AFL-CIO, June 9, 2011, Thursday

AFL-CIO

June 9, 2011, Thursday

AFL-CIO

Academics, Activists Search for New Ways to Revitalize Labor Movement

More than 200 academics and labor activists came together yesterday to discuss strategies for revitalizing the union movement.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler set the tone for the conference, sponsored by Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

Union membership numbers aren’t a popularity poll, nor a reflection of a declining need for unions—just a sad reflection of how incredibly difficult it is for workers to form unions in our modern corporate environment. It’s a tragic commentary on today’s economy that good, middle-class union jobs have left America.


Shuler said the entire union movement is committed to finding new ways to build political and economic power, to unite working people with collective action and to lift everyone up together. Unions will do what we’ve done before—help workers organize again, in new sectors that haven’t traditionally been unionized in our country and even in the sectors—from domestic work to guest work—that lack the legal right to bargain.

But this battle needs all hands on deck, she said, including academics, students and other young leaders to produce new ideas and passion for justice.

Nelson Lichtenstein, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy, told the audience, workers and their unions face an unprecedented attack by Republicans, corporate interests and even some Democrats. He said it is up to progressives, academics and union activists to defend the idea of democracy at work.

To better communicate that idea of democracy at work, progressives need to revise their message to fit the 21st century realities, said Jefferson Cowie, history professor at Cornell University. Progressives need to engage conservatives in a battle of ideas that reflect our core values, he said, adding that conservatives are better at framing their ideas in terms that appeal to peoples’ values and emotions.

Sarita Gupta, executive director of Jobs with Justice, said domestically and globally, workers are angry, frustrated and feel less secure. To revitalize the union movement, she said, we must broaden our outreach and scope of organizing. Using the example of the massive support for collective bargaining in Wisconsin and other states, she said we have to channel that enthusiasm into more than the traditional union roles.

The Wisconsin demonstrations could be the beginning of building a strong new progressive movement if we use it as an opportunity to form strong coalitions with immigrants, community and environmental groups that joined in backing collective bargaining, Gupta said.

Participants also discussed innovations and strategies for organizing and techniques for encouraging new scholars to enter the study of labor.