Union Apologist Criticizes Union Bosses for Ignoring Rank and File
So, now, unions can no longer rely on an easy flow of dues money deducted automatically from wages.
Union leaders are legitimately concerned because, in the way unions currently operate, it seems like a mind-boggling task to sign up members one by one, and ask them to authorize the collection of fees.
But, maybe it’s worth stepping back for a moment to ask: what kind of battle does labor want to fight?
If that battle is simply about restoring dues check-off, union opponents will simply say: “You see? All unions care about is funding their own institutions.â€
Unions might win the fight but not before some highly expensive, drawn-out battles that would be a public relations minefield.
How did unions get to a place where, in Michigan – a place that gave birth to the United Auto Workers – labor can be run over by a two-bit political hack like Governor Rick Snyder?
The union leaders lived among the rank-and-file. They talked to them one-on-one. People were signed up, face-to-face, and, in the process, they were brought into the union mission, culture and struggle.
It was a daily, shared struggle and conversation.
Fast forward to 2012.
The reason is much more mundane: you have to constantly attend to the care and feeding of existing ‘voters’. But, aside from a strike or a bargaining dispute, most of members have very little contact with their union.
The end result: workers drifted away from the union, voted for anti-worker candidates or, in the case of non-union members, stopped seeing the union as the go-to defender of workplace rights. The Michigan debacle, then, offers an opportunity to make a renewed connection with workers.
Sell off some of those big buildings and pour the assets into fielding an army of organizers who sign people up, one-on-one, to the dues’ rolls. And use that time to engage the conversation about the larger mission of the union.
Make the fight about something bigger than automatic dues check-off.