INTERVIEW
BUILDING THE UNION An Interview with Amy Newell Amy Newell is secretary-treasurer of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), which represents approximately 80,000 workers in the electrical equipment, machine and plastics industries. Now serving her fifth term, Newell was the first woman elected to national office in a U.S. basic manufacturing union. Since 1982, she has served as a member of the Coalition of Labor Union Women National Executive Board. Multinational Monitor: What are the main reasons that union membership in the United States is declining? Amy Newell: Well, there are structural questions having to do with changes in the economy. The mass production industries in this country were organized in the big CIO tidal wave in the 30s and 40s. A lot of newer industries that have developed since that time have not been organized in a mass way. Also, the difficulties in organizing are really a tremendous obstacle not only to unions, but to workers who would like to organize to join unions. MM: What sort of difficulties do you specifically mean? Newell: The way the National Labor Relations law and enforcement is structured, it really pays for most bosses to break the law. That is the simple fact of the matter. There are no meaningful penalties for those who violate the law, and the procedures for enforcing it are incredibly time-consuming and slow. For example, we organized a shop in Chicago in October 1987. The workers voted by a 2 to 1 margin to join the union. The employer filed objections to the conduct of the election. Those objections were investigated by the [National Labor Relations] Board and dismissed. The employer appealed to the full Board in Washington, D.C., which certified the UE as the collective bargaining agent. [Still], the boss refused to bargain. The company simply said, "Make us; make us bargain." So it dragged on. It took three years before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals finally ordered the company to sit down and bargain with the union under threat of some sort of penalty, a fine. And after three years of stalling, that was all the employer had to do--sit down and bargain--even though they had been in violation of the law for almost three years. It is the same thing when workers are fired because of their union activities. It is difficult to present a case--you practically need a smoking gun to have the Board agree that someone was fired because of union activities. But even when it is crystal clear, it can take years and years, and all the employer is obligated to do then is offer reinstatement and, at most, pay back wages minus any interim earnings of the worker. Most working people, when they are fired, have to get another job or somehow support themselves and their families. And if they should luck out, let's say, and actually get a better paying job than the one they were illegally fired from, the employer faces absolutely no penalty even though they clearly broke the law. I heard Richard Trumka, [president of the United Mine Workers], give a speech a few years ago. He said, here we have these tomes, these thick, thick books of labor laws and the last rule is: the union loses. The workers lose because of the way the whole thing is set up. MM: How can the labor movement and individual unions overcome these legal impediments? Newell: Well, I can tell you one thing we have been trying to implement in our organizing work. At least as long as I have been with the union, the UE has organized on the basis that we aren't just going to win a Labor Board election, we are going to build a union among the workers in a given plant with a Labor Board election at some point to ratify that, to prove it, to win legal bargaining rights in that shop. But we have taken that to a whole other stage in trying to bypass the procedures of the Labor Board to the extent possible. It is very difficult to just completely bypass the Board because the bottom line is that it is the mechanism which governs labor relations in the United States. But our experiences petitioning for Labor Board elections [have shown] the very extensive ability of companies to delay the elections, to use that time to intimidate people and fire people and to try to [destroy] the unity of workers. We have been trying to set up a community-based alternative to the Labor Board. We organize fair election committees of community leaders--people from the religious community, elected public officials, people of stature in whatever community we are trying to organize--who will conduct a fair, secret-ballot election. They are non-partisan people with a voting list, with observers and all the normal mechanisms of the Labor Board. After the community election is held, they certify that a majority of workers have designated the union as their representative. And that can be accomplished in a week, with a fair and secret ballot and a monitored election. Then when the company proceeds to make a mockery of the Labor Board procedure, stalling it for months and months, it really drives home to people how biased the govemment set-up is. We try to work to make these community labor boards monitor other aspects of what is going on at that particular plant, such as firings because of union activity and unilateral changes that companies might make to discourage union activity, even though it is unlawful. The idea is to use the mechanisms of public