Hill to IBEW Leaders: ‘So maybe our greatest challenge comes not from George W. Bush, or from the Chamber of Commerce, but from ourselves’

AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff reports on the recent tough-love speech by Electrical Workers (IBEW) President Edwin Hill to hundreds of union leaders from broadcasting, manufacturing and telecommunications. At the meeting in California, Hill announced an innovative national organizing program that calls for new regional organizing councils, investment of unprecedented resources and a new national health care plan for workers.

Acuff, who took part in the conference, says Hill’s remarkable speech compared the 115-year-old union with a towboat pulling “a lot of barges and attempting to turn around and reverse course.”

Said Hill: “We’re in a sidewise position where we can either follow through and reverse direction, or get swept away by the current….

Our choice is simple: do we fight, or do we give up? If we want to fight—and I take your presence here to indicate that you choose that option—then are we willing to take the steps necessary to succeed? Are we willing to think—and then more importantly act differently than in the past? Are you willing to step up and lead in your locals and show our members that they need to be part of the solution?

We will not win with old ways and old tactics. If our structure does not change, then all the talk in the world will do no good. If we don’t lift our eyes to look beyond the walls of our own plants or facilities—then we will be stuck in the same old rut.

One of the most destructive things that has happened to the North American trade union movement is the disconnect between the rank and file and the organizational structure of their union. Once members stop feeling a sense of ownership in their union—it is hard to get it back—hard to mobilize them for action.

So maybe our biggest challenge comes not from George W. Bush, or the Chamber of Commerce, but from ourselves. Maybe our first order of business is to try to give our members a renewed sense of commitment to their union—the IBEW and that they are not just a member of a Union but recognize that they are IBEW members and that the IBEW exists only—only—because they are members.

Click here to read more from this timely speech.

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