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News :: Miscellaneous |
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TEMPIN' AIN'T EASY... |
Current rating: 0 |
by Gregory A. Butler, local 608 carpenter
(No verified email address) |
09 Jul 2002
Modified: 10 Jul 2002 |
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Temp agencies and the future of referral hall unions in America |
Back in the days when 70% of American construction workers was union, before the great wave of union busting in the trades in the 1970's, one of the main hooks that kept contractors union was the hiring hall system. Contractors knew that extra labor was a phone call away, weather they needed more people for a new project..or if they wanted a replacement for somebody they wanted to get rid of.
That was one of the main reasons that the construction industry had such high union density for so many years... Contractors, both union and otherwise, like "flexible" workforces..they like to be able to hire and fire at will and whim, at a moment's notice...and, the hiring hall system let them do that.
Even today, one of the main arguments that the 700-odd international organizers of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of American use to try to persuade non union contractors to become signatory employers is the hiring hall system. They tell bosses that a steady, yet disposible, supply of skilled, trained labor would be just a phone call away, if only they signed up with the UBCJA.
One little problem..in the 3 decades since the bulk of American construction went non union, a system of what can best be described as "non union hiring halls" have sprung up.
They are, of course, the Temp agencies...and, along with the sidewalk shapeups and "community hiring halls" that service the illegal alien day laborer community, they have become the casual labor supplier of choice for the 83% of US construction firms which are open shop.
The temp agencies even have a piece of the union job market.
In Anaheim, California, local 681 of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees union dismantled it's hiring hall.and forced it's casual waiters to sign up with a temp agency.
At the Las Vegas Convention Center, local 631 trade show Teamsters are often supplimented by non union temporary workers from United Temps.. That deal was negotiated behind those workers backs by top Junior Hoffa aides Dane Passo and Billy Hogan, Jr .
Incidentally, Hogan's family just happens to own United Temps...(a familiar way of doing business for the Hogan family..in Chicago, where the Hogan's run Teamsters local 714 at the McCormick Place Convention Center, most of the Teamster contractors at McCormick are...owned by Hogans or Hogan in-laws)
Fortunately, Hogan and Passo were subsequently expelled from the union, for life, by the feds for this act.
Unfortunately..there are still non union temps doing Teamster work at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Even though Dane and Billy Junior were expelled..the temp deal still stands, unfortunately.
And, that's not the only Teamster employer that uses non union temps. Miller Beer has an agreement with the Teamsters Brewery Workers Division that allows them to use unlimited numbers of temps.
So, during the peak summertime beer season, rather than hiring casual Teamsters to brew the beer, Miller uses temps..for much of the year, a majority of the brewery workforce at Miller are temporary workers.
In other words, if you're drinking a Miller Light right now...you probably ain't drinking union brewed beer...in fact, odds are it was made by non union, rightless, low paid, no benefits, temps.
And don't bother switching to a Budweiser, or a Michelob, or even a 40oz of Olde English 800...cause those companies have the same deal with the Teamsters too.
At one time, being a summer casual in a brewery was just about the only way for a person with no "connections" to break into the highly paid, and highly nepotistic, unionized brewery industry. As late as the 1970's, it was actually possible for a summer casual to work their way up, and, eventually, get a full time job in the brewery.
Not anymore.. today, the breweries use the temp agencies to supply them with disposable labor...who they can kick to the curb in the fall..or, who they can keep as a permanent second class lower tier worker, with no benefits, no seniority, no pension and no rights...
And it's not just unions with generally sub par working condtions, like the HERE and the Teamsters, with this temp problem...even the militant United Electrical Workers union has hundreds of low paid, no benefits, non union temps, (as well as welfare recipients from the workfare program), employed side by side with their members at the flagship plant of electrical manufacturer Allen Bradley in Milwaukee.
Those are far from isolated incidents, of course..the scourge of temping is very common these days in many many other "unionized" factories too, as well as other industries.
They even have temp professional workers...many of the school districts in Oklahoma use Kelly Services, a white collar temp agency, to supply them with substitute teachers.
Some law firms even hire attorneys from temp agencies like Kelly and Manpower.
Welcome to the brave new world of "contingent labor"..where Manpower is the nation's largest employer, and where you can order labor like you'd order a pizza...quick, cheap, and disposable.
In light of this development, it's not at all surprising that the building trades, an industry that's ALWAYS had sub standard labor pratices, has a HUGE temp problem...which I'll get into below.
At one time, temp agencies were strictly a white collar game..supplying temporary office help to cover maternity leaves and vacations..and, in some heavily unionized places, like New York City, that's still the main business of temp agencies.
Although even here, most clerical temps are "permatemps"..they are employed by a temp agency, but are basically working full time assignments for a bank, insurance company or law firm...except they have no benefits and no rights, and can get fired with a phone call.