support and public denunciations to demystify the process from the Labor Board election down to the real life of the plant and the community in which it is located. We also try to install the union in the plant. They have had their community-held election. If the majority of the plant has voted for the union, then we try to go ahead and put the union in that plant: elect a grievance committee, elect shop stewards. We try to develop a functioning local union even though we do not have legal certification from the Labor Board as the collective bargaining representative at that point. Then people can see that they have their union. They have voted, people of stature in the community have said, "The majority has decided, you have a union now," they elect their stewards and shop officers and so forth and proceed to function as a union. Then when we have to go to a Labor Board election to get official legal bargaining rights, it is really demystified a lot for people. They have already had the experience of building the union in their shop. MM: When you do that--hold an election and build a union--how have the companies you have organized responded? Newell: It is really interesting. These employers come back and they say, "Go to the Labor Board." They know that that is the arena where the advantages accrue to them in terms of very cumbersome bureaucratic procedures. I can't recall an employer yet who said, "The mayor has certified the election. Well, then we will bargain with the union." I don't think we have had one case like that. They always say go to the Labor Board. And they hire their high-priced consultants, their union-busters, to bring in their dog-and-pony show to scare people and buy them and deceive them and fire them and intimidate them and hope that the 6 or 8 or 12 or 15 weeks of delay that they get under Labor Board procedures will give them the time they need to wreck [our organizing efforts].... The union-busters try to create a feeling of hysteria in the plant on election day. [They say], "The plant may close and move overseas. You are signing a blank check. You are turning your future over to outsiders...." But if people have been through a fair and honestly run community-held election and have begun trying to have a local union function in that shop, it is harder for the union-busters to create that kind of hysteria. It is easier for the workers to keep their perspective. MM: How successful have the strategies you have been pursuing been? Newell: It is not like we have found the magic answer here. But certainly I think it has been a tremendous advance over just petitioning the Labor Board for an election and waiting for election day. People are generally so demoralized and frustrated by the waiting that you are sometimes at your weakest point right when you are, at least hopefully, facing bargaining with the company. The procedure that I laid out leaves you in a much stronger position when you do finally get to the bargaining table. You have more to bargain with than just a piece of paper from the Labor Board that says you are certified as a union. You have built up a lot more in the shop, people have developed a lot more strength, fighting out their grievances in the shop, conducting concerted activity. Generally speaking, you are in a much stronger position for facing the company over the bargaining table than, for instance, that shop I mentioned to you where we won the Labor Board election in October of 1987. There, when the boss said, "I ain't going to bargain. Make me," we weren't able to bring that company to the bargaining table until three years later, when the Circuit Court of Appeals finally handed down its ruling. In a number of cases, people have actually been strong enough and militant enough to engage in recognition strikes and stoppages and other activities in the shop to try to force their demands in the shop for union recognition or at least to expedite the Labor Board election and win certain concessions around, perhaps, the question of the appropriate bargaining unit or election tactics by the employer. It is certainly something we are going to experiment with and pursue. MM: An article by David Cohen, a UE international representative, says you have won 11 of 11 elections using the community election tactic. Newell: I think that was in our last year. It has been quite successful. MM: How have your organizing efforts and unions in plants you have already organized been affected by threats of companies to close plants and move overseas? Newell: Like all unions in basic industry, we have certainly been very much affected by that. We staked out a position in the very early 1980s opposing concessions [in response to threats to move plants abroad] as being a futile attempt to save jobs. Basically what you end up doing is giving the company moving expenses, so to speak. If they are going to go, they are going to go. We really can't compete with the kind of wage rates that are paid in Mexico or Taiwan or South Korea. I know of some instances where, through a lot of coalition work and community work and public pressure, we have been able to prevent some plants from closing and moving away. But they are certainly the exceptions. It is especially difficult with the really large transnational corporations that are so insulated from any kind of public or community pressure--if they are bound and determined to move, they are going to do