor Taft-Hartley
and Landrum-Griffi n Acts in 1947 and 1959, as
previously mentioned, a “New Deal Coalition”
provided a relatively favorable political environ-
ment for labor organizations. And lastly, major
corporations in heavily unionized industries did
not challenge the unions’ right to exist as long
as they continued to devote their energies only
to collective bargaining and contract administra-
tion, essentially the goals of business unionism.16
9
LABOR LAW JOURNAL
This economic situation, however, had
changed by the early 1980s. With increases in
worldwide competition, the slowing of econom-
ic growth and the squeezing of profi t rates, the
United States no longer dominated the world
market as it had for the three post-World War

II decades which had dire consequences for
labor. Union density continued its downward
trajectory with the traditionally unionized man-
ufacturing industries closing factories and out-
sourcing jobs combined with newly emerging
industries, such as high-tech, virulently battling
unionization through enlisting union-busting
consultants.17 Additionally, an inhospitable po-
litical environment represented by the termina-
tion of 11,000 members of the Professional Air
Traffi c Controllers Organization (PATCO) by
then-President Reagan in August 198118 encour-
aged capital to adopt similar tactics in dealing
with its private sector unions. Combined with
the unraveling of the New Deal Coalition, this
did not bode well for labor. These forces lay
bare the dynamics of business unionism which
experienced problems in continuing to deliver
the economic goods to the union membership.
This became obvious during contract negotia-
tions, in the early 1980s, when US unions en-
gaged in concession bargaining.19 In exchange
for accepting wage and benefi t concessions,
unions received the implementation of labor-
management cooperation programs.20
As business unionism was beginning to fray,
the AFL-CIO presidency changed hands after
nearly a quarter of a century. Although one
could contend that Lane Kirkland (1979-1995)
was slightly more progressive than Meany, in
essence, the second AFL-CIO president, who
can best be described as a “bureaucrat’s bureau-
crat,”21 shared the same business unionist per-
spective and Cold War politics as his predecessor
and mentor. Upon the smashing of the PATCO

strike in August 1981, Kirkland hesitantly sup-
ported the Solidarity March held in response
which assembled 250,000 trade unionists in the
nation’s capital despite the interracial unions
expressing a particularly enthusiastic reaction
to this event. Instead of emboldening Kirkland,
such zeal generated apprehension in the nation’s
top labor leader. As a substitute to organizing
more events which would produce street heat,
his alternative was to urge union members to
continue to support Democratic candidates at
the polls.22 While Solidarity Day failed to spur
Kirkland towards taking additional actions, the
rapid and accelerating deindustrialization of the
US economy throughout the 1980s and early
1990s also failed to alarm the federation presi-
dent. At the time, he proffered neither strategies
for mounting any resistance whatsoever nor any
innovative ideas for responding to this decline
which battered both unionists and nonunion
workers alike.
As opposed to being consumed with seri-
ous domestic issues, the AFL-CIO president
appeared more concerned with his European
travels where he promoted the construction of
pro-American style business unions in the for-
mer Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries23
upon Communism’s demise. Dissatisfaction with
Kirkland’s attention to domestic trade union
affairs contributed to the defeat of Thomas Do-
nahue, Kirkland’s handpicked successor, and the
election of John Sweeney and his “New Voice
Slate” in 1995. These reformers were chosen to
direct the AFL-CIO after more political defeats

for labor including the North American Free
Trade Agreement Act’s passage, the inability of
then-President Clinton to implement health care
reform and the Republicans retaking Congress
in the 1994 midterm elections.
IV. The Sweeney Regime, the CTW
and the Implementation of Social
Movement Unionism, 1995-2009
Upon John Sweeney’s ascendancy to the AFL-
CIO presidency after the fi rst contested election
in the federation’s four-decade history, rank-and-
fi le activists, progressive union staff members
and other labor supporters expressed hope that
signifi cant change was around the corner. Think-
ing that the federation was open to countless
new ideas and that the Cold War politics and the
autocratic practices of the Meany and Kirkland
regimes had been permanently shelved, many
felt that labor could return to its halcyon days.
10
TO BE DONE”
Creating high expectations for himself, Sweeney,
who promised during his campaign to revitalize
the US trade union movement through devoting
massive resources to union organizing, remarked
at a news conference shortly after taking offi ce
that his AFL-CIO presidential tenure should
largely be gauged on his success at reversing

labor’s downward spiral.24 And early in the
Sweeney administration, such opinions appeared
more than reasonable with the regime deriving
support even from Kim Moody and Michael
Yates, two left-wing labor theoreticians highly
critical of the AFL-CIO’s historical practice
of business unionism. Moody pronounced the
“New Voice” slate’s election to be “a welcome
change”25 while Yates commented that the new
regime was “a breath of fresh air.”26
In contrast to the business unionism of Meany
and Kirkland, Sweeney offered something dif-
ferent – specifi cally, a brand of social movement
unionism (SMU) – to the battered AFL-CIO.
SMU was fi rst introduced into the worldwide
lexicon in the late 1980s by the British labor
scholar Peter Waterman who used the term to de-
scribe a new politically radical, militant unionism
appearing in nations such as South Africa, Brazil
and South Korea.27 The concept, however, only
gained widespread currency in the United States
after the publication of Kim Moody’s Workers in
a Lean World.28 While SMU is an expansive term
possessing multiple meanings, for the purposes
of this paper, it will be used to describe a type
of trade unionism where workers and their labor
organizations construct coalitions with commu-
nity groups in their quest for obtaining economic
and social justice. As such, SMU goes beyond
confi ning the union agenda to only handling
workplace issues and attempting to maximize
the members’ economics interests as negotiated
in the contract. This brand of unionism, for ex-
ample, is concerned with the devastating effects
of growing economic inequality in the United