But, in most of the country, [especially in the so called "Right To Work" states of the South and West] the bulk of temps are blue collar labor...cooks, waiters/waitresses, bussmen, dishwashers, factory workers, warehousepeople, machinists, welders, trade show set up &dismantling workers, drivers..and, of course, members of the construction trades; electricians, plumbers, sheet metal workers, bricklayers, ironworkers, laborers, and, of course, carpenters [including all the subdivisions of carpentry - furniture installers, drywallers, concrete formwork setters, concrete formwork strippers, ect].
This is a fact of life for much of the nation's construction workforce today. Non union contractors, like their union counterparts, still have a core of permanent employees..who generally have more job security than their union counterparts. But, these companies go to the temp agencies [and, of course, to the day labor shapeups on the corners and in Home Depot parking lots] to fill their needs for extra labor.
Unfortunately, the building trades unions don't really have a solution for this.
This is ESPECIALLY true of the so called "organizing unions" in the building trades, the UBCJA and the Laborers International Union of North America.
In fact, the union hiring hall system is fast degenerating to the level of the temp agencies..
In fact, the building trades really don't have an alternative for the temps..because the unions themselves have their own force of "temp" workers..the union tradespeople who work out of the union hiring halls.
In a climate like that, where union conditions are fast sinking to non union levels..is it possible to organize America's millions of blue collar temp workers?
Let's take a look...
As I pointed out above, the reason that construction unions evolved a hiring hall system in the mid 20th century was to supply contractors with extra labor on short notice.
In the building trades unions, unlike most of the rest of labor movement, contractors always retained the same "at will employer" rights of non union bosses..that is, they could fire a worker at any time, for any reason, or no reason at all.. The unions would happily replace the fired worker, no questions asked.
Of course, the hiring halls also provided a means for union tradespeople who didn't have a steady job with a company to get employment.
After the 1950's, referral halls became a more and more important part of construction unionism.
Construction was becoming more complex, with new types of building materials. And, the business structure of construction changed too..
Before, the bulk of the labor on a site worked directly for a General Contractor, and often had steady seasonal work with that particular firm, going from job to job from April to November..and then coming back to work for the same boss next season.
But, there was a new breed of contractor coming on the scene, the specialty subcontractor. These firms installed one particular type of material, and/or they performed a particular type of work...[drywall contractors, concrete contractors ect]...
Their demand for labor sharply fluctuated depending on how many jobs they had...they couldn't take that many people from job to job, like the old GC's did.
Plus now, the GCs had a lot fewer direct employees on the site..today's GCs usually only employ supers, plus a few laborers and operating engineers..everybody else on the site works for a sub.
This made employment a lot more volatile for tradespeople..even if a boss liked you, he still might have to lay you off when that job was done..and you'd have to go back to the hall.
So, more and more members had no choice but to rely on the union's out of work lists as their main source of employment. In the case of the largest union in the building trades, the UBCJA, there had hardly been any carpenter hiring halls prior to the 1950's...most carpenters worked for the same GC year in and year out..or went out shaping with a group of carpenters early in the season, got on as a group, and stayed with the same company for the whole season.
But, within a generation, most union carpenters got their employment from the union..with only a relatively small, well connected majority of union carpenters getting their own jobs all of the time. The subs, unlike the GCs, took a lot less of their carpenters from job to job...only a small core workforce of foremen and "company men" had anything resembling job security.
Meanwhile, in the clerical field, a new industry was being born..the temporary staffing business. Banks, insurance companies, law firms and other employers of clerical labor had found that the demographics of their office workforce had changed during WW II. They suddenly had large number of married women with kids on the payroll, unlike the past, where they'd mainly had young unmarried childless female workers.
And, women with kids in the days before they had daycare meant having to find replacements for workers with a sick child..not to mention things like maternity leave.
Future giants of the Temp industry like Manpower and Kelly were founded to fill this need for temporary staffing by these employers. During the 1960's, these companies expanded into other industries with large numbers of women workers..including warehouse "pick and pack" operations, and the then brand new industry of electronics manufacturing.
But, the same pattern remained..they were merely providing temporary replacements for workers who would be back in the near future.
This pattern would change greatly later on...as the temp agencies expanded the scope of industries they covered..and broadened their workforce to include male workers. I'll have more to say about that below.
Getting back to the building trades, during the 1950's, non union contracting began to grow. At first, they were mainly confined to residential construction in the new suburbs. The main thing that kept these companies from growing was the fact that they didn't have access to a pool of labor, the way the union contractors did.
This meant that, if a non union outfit got a big job, they had to go out and find labor, through want adds, employment agencies, and "hiring off the bank" at the jobsites..and, of course, getting many unqualified applicants..as well as spending money on the adds, and the agencies...while the union companies could simply make a phone call, and get labor for free.
Non union construction employers also had to hang on to skilled workers when they found them. They had to keep the guys working, or risk losing them to the competition. The union contractors didn't have to provide that kind of stability to their workers..cause more tradesmen were always just a phone call away.
Even with the higher labor costs, this gave the union contractors an advantage. And it kept the non union contractors on the sidelines of all but the smallest jobs.
That started to change during the 1960's. In suburban Baltimore County, Maryland, the non union residential contractors had gotten together in the late 1950's, and formed a group to lobby the county and state to let open shop firms bid on Davis Bacon work..and, they also wanted to repeal the state's "Little Davis Bacon" law as well..
