Read below for a full report on the 2003 Labor Notes conference: Troublemaking in Troubled Times. Below that is a report from the rally held at Ford's headquarters in Dearborn and a report from the historic worker center meeting that was held during the conference.
Troublemakers gathered at Labor Notes' 25th Anniversary Conference in September 2003-- and came away with a deeper understanding of these troubled times and a more complex view of what’s necessary to overcome them.
In the workshops and in the halls, it was clear that everyone felt the menace of globalization, recession, war, shrinking unions, and the new wave of corporate take-aways.
At the same time, as one participant said, it was as if you could feel a movement being built. The numbers-almost 900 participants, 54 workshops, 40 union/sector/interest meetings-tell you something. But it wasn’t only the numbers. It was the spirit.
A NEW SERIOUSNESS
Troubled times seem to have created a larger sense of responsibility.
“I felt that this conference showed the collective maturity of our movement, a recognition of the difficult phase we’re in,” said Jerry Tucker, who helps health care workers in St. Louis to organize. “We went beyond the usual strategies and tactics to tackle the major debates that are facing the AFL-CIO right now.
“You get the impression that something is bubbling beneath the surface of our society, and I thought I could feel it at the conference. Maybe the magma is beginning to build.”
Within that context, a spirit of solidarity pervaded the conference. This was not just a union conference but one for workers organizing in a multitude of ways. In a small way it brought together workers from around the world.
The conference made real the sometimes abstract idea that our problems are often the same and that we will all have to solve them together. Solidarity was the theme: between unions and communities, between unions in different countries, between workers of different races.
Workers centers held a workshop about cooperation between worker centers and unions. There were workshops on the living wage and on immigrant workers’ organizing. The women’s caucus meeting and the women of color meetings-particularly inspired by Veronica Mesatwya from South Africa-grappled with the need to build a new women’s movement and at the center of it a working women’s movement.
Sessions on Asian labor and South American labor were complemented by a session on solidarity between workers of the global North and South. A meeting on garment and maquiladora workers brought together groups from Oaxaca, Monclova, Tijuana (all in Mexico), Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Sri Lanka.
UNIONS MEET
Within this broader sense of solidarity, the Labor Notes Conference still, of course, provided a place to strategize about what to do in your own union or industry. Public sector workers were the largest group at the conference, and discussed responding to Homeland Security, tax and budget cuts, and benefits issues.
A reform caucus of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters talked about strategies for changing their union. Teamster reformers discussed the fight to defend their pensions.
Over 35 longshore workers met, representing both U.S. coasts, Spain, and South Africa. They discussed privatization threats in Europe and South Africa, the struggle for democracy in the International Longshoremen's Association, and how to organize a united response to employers’ attacks. Plans are under way for a longshore workers conference in 2004, organized by Labor Notes and the Association for Union Democracy.
TRAIN THE TRAINER
The conference served as a huge train-the-trainer session on dozens of different topics. Activists set up an impromptu 14-hour session to teach people how to use two free and easy internet communication tools, weblogs and news aggregators.
Participants taught each other how to handle grievances, fight outsourcing and subcontracting, challenge lean production and surveillance, and develop strike strategies.
There were classes in the nuts and bolts of running your union, and in strategies for reforming it. We heard talks about reforming the AFL-CIO and about how to teach the economic effects of war.
DEBATING STRATEGIES
Labor Notes remains one of the few places where activists from different unions and movements can debate the big-picture questions. Most important: how do we build the labor movement?
Some unions are using “leverage campaigns”-bringing outside pressure to bear--to push employers to recognize the union. What, we asked each other, should be the rank-and-file response if the campaign is top-down and doesn’t plan for workers’ involvement? We didn’t answer the question, but left better informed about the debate.
Through the education and debate, from the workshops and plenary sessions, out at the rally in front of Ford Headquarters, even in the coffee shop and party banter, you could gather a sense of optimism, or, if optimism is too strong a word, of determination. We had the sense that with each other’s help, we’re going forward.
Perhaps the most moving common moment in the conference was the speech by Oliver Montgomery, a 70-year-old black worker who fought for 50 years for equal rights in the steel industry and society-and who is still fighting.
He reminded us of the great civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s which laid the basis for every other social movement that has come since, including our own today. We heard in his eloquent words the dignity, the intelligence, the tenacity, and the humanity of one worker. Workers like him-he made us realize-continue to come forward from our own society and from every working class in the world, giving us the confidence that indeed-troubled times and all--we shall overcome.
-Dan La Botz
RALLY AGAINST GLOBALIZATION AT FORD
The conference adjourned for a spirited rally at Ford World Headquarters nearby, in solidarity with the Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate Globalization and War. Rally chair Gregg Shotwell, an auto worker at Delphi, told the crowd: “No matter where you work or how you work; whether you supply auto parts, uniforms, or software; what happens at Ford is coming soon to a theater near you. We say no to concessions, no to war, no to competition. We say yes to solidarity, yes to justice, yes to peace and human dignity.”
A Ford representative monitoring the demonstration politely inquired of Labor Notes co-director Simone Sagovac: “Everything is fine except we’ve noticed there are some people holding some anti-Ford signs. We’re in bargaining right now, and we don’t want any media to see those signs and get the wrong idea. Could you just tell them to put their signs down?”
FIRST NATIONAL MEETING OF WORKER CENTERS DISCUSSES STRATEGIES, VISION
By N. Renuka Uthappa
Labor Notes hosted a first-of-its kind Worker Center Conference on September 11, a day before the beginning of our Troublemaking in Troubled Times conference. Representatives from 25 worker centers-community-based groups organizing for labor rights-gathered to discuss their organizing vision, strategies, campaigns, funding issues, and challenges.
The mood seemed to be a glad “start of recognition” and a burgeoning sense of solidarity.
READY TO GO!
Jon Liss, director of the Tenants’ and Workers’ Support Committee in Alexandria, Virginia, said his co-worker, Mulugeta Yimer, left the conference inspired: “He was feeling beaten up. Finding out that others were facing and fighting the same things around the country helped. He’s been calling other organizers saying he’s fired up and ready to go!”
The meeting was open only to worker center members, and this led to open discussion. One participant explained, “It was good to have a space where we could not worry about what we were saying. Usually, when you are talking about your relationship with unions, you have to be more careful.”
ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION
Participants agreed that their conversations must continue. They want to talk about:
• How do you focus on organizing while people have pressing life concerns, like legal problems, the threat of eviction, and hunger?
• How do you get workers involved so they don’t think the center’s elected board will do all the work?
• How do you develop a sense of identity among an ethnically diverse membership?
• Are we committed enough to build some unity instead of hoarding our discoveries of what works to use as special nuggets for grant proposals?
• How do you incorporate a vision into organizing?
• How do you structure your organizing so it combines with the power of unions?
The meeting was charged, the breakout discussions were intense. Labor Notes will keep you posted.