States, the implementation of neoliberal policies
and the war in Iraq. Moreover, in dealing with
such issues, labor attempts to form coalitions
with community organizations as well as im-
migrant, racial minority, women and religious
groups around a common agenda.29
Business unionism’s inherent weaknesses
paved the way for the rise of SMU in the United
States. According to SMU theoreticians, starting
in the 1950s, the US trade union movement no
longer served as a springboard for promoting
social justice per se but evolved into a move-
ment in which labor organizations developed
into complex bureaucracies administered by
union leaders and staff committed to delivering
various sophisticated services for a demobilized
and deactivated union membership.30
Despite the appearance of business union-
ism’s extensive problems by the early 1980s,
SMU was not placed on the historical agenda
as an alternative methodology for attempting
to resolve labor’s crisis until the end of that
decade. In fact, SMU theorists have argued
that the US trade union movement forfeited a
key opportunity to revive itself when it failed
to align with the social movements of the 1960s
and the 1970s.31 SMU proponents contend
that labor could have linked up with the anti-
Vietnam War, the civil rights and the women’s
movements in challenging the hegemony of
corporate capital in US society. As previously
mentioned, not only did the Meany administra-
tion keep its distance from these movements
but it often expressed open hostility to many

of their stated objectives.
Although the AFL-CIO refused to form coali-
tions with the social movements of the 1960s and
1970s, the Alliance for Labor Action (ALA), es-
tablished in July 1968 by the United Auto Work-
ers Union (UAW) and the Teamsters Union, as a
rival to the AFL-CIO attempted to create what
I call a “premature” SMU by connecting with
social movements as a strategy for reinvigorat-
ing US trade unions. The newly-formed labor
combination’s primary goal was to organize the
millions of unorganized US workers and aimed
to establish “community unions” to help the poor
and the unemployed. Moreover, the ALA sought
to implement a guaranteed income, national
health insurance, and free education for all US
citizens. In an attempt to realize the Alliance’s
slogan “to fi nd answers to the urgent problems of
our society,” the organization produced position
papers on health care and national health insur-
11
LABOR LAW JOURNAL
ance, the US housing crisis, pension reinsurance,
tax reform and national security.32
While the ALA unionized slightly less than
10,000 workers in its pilot project, the Atlanta
Union Organizing Offensive, from 1969 to 1971,
the labor combination failed to devote adequate
time and resources to bringing the community

unions to fruition. Upon the Alliance’s fold-
ing in 1972, SMU as an alternative to business
unionism disappeared from the US trade union
movement until the late 1980s when the Service
Employees International Union (SEIU), under
Sweeney, organized the “Justice for Janitors”
campaigns. Utilizing the civil rights movement
as a prototype, these organizing drives were
conducted to provide collective bargaining rep-
resentation for a work force composed primarily
of immigrants and/or people of color employed
in large offi ce buildings in metropolitan regions
throughout the United States.33
Sweeney’s ideology excited both union re-
formers and activists who felt that he would be
more amenable than his forbears to aligning with
liberal and left-wing social movements external
to the AFL-CIO while encouraging the use of
trade union militancy to achieve federation ob-
jectives. As a former SEIU president, an impres-
sive record of doubling the labor organization’s
membership during the 1980s and early 1990s
while many private sector unions were bleeding
members,34 indicated that he was willing to intro-
duce bold initiatives such as employing veterans
of the 1960s-era civil rights and anti-Vietnam
War movements as well as former Students for
a Democratic Society and New Left organization
activists.35 And at the start of his tenure, Sweeney
hired political radicals in high-level staff posi-
tions, such as Bill Fletcher, Jr. who fi rst became
Sweeney’s assistant and subsequently the AFL-
CIO Education Director, as well as encouraging
presentations of liberal and leftist academics at
AFL-CIO sponsored conferences.36

Through the cultivation of these ties to sym-
pathetic intellectuals, the federation sponsored
teach-ins throughout the United States with the
fi rst held at Columbia University in New York
City in 1996 which brought out thousands of par-
ticipants. Two additional ones were organized at
UCLA in February 1997 and at the University of
Pittsburgh the following September. These get-
togethers resulted in labor-oriented academics
formalizing their relationship to the federation
through the establishment of the Scholars, Art-
ists & Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ). This
group was largely responsible for articulating,
developing and exchanging novel ideas and
innovative proposals concerning the future of
labor’s strategy with trade unionists in open,
public forums.37
Reformers were also encouraged by Sweeney
and his “New Voice” administration’s commit-
ment to spending increasing federation resources
on campaigns to unionize millions of low-wage
workers, many who were women, immigrants
and racial minorities. As a starting point, in
1996, AFL-CIO leaders stated that $20 million
would be devoted to the project with the amount
increased to $30 million for 1997. Furthermore,
unlike the negligible role it played during the
Kirkland era, Sweeney determined that the
AFL-CIO’s Organizing Institute would be in-
strumental in these efforts.38
Redistributing federation resources was a
necessary but not a sufficient condition for

remaking a culture hospitable to union organiz-
ing. Realizing this, Sweeney introduced various
innovative programs including the creation of a
Corporate Affairs Department for emboldening
shareholder activism while, in 1996, he intro-
duced “Union Summer,” modeled after the Civil
Rights Movement’s “Freedom Summer,” so that
hundreds of college students and young workers
could acquire union organizing experience.39
Moreover, the AFL-CIO president estab-
lished a “Union Cities” initiative to spur union
organizing at the regional level which had been
moribund prior to Sweeney’s election in 1995.
Besides providing the necessary funding and staff
support, the program was designed to “promote
cross-fertilization” of ideas and to revivify the
inactive Central Labor Councils. “Additionally,
this effort strengthened the AFL-CIO’s politi-
cal program while contributing to “expanded
mutual support networks” which were crucial
for organizing campaigns and the successful
negotiation of labor contracts.40
12
TO BE DONE”
Unlike his business unionist predecessors,
Sweeney was highly visible as the AFL-CIO
president in backing unionization drives among
diverse groups of workers including California
strawberry pickers, south Florida nursing-home