You're probably familiar with this organization...
It's called the Associated Builders and Contractors, ABC for short...and they've come a long way in the last half century.
By the late 1960's, ABC had gone national..and were actually starting to make some inroads into Davis Bacon work. In the private sector, the "merit shop sector" [the euphamism that non union contractors like to use to refer to themselves - it sounds so much nicer than "scab" or "rat" or even "open shop"] were expanding from building houses into doing tenant work in the newly built shopping malls and supermarkets springing up in suburbs across the country.
Meanwhile, a group of leading Wall Street-linked industrialists had gotten together to reduce the high cost of building and repairing factories. They set up a special junta of CEO's, that met privately in closed session to discuss this sensitive issue.
This group was originally known as the "Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable"..but that awkward moniker was soon traded in for a simpler name...the Business Roundtable.
The Roundtable grew to include the CEO's of most of the Wall Street-controlled industrial giants like General Motors, Exxon, Mobil, GE, Westinghouse, US Steel and other leading manufacturers.
These corporate titans wanted to reduce labor costs for industrial construction, the same as they were cutting wages and workrules for their own employees.
They figured that the best way to cut the wages and benefits of these workers was to simply hire a whole new set of non union contractors, in place of the union firms that did their new construction and maintenance. Or, to only continue doing business with firms that agreed to rip up their union contracts.
The ABC contractors, as well as the non union industrial maintenance and machinery rigging companies who the Business Roundtable were recruiting to maintain their factories, had managed to build up a force of what in my union would be called "company men", a pool of full time workers, who could be counted on to run jobs. But, they still lacked the ability that union contractors posessed to have a large pool of "local men", readily available skilled workers who could be hired, and discarded, at a moment's notice.
This would be a major problem that both the ABC and the Business Roundtable would face...but, eventually they found a solution. I'll talk about that in more detail below.
One thing that was NOT providing a problem for the "merit shop" people was the Building Trades Department and it's affiliates.
Continued in Part II
GANGBOX: CONSTRUCTION WORKERS NEWS SERVICE
GANGBOX homepage: http://www.geocities.com/gangbox/ |
Comments
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TEMPIN' AIN'T EASY...Part II |
by Gregory A. Butler, local 608 carpenter
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
09 Jul 2002
|
Far from it...most construction unions were letting sector after sector, and market area after market area, slip through their fingers.
Just about the only place where construction unions were doing ANYTHING to keep the non union contractors at bay was in heavily mobbed up cities like New York, where "connected" BAs were using union militants to sabotage non union jobsites.
Unfortunately, the BAs, many of whom had mob ties of their own, tended to misuse the willingness of the militant tradespeople to risk life and freedom to fight for the union. Because frequently the targets of these union "wrecking crews" wern't just any old scab jobs..they were jobsites of open shop contractors who were competing with < cosa nostra > controled contractors.
Because, of course, in those very same cities, the unions were allowing certain organized crime-connected signatory contractors to operate some jobs "double breasted" - part union, part non union. Also, "lumping" was becoming common...that is, the pratice of having tradespeople paid cash off the books on a supposedly union job.
Also, during those years, which coincided with the Civil Rights Movement, many urban building trades union bosses were VERY busy fighting racial and gender integration of the industry. Because, after all, what's more important..fighting to keep the industry unionized..or keeping Black men, and women of any color, out of the construction unions???
In other areas, like in industrial construction & maintenance, the unions were dealing with the rising tide of non union work by signing concessionary international agreements..letting certain firms and their contractors have substandard conditions on their jobs. But, a "race to the bottom" with the non union sector didn't stop deunionization in industrial construction..or even slow it down.
So, by the mid 1970's, the construction industry, which, with close to 70% union density, had been the backbone of the American labor movement, was slipping through the Building Trades' fingers...they were, for all intents and purposes, letting this work go non union without a fight.
And the non union side was starting to get a handle on the casual labor situation.
Non union contractors still "hired off the bank" for big jobs [and still do, as a matter of fact], and they also continued to rely on employment agencies for skilled labor.
But, there was a new arrival on the scene..the temporary staffing industry, who would come to be invaluable as a key labor supply for the rat contractors.
The temp agencies had started to break out of the clerical/light industry sectors, and had begun to move into blue collar and service sector work. Firms like Manpower and Kelly were still largely confined to white collar, warehouse pick and pack and electronics factory workers..but, there were new companies, like Laborfinders, who specialized in factory, construction, restaurant and building service workers.
Laborfinders was founded in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1975. As the construction unions retreated from the Southeast, they advanced, and soon spread across the entire "sunbelt".
These firms found a niche for themselves. Like the union hiring halls, they had a pool of labor with verified skills, who could be sent to the client's place of business at a moment's notice. Of course, these firms, like the employment agencies, charged a fee.
But, their wages were so low..that it didn't matter.
