Labor Notes – 3000 plus in Chicago with youth and enthusiasm
By Peter Olney and Rand Wilson
Every two years since 1981 the Labor Notes publication has held a national meeting. This year Labor Notes convened its conference in the heady wake of the West Virginia victorious teachers strike and during ongoing teacher labor disputes in Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona. Hundreds of rank and file teachers were gathered at the conference hosted by the Chicago Teachers Union, which had carried out a very successful citywide strike in 2012. What great irony that the locus of some of the sharpest struggle against the neo-liberal public service slashing agenda should take place in four “red” states that Donald Trump carried in the 2016 election with a double figure margin. But Labor Notes’ focus has always been on promoting bottom up rank and file unionism, and those four struggles certainly represent that focus aided and abetted by the new tools of social media outreach.
The conference was staged at the Hyatt Regency Hotel near O’Hare airport in Chicago. The building was crawling with over 3000 labor union leaders and newly minted activists. The demographics were favorable to a future American labor renaissance as over half the participants were under the age of 40 and the representation from communities of color was significant. Every sector of the economy was represented by unionized workers and workers struggling to organize into labor organizations. Attention was devoted to analyzing organizational approaches to the precariat, which now represents approximately 15% of the work force in the United States.
The US labor movement faces challenges in organization and politics in the coming months and they were addressed by the content of the workshops at Labor Notes. The Supreme Court is expected to rule in June on Janus vs. AFSCME (Here and Here) and they are expected to decide this case in favor of the most anti-union and reactionary forces in America. It is expected that they will rule that unions can no longer collect compulsory fees from members that they are bound by law to represent. This is a conscious attack on the ability of unions to function in bargaining and politics. A track of workshops at Labor Notes called “Organizing in Open Shop America” was developed purposefully to prepare attendees to deepen and develop their ties with their members so that regardless of judicial and political head winds their unions will survive and grow.
The other major challenge labor faces is what will be its political strategy in the coming crucial midterm Congressional elections? The unions that supported independent Vermont Socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders continue to meet and coalesce as “Labor for Our Revolution” (LFOR) advocating for electoral action in support of progressive non-corporate Democrats and independents up and down the ballot and crucially in the mid-term Congressional elections on November 6. A meeting of LFOR took place on Friday, April 6 before the opening of the Labor Notes convention off site at the District headquarters of the long time independent left union, the United Electrical Workers (UE). During the Labor Notes conference a large workshop was held for all delegates with over 100 in attendance and with many new union locals coming forward to sign up for LFOR.
The gathering had a true internationalist sprit as 200 guests represented 24 countries and 2 of the bi-annual Troublemakers Awards were give to workers in foreign labor movements. Han Sang-gyun and Lee Young-joo leaders of the Korean Federation of Trade Unions (KCTU) who have suffered arrests and persecution at the hands of the South Korean regime were honored for their labor activism. Organizers from the province of Ontario in Canada were honored with a Troublemakers Award for leading the “Fight for $15” and achieving the $15 per hour minimum for all workers in the Province.
The Italian labor movement was represented ably by Michele Bulgarelli of FIOM Bologna who participated in a workshop entitled “Organizing Across Europe”. Participants heard reports from FIOM, from Norway’s construction sector and from the resurgent British labor moment. SiCOBAS was represented by Aldo Milani, Roberto Luzzi and Alessandro Zadra who participated on a panel entitled, “Tackling Amazon and the Logistics Bosses: Reports from Around the Globe. Other panelists included Polish and British Amazon workers.