employees, Las Vegas construction workers,
airport employees in Los Angeles and San
Francisco and south Louisiana maritime work-
ers. Furthermore, he generated extensive trade
union support for internationally and historically
signifi cant rallies in Seattle and Miami while
traveling throughout the United States speak-
ing out in support of immigrant workers’ rights
and in defense of laid-off Enron employees.41
Sweeney also was infl uential in directing and
encouraging city federations, such as the Los
Angeles County Federation of Labor, to become
active participants in local living wage move-
ments which have led to the implementation
of many living wage statutes in both large and
small US cities.42
Lastly, Sweeney, was the lone voice at the
AFL-CIO’s highest echelons in advocating for
gay and lesbian rights as the SEIU president
back in 198343 and was light years ahead of Mea-
ny and Kirkland on social issues upon becoming
federation president. Examples include, under
Sweeney’s infl uence, the recognition of Pride
at Work, representing gay and lesbian trade
unionists, as a sanctioned constituency group.
Furthermore, other constituency groups, such
as the Asia Pacifi c American Labor Alliance,
were provided more autonomy and freedom to
pursue their own interests after Sweeney came
to power.44
Although it should be clear up to this point
in the discussion that meaningful differences
existed between the Meany, Kirkland and
Sweeney regimes, a glaring similarity between

all three administrations was their heavy reli-
ance on Washington-focused strategies albeit
with a few elemental variations. Meany and
Kirkland were clearly consumed and obsessed
with foreign policy issues to the neglect of
US trade unionists’ everyday concerns while
Sweeney was much more focused on domestic
affairs. For Sweeney, only if trade policy was the
topic at hand did foreign policy reach his radar
screen. More importantly, however, Sweeney
utilized a similar approach to instilling institu-
tional change and at attempting to solve labor’s
problems as his two predecessors, specifi cally
taking an unquestionably bureaucratic approach
in establishing a collection of institutes, policy
centers, task forces and committees staffed by
policy experts whose recommendations were
then communicated through expensive media
and marketing campaigns.45
Sweeney’s labor-management relations phi-
losophy was also fraught with contradictions.
While he actively sought out and built coalitions
with various social movements as specifi ed ear-
lier, and spoke of, and encouraged, the use of
militant shop fl oor tactics, such as work-to-rule
actions and strikes, for empowering unions, he
also seemed committed to promoting labor-
management partnerships in order to enhance
the competitiveness of US business without
unions getting anything concrete in return. For
example, in his 1996 book, America Needs a Raise,
Sweeney discusses in glowing terms the labor-
management cooperation program between USX
and the United Steelworkers Union where “(a)

labor-management committee meets regularly
to discuss how to solve shop-fl oor problems and
improve the quality of the steel they’re producing.
. . . . Meanwhile the union contract provides that
the Steelworkers can recommend (my italicization
- VGD) a candidate for the USX board of direc-
tors who will represent the employees’ interests
as stakeholders of the corporation.”46 In a second
example, among several others appearing in the
book, Sweeney applauds the Levi Strauss-UNITE
relationship where “(at) the corporate level, union
and management offi cials meet regularly to dis-
cuss companywide issues and set strategies for
competing on the world market.”47
Although union density continued to plummet
under Sweeney, compared with the previous
regimes of Meany and Kirkland, there were
some positive developments made under the
“New Voice” slate’s administration. For example,
for the fi rst time in decades, Sweeney returned
labor to the center of the American liberal co-
alition, through the AFL-CIO’s involvement
with various social movements including anti-
13
LABOR LAW JOURNAL
globalization, anti-sweatshop, environmental,
and immigrant groups.48 And while the current
quantity of National Labor Relations Board
certifi cation elections is less than a third of the
more than 6,000 elections held annually in

the early 1980s, the average victory rate while
Sweeney headed the federation was 61 percent
compared with 51 percent during the Kirkland
years. Moreover, BLS union membership data
indicated that the total number of union mem-
bers increased by 2.7 percent while Sweeney was
in offi ce compared with a 5.3 percent decline
under Kirkland’s tenure. Granted that this union
membership growth is miniscule and occurred
during 2007 and 2008, it remains the fi rst time
since the collection of annual membership data
by the BLS commenced a quarter of a century
ago that even a slight uptick in overall member-
ship has been registered.49
In spite of these minor achievements, the
strategy that the Sweeney regime adopted was
fundamentally fl awed. This approach can be best
described as being representative of a kind of
social movement unionism from above; one that was
initiated, controlled, and managed by the AFL-
CIO’s bureaucracy as opposed to a unionism
that was determined and guided by the direct
involvement of the rank-and-fi le members them-
selves. As an example, while Sweeney expressed
commitment to dramatically increasing the num-
ber of union members through the allocation
of additional resources to union organizing, he
attempted to accomplish this goal through utiliz-
ing professional organizers rather than converting
rank-and-fi le unionists into organizers them-
selves through providing the necessary training
and education. Sweeney remained attached to
this strategy despite the results of an AFL-CIO
leadership-commissioned study, which found
that unions achieved victory in 73 percent of

the certifi cation elections in which rank-and-
fi le members served as organizers compared to
winning only 27 percent of the time when only
professional organizers were involved.50
A second crucial characteristic of this social
movement unionism from above approach was Swee-
ney’s reliance on Washington-based tactics, as
already mentioned, which also lacked signifi cant
rank and fi le worker input in either their concep-
tualization or execution. Undoubtedly, Sweeney
felt more at home through using ostensible ex-
perts connected with institutes and policy centers
in proposing solutions for resolving labor’s woes
and then publicizing them through clever and
expensive media and marketing campaigns.51
Although these presentations were highly pro-
fessional, they failed to generate creative energy
among unionists themselves which is ultimately
what is required to have a chance to revitalize
the US trade union movement.
Although it is beyond the scope of this paper
to discuss in detail the split of the Change to
Win Federation (CTW) from the AFL-CIO in
the summer of 2005, many labor commentators
believe that no fundamental ideological and
tactical differences exist between the two orga-
nizations.52 It appears that in a manner similar to
the Sweeney-led AFL-CIO, the CTW adopted
a social movement unionism from above which
was largely inspired by the CTW’s largest affi li-
ate, the SEIU. For example, Freeman53 argues
that the CTW’s advocacy of utilizing militancy
in organizing campaigns to attain cooperation