Plus, unlike the employment agencies, or even the union hiring halls, the temp agencies are the employer of record for their workers. Which means that, included in that hourly rate, the agency takes care of workers comp, social security, and all the withholding taxes. All the contractor has to do is cut a check to the temp agency, and that's it.
And, if a temp gets hurt..the contractor merely points the worker to the temp agency..since, after all, the temp is not legally an employee of the contractor..the boss has no legal obligation to do anything for that temp worker...
Non union construction shot up like a rocket in the late 1970's and early 1980's in most of America, especially in the South and the Intermountain West. Residential construction, even in largely unionized areas, went almost completely non union..much of Davis Bacon work went open shop too, especially in states that repealed their "Little Davis Bacon Acts", industrial construction, in particular oil refineries, also went largely non union too, and even much of commercial office and retail construction went rat.
And the temp agencies were along for the ride.
There were a few islands that stayed heavily union, cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas, Chicago, Boston, Philidelphia and New York..
Even in those places, union construction is mainly confined to the downtown districts...for example, these days, in Philly, once you get to the "Main Line" suburbs, it's all open shop..in Vegas, almost everything outside of The Strip is built with non union labor...even here in New York, once you get above 96th St in Manhattan, or out into Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx or Staten Island, almost everything, even the public schools, is built by non union workers.
And, in most of the country, the unions were fading to oblivion, with unions in some areas of the Sunbelt and the Rocky Mountain States outright folding.
The temp agencies quickly evolved into the role of non union "hiring halls". The non union contractors still had their core workforce of skilled (often formerly union) foremen and leadmen, who pretty much worked every day. And, many firms also had a core of mechanics and helpers who they tried to keep busy and take from job to job.
And, for unskilled labor, the "merit shops" could still resort to "hiring off the bank"..that is, employing whatever workers happend to drop by the site and shape up the job...which, as always, was a crapshoot when it came to quality and skill.
Or, they could just drive out to the parking lot of the nearest Home Depot, or to a streetcorner near a trailer park or apartment complex in the closest immigrant ghetto, and hire some < journaleros > ["day laborers"]. In some cases, they'd hire a < Jefe> ["chief"] a skilled immigrant tradesman (often an ex union member), who'd become a labor subcontractor. Then, the Jefe would worry about supplying labor, and being legally responsible for them in case of injury, unemployment, or INS raid.
They could even break down and go to an employment agency, and pay to hire workers who, supposedly, had been pre screened for skill.
But, the temp agencies had those options beat by a mile, simply because, with the temporary firms, you could use the labor, but you didn't have to hire the worker.
The temp agency takes responsibility for workers comp, payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, verifying immigration status, and the temp agency, rather than the contractor, had legal liability in the event of injury.
And, if the contractor doesn't like the temp..all they have to do is call in for a replacement...
With some temp agencies, the contractor doesn't even have to supply hardhats, dustmasks and gloves.
Temp agencies also have a large, often artificially inflated pool of labor, often drawn from the most desperately poor sectors of the workforce..recently released ex cons, recent immigrants, jobless inner city minority youth. And, temp agencies are quick to fire people who they don't like..or, merely to 'punish' them by keeping them on, but not giving them work. The competition for jobs enables them to pay rock bottom wages..often close to minimum.
By contrast, non union contractors have to pay their core workforce competitive wages to keep their workers from leaving and looking for another job. The pay for non union carpenters ranges from as high as $ 25/hr in San Francisco, to as little as $ 75 to $ 150/day here in New York.
The temps come way cheaper than that, even once you factor in the temp agency's 100% markup.
Yes, it's the evil black magic of disposable labor.
Great for the bosses..hell for the workers.
Companies like Florida-based Laborfinders blew up across the right to work states in the 1970's, supplying temps to factories, convention centers, trucking companies, warehouses and construction contractors all across the South and West. In the Southeast, Laborfinders dominates the blue collar temporary labor scene.
But, as big as Laborfinders is, they got eclipsed in 1989 by Labor Ready. The company was founded in Seattle's industrial suburb of Kent (home of Boeing), and just blew up nationally, rapidly expanded to every state in the union, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Canada and the United Kingdom.
At any given moment, about 650,000 luckless workers have the misfortune of being Labor Ready temps..that's more workers than UPS, the US Postal Service, or General Motors.
Labor Ready's workers do just about everything...building service; landfill work; recycling; warehouse work; freighthandling; factory work, including steel mill and assembly line work; landscaping; catering; hospital work; school custodian work; food processing; over the road trucking; local trucking; real estate sales; apartment house management; and, of course construction.
And Labor Ready's temps do just about any aspect of residential, light commercial and/or heavy commercial construction you could imagine..demolition; excavation work; electrical; roofing, siding & sheet metal; plumbing; painting & paperhanging; heavy equipment operation; mason work; and, of course, all areas of carpentry, including concrete, framing, drywall, insulation and furniture installation.
These guys don't just build single family houses..in 1996, Labor Ready temps did most of the construction work on the Olympic Village apartments, offices, media centers and stadiums for the Atlanta Olympic Games...and, that same summer, Labor Ready's workers did all the installation and dismantling work at the 1996 Republican Convention.
