For instance, you may not think about workers sticking together until you have been on a picketline and have seen other workers going in to your work while you're outside holding a sign. You may be trying to win a union contract and you hear a story that other workers, some of whom may be in your union, can't or won't help you. It seems counterintuitive that, say, a truck driver would help a university professor win a union contract.
Now, picture yourself on that picketline in the cold Oregon rain and that Teamsters union truck driver drives up, sees the picketline and refuses to make her delivery in solidarity with you. Or think of yourself rallying for a better union contract. You're outside at a demonstration holding signs and shouting. People driving by are honking but it occurs to you that it's great that people driving by honk but folks need to step up and support. Honking helps but it's cheap. But at your next union rally you see a delegation of people from another neighboring local union in your larger union who have come to support you and speakers are there from other unions promising financial support if you strike. Wouldn't that make you feel stronger?
Workers who work on jobs that can be outsourced---almost all of us, no matter what we think---have a real interest in other workers not taking our jobs, and we have an interest in them doing better so that they don't have to take our work. This is true here in Marion, Polk and Yamhill counties and across Oregon. It's true across the United States. And it's true globally.
The United Electrical Workers union (UE) is probably the most progressive union in the United States, and it is a union with a long history and culture of building solidarity between workers. I have seen situations where UE workers were being laid off, plants were closing, and the UE negotiated the best deal that could be had and the union still went at the employers and attacked them as terrible corporate citizens and thieves and liars, and build labor and community resistance to the companies as the companies closed down and moved elsewhere.
What was the point? Well, the workers were angry and were entitled to fight back for more concessions from the employers, the communities were going to lose jobs and income and people and also had a right to get back what they could from the companies, and someone in the labor movement needed to put their foot down and scare the heck out of the companies that were considering moving out as well. Begging never really works while fighting back alongside others almost always does. Those tactics work best when a union has the active cooperation of rank-and-file workers who will be picking up the work, be that in the next county over or in another state or in another country. Contrast the power in taking action under those circumstances to the powerlessness of a few high-seniority workers staying on the job i their worksite 'til the last day and watching members of another local in their union showing up every day to move equipment to the company's new location and no one even protests. I have seen that happen as well.
The UE has the UE Research and Education Fund that "supports a variety of programs to build new skills among diverse worker leaders, helping them fight for economic and racial equality, for a just transition for workers, and to unite working people across borders." The Fund is counting on 2024 being a "year for bringing economic, environmental, and racial justice to workers across North America."
A press release from the Fund says "At our partner union, UE, members set national policies and make decisions for their locals. UEREF powers that democratic approach by building skills among diverse worker-leaders and helping them fight for economic and racial equality, a just transition, and international worker solidarity." The Fund is planning on continuing its organizing and advocacy to repeal North Carolina’s racist ban on public sector collective bargaining and will be pushing to pass collective bargaining ordinances in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Newport News and beyond. This work has the potential to help transform the South, build racial and economic justice, protect jobs, and bring home wins for working-class people across the United States. Companies should not be able to relocate to the Southern states, or anywhere, in pursuit of lower wages and a union-free environment.
The Fund is also hoping to organize workers in certain key states to fight for a sustainable future, and build networks with local environmental activists who share the Fund's and the UE's goals. In practical terms this means building alliances that the labor movement needs to stay relevant and advocating for states to implement stricter emission standards.
The Fund has supported activist exchange programs between UE and Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT) in Mexico. The Fund will continue this work in 2024, with rank- and-file UE members traveling to Mexico in order to build solidarity with their cross-border counterparts. Union organizing here in Oregon will be much easier if our sisters and brothers from Mexico are arriving here with positive union experiences and with the expectation that they can help organize and run a union that fights for everyone. We have much to learn from FAT.
The Emergency Worker Organizing Committee is responsible for many of the great union organizing campaigns in 2023. This work is going to continue with the Fund's support..
This post does not reflect the opinions of the Marion-Polk-Yamhill Central Labor Chapter or the Oregon AFL-CIO,