and partnership with management is not a new
approach. Greer54 refers to these “contentious
and cooperative” tactics utilized by both the
AFL-CIO and the CTW as a “hybrid of business
and social-movement unionism.”
One example representing the CTW’s social
movement unionism from above approach is its
views on union democracy. One reason why the
CTW affi liates left the AFL-CIO is because the
former labor organizations believed that there
should be “an extreme centralization of power
in unions and in the AFL-CIO.” Implement-
ing this tactic in the CTW after the schism, the
SEIU has taken this approach to an extreme in
its own national union through combining its
local unions into mega-locals which comprise
tens of thousands of members spanning several
states. Such an organizational structure is clearly
a major obstacle to the promotion of union de-
mocracy because it makes it increasingly diffi cult
for the members to communicate with other
union members, to attend local meetings and
to run for union offi ce.55
14
TO BE DONE”
In addition to centralizing power and creat-
ing bureaucracies in their own unions and their
new labor combination, the CTW leaders do
not appear to believe that union democracy is

either necessary or desirable to US trade unions.
Arguing that taking “bold action” and having
a “military-style” command are required for
resuscitating labor, this group of union offi cials
holds the position that “democracy is a luxury
unions can’t afford” because as one SEIU staff
member stated, “(U)nion democracy doesn’t
work because workers can’t be trusted to make
the right decisions.”56
V. What Needs to be Done:
The Implementation of Social
Movement Unionism From Below
Clearly, a social movement unionism from above
as implemented by Sweeney and the CTW is
preferable to an entrenched and sclerotic busi-
ness unionism of the Meany and Kirkland years.
But such an approach does not go far enough
in laying the groundwork for what is needed to
revive the US trade union movement in an era
confronted by a hyper-globalization, inadequate
legal protection and the recent attacks by state
governments on public sector unions. Trade
unionists desirous of reversing the existing state
of affairs must transcend a social movement union-
ism from above orientation if they hope to redirect
the path of labor during the current Richard
Trumka and any post-Trumka administrations.
Instead of Sweeney’s and the CTW’s ap-
proach, I propose as an alternative a social
movement unionism from below strategy. The de-
fi ning feature of a social movement unionism from
below is, undoubtedly, democracy. But what I
mean by “democracy” in this case is not “union

democracy” as is traditionally understood and
defi ned by the “Union Member’s Bill of Rights”
as contained in the 1959 Landrum-Griffi n Act.
Such protections dating back more than half a
century include the right to nominate candidates
for union offi ce, to vote in union elections and/
or referendums, to attend and participate in
union meetings, to provide criticisms of union
offi cials, to express any perspective at union
meetings, to circulate literature outside the union
meeting place and to conduct separate meetings
without the involvement of union offi cers. In
a social movement unionism from below, I believe
“democracy” must extend beyond “union de-
mocracy” to include working class democracy,
where the union fi ghts for the interests of the
working class as a whole and not just for the
sectoral interests of its offi cial members. The
impetus for such working class democracy must
derive from the creative energy of all workers,
union and non-union alike, as well as allies who
have a stake in the future of a vibrant US trade
union movement. Thus, at a minimum, what is
required and desirable in the implementation
of a social movement unionism from below is the
active participation of rank-and-fi le workers in
channeling their own creative energy, they can
begin to generate initiatives and chart the course
for a reengineered labor movement.
Although it is impossible to provide a blue-
print of what a fully-developed social movement
unionism from below would ultimately look like, I
would like to discuss some recent examples from
the US trade union movement that I believe are

consistent with the beginnings of such an approach
while sketching out a number of theoretical ideas
that I believe need to be considered in order to
successfully achieve the construction of such
an orientation. In addition to creating a differ-
ent relationship between rank-and-fi le trade
unionists and union leaders as found in business
unionism and social movement unionism from above,
I also argue that a social movement unionism from
below must reconfi gure the collective bargaining
relationship between labor and management at
the negotiation table.
An example of recent tactics consistent with
this social movement unionism from below is the
United Food and Commercial Workers’ Union
organizing success at Smithfi eld Foods after a
multi-year struggle. Due primarily to a minority
and immigrant workforce taking ownership of
the unionization drive, rather than relying on
the union’s professional staff to lead the cam-
paign, the workers achieved in December 2008
a certifi cation election victory and employer
recognition of the union. Some of the key events
15
LABOR LAW JOURNAL
contributing to this tremendous success indicate
the workers’ taking initiative and executing vari-
ous strategies devised on their own. In 2003, for
example, sanitation crew workers walked out
to demonstrate their opposition to the plant’s

poor wages and working conditions. Despite
company goons’ threats, these workers achieved
a number of concessions. Upon seeing this suc-
cessful action, other workers halted production
to force the company to deal with health and
safety concerns throughout the plant.57
With the widespread occurrence of immi-
grant rights protests throughout the nation in
early 2006, on May Day, workers took the day
off and shut down production at the Smithfi eld
plant. In November 2006, when the company
terminated 75 immigrant workers and made
threats to fi re hundreds more because of al-
leged Social Security number inconsistencies,
a two-day strike that included black, white, and
Latino workers resulted in the company rehiring
all the fi red workers. Shortly thereafter, union
supporters gathered 4,000 signatures on a peti-
tion demanding that, beginning in 2007, Martin
Luther King’s birthday be made a paid holiday
for all employees. Upon management’s refusal to
meet this demand, approximately 400 workers
remained absent from work that day. This action
undoubtedly caught management’s attention
because, in 2008, for the fi rst time, Smithfi eld
granted the holiday to workers at every one of
its non-union facilities.58
A second example representative of this type
of social movement unionism is the victorious
plant occupation that United Electrical Workers
(UE) Local 1110 members held against Republic
Door and Window in Chicago in December
2008 where a primarily immigrant work force,
in struggling to obtain the wages and severance

pay that the company owed them, decided to
take matters into their own hands after the fac-
tory closed with only a two-day notice. Reminis-
cent of the wave of sit-down strikes that swept
the United States from 1936 to 1938 and was
instrumental in building the nascent industrial
unions of the CIO, 200 of the 240 factory work-
ers occupied the plant on December 5, the day
the factory closed. Lasting six days, the sit-down
strike ended when the union local negotiated
a $1.75 million settlement with the company
which included vacation time, severance pay
and temporary health care benefi ts.59
Besides encouraging rank-and-file trade
unionists to utilize their creative energies in
devising their own strategies, I believe that the
collective bargaining approach of a labor orga-
nization adopting social movement unionism from
below must go beyond merely trying to obtain
the best labor contracts for union members per
se. The vision of such a unionism’s collective
bargaining strategy should become a mecha-
nism for fi ghting for positive social change such
as repairing problematic industries, providing
economic opportunities, and modifying business
practices that harm communities and destroy the
environment. In order to accomplish this, com-
munity representatives and nonunion workers
must benefi t from unionism so that they have
a direct interest in seeing workers organized
into labor organizations. Thus, it is necessary
to incorporate these two constituencies into the
union’s negotiation committee.60

