The labor movement championed the fight for the eight hour work day, minimum wage laws, child labor laws, and compensation for workers injured on the job. It is the labor movement that, through bargaining for and winning health care benefits for union members, sets the standard for fair treatment of non-union workers. While the labor movement isn't perfect, it has a history to proud of and deserves the support and respect of the broader progressive community.
Imagine what it would be like to organize for gay and lesbian equality if our employers did not have to release us after an eight hour work day. For those of us who live in communities without legal remedies for anti-gay or lesbian employment discrimination, unions may provide the only protection we have, while again setting the standard for non-union employers.
The connected problems of union busting, replacement workers, exporting jobs, a floundering economy, and decreasing numbers of organized workers have all taken a very heavy toll on the labor movement. Many of the setbacks in the union movement are directly linked to the right wing agenda. It is critically important for labor unions to recognize the right wing as the extremely well organized and well monied enemy of the working class that it is.
Unions must begin to seriously examine the ways in which the right wing uses single issues Qsuch as anti-gay and lesbian campaignsQas a way to advance their much broader agenda; an agenda which includes the further erosion of organized labor.
The union-busting tactics of the Coors Brewing Company, founded by John Birch Society member Joseph Coors, is but one example of the relationship between anti-union activities and radical right wing politics. The Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank, was founded by Joseph Coors and significantly funded with Coors Brewing Company profits.
The Heritage Foundation is an organization that plots strategy for the right wing. They pick an emotional issue, name the scapegoat, and launch attacks in order to build their membership and solicit large sums of money. The Heritage Foundation was a primary contributor to the plan to target gay and lesbian citizens in the "Save Our Children Campaign" in Dade County, Florida in 1977. The Heritage Foundation was also involved in the Briggs Initiative in California in 1979, and in the Oregon and Colorado anti-gay initiative campaigns in 1992.
Simultaneously, the Heritage Foundation helped Ronald Reagan become the most rabidly anti-union president in recent history. The Heritage Foundation has also been at the forefront of efforts to oppose pay equity for women, parental leave, government subsidized child care, social security, fair taxation, and numerous other issues directly affecting labor.
One hand washes the other on the side of the right wing. Its time for labor and the civil rights movement to do the same.
Unions can begin to rekindle the spirit of trade unionism in its broadest sense and make unions relevant again to members and unorganized workers by being visible in struggles that people really care about. Individual union members participate in a variety of social movements, but they may not be identifying themselves as union activists in those organizations.
There are gay and lesbian people involved in every union. However, many union activists don't understand this. Because homophobia and heterosexism exist in the labor movement just as it does in the broader society, many union activists are "closeted" in their unions. They may be "out" in their social life, to their families, and to their friends, and still not be comfortable enough to "come out" in their local. Some of those inactive members who never attend meetings or participate in union events may be gay and lesbian members who would participate actively in their union if they knew that their union cared about their concerns as gay and lesbian people.
Additionally, unions could and should see organizing against the right wing as good public relations. Because the right wing has a broad reaching agenda, countering their activities provides unions with a chance to organize on a variety of fronts with a variety of constituencies. This provides workers with positive contact with labor unions.
Unions can play an important part in the fight against the right wing. There are structures in place that reach a broad cross-section of American society. Members can activate their unions to take on the right wing, and community activists can learn to support and utilize unions in common struggle against the radical right.
For example, Oregon Public Employees Union (OPEU) which represents 20,000 mostly government employees in Oregon is made up of more than 75 locals. OPEU has 6 Districts for which leadership is elected to the Board of Directors. the President, Vice-President, and Secretary/treasurer are elected at General Council every two years. OPEU is Local 503 of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) which has one million members, and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO and CLC. So OPEU's name is Oregon Public Employee s Union, Service Employees International Union 503, American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations, Canadian Labor Congress. OPEU/SEIU 503, AFL-CIO, CLC for short.
The majority of individual unions are members of the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, though some remain independent. Unions that are members of the AFL-CIO generally do not take positions in direct opposition to the AFL-CIO, though they may take positions on issues which the AFL-CIO had taken no position. Many national and international unions are made up of numerous smaller locals. Assess the state AFL-CIO chapters for the level of support on your issues. If you can get the leadership of the AFL-CIO on board, organizing in the individual locals will be easier.
In the earliest days of the labor movement, unions were built around specific trades ie., coal miners were organized into one union and painters in another, etc. Much later, unions began to organize "wall to wall" units where workers might have different jobs but all worked for the same boss.
Public sector unions organize and represent government and private nonprofit organizations. These are sometimes called service sector organizations. Since the government is "the boss," many public sector unions have political programs.
Today, private sector unions tend to still be organized according to trade while public sector unions tend to be organized in wall-to-wall units.
All unions have basic common purposes Qto organize workers, engage in collective bargaining for contracts, and enforcement of contracts. Some locals are very politically active, others are less so.
The unions you are targeting may have Political Action Committees or political departments. If so, you and members of the union will need to see that both the board and the political department are supportive to your cause.
In order to defeat resistance, you must have an adequate base of support built before making your approach to a union. Your support base should be prepared to deal with resistance, and stay unified in your articulation of why it is so important for unions to take on gay and lesbian civil rights struggles.
You already know that labor cannot stand divided on the issue of civil rights for any class of citizens based on sexual orientation, race, gender, national origins, religion, or disability any longer, and that the survival of the unions as viable working class movement building agents may depend on getting political. Now is your chance to debate these issues in a way which speaks to the needs of both gay and lesbian union members, and the union as a whole.
Remember to curb your dogma and speak in language easily understood by most people. Asking a union to decide to take a stand on something controversial can already be difficult. Making it sound as though the stand they are taking comes with multiple and vaguely defined strings attached may make it impossible.