Yes, folks, those are jobs typically done by UNION CARPENTERS..which were, instead, done by Labor Ready's temp workers.
The question is..what has the Building Trades Department done to stop the temp upsurge?
Honestly, not a whole hell of a lot....
The BTC has unleashed a lot of hot air against Labor Ready. They've issued lots of sharply worded press releases, stage managed a few picketlines here and there..but, mostly, the BTC has engaged in what is known as "shareholder activism" against Labor Ready..that is, telling the investors who own shares in that firm that the company's labor pratices are somehow bad for the bottom line.
Problem is..that's a lie.
Labor Ready's labor abuses are exactly the thing that make it's stock a good buy!!!!
Also, on the real side..since when have investment bankers and mutual fund managers actually given a shit about a company abusing it's employees?? In fact, low wages and abusive working condtions are the kind of labor pratices that those Wall Street types LIKE to see in a company...cause that's what makes profits, and stock prices, go up.
Besides propagandizing major Labor Ready shareholders..the Building Trades have done exactly nothing to campaign against Laborfinders, or any of the other blue collar temp agencies.
And, there has been absolutely no effort, by either the Building Trades or anybody else in the labor movement, to do anything to mobilize temp workers themselves against the agencies.
Which kinda makes sense...after all, most referal hall unions, especially construction unions, have lots of abusive pratices in their hiring hall systems.
Some locals, in unions like the HERE and the Teamsters, have actually forced some of their casual workers to register with temp agencies.
In those HERE locals that still have hiring halls, casuals recieve inferior health insurance that they have to pay for out of pocket..and, hotels are allowed to give waiter jobs that should go to the hall to lower paid housekeeping workers.
Many Teamster locals have a two-tier system..."list men", who earn good money, and get steady work, and casuals, who are employed sporadically, and for a lower wage.
The West Coast longshoremen's union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, actually has a 4 tier hiring hall system ["steadymen" "A men" "B men" and "casuals"], where the top tier make $ 80,000 a year..and the bottom tier, the casuals, who are over half the industry, aren't even allowed to join the union, and work as few as 300 hours a year.
There's a racial edge too...most ILWU steadymen, A men and B men are White....most casuals are Black, Chicano, Mexican or Asian. Some ILWU locals in the small timber ports of Western Oregon actually have absolutely no Black, Latin or Asian steadymen, A men or B men at all...and have even gone to court so they don't have to register any minority longshoremen in those catagories.
If that wasn't disgusting enough, the ILWU, which was once led by Communist Party members, like their famed Australian immigrant founding president, one Harry Bridges, and still has an ill deserved reputation for "militancy", actually makes Black Latin and Asian casual longshoremen take a LITERACY TEST before they let them work on the docks!!! The largely White steadymen, A men and B men are not subject to the same indignity, of course...
ILWU Local 26 in Los Angeles actually has what can only be described as a segregated hiring hall...the upstairs is for steadymen, A men and B men only....casuals are barred from entering, and have a seperate area in the downstars part of the building.
In the East Coast longshoremen's union, the International Longshoremens Association, it's even worse...the small minority of "registered" longshoremen make good money, and work steady, but, the great bulk of the industry are casuals, who only make $ 10 an hour, have no rights, no income guarantees, and, to add insult to injury, actually have to pay a 10% kickback to the BAs under the table to get work.
In the Carpenters union, companies are allowed to use unlimited numbers of "company men", while "local men" sit at home out of work. In some areas, local man carpenters have to wait anywhere from 2 to 5 months to get a job. In some cases, like here in New York, some company men have to, in effect, "buy" their jobs, by allowing themselves to work for cash, getting paid less than union scale, with no benefits.
Similar hiring hall abuses prevail in the Laborers union, and, to a lesser degree, in unions like the Roofers, Operating Engineers, Bricklayers, Cement Masons and Painters.
So, maybe the labor bosses don't want to make waves among temp workers, lest it stir up unionized casual workers to fight against the abuses they suffer at the hands of their own leaders.
In any event, it's plain to see that mainstream business unionists have no serious plan to stop the "congentization" of the American labor force. In fact, by dividing their own casual members, they are carrying out the same process in the labor movement itself.
But, does that mean that temps are unorganizable?
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|
TEMPIN' AIN'T EASY...Part III |
by Gregory A. Butler, local 608 carpenter
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
09 Jul 2002
|
In a word..YES..if we limit ourselves to a conventional, NLRB-style business unionist approach to organizing..In fact, it's difficult to impossible to imagine a sucessful organizing drive at Labor Ready, or any other temp agency, using the NLRB petition method.
First of all...the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute's methods are just too damned expensive...at $ 1,000 per potential member per year, just organizing Labor Ready would cost $ 650 million bucks a year.
Also, I really have to question the effectiveness of the OI's organizing strategies, which I like to call "parachute unionism".
There are some serious flaws to the concept of hiring single, childless, rootless middle class college kids in their early 20's, who know little or nothing about labor or the work world, and then airlifting them around the country like a squad of labor paratroopers, rapidly transported from campaign to campaign, and never developing any roots among a particular group of workers in a given community.
