Trumka, Holt Baker, Shuler Discuss Future of Union Movement at State/Local Conference

by Seth Michaels, Sep 12, 2009

Participants at the AFL-CIO’s State and Local Conference got the chance today to hear from—and ask questions of—candidates for the future leadership of the AFL-CIO. The slate of Richard Trumka, running for president, Arlene Holt Baker, running for executive vice president, and Liz Shuler, running for secretary-treasurer, sat down for a frank discussion about how the union movement needs to move forward.

Conference attendees got to ask questions of the officer candidates and raise concerns about management and strategy. (Watch video clips from the state and local conferences here.)

Stressing the importance of strong state and local entities, Trumka said the attendees, representing state federations and central labor councils (CLCs), were critical to a strong, active movement:

You are the backbone of the American labor movement. We’re going to be working with you to create a seamless organization.

Trumka laid out several principles for working with CLCs and state federations, including making sure national unions are affiliating at the state and local level and implementing responsive communications structures. At the national level as well as the state and local level, he said, we need to make sure communication is going both ways, and that local units are evaluating strategies and programs to see what works. If the union movement is engaged in full-time mobilization and education on issues, organizing and campaigns, Trumka said, state and local bodies will need to participate and take ownership in programs. We need as many voices as possible involved in developing and implementing policy.

We need to take firm stances and clear positions, Trumka said, if we want people to know what we stand for and get involved.

Organizing will be a major focus, said Holt Baker and Shuler. Shuler noted that to offer something to a new generation of workers, we need to talk to them in ways that address the way they work and live. Shuler said:

Work is changing—more workers are contract, part-time, freelance. We don’t want to see our standards threatened, but we have to recognize those changes.

We need to do what we call membership development, expanding our reach. We can’t appeal to people we’re looking to organize unless we can address the misperceptions…we need to find new ways to communicate.

Holt Baker said that the passage of labor law reform like the Employee Free Choice Act would create an opportunity, but also a challenge: Affiliates and locals need to know where the organizing opportunities are and be able to act on them quickly. In making the case for the Employee Free Choice Act, she said, we’ve discussed the need workers have for unions, and we need to be able to fill that need.

Saying that growing the movement was a major priority, Trumka said unions can’t organize as a hobby: They need to be strategic and careful, building power for workers in a serious way. Union leaders can’t waste limited time and resources on efforts that don’t achieve the goal of building new power for workers generally.

One major concern conference particpants expressed was the need to re-unify and heal divisions in the union movement. Holt Baker and Trumka agreed it was important, and Holt-Baker said that, at the local level, the effort to build solidarity charters among locals, open lines of communication and work together on common purposes. Trumka agreed, saying that he’s been encouraged by cooperation across the union movement on issues like the 2008 election, health care and the Employee Free Choice Act. He said:

The union movement is better and stronger when we’re unified and pushing in the same direction.

Another principle that Trumka, Holt Baker and Shuler agreed was critical to the future of the union movement is strengthening relationships with community allies—both at the national and local levels. Trumka noted we need to sustain alliances for the long term, not just build them on a campaign-by-campaign basis and then walk away. Holt Baker added that unions need to listen to and help community allies, not just ask them for help.

Shuler pointed to her experiences fighting Enron and electricity deregulation in Oregon as a model of how engagement with community groups should work. The Electrical Workers (IBEW) beat back Enron’s well-funded campaign by engaging with and educating allies like seniors and farmers, letting them know how deregulation would affect them and mobilizing them to defeat it.

Holt Baker and Trumka pointed to the critical role of faith groups and civil rights organizations in pushing for the Employee Free Choice Act. Holt Baker said:

We’ve always had to have community allies to achieve anything. It’s absolutely essential.

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