How would this type of unionism actually
function in practice? As an example in the pri-
vate sector we can examine the troubles in the
domestic auto industry which was exacerbated
by the Financial Crisis of 2008. Without posing
any potential solutions of its own, the United
Auto Workers (UAW) adopted a defensive
posture and immediately accepted the Obama
Administration Auto Task Force’s directive to
reduce wages and benefi ts to the level of the
non-union transplants (although the lower-tier
in the two-tier wage system was $14 per hour
which was far below that of the transplants.)61
The union’s strategy was clearly to try to pre-
serve as many jobs as it could in a declining
domestic auto industry that would continue to
outsource jobs.62
But what if the UAW had some foresight
and had begun to formulate a different strategy
several years before the crisis hit? What if the
union had begun to organize both unionized
and non-union auto workers, environmentalists
and community activists around an alternative
program? For example, upon the crisis’ onset,
16
TO BE DONE”
the union could have argued that it represented
all auto workers as well as environmentalists
in the communities where these groups reside.

Instead of agreeing with the federal govern-
ment to invest $100 billion in particular auto
companies, the UAW could have called for this
funding to be used to establish an Auto Recon-
struction Agency which would have the power
“to restructure and refi nance” the auto industry.
As part of its proposal, the union could have in-
tegrated all union and non-union auto workers,
environmentalists, community activists, consum-
ers, etc. around the union agreeing to reopen all
auto industry contracts if and only if the UAW
would be allowed to negotiate over a number
of items with the auto companies, traditionally
not found in collective bargaining agreements.
Such negotiations could have included negoti-
ating over the manufacturing of green cars, the
actual kind of cars to be produced, the levels of
executive pay, wages of workers who lost their
jobs due to outsourcing as well as the allocation
of taxpayer bailout funds. This approach would
potentially lead to opportunities to expand the
auto industry’s manufacturing base, to economi-
cally benefi t communities where auto plants are
currently located as well as to unionize many
non-union workers in the auto sector.63
In an example dealing with public sector la-
bor, there are current attempts to defund public
schools and to create charter schools in their
place because of the ostensible failure of many of
these institutions to provide quality education for
students. What about integrating representatives
of parent groups and student organizations into
the bargaining committees of the National Edu-
cation Association and the American Federation
of Teachers so that these constituent groups have

infl uence in negotiations? Parents and students
have a signifi cant stake in the outcome of nego-
tiations between the teachers unions and local
school boards. Such an arrangement would
demonstrate to parents and teachers that unions
are not counter posed to their interests but are
interested in providing a quality education for
students within the constraints provided by
various societal political interests. Moreover, it
would bolster public sector unions so that when
they are attacked by various anti-union forces,
it would be more diffi cult to pit public sector
employees against, for example, more numerous
tax payers which certain politically conservative
forces are attempting to invoke at this time.64
Representatives from parent groups and
student organizations should be involved in
collective bargaining negotiations because they
have concerns involving class size, allocation
of resources devoted to educational and extra-
curricular programs, etc. Additionally, since
there are inordinately high turnover rates in the
teaching industry, parents and students have a
vested interested in teachers’ wages, benefi ts and
working conditions because these issues directly
impact the students’ learning conditions.65
Additionally, such an expansive collective
bargaining strategy could lead to stronger sup-
port for unions as a whole if these constituencies
come to believe that labor truly has their best
interests at heart. Under such a situation, trade
unions would no longer be seen as merely “job
trusts” for their members.66 This could contrib-

ute to wider and deeper support for the unions’
legislative programs and put more pressure on
legislators to pass labor’s agenda if the citizenry
as a whole actually possessed reasons to sup-
port the unions’ political program. From Carter
through Obama, labor used its political muscle
to help elect these Democratic candidates to the
US presidency although labor law reform never
became a legislative priority because other bills,
according to these Democratic presidents had
to come fi rst. When it came time to placing
labor’s bills on the table, these administrations’
political capital was spent so nothing signifi cant
ever was accomplished.67 If the US trade union
movement could derive more support for its
legislative program through a supportive citi-
zenry, there is a higher probability that labor
would be successful.
VI. Conclusion:
Can Labor’s Crisis Be Resolved?
Let me conclude with what I believe to be his-
torical examples of this type of “working class
democracy” that occurred during an economic
17
LABOR LAW JOURNAL
climate not dramatically different from ours to-
day to demonstrate that social movement unionism
from below possesses the capacity to dramatically
reshape the US trade union movement. During

the height of the Great Depression, three strikes
in 1934 led by small groups of political radicals
sparked a militant, mass labor movement which
paved the way for the nascent industrial unionism
of the CIO to organize broad swaths of American
workers neglected by the AFL craft unions. A
small group of socialists affi liated to the American
Workers Party, who had been organizing unem-
ployed workers in Toledo for over a year, headed
the victorious Toledo Auto-Lite strike which led
to extensive unionization in Toledo. In Min-
neapolis, a band of Trotskyists connected with
Teamsters Local 574 led a successful strike against
the city’s trucking companies which resulted in
widespread unionization in Minneapolis. And
in San Francisco, the Communist Party’s role in
the 1934 West Coast Longshoremen’s Strike was
instrumental in contributing to the unionization
of all of the US West Coast ports.68 Not only did
these strikes demonstrate that viable industrial
unions could be built, but, also, according to
some scholars, these events were the decisive
factor contributing to the passage of the NLRA
in June 1935. And although not directly related
to unionization per se but a much more recent
collective action representing the spirit and vi-
brancy of the practice of social movement unionism
from below, and concerned with many of the same
issues as the AFL-CIO and the CTW unions,
is the “Occupy Wall Street” Movement, which
gained tremendous support in the fall of 2011.
This movement began with just 12 people far
fewer than the numbers involved even initially
in organizing the three 1934 strikes.