The most important problem with the "parachute unionist" method is the fact that it impedes the development of local working class activists within unions and unorganized workforces.
Also, "parachute unionism" excludes most actual workers from becoming organizers, simply due to the fact that the OI system is not, to use the AFL-CIO's own jargon, "family friendly".
Remember, the great bulk of workers have children..
But, you can't be an OI-type organizer unless you have no ties that can't be dropped at a moment's notice.
In other words, moms need not apply at the Organizing Institute..
(Of course, it appears that OI-style organizing programs don't like having women participate in general..this writer knows of at least 2 cases where highly qualified women were rejected from OI type programs, for reasons that were quite transparently based on gender).
As for fathers, few men who activly participate in their children's lives could be OI organizers. Men who help coach their son's little league or their daughter's soccer team, and who help their kids with school projects, are just not the type of people that the OI wants.
On the other hand, SOME fathers might fit into the OI mold..such as those irresponsible "deadbeat dads" who only participate in their kid's lives via a bi weekly court mandated child support check [if they even bother to pay the support at all], or those very sexist married men who leave childrearing tasks exclusivly to their wives.
Bottom line, the AFL-CIO apparently does not want actual workers involved in union organizing...perhaps their afraid that, if they mobilize members for organizing..those same workers might fight for change within the union apparatus itself.
This apparent fear that the union bosses have of a mobilized membership is well grounded in reality..the Service Employees International Union found that out the hard way during the "Justice for Janitors" strikes in Los Angeles in the 1990s..the newly militant building service workers started fighting for democracy and free elections in the SEIU..
The union bosses only hung on to power by stripping whole local unions of the right to elect their officers..and forcibly merging almost all California janitors into a huge statewide local, 1877, based in San Jose, over 300 miles from Los Angeles, so as to prevent any further unauthorized member activism.
So, the union bosses would probably prefer to import their activists from upscale college campuses, rather than taking the risk of developing rank and file leaders.
Also, the intense, family life-disrupting travel schedule also leads to a high turnover..which is, very possibly, a deliberate strategy on the part of the union bosses, lest the organizers stick around long enough to get disgusted with the union bureaucracy, and start fighting to change the union from within.
Besides the anti worker aspects of "parachute unionism", there is also the sheer financial impact of all the plane tickets, rental cars, hotel room rentals..plus, the high salaries of staff organziers and union lawyers..we can't forget the members of the bar, because any NLRB drive is a lawyer-heavy operation from the word go.
And, of course, the lead organizers and the lawyers provide yet another salaried bureaucratic barricade, keeping the workers from influencing and controling their union.
Most importantly, the OI method fails more than 75% of the time..even in conventional workplaces with full time employees.
And those are costly failures, and not just in dollars and cents terms...because, thanks to the OI's methods..the lives of about 20,000 militant non union workers get destroyed every year.
Their only reward for putting their jobs on the line for the union movement is getting fired, and often blacklisted from alternative employment in their industry..often causing the loss of homes, divorces and other life havoc. And, needless to say, neither the AFL-CIO, nor the affiliates, nor the OI do anywhere near enough to help these brave men and women put their lives back together. The Teamsters and the ILA at least try to find jobs for at least some of their fired supporters...most unions just walk away.
As I've shown, NLRB style organizing of temps would just be one big, very expensive, disaster.
By contrast, if we applied the "trade movement" method of organizing mass area-wide strikes of tradespeople, a technique used sucessfully by 19th century militant craft unionists..it would be very possible to unionize the temps..
What would such a temp organizing drive look like?
Basically, it would involve organizing temp workers, by craft, from the ground up.
Even though temps go from agency to agency, and drift from working directly for a contractor, to lumping, and back again to temping, they, generally speaking, do the same type of work in a limited geographic area.
In that case, organizing them based on a temporary tie to a particular company just doesn't make sense. But, on the other hand, organizing all of the workers in a particular craft (like, for example, carpentry), who work in a given market area, would be the way to go.
Probably the best way to take on the temporary labor market would be if all the affected crafts went after the whole labor market simultaniously, for example, if the carpenters, laborers, brickies, painters, roofers, tinknockers, electricians, cement masons, ironworkers, plumbers and operating engineers went after the whole construction labor market, while the teamsters went after the trucking and warehousing industries, and, perhaps, the Office and Professional Employees International Union simultaniously went after the temp agencies in the market segment that originally spawned them a half century ago..that is, clerical work.
If that wasn't possible, then, of course, one or two unions could go it alone, if necessary.
Realistically, the only building trades unions that do any siginificant organizing are the Carpenters, Laborers and Electricians.
And, most of the "organizing" that the UBCJA and LIUNA do consists of adding new members to existing locals..without adding more contractors or more job opportunities. Basically, all that does is inflate the out of work list...increase unemployment..and increase pressure on workers to make their own private substandard "deals" to stay working.
As for the Teamsters, much of their organizing is outside of trucking and warehousing. The few trucking organizing campaigns they have done [Overnite Transportation, Central Freight} were dismal failures.
