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Oregon Workers Unite |
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Rebels, Reformers and Racketeers How insurgents transformed the labor movement
[and still fight on against the mice of bureacracy]
by Herman Benson, founder, Association for Union Democracy
The organized labor movement is one of the great forces for democracy and social justice in America. If that was the
whole story, it would hardly need repetition, for it has been the frequent theme of talented writers. But the anomaly persists:
this great pillar of democracy is itself nibbled away by the mice of bureaucracy. In this, labor organizations resemble all
the other great institutions of democracy, even democratic government itself. To paraphrase Emerson: "Bureaucracy is in the
saddle and is riding mankind." By battling for democracy inside their unions, union reformers strive to keep the labor movement
on course, true to its own ideals. And, precisely because that labor movement is so indispensable a nutrient for the nation's
democracy, the quest for democracy in unions is one facet of the broader striving for social justice in the nation.
In one respect, the union reformer stands alone.
In the nation, when the principles of the Declaration of Independence are violated in practice, aroused citizens and
organized movements ride to the rescue. If you stand up for human rights, civil rights, women's rights, even animal rights,
for the environment, against unbridled global capitalism, for immigrants, for minorities, for religious rights, for civil
liberties, for the elderly; and you are in trouble, you can turn to a multitude of dedicated nongovernmental movements and
organizations for moral approval and practical support. If you need help against oppressive employers, there are unions.
But if you are a loyal unionist, and you need assistance against arrogant officials to keep your union honest and democratic,
you search in vain for an influential ally.
Ironically, the need for union democracy is enunciated in law as a principle but neglected in practice. In the thirties,
the Wagner Act recognized the need to protect the right of collective bargaining through unions to offset concentrated corporate
power and to assure a measure of industrial democracy. That law has been effective because its enforcement was bolstered by
a powerful constituency of organized labor and liberals.
But, as Clyde Summers has written so eloquently, if unions are to serve effectively on behalf of democracy in industry,
workers must be assured of democracy in their unions. And so, the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (Landrum-Griffin)
recognized the need for federal protection of the rights of members inside their own unions to keep them democratic and free
of corruption. But the LMRDA has been feebly implemented because no organized influential constituency has ever come forward
to demand its vigorous enforcement.
The miracle is that despite this lack of enthusiastic public support, but encouraged by the mere existence of the new
1959 law, an insurgent reform wave rippled through the labor movement, in one union then another, and another. By exercising
their rights, they freshened up the stale moral atmosphere in the labor movement. It was a demonstration of the power of democracy
in action from below. Theirs is an untold story and neglected. What follows here is intended to record the efforts of some
of those union reformers and of the tiny band that came forward to help. This account in not complete --- none can be so;
it is based mainly upon my own experience as a founder of the Association for Union Democracy and earlier as publisher of
the newsletter, Union Democracy in Action; but it is a necessary beginning to fill a gap in contemporary labor history. But
this is not simply a narrow 'labor' subject; it is an inseparable part of the quest for social justice in America.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, understandably alarmed over the decline in union membership, focused the attention of
labor leaders on the urgent need to recruit new members. But in their preoccupation with organizing the unorganized, they
lose sight of the social power of those who are already organized. Even at this ebb in membership, 16,300,000 people are enrolled
in labor unions. With their families, they make up a huge part of the national population and constitute an enormous political
potential. The difficulty is that union leaders are unable to summon this army in reserve as an effective force because our
labor officialdom, on the whole, is a bureaucracy so obsessed with retaining its own power over their unions that it curbs
the rights of its own membership. To release the latent power of that million-person army as a solid force for social progress
requires an infusion of democracy into the life of unions.
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