A bottom-up social movement unionism
hardly guarantees that the events of 1934 will
be repeated in the near future or that success
will necessarily always occur. Moreover, such a
democratic approach will neither be smooth nor
linear and, at times, may even be messy, chaotic
and problematic. Moreover, this type of union-
ism also offers, unfortunately, no assurance that
a defi nitive victory over capital is forthcoming
or even will be attained in the far-off future. But
what can be asserted undeniably is the follow-
ing: by implementing this brand of unionism,
rank-and-fi le unionists will unquestionably form
a deeper and lasting commitment to trade unions
as their own organizations which will enable labor
to be effectively representing all workers’ inter-
ests in resisting capital’s maneuverings. While
the trade union movement’s defi nitive objec-
tive should continue to be the emancipation of
labor, the creation of a social movement unionism
from below, if and when it occurs, in and of itself,
would be a landmark event in US labor history.
Given the dwindling options left and the im-
mense challenges ahead, it does, perhaps, offer
the best route for any type of true union move-
ment revival in the United States. ■
ENDNOTES
1 Michael Goldfi eld, The Decline of Organized Labor
in the United States (Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 1987), p. xiv.
2 Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of
Labor, “News Release: Union Members – 2011”
www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf (Janu-

ary 27, 2012) <Accessed on January 3, 2013>.
Labor, “News Release: Union Members – 2011”
www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf (Janu-
ary 27, 2012) <Accessed on January 3, 2013>.
Labor, “Economic News Release: Table 1. Work
Stoppages Involving 1,000 or More Workers,
1947-2011” www.bls.gov/news.release /wkstp.
t01.htm (February 8, 2012) <Accessed on Janu-
ary 3, 2013>.
Labor, “Economic News Release: Table 1. Work
Stoppages Involving 1,000 or More Workers,
1947-2011” www.bls.gov/news.release /wkstp.
t01.htm (February 8, 2012) <Accessed on Janu-
ary 3, 2013>.
6 For articles providing varying perspectives,
although sometimes with subtle differences, on
the Change to Win Federation as the rival of
the AFL-CIO, see Gary Chaison, “The AFL-CIO
Split: Does It Really Matter? ” Journal of Labor Re-
search, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Spring 2007), pp. 301-311;
Richard W. Hurd, “U.S. Labor 2006: Strategic
Developments Across the Divide,” Journal of
Labor Research, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Spring 2007), pp.
313-325; Jim McNeill, “Work in Progress: The
State of the Unions Two Years after the AFL-CIO
Split,” Dissent, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Spring 2007), pp.
71-76; Samuel Estreicher, “Disunity Within the
House of Labor: Change to Win or to Stay the

Course? ” Journal of Labor Research, Vol. 27, No.
4 (Fall 2006), pp. 505-511; Ian Greer, “Business
Union vs. Business Union? Understanding the
Split in the US Labour Movement,” Capital &
Class, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Autumn 2006), pp. 1-6; and
Marick Masters, Ray Gibney, and Tom Zagenczyk,
“The AFL-CIO v. CTW: The Competing Visions,
Strategies, and Structures,” Journal of Labor Re-
search, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Fall 2006), pp. 473-504.”
7 For discussions of the Hormel strike, see Neala
J. Schleuning, Women, Community, and the Hormel
Strike of 1985-86 (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1994), Peter Rachleff, Hard-Pressed in the
Heartland: The Hormel Strike and the Future of the
Labor Movement. (Boston: South End Press, 1993);
Hardy Green, On Strike at Hormel: The Struggle for a
Democratic Labor Movement (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1990) and Dave Hage and Paul
Klauda. No Retreat, No Surrender: Labor’s War at
Hormel (New York: William Morrow, 1989).
8 An excellent book detailing the United Paper-
workers strike is Julius Getman, The Betrayal of
Local 14 (Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 1998).
18
TO BE DONE”
9 For a book discussing the Staley lockout and
the defeat of the Decatur (Illinois) local of the

United Paper workers International Union,
see Steven K. Ashby and C.J. Hawking, Staley:
The Fight for a New American Labor Movement
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009).
Details on the United Auto Workers’ defeat in
their strikes against Caterpillar can be found in
Stephen Franklin, Three Strikes: Labor’s Heartland
Losses and What They Mean for Working Americans
(New York: The Guilford Press, 2001); Isaac
Cohen, “The Caterpillar Labor Dispute and the
UAW, 1991-1998,” Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 27,
No. 4 (Winter 2002), pp. 77-99 and Victor G.
Devinatz, “A Heroic Defeat: The Caterpillar
Labor Dispute and the UAW, 1991-1998,” Labor
Studies Journal, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer 2005),
pp. 1-18.
10 A book covering the 19-month strikes at the
Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, and the
subsequent defeat of the Newspaper Guild, is
Chris Rhomberg, The Broken Table: The Detroit
Newspaper Strike and the State of American Labor
(New York: Russell Sage Foundation , 2012).
11 Two articles concerning the UPS Strike that
conclude that unions can successfully confront
the power of corporations even under the most
diffi cult circumstances are Matt Witt and Rand
Wilson, “The Teamsters’ UPS Strike of 1997:
Building a New Labor Movement,” Labor Studies
Journal, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 1999), pp. 58-72
and Matt Witt and Rand Wilson, Part-Time
America Won’t Work: The Teamsters Fight
for Good Jobs at UPS in Not Your Father’s Union
Movement: Inside the AFL-CIO, Jo-Ann Mort (ed.),
Verso, London, pp. 179-187, 1998. For an article