As for the Office and Professional Employees International Union, they are a 100,000 member union in an industry with close to 10 million non union workers.
But, almost all of the OPEIU's so called "organizing" consists of setting up bogus "local unions" that exist for the sole purpose of selling discount group insurance to self employed professionals - doctors, real estate appraisers, fashion models ect.
It would take major internal political changes in these unions to get them to do any real organizing.
Now, the objective would NOT be to unionize the temp agencies..it would be to unionize casual workers, and force those employers seeking temporary workers to deal with a union hiring hall, rather than an agency. In other words, if this drive suceeded, the temp agencies would be dead in the water.
The reason for this is simple....learning a lesson from labor history.
In the 1950's, the AFL-CIO chartered a farm labor affiliate, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. That union originally tried to unionize the labor contractors that supplied California ranchers with farm labor. And, they actually did get some labor contractors to become signatory..and those contractors were immediately fired by the farmers..who turned around and hired non union contractors.
A few years later, the United Farm Workers of America came on the scene. Instead of unionizing contractors, they signed up the farmers..and required the farmers hire from a union hiring hall.
By 1970, the UFWA suceeded in making many of California's grape, berry and lettuce growers use the union hiring hall for all their casual labor needs.
Basically, they "cut out the middleman", and forced the de facto employers, the farmers, to take personal responsibility for their labor pratices.
That, unfortunately, didn't last..the farmers brought in the Teamsters, who signed a series of really horrible sweetheart contracts (with the labor contractors, rather than the growers, of course).. The IBT then launched a race war against the UFW, using an all White army of burly outlaw biker thugs (on the union payroll as "organizers") to attack the Latino and Asian unionized farmworkers. The growers also started importing illegal alien labor in bulk..and that was it, the union was smashed.
But, even though the UFW's victory was short lived...the approach they used is still valid.
Now, this method of organizing requires two things..it has to be done very cheaply, and it also needs lots and lots of non union workers to be mobilized on the ground to turn their employers around.
The number of paid organizers would have to be minimal..with as few lawyers as possible, preferably less than zero. And, the few organizers that would be used would be ACTUAL WORKERS, who had actual experience in the industry, the longer the better..[none of the OI's college kids need apply].
Also, instead of parachuting activists to distant areas of the country, the paid organizers should be, whenever possible, from the area that they are organizing....or from as close by as possible.
Most importantly, almost all of the actual organizng would be done by non union workers themselves.
The organizers would mainly serve as facilitators..to help identify militant non union workers, and train and assist them so they can build new local unions from the ground up, and organize grassroots rank and file power on the jobsites.
Also, blacklisted militants could be put on the payroll as full time organizers - which would be all the better, since they'd be organizing their own co-workers, and helping to build the foundation for a rank and file based union structure..
Incidentally, back in the 1800's, that was the original origin of paid union officers and staff..it was a way of providing financial assistance to blacklisted worker activists - only later did a system of salaries for union leaders degenerate into the present decayed and corrupt bureaucratic union structure that we know today...
In areas where the unions are all but non existant, the unions would charter new local unions, led by pro union unorganized workers [that's how unionization was done back in the 1800's, when the craft unions were originally founded].
In areas where the unions still exist, the unorganized workers would be brought into Volunteer Organizing Committees (VOC's), attached to existing local unions..they'd have full voting rights in the union, of course.
But, the objective would not be to overload existing local unions with non union workers [that's Douglass J. "Cash" McCarron's approach to "organizing"..and all it does is make the out of work list that much longer, so there's that much more competition for the dwindling number of union jobs..this is good for the contractors, of course, but it totally fucks over the membership.]
Instead, these newly unionized workers, both those in the new locals, and those attached to VOC's in existing locals, would be focused on one task..organizing recognition strikes.
Of course, tradespeople who are currently in the union could, and should, participate in helping to organize the non union workers. And, it would only make the recognition strikes stronger if they shut down the organized jobs down, in solidarity with the workers trying to unionize the rat jobs.
And, of course, in areas (like here in New York City) where many 'union' contractors work their employees for cash..this strike movement would be a golden opportunity to straighten those bastards out.
And, this would also be a great opportunity to force unionized factories to stop hiring temps, and to give permanent jobs to all temps currently on the payroll.
The goal of these recognition strikes would be to force the temp agencies clients, the de facto employers, to hire their casual workers directly from the union..and then give those casuals the same pay, working conditions, rights, priviliges and immunities as their permanent workforce...and, of course, to bring up all employee's wages and conditions up to union levels.
Recognition strikes (or, as they were called in the 19th century UBCJA, "trade movments"), were the dominant method of unionization before the NLRA.
They required that a union build up a solid core of support among unorganized workers, and then those workers would force their less union minded co workers to stop work until such time as the employer would establish union wages and working conditions at his company. Once union conditions had been established at the company..the members themselves would enforce the "trade rules"...and walk off the job if they were asked to work under non union conditions.
