When the Labor Notes staff and Policy Committee started organizing the 2006 conference nearly a year ago, our thinking was along the lines of: "How in the world are we going to we cheer these folks up?"

As it turned out, participants brought their own good spirits, buoyed in part by a sense of "we're all in the same boat." Said Curt Booza of the striking Northwest mechanics union, "It was a real eye-opener to meet and hear from so many from around the country and the world who are locked in the same type of struggles as us."

WHAT THEY GOT

The fact that the event took place just four days after the largest workers' marches in the history of the United States didn't hurt morale, either. Conference organizer Marsha Niemeijer opened the first session by noting that, because of the immigrant rights marches on May 1, International Workers Day was celebrated in this country as it is around the world (see page 8).

Conference speakers included (from top):
Julie Washington, vice president of United Teachers - Los Angeles;
Lucas Benitez, co-director of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers; and Tom Leedham, candidate for president of the Teamsters Union.

This conference saw an infusion of energy from young attendees, and more than half of the 900 participants were coming to Labor Notes for the first time. It also featured our largest-ever number of international guests, close to 100 from 17 countries.

Combing through participants' comments, it's clear that the Labor Notes Conference is good for three things: inspiration, education, and, most of all, building relationships and organizations.

Kevin McCaffery, Maintenance Craft Director from APWU Local 2122 in Bloomington, Indiana, said, "It's really humbling and inspiring to see how much great work people are doing all over the country... You're always so focused on what you're doing in your own local, but you hear about the great work brothers and sisters are doing in other places, and it shows how much more I could be doing."

"I had to rethink some strategies and I realize I have to go back to the basics [on mobilizing members]. And I also feel more energized," commented one participant at the packed workshop on Assertive Grievance Handling.

"The forum on the labor movement in Iraq gave me ammunition to talk to the people in my work area," said Toledo Jeep worker George Windau.

ORGANIZING SPACE

People use the conference as a place to do their own organizing within their union or industry. See the sidebars on the special meetings held by airline and auto workers, and by workers center activists, for example.

"I spent all day Friday and Saturday in meetings with front line activists in my industry," said US Airways flight attendant Joshua Devries. "Because of the meetings we had at the conference, we were able to frame a more concrete set of plans for the next several months. Meeting face to face helped to develop personal connections to the real people behind disembodied voices from our conference calls over the last five months."

2006 Conference Overview -- Transcripts of Talks Included

A meeting of Canadian and U.S. postal workers discussed their employers' common blueprint for closings and consolidations, and U.S. workers were intrigued to hear of the Canadian union's Operation Transparency campaign, which includes plans for civil disobedience.

"We knew that we were both under attack," said Bruce Clark, president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union, "but we didn't know that they were facing the same attack up there [in Canada] that we are down here."

Members of the new rail workers group Rail Operating Crafts United met to discuss strategy. Rail workers, like their counterparts in the airlines, face organizing hurdles due to their geographic spread and union in-fighting.

Meeting in person allowed ROCU members to tackle issues such as how best to push internal democracy and cross-union unity inside the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen and the United Transportation Union. With railroad employers looking for major concessions, the meeting seemed all the more important.

AIR DIFFERENCES

Alongside the opportunities to build industry solidarity, the conference also made space for the airing of differences. New York City transit workers, for example, put forth competing ideas about their recent strike and contract woes.

When members who had supported the actions of Transport Workers Union Local 100 leaders saw that those leaders' critics had a vocal presence at the conference, they asked for space to organize a meeting and present their side of the story.

The resulting well-attended forum served as a reminder that open debate and disagreement are essential in a democratic movement.

RISING MOVEMENT FEATURED

One well-attended lunchtime meeting focused on the need for educational materials about immigration issues for native-born Americans. Yanira Merino of the Laborers cited a survey that showed 60 percent of union members opposing any immigration reform.

Jerome Scott of Project South suggested a pamphlet about the real impact of immigrants on wages. One teacher suggested that the National Education Association's Peace and Justice Committee could send out curriculum materials.

Yes, the labor movement is weak and our enemies are strong. But the 900 participants at "Building Solidarity from Below" reminded us all of the boundless creativity--and even optimism--that exists in the workers' movement.

-Jane Slaughter

Special Meetings Bring Together Workers from Specific Industries or Unions

Auto Workers

Auto workers met twice during the conference weekend. On Saturday we heard speakers from Belgium, Canada, Wales, Japan, Russia, Sweden, and the United States describe the problems they were facing in the fight against concessions and the companies' attacks on working conditions and a decent standard of living.

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Many of the 100 workers present were struck by the similarity of their problems--and the similar strategies the corporations were pursuing. We discussed what we could do to build an international network where we could exchange information and support each other's struggles. We decided to set up a blog and email network.

The Japanese workers circulated a petition demanding an investigation into the work-related death of one of their fellow workers.

Participants felt invigorated by the realization that the same number was being played on everyone, that struggles had been won by fighting back, and that by joining together across borders we could have the power to turn things around.

On Sunday, the group Soldiers of Solidarity met to discuss organizing the fight against the Delphi bankruptcy and new attempts to negotiate concessions on the local level that will be used against everyone.

At Chrysler, where financial difficulty is not an issue, workers in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Trenton, Michigan were told their plants would close if they did not agree to fewer union reps, break time cut in half, a regular day of 10 hours with no overtime pay until after 40 per week, a five-year wage progression for new-hires, and line workers also doing all skilled work.

UAW members were present who had been elected or were running for delegate to the UAW Convention in June. All agreed that it was paramount to try to get these questions on the convention floor.

- Wendy Thompson
United Auto Workers Local 235

Members from six unions, four crafts, and seven airlines came together at the Labor Notes conference to strategize and organize around ways to turn around four years of union defeats in the airline industry.

Airline Workers United (AWU), a group formed by airline union members earlier this year to build solidarity in the industry, helped organize these meetings. Coming out of the conference, many of the 35 airline workers attending agreed on several basic principles and some concrete goals for the months ahead.

The first campaign AWU will focus on is at Mesaba Airlines. A coalition of the pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics unions at the regional carrier is setting an example of cross-union strategy and solidarity. Tom Wychor, president of the Mesaba pilots' union, spoke at the May 5 kickoff panel for the airline worker events.

A flight attendant from US Airways in Philadelphia will put out a press release announcing AWU's formation and emphasize the Mesaba coalition in the fight against the bankrupt airline as a model to be copied and supported.

A mechanic from United in San Francisco built the AWU website (www.airlineworkersunited.org) and is creating a petition to put pressure on union leaders to build coalitions to stop concessions and win back what has been lost.

Finally, activists from all over the industry committed to road shows across the country to build solidarity and AWU membership.

-Joshua Devries

Labor Notes used its 2003 conference to build the first national gathering of workers centers in the United States. These groups are on the frontlines of organizing the unorganized at the grassroots, particularly among low-wage immigrant workers. This year's conference devoted more space for their networking and organizing.

More than 40 people, from 20 different workers centers and non-majority unions, discussed their work and the challenges they face. "We're a union in every sense of the word. We just don't have a contract," said Chuck Yoak in a workshop on non-majority organizing. Yoak's union, the Carolina Auto, Aerospace and Machine Workers Union (CAAMWU) got its start in the 1990s in a fight to win Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday.

Kermit Moore, an organizer with the Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights, also made it clear that unions and workers centers don't have to be at odds with each other. "We work alongside unions during organizing drives or when they're fighting with employers. Unions in Mississippi only represent five percent of the workforce, so we know we've got to stand together."