Worker Activism After Successful Union Organizing

Monthly Labor Review, Sept, 2001 by Henry P. Guzda

Worker Activism After Successful Union Organizing. By Linda Markowitz. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2000, 204 pp. $58.95.

At the turn of the century, the Industrial Workers of the World, or more affectionately the Wobblies, were undoubtedly the most flamboyant and colorful labor union in the United States, if not in the world. Conducting marches and demonstrations under unfurled American and worker flags, the Wobblies would occupy public parks, street comers, or major arenas, such as Madison Square Garden, and deliver spirited, sometimes incendiary, oratory for one specific purpose: to organize the unorganized. Even cynics give the Wobblies credit for organizing workers of different ethnic, racial, and sexual backgrounds, getting them to sign the union card and sing from the "little red song-book." From the agricultural fields of California to the meatpacking plants of Chicago and on to the textile mills of Patterson, New Jersey, and Lawrence, Massachusetts, the Wobblies were able to infuse a real sense of cohesion among the working class. The major criticism of the union, however, was their inability to maintain a functional infrastructure once the organizing campaign had been won.

In Worker Activism After Successful Union Organizing, author Linda Markowitz juxtaposes the union organizing process of the past with that of the present. Is the current labor movement repeating the mistakes of the past? In early 2001, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters disaffiliated from the AFLCIO, charging that the old federation, despite the gospel of organization preached by President John Sweeney, has not fulfilled its pledge to organize the unorganized. Markowitz has followed labor's campaign to enlist workers at two different establishments, with different products, in diverse geographic areas, and with far different demographics. She offers a sharp contrast of organizing by traditional "business unionism" and another conducted on participatory activism by the rank-and-file.

The author traces the organizing campaign of two entities, Bobs Grocery Store (BGS) chain in Arizona, and Geofelt Manufacturing, in Pineville, Alabama. Her main thesis is that worker activism experienced during organizing campaigns diffuses outside campaign settings. By "outside settings" she means a general antilabor animus by employers, weak support or even hostility from Federal, State, and local governments, and the lack of a working class culture. It made little difference that the workforce composition at Geofelt Manufacturing was a heterogeneous mixture of white and black and male and female, the workers shared a natural cultural bond that grew stronger under the threat of outside pressures. At BGS, the workers differed mostly on a gender basis with the exception of a Latino presence. There was little that the workers had in common except for their employment.

The catalyst for organizing drives at both firms was ownership change. At BGS, workers went from a feeling of team and family to one of anger and mistrust, as new management increased production demands with fewer employees while reducing benefits and job status. At Geofelt Manufacturing, a foreign-owned firm with European work concepts that gave employees a good degree of job control, new management implemented an "Americanization" process with stricter definitions of work status and a more hierarchical control system. Discontent paralleled the rise in demand for union representation, states Markowitz.

While both BGS employees and Geofelt Manufacturing workers reached the same end--union representation, the process was much easier and genuine at the latter. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union (now United Needle, Industrial, and Textile Employees--UNITE) conducted an organizing "Blitz" where they concentrated on the one plant and immediately enlisted grassroot support, including local interests not directlly involved with any work-related Geofelt Manufacturing activities. Participatory Democracy, where the workers were involved in a step-by-step process for mobilizing their colleagues, allowed the employees to regard themselves as the union, not just cogs in the union representation machine attending to traditional collective bargaining matters. Markowitz contends there were three basic elements to this process: sharing information; open lines of communication; and decisionmaking by the workers.

At BGS, the author paints a starkly contrasted picture of traditional and stale organizing policies, long referred to since the days of Samuel Gompers as "business unionism." The United Food and Commercial Workers Union sent organizers from California to organize not just BGS, but other chain grocery stores in the area. Their attentions divided among many different targets in the retail grocery industry and the organizing drive was a top down process. Workers never felt empowered nor considered themselves together in the struggle for better wages and working conditions. As a result, the process was long and tedious, despite overwhelming support for representation by the workers. The author infers that the union at BGS will never be particularly strong and will be susceptible to adversarial forces, particularly if market conditions deteriorate and employees respond accordingly.