In other words, pre Wagner Act unions had to be based, to some extent, on activism and militancy from the rank and file. The NLRA killed that..from then on, union organizing was all about getting workers to vote in a government-controlled representation election..and, after they got in the union, it was union bureaucrats, rather than shop stewards, who enforced union conditions.
In a way..the NLRA was the worst thing that ever happened to American unions. It caused unions to rot from within..and for the labor movement to be dominated by union bosses, far removed from the workplace.
This approach to organizing temp construction workers that I'm proposing is, in part, an attempt to rebuild that old grassroots union militancy that NLRB elections and union bureaucracy have destroyed over the past 67 years.
But, this rank and file based approach to organizing temps wouldn't fit in with the dominant business unionist ideology in the American labor movement.
Most American union bosses have a deep belief that the capitalistic economic system is the only possible way that a society can be run....and, that poverty, inequality, racism, sexism, job discrimination and all the other abuses that exist in capitalistic society are just a fact of life that can never be eliminated.
That's why union leaders are always preaching about "team concepts" and "labor management partnership", and union bosses claim that they can make this system "more efficient" - that is, they can help the bosses make workers produce more, in less time, for less money.
The best that business unions can do is get slightly better conditions for a small part of the workforce. That's why the bosses of referral hall unions tolerate 2 tier, 3 tier and 4 tier employment systems, "company men" vs "local men" - "basic men" vs "shop men" - "list men" vs "casuals" - "steadymen" vs "A men" vs "B men" vs "casuals" - in other words, $ 100,000 a year for some, while others barely see $ 30,000.
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TEMPIN' AIN'T EASY...Part IV |
by Gregory A. Butler, local 608 carpenter
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
09 Jul 2002
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But casual workers deserve better than that...hell, if that's all the referral hall unions can offer, the temps might as well take their chances with Labor Ready, Manpower and Laborfinders.
What we as contingent workers (that is, both the non union temps, unionized temps, and unionized casual workers) want is equality, equal distribution of work, equalization of income, guaranteed incomes during times of unemployment and non discrimination in job referral.
Unfortunately, business unionist labor leaders can't deliver that...except for a small portion of the workforce.
And, dammit..that's just not good enough.
Which is why we need revolutionary unionism.
What's that??
I've defined what Revolutionary Unionism is before, on the GANGBOX listserv, at :
http://www.geocities.com/gangbox/csu1.html
http://www.geocities.com/gangbox/downbylaw.html
http://www.geocities.com/gangbox/contract2001.html
and on the GANGBOX listserv, at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/2466
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/2659
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/4738
and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/message/5059
Revolutionary unions recognize that there is a fundamental conflict of interest between businesspeople and workers, that is inherent in the capitalistic system. Basically, our labor creates their wealth..the more money we make, the less profit for them..and, the more profit they make..that much less wages for us.
A revolutionary union's job is to fight for the workers, so as many workers as possible can be employed, for as many hours as possible, with the highest possible wages and benefits..and, those workers who cannot be employed are supported, at the employer's expense, in conditions of decency until they can find a job.
Business unions are structured like autocracies..the internal political life of the local unions are rigidly controled by the officers..and, further up, in District Councils and international unions, most officials aren't even elected..they're appointed by other union bosses at conventions.
Revolutionary unions would be democratic..with all representatives elected to 3 year non re electable terms, and getting the same pay and benefits that they got when they worked on the job.
The highest administrative body in a revolutionary union would be the Council of Delegates. That would be a union legislature, composed of rank and file delegates, that would set all union policy.
There would also be union officers, who would help carry out the policy laid down by the Council.
There would also be a Trial Committee, composed of rank and file delegates, who would have veto power over employer decisions to fire workers for cause.
And, most importantly for casual workers, there would be an Out of Work List Committee, that would control the union hiring hall, and would make sure work was distributed in a fair way for all workers, and would administer an affirmative action program, to make sure that women, minorities, older workers and apprentices got their fare share of employment opportunities.
These democratic delegate bodies would exist at all layers of the union..from locals, on up through District Councils, up to the international union level.
And, on the jobs, there would be a shop steward system with teeth..the stewards (elected on permanent jobs, appointed by the Out of Work List Committee on short term construction and other temporary jobsites), would have the authority to negotiate greivances, and resolve safety problems, on the jobsites by any means necessary, including calling a walkout and shutting a job down if there were serious problems.
That's the kind of union movement we'd need to organize the millions of temporary workers in America.
So, how do we get that kind of labor movement.
Good question....it would certainly take a struggle..and would involve fighting the union bureaucracy, the employers, and the government, every step of the way. And, considering the present state of rapid decay of much of the private sector union movement, it might even involve workers having to build up new unions, in place of the present ones.
This struggle would not be easy..but, it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
Thats it for now.
Be union, work safe.
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Would you like us to publish this in the public i? |
by Michael Feltes
mfeltes (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
10 Jul 2002
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This is really an excellent exposition of the problems of the building trade unions. Would you be willing to work with one of the editors (I'd be willing to do it, though I'm moving to Decatur) to tighten it up so that it could be published? |
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