Alternative Worker Organizations: Taking the Alliance Global

On August 10th, the AFL-CIO reached what is being heralded as "a historic partnership agreement" between the Federation and the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON).  The hope is that this pledge of cooperation "will pave the way for AFL-CIO central labor councils and state federations and NDLON’s day laborer worker centers to work together on issues ranging from workplace rights to immigration to health and safety and other job-related concerns."

Facing the staggering decline of the US union membership and political clout, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney acknowledged at the joint press conference that: "The work being done by worker centers and NDLON in particular is some of the most important work in the labor movement today...Through this watershed partnership, we will strengthen our ability to promote and enforce the workplace rights for all workers -- union and non-union, immigrant and non-immigrant alike...The agreement does not make the workers in the centers members of unions, but provides an organized framework for joint work by the AFL-CIO and a group that is considered one of the most dynamic advocates for workers in today’s economy.”

President Sweeney is right, workers centers--and alternative workers organizations in general--represent some of the most dynamic arenas of the US labor movement today. According to Janice Fine, a labor and employment studies professor at Rutgers University who has been researching worker centers,

the number of worker centers in the United States has increased significantly in the past several years, paralleling the increased flow of specific immigrant groups in large numbers to the United States as well as the decline of labor unions. In 1992 there were fewer than five centers nationwide; as of 2006 there are at least 140 worker centers in more than 80 U.S. cities, towns and rural areas.

The AFL-CIO's formalization of ties to NDLON signifies a significant change in US union strategy.  Janice Fine's research found that the majority of worker centers previously had little connection to the official labor movement:

Only 14 percent of worker centers in a 2003 survey I conducted had a direct connection to unions and union organizing drives. Nine percent of worker centers in the survey were founded explicitly to fill the gap left by the decline of unionization in particular industries but were not founded by unions. In many instances, worker centers have reached out to unions on behalf of workers interested in gaining representation, but they have struggled to find a union willing to take the workers on.

Under the partnership, worker centers will have nonvoting representatives on the boards of central labor councils in cities throughout the nation, but day laborers will not pay union dues or become union members.  At the AFL-CIO/NDLON press conference, Pablo Alvarado, director of the day labor network, summarized years of contentious debate within the US labor movement: "'We don’t bring money, we’re not bringing members,' Mr. Alvarado said. 'But we’re bringing something that’s extremely important: very humble, very vulnerable workers who say, ‘I need to get paid more for what I do.'"  This new alliance is a constructive step in fulfilling the promise that the AFL-CIO wants to work on behalf of the entire labor movement, not just union members.

Now it's time to take this strategy global.

New forms of worker organization are emerging around the world in response to globalization. These organizations have developed as traditional organizations like trade unions have faced mounting challenges because of changes in market structures, laws, and work patterns. They range from large multifaceted organizations like the Self Employed Women's Association in India to immigrant workers centers in the US to worker assemblies occupying factories in Argentina. These new organizations often draw on established traditions of mutual aid, union organization, and political action. But they adapt and mix these traditions in new ways.

New forms of worker organization are particularly important for poor and marginalized workers who are unlikely to be represented by trade unions. But new forms of worker organization can also help established unions develop allies for representing the broad interests of workers nationally and globally.

Some in the labor movement are advocating an exclusive focus on working with unions that are seeking to build their membership base.  But such a strategy risks severely limiting the chances that unions will be successful in their global efforts.  In many countries—because of the nature of the industrial relations systems—unions do not place a high priority on organizing or collective bargaining. And this is often a perfectly correct strategy. In the developing world as well, it is often non-official worker organizations that are the real dynamic actors.

In our previous work at the North American Alliance for Fair Employment, GLS staff have been deeply involved in trying to build bridges between US unions and day labor organizations.  We now hope to play a modest role in building similar alliances on a global scale. We believe that global unionism needs to expand to include more than simply union-to-union alliances; it requires unions to reach out to the wide range of seemingly unrelated social justice movements around the globe.  We recognize that such a strategy is difficult as unions around the world are in retreat and fighting for their lives.  But if unions want to move beyond rhetoric and get serious about going global, they need new allies around the globe.

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[Amy Masciola]

Readers may find the recent HuffingtonPost blog entry by Stewart Acuff on the Korea/U.S. FTA and global solidarity and organizing of interest, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stewart-acuff/koreanu-s-free-trade-a_b_29381.html.