For Black unionists, labor reforms like those in public education, law enforcement and politics are paper pronouncements, not a reality. They also know that “reform” emanates from privileged conversation and closed door decisions by leaders who do not look like them; organized labor’s discussions are not intended to benefit Black workers.

Debate over the future of the AFL-CIO began in earnest about four years ago. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) started to focus on how to reverse the unions’ downward slide. Then, as now, Blacks were phantom non-participants in developing alternative strategies. (Unified, Blacks in organized labor could be a significant force in crafting labor’s direction, strengthening themselves as well as labor.)

Three years ago, Bill Fletcher, president of TransAfrica Forum (formed to raise awareness in the U.S. about issues facing the nations and peoples of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America), offered insightful perspective on organized labor’s “train wreck.”

Fletcher cited SEIU’s main suggested proposals: mergers of national/international unions so that there’s less competition and better use of resources and focusing unions on organizing workers in their core areas. He maintained that the greater challenge facing organized labor included: globalization; the manner in which the U.S. government had shifted more and more to the Right and become increasingly hostile to workers; how unions should organize critical regions like the U.S. south and southwest; how to ally with African Americans and Latinos in these regions in order to be successful; how to engage in political action in such a way that working people can advance agendas that represent their interests and not simply those of unions or political parties; the continued relevance of fighting racism and sexism; how to work with and build mutual support with workers in other countries—and the critical importance of joining with others to fight for democracy.

Fletcher contended that labor’s fight focused on arcane issues such as whether the AFL-CIO should give larger or smaller rebates to unions that are allegedly organizing and whether the AFL-CIO Executive Council should grow or shrink. These contentious debates ignored more profound problems such as the way unions in the U.S. see themselves, their lack of a mission and strategy, and blindness to the real features of the barbaric society unfolding before their eyes.

Published in : Op-Ed, Urban Perspective