it. So we fight them tooth and nail, and we use the opportunity to educate people and build consciousness about the way the system is set up--the total lack of accountability these corporations have, not only to their workers but to communities that in many ways over many years supported those ventures. The other end of it is to try to fight for an international labor rights standard that would reduce the incentive for corporations to move our jobs overseas to areas where wages are very depressed because labor rights are nonexistent. If they were not able to import those goods back into this country, with the kind of trade benefits that they normally enjoy, [they would lose the incentive to move]. So whether it would be GSP [the Generalized System of Preferences] or the 1986 Trade Act or OPIC [the Overseas Private Investment Corporation] or other forms of legislation governing international trade, we have pressed very hard for an international labor rights standard that would in effect penalize companies that operate in countries where workers don't have the right to organize to raise their wages. And we have tried to develop a much more concrete sister union program with our counterparts in other countries. For instance, in El Salvador, we have a longstanding relationship with ATCEL, the Union of Electrical Workers of El Salvador, giving concrete assistance, money, messages of support, exchange of delegations, that kind of thing, and have done that with other unions in other countries. But it is difficult. I hate to say it, but I think the labor movement is probably light years behind the transnational corporations in terms of building global unity--in our case, unity of the working class. MM: Is protectionism a second-best, but more attainable, way to confront capital's mobility? Newell: UE traditionally has not tagged along on the "Buy America" route. First of all, because there has never been any quid pro quo with corporations for what they have to give in exchange for that kind of break. In exchange for buying American or limiting imports, are they then restricted from moving jobs elsewhere? Are they then committed to invest in the country and create jobs and produce quality products at a reasonable price? I hate to say it, but in many respects, it has been foreign competition that has brought many of these profiteering corporations down on their knees, so to speak. I don't know if we would want to let the American public be held hostage as a captive market for U.S. suppliers. Besides which, just because a product has an American name on it doesn't mean anymore that it was even made in this country. It is practically impossible to sort out a car with the Chrysler name on it and what [parts were] made here and what was made over there. It is a real maze. Additionally, many workers in our union and throughout the country produce for export. We couldn't expect to cut off imports without seeing retaliation in the opposite direction. So we have traditionally concentrated a lot more on the labor rights standards. The problem is that the Bush administration and before it the Reagan administration have enforced these provisions through a Cold War lens, so to speak. They simply refused to acknowledge the fact that labor rights violations were going on in countries ruled by right-wing dictators if they were our buddies against the "Soviet menace" or the "Communist menace." Conversely, countries allied with the Eastern bloc have consistently been stricken down for violating labor rights. We have petitioned year after year for a cutoff of trade preferences, for instance, for El Salvador. Year after year we have been turned down. This is the first year they are going to be forced to give it a serious examination. We pressed for a similar cutoff for Chile year after year, and finally, about three years ago, we succeeded in forcing a real, impartial examination of the status of labor rights in that country. MM: Why aren't there more women in leadership positions in national labor organizations? Newell: Sexism is a fact in our society, probably more so in the past than today. We are seeing more and more women coming into national leadership of their unions, and I think to some extent in the AFL-CIO. Certainly there are more women in individual unions than say 20 or 30 years ago, and I think that trend is definitely going to continue. I think the Department Store Union is headed by a woman, the National Education Association was headed by a woman and so are a number of unions in the airline industry . .. Progress is being made, [but] we have a long way to go. MM: Do you think women leadership makes any difference? Newell: I wouldn't say, obviously, that women are necessarily smarter or better leaders. But I think it is important that the leadership of any mass, democratic organization, as our unions should be, reflect the membership. There is something very wrong when the membership may be 30 or 50 or even 70 percent women and the national executive board is overwhelmingly male, or overwhelmingly white when there is a large minority membership. I think in a democratic institution, it is a lot more inspiring to the membership to see themselves reflected in the leadership of an institution. It makes for greater unity and probably, on balance, better leadership, because you will have the points of view of important segments of the membership represented in the institution.