Pep Rallies Are Good to Lift Our Spirits, But We Still Haven’t a Winning Strategy

By Harry Kelber

For years, leaders  of the AFL-CIO  have been unable to  inspire their members to become involved in reversing the Federation’s continuing decline in numbers and bargaining strength.  In fact, the effort  to revive the AFL-CIO was, at best, half-hearted, because. national labor leaders  enjoyed their unchallenged, privileged  position and saw no need to risk it by mobilizing their rank and file and creating potential rivals,  Having little opportunity to participate in elections or policy decisions,  a majority  of the  members became passive and disinterested in union affairs  except at contract time...

So it is ironic  how unionists  became energized and in a fighting mood by the actions of a first-time Republican governor of Wisconsin, who proposed legislation to deprive public employee unions of  such traditional rights as collective bargaining.  The massive protest movement  against the Walker attacks swelled  not only through  Wisconsin, but reached into Indiana, Ohio and other states, joined by students, fair-minded  citizens and unionists in the private sector, as well as firefighters and police, who were not directly  affected by the Walker measures.

The Wisconsin upsurge is clearly one of the finest examples of a bottoms-up, independent  labor revolt  in  our nation’s history, and it erupted so quickly that it caught AFL-CIO’s top leaders by surprise. Who would have thought that a hundred thousand people would turn up at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin to vent  their anger at the blatant Walker aim to cripple unions?  (For more details of the Wisconsin  story, read Jane Slaughter in  the April issue of Labor Notes).

The labor rallies are continuing to draw large crowds.  On Saturday, March 28, about 20,000 working people marched through downtown Los Angeles, vowing to fight any attempt to impose a Wisconsin-like attack in California.  With its new slogan, “We Are One,” the AFL-CIO and its affiliates are working on a gigantic CWA-sponsored rally on  April 4 (build as a “Day of Action”),  in which each of the state and local bodies will hold events that will emphasize labor’s new fighting mood. As one labor activist put it, “It is our job now, as local labor movements, to take that energy and passion and turn it into action!”

After the Rallies, What’s Next? Is There a Game Plan?
At some point, we will have to deal with the sobering fact that our uphill fight to save our unions  has just begun. We face a nationwide, corporate-financed campaign, composed of conservative Republicans and right-wing zealots, that is aimed  at destroying the American labor movement as a force in American life.

And where are we? How do we defeat  the statewide campaign of Republican governors and their submissive legislatures? We need a strategic plan that  will enable our members to  meet the challenges in each state by developing a series of counterattacks on their enemies.

The AFL-CIO leadership  has been largely silent on strategy, focusing its attention on the April 4  march and day of events. Besides, Executive Council members  played no part in the Wisconsin struggle and have no connection with  the rank-and-filers in that state.

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The defense of union rights will  still have to come from those who have been in the fight from the very  beginning.  Strategy should be in the hands of a state’s local leaders and members, who are best informed and best situated to conduct a counter-offensive.

The AFL-CIO should provide the funds and resources to strengthen the 51 State AFL-CIOs, the nearly 500 Central Labor Councils and the thousands of local unions. That’s quite an army.  It is from these statewide campaigns that the labor leaders of today and tomorrow will emerge. -Harry Kelber