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Workers Gather in Kansas City To Talk About the Future of American Labor

By Chuck Munson / InfoShop News - Apr 26, 2005 09:46
Kansas City -- The sad state of the American labor movement has been the subject of much debate and discussion in recent years, but this weekend workers from around the Midwest gathered to talk about strategies to reverse that situation. Around 50 union members and workers met in Kansas City, Missouri this weekend for the Future of American Labor conference. The conference, held on the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus, brought together workers from Minnesota, Illinois, Arizona, St. Louis, San Francisco, Washington, DC, and the metropolitan Kansas City area. Unions represented by attendees included the UAW, ATU, IWW, NEA, IBEW, the United Transportation Union, PACE, and several others.

While the current state of American labor unions and the labor movement was the primary theme of the weekend, conference speakers and attendees also discussed: labor's role in the antiwar movement; the alarming state of the world's environment; the concerns of women, people of color, and lesbian/gay/bi/trans workers; labor imperialism; globalization; jingoism and nationalism among American workers; union-boss collaborationism; global business unionism; the lack of participation of workers in their unions; and new techniques being used to organize workers.

Two significant labor movement anniversaries were on the minds of those attending the conference. The first is the centennial anniversary this year for the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW) and the second is the fiftieth anniversary of the AFL-CIO. At least one speaker pointed to the IWW as the path that the labor movement didn't take, while it was pointed out that the decline of the number of Americans in unions started declining around the time the AFL-CIO was founded in the 1950s. The general consensus among conference attendees seemed to be that the union leadership and bureaucracy were out of touch with the rank and file and that effective reforms would have to be organized by rank and file workers. The union leadership in Washington was criticized numerous times-one speaker referred to the "marble mansions" that many of the largest unions own in D.C.

On Friday night, the conference featured a couple of speakers who talked about global issues confronting the labor movement. Bill Onasch, former Vice-President, of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1287, talked about how labor was organizing against the current U.S. wars, especially through the U.S. Labor Against the War network. He detailed programs such as fact-finding missions to Iraq involving workers, educators speaking out against the war, solidarity funds, and recent unity efforts across the U.S. antiwar movements. Judy Ancel, director of the Institute for Labor Studies at UMKC, talked about her work with the Cross Border Network for Justice and Solidarity. Ancel argued that innovations in the movement come from the margins and that lack of participation of working people in their own unions and movement is a big hurdle. She criticized xenophobia and racism within unions, such as anti-China stereotypes appearing in union publications. Other related problems, according to Ancel, are global business unionism, labor imperialism, and the "Buy American Nationalism" of American workers. She also argued that unions are afraid to confront the legacy of the AFL-CIO as well as the legacy of business unionism. For alternatives she pointed to her own work with cross border organizing, innovative organizing efforts such as Washtech, and international union-to-union solidarity.

On Saturday, the focus of the conference turned to the state of labor within the United States. Dave Riehle, an engineer on the Union Pacific railroad, framed the discussions by talking about the history of organized labor in the United States. He talked about the things lost in the past 50 years of labor, including the huge declines in union membership. He looked back at the P-9 struggle (the strike against Hormel in Austin, Minnesota) of twenty years ago.

Trent Bell, the president of the Greater Kansas City Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, talked about the situation of women, people of color, and L/G/B/T union members in the labor movement and their role in recent reform efforts. He expressed concern over the massive decline in union jobs held by people of color. He criticized reformists for shunting aside the concerns of people of color in order to focus debate on the "crisis of labor." Bell also read a statement from CBTU which outlined their ideas about reforming the movement, which included criticism of superficial efforts to change things such as the composition of the AFL-CIO executive board.

Mark Dudzic and Bill Onasch, members of the Labor Party, concluded the afternoon with analysis of the movement and a presentation of what the Labor Party is doing on all of these issues.

The Future of American Labor conference was sponsored and organized by the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1287, the Institute for Labor Studies; Kansas City Labor Against the War, the Kansas City Labor Party, and kclabor.org.

On the web:

The Future of American Labor  http://www.kclabor.org/2005conference.htm

Kansas City Labor Party  http://www.kclabor.org/kclaborparty.htm

The Institute of Labor Studies  http://www.umkc.edu/labor-ed/

Heartland Labor Forum (KKFI)  http://www.umkc.edu/labor-ed/radio.htm

kclabor.org

US Labor Against the War  http://uslaboragainstwar.org/

Kansas City Labor Against the War  http://www.kclabor.org/kcuslaw.htm

Industrial Workers of the World  http://www.iww.org/