that contends that even though the Teamsters
emerged victorious in the UPS strike, it did not
signal that the U.S. labor movement was on the
cusp of a major turnaround as some commen-
tators claimed at the time, see R. Rothstein,
“Union Strength in the United States: Lessons
from the UPS Strike,” International Labour Review
136 (1997), pp. 469-91.
12 Matt Noyes, “Business Unionism and Its Dis-
contents: Reflections on “Social Movement
Unionism” and the Union Leadership in the
U.S.” Rolling Earth, Movement Education www.
re.rollingearth.org/?q=book/export /html/147
(April 2009) <Accessed October 15, 2011>
13 Joseph C. Goulden, Meany: The Unchallenged
Strong Man of American Labor. (New York: Ath-
eneum Publishers, 1972), p. 466.
14 Id at p.25
15 Taylor E. Dark, The Unions and the Democrats: An
Enduring Alliance (Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, 1999),
pp. 107-114.
16 Bruce Nissen, “What Are Scholars Telling the
U.S. Labor Movement to Do?” Labor History, Vol.
44, No. 2 (May 2003), p. 160.
17 Id.
18 Information on this important strike can be found
in Michael A. Round, Grounded: Reagan and the
PATCO Crash (New York: Garland Publishers,
1999); Willis. J. Nordlund, Silent Skies: The Air

Traffi c Controllers’ Strike (Westport, Connecticut:
Praeger, 1998); Arthur B. Shostak and David
Skocik, The Air Controllers’ Controversy: Lessons
From the PATCO Strike (New York: Human Sci-
ences Press, 1986); Richard W. Hurd, “Refl ec-
tions on PATCO’s Legacy: Labor’s Strategic
Challenges Persist,” Employee Responsibilities and
Rights Journal, Vol. 18, No. 3 (September 2006),
pp. 207-214; Arthur B. Shostak, “Finding Meaning
in Labor’s “Perfect Storm”: Lessons from the
1981 PATCO Strike,” Employee Responsibilities
and Rights Journal, Vol.18. No. 3 (September
2006), pp. 223-229; and Joseph A. McCartin, “A
Historian’s Perspective on the PATCO Strike, Its
Legacy, and Lessons,” Employee Responsibilities
and Rights Journal, Vol. 18, No. 3 (September
2006), pp. 215-222.
19 With the advent of concession bargaining in
the early 1980s the crisis of business unionism
became apparent in the U.S. private sector.
While this type of bargaining was typically found
in the private sector, public-sector concession
bargaining occurred during this time period
as well. For pertinent articles on concession
bargaining in the private sector, see Everett M.
Kassalow, “Concession Bargaining: Towards
New Roles for American Unions and Manag-
ers,” International Labour Review, Vol. 127, No. 5
(1988), pp. 573-592; Brian E. Becker, “Conces-
sion Bargaining: The Impact on Shareholders’
Equity,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol.
40, No. 2 ( January 1987), pp. 268-279; James
A. Craft, Suhail Abboushi and Trudy Labovitz,
“Concession Bargaining and Unions: Impacts

and Implications,” Journal of Labor Research,
Vol. 6, No. 2 (Spring1985), pp. 167-180 ; Peter
Cappelli, “Plant-Level Concession Bargaining,”
Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 39,
No. 1 (October 1985), pp. 90-104 and David
Bensman, “Concession Bargaining in Steel: A
Weakened Union Faces Corporate Blackmail,”
Dissent Vol. 30, No. 1 (Winter 1983), pp. 97-
102. Information on public-sector concession
bargaining can be found in David Lewin, “Im-
plications of Concession Bargaining: Lessons
from the Public Sector,” Monthly Labor Review,
Vol. 106, No. 3 (May 1983), pp. 33-35.
20 Most industrial relations scholars and practi-
tioners have considered the introduction of
labor-management cooperation programs to be
a positive development because of the alleged
gains afforded to unions and employers. For
articles and books supportive of this position,
see Michael J. Duane, The Grievance Process
in Labor-Management Cooperation (Westport,
Connecticut : Quorum Books, 1993); Elmer
Chat ak , “A Unionist’s Perspective on the
Future of American Unions,” Journal of Labor
Research, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Fall 1991), pp. 327-332;
William Brock, III, “The Importance of Labor-
Management Cooperation,” Journal of Labor
Research, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer 1990), pp.
225-230 ; William N. Cooke, Labor-Management
Cooperation: New Partnerships or Going in Circles
(Kalamazoo, Michigan: W.E. Upjohn Institute
for Employment Research, 1990); Edward Co-
hen-Rosenthal and Cynthia E. Burton, Mutual
Gains: A Guide to Union-Management Cooperation

for Employment Research, 1984); Gary B. Han-
sen, “Ford and the UAW Have a Better Idea:
A Joint Labor-Management Approach to Plant
Closings and Worker Retraining,” The Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, Vol. 475, No. 1 (1984), pp. 158-174;
and Michael H. Schuster, Union-Management
Cooperation : Struc ture , Process , and Impac t
for Employment Research,1984). There are,
however, a number of articles and books au-
thored from a pro-union perspective that are
exceptionally critical of union involvement in
such programs such as Mike Parker and Jane
Slaughter, Working Smart: A Union Guide to
Participation Programs and Reengineering (De-
troit : Labor Notes, 1994); Mike Parker and
Jane Slaughter, Unions and the Team Concept
(Boston: South End Press, 1988); Donald M.
Wells, Empty Promises: Quality of Working Life
Programs and the Labor Movement (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1987); and Mike Parker,
Inside the Circle: A Union Guide to Quality of Work
Life (Boston: South End Press, 1985).
21 Jefferson Cowie, Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the
Last Days of the Working Class (New York: The
New Press, 2010), p. 301.
22 Paul Buhle, Taking Care of Business: Samuel Gomp-
ers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the Tragedy
of American Labor (New York: Monthly Review
Press, 1999), pp. 223-224.
23 Id at 231

24 Harold Meyerson, “AFL-CIO Sweeney’s Real
Trium phs .” ht t p : / / w w w.w a shing t onpos t .
com /w p - dyn / content / ar ticle / 20 0 9 / 0 9 /15 /
AR2009091502982.html?wprss=rss_opinions
(September 16, 2009) <Accessed on November
30, 2009>
25 Kim Moody, “American Labor: A Movement
Again? ” Monthly Review, Vol. 49, No. 3 ( July-
August 1997a), p. 63
26 Michael D. Yates, Why Unions Matter. (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 2009), p. 16.
27 Peter Waterman, “Adventures of Emancipatory
Labour Strategy as the New Global Movement
Challenges International Unionism,” Journal of
World-Systems Research, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Winter
2004), pp. 217-253.
28 Kim Moody, Workers in a Lean World: Unions in
the International Economy (London: Verso, 1997).
29 Noyes.
30 Buhle.
31 Lowell Turner and Richard Hurd, Building Social
Movement Unionism: The Transformation of
the American Labor Movement in Rekindling
the Movement: Labor’s Quest for Relevance in the
21st Century, Lowell Turner, Harry C. Katz, and
Richard W. Hurd (eds.), Cornell University
Press, Ithaca, New York, pp. 14-17, 2001.
32 Victor G. Devinatz, “To Find Answers to the

Urgent Problems of Our Society”: The Alliance
for Labor Action’s Atlanta Union Organizing
Offensive, 1969-1971,” Labor Studies Journal, Vol.
31, No. 2 (June 2006), pp. 71, 73
33 45. Roger Waldinger, Christopher Erickson,
Ruth Milkman, Daniel J.B. Mitchell, Abel. Valen-
zuela, Kent Wong and Maurice Zeitlin, Helots
No More: A Case Study of the Justice for Jani-
tors Campaign in Los Angeles, in Organizing to
Win: New Research on Union Strategies, ed. Kate
Bronfenbrenner, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W.
Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, and Ronlad L. Seeber
(eds.), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New
York, pp. 102-119, 1998; Catherine L. Fisk, Daniel
J.B. Mitchell, and Christopher L. Erickson, Union
Representation of Immigrant Janitors in South-
ern California: Economic and Legal Challenges,
in Organizing Immigrants: The Challenge for Unions
in Contemporary California, Ruth Milkman (ed.),
Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, pp.
169-198, 2000.
34 Harold Meyerson, “Rolling the Union On: John
Sweeney’s Movement Four Years Later,” Dissent,
Vol. 47, No. 1 (Winter 2000), p. 48.
35 Steve Early, Embedded with Organized Labor:
Journalistic Refl ections on the Class War at Home
(New York: Monthly Review Press; 2009), p. 131;
Dark, p. 338.
19

LABOR LAW JOURNAL
36 Michael D. Yates, “Does the U.S. Labor Move-
ment Have a Future? ” Monthly Review, Vol. 48,
No. 9 (February 1997), p. 13; Early, p. 131
37 Yates, 2009, p. 202; Kim Moody, “Up Against the
Polyester Ceiling: The “New” AFL-CIO Orga-
nizes – Itself! New Politics, Vol. 6 (new series)
1998: pp. 11-18.
38 Moody 1997a, pp. 63-64.
39 Greer at 3.
40 Hurd, at 315.
41 Greer at 3.
42 Meyerson, 2000, p. 52.
43 John J. Sweeney, “The Growing Alliance Between
Gay and Union Activists,” Social Text, Volume 17,
No. 4 (Winter 1999), pp. 31-38.
44 Moody.
45 Id.
46 John J. Sweeney, America Needs a Raise: Fight-
ing for Economic Securit y and Social Justice
(Wilmington, MA: Houghton Miffl in Company,
1996), p. 149.
47 Id at 150.
48 Early, p. 128; Meyerson 2009.
49 Robert Bruno, “John Sweeney and the Next
American Labor Movement,” The Labor and
Working-Class History Association Newsletter, (Fall
2009), p. 6

50 Moody.
51 Id.
52 Joshua Freeman, “Symposium: Split to Win? Assess-
ing the State of the Labor Movement Dissent, Vol. 53,
No. 1 (Winter 2006): pp. 54-56; Greer; Chaison.
53 Id at 55.
54 Greer at 6.
55 Noyes.
56 Id.
57 “Victory After 15-Year Battle: UFCW Orga-
nizes Smithfi eld Plant North Carolina,” Workers
Vanguard, No. 927, January 2, 2009, http://www.
icl-fi .org/print/english/wv/927/smithfi eld.html.
<Accessed March 21, 2010>
58 “Victory After 15-Year Battle: UFCW Orga-
nizes Smithfi eld Plant North Carolina,” Workers
Vanguard, No. 927, January 2, 2009, http://www.
icl-fi .org/print/english/wv/927/smithfi eld.html.
<Accessed March 21, 2010>
59 Kari Lydersen, Revolt on Goose Island: The Chi-
cago Factory Takeover, and What It Says About the
Economic Crisis. (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House
Publishing, 2009).
60 Stephen Lerner, “An Injury to All: Going Beyond
Collective Bargaining as We Have Known It,”
New Labor Forum, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Spring 2010),
pp. 46, 49.
61 Robert Fitch, “Card Check: Labor’s Charlie

Brown Moment,” New Politics, Vol. 7, No. 4
(Winter 2010) Whole No. 48 newpol.org/con-
tent/card-check-labors-charlie-brown-moment
<Accessed January 3, 2013>
62 Lerner at 48.
63 Id at 48-49.
64 Robert Fitch, “Card Check: Labor’s Charlie
Brown Moment,” New Politics, Vol. 7, No. 4
(Winter 2010) Whole No. 48 newpol.org/con-
tent/card-check-labors-charlie-brown-moment
<Accessed January 3, 2013>
65 Fitch.
66 Id.
67 Id.
Copyright of Labor Law Journal is the property of CCH
Incorporated and its content may not be copied or
emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder's express written permission.
However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.

Crisis of US Trade Unionism and Solutions

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Crisis of US Trade Unionism and Solutions

Similar to Crisis of US Trade Unionism and Solutions (6)

More from evonnehoggarth79783

More from evonnehoggarth79783 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Crisis of US Trade Unionism and Solutions