“On the Line – A Story of Class, Solidarity and Two Women's Epic Fight to Build a Union” by Daisy Pitkin, 2022
Successful union organizing might be moving the balance between anger and fear, between human solidarity and isolation, between a hope for the future and the bad smell of the present. This book shows how that plays out among a group of low-paid toilers in Arizona. Any union member, supporter or organizer would benefit by reading it, as the events, details and tricks used by both sides are blazingly real.
Union membership in the U.S., in spite of recent successes, changes in leadership and organizing drives, has now dropped to exactly 10.0%. This is the lowest since BLS records started in 1983. It is at 6% for private corporations. One reason for the drop is because the workforce is growing and this book is pretty clear about the other reason. The National Labor Relations Act legalized unions, collective bargaining and the establishment of the NLRB in 1935. Those were heroic days for labor in the U.S. The NLRA was immediately followed by the 1938 MacKay decision allowing the permanent replacement of workers by scabs, the 1947 Taft-Hartley law that heavily constricted union power and allowed 'open' shops, up to the present day with the 2018 Janus Supreme Court decision making all public sector employment an 'open shop.' This has been true for private employers for years in the South. The open shop essentially individualizes union membership in a worksite and is designed to weaken union power. The NLRA itself has huge loopholes and weak enforcement. The conclusion here is U.S. law and practice dislikes labor. It's not just the employers who are the problem. It's the capitalist state, their police, their courts and conflicted administrative bodies and their political parties. However this story has a sobering victory at the end.
This book is an illuminating, on-the-ground inside look at a 2003-2005 struggle in Phoenix by Latino industrial laundry workers for a union and contract. The book has to use the word 'epic' because that is many times what it takes. Why should having a union be so hard? Because it begins to hit at the essence of capitalism – profits, power and private property - PPPP. The large Sodexho plant cleaned laundry, but not from private homes – for hospitals, hotels, restaurants and other large operations. The sheets, tablecloths, clothing, napkins, cloth and blankets are sometimes covered by food, urine, vomit, shit, blood, with occasional body parts, needles and medical waste included. The workers make $7.25 an hour, working 10 hour days over 3 shifts, with forced overtime and occupational injuries. Safety methods are demobilized, the line is sped-up and there is no air-conditioning. Nearly all the workers have Mexican backgrounds, so its racist capital at play. Sodexho/Sodexo is a French-owned conglomerate operating in 55 countries. It has deep pockets, a skilled PR department and lots of lawyers.
The book is not fiction. It is addressed to a Latino worker on second shift who was one of the leaders within the plant, Alma Garcia. It also has chapters on labor history – Triangle Shirtwaist, French silk weavers, moths' role in textiles, labor law and the Patterson textile strike that reflect on the Sodexho effort. It is written by a real UNITE union organizer Daisy, a young, somewhat naive European-American woman from Tucson in her first union struggle. She and Alma form a working pair. The author went on to become a veteran organizer with UNITE-HERE, a union descended from a long line of garment worker struggles. Alma herself helps the staff of UNITE in its attempt to organize all Phoenix industrial laundries, joins the Local's staff for awhile, then goes back to the factory.
It describes in detail the tactics involved in establishing a union used by UNITE. It first means finding workers and then quickly signing union cards in a 'blitz;' preparing workers for the lies and fight ahead; warning them about bad bosses, 'good' bosses and 'sad' bosses; resisting the illegal anti-union violations that inevitably crop up; reaching out for support to the community and finally getting a signed contract. This is not how it really goes. In the scum-bucket U.S. version of labor freedom there are firings, arrests, police, strike actions, vicious supervisors, bogus and hidden voters, surveillance cameras and NLRB Section 8 filings and legal process. In other unionization efforts there have been bribes, deportations and beatings. Pitkin claims that more than half of all union elections, if held within 2 weeks of card signing, win. On the other hand this story descends into 2 years of legal decisions and appeals, and a final 'card check.'
Between 200-500 anti-Union meetings were held at the plant by the company, many times making illegal statements or committing illegal acts. But labor law violations and 'unfair labor practice' (ULP) charges are like confetti – even if violations are overruled at some point, they delay the process, intimidate the workforce, muddy the waters and increase the 'no' votes.
In this book there is nothing that rises above traditional unionism, hard enough as even that is. Pitkin describes the bureaucratic issues in the merger of UNITE and HERE, competition over turf and methods, and shows an awareness of the differences between middle-class union staffs and local proletarians, between top-down organizing and bottom-up organizing, but that is it. She mentions no transitional program for union power of any kind, reflecting present U.S. unionism. She admits she was too busy to think about anything but the immediate situation. The book is class conscious, but that consciousness is limited to the endless struggle by women and immigrant workers for labor dignity and standards, for solidarity and unity, for human closeness and kindness. The subtext is that it expects the working-class to be Promethean, noble and endlessly patient in the eternal class struggle. It comes out that we are to resemble Sisyphus, forever pushing a rock up a hill in the pursuit of labor justice.
To hell with that.
Prior reviews on this issue, search our 17 year archive using the search box, upper left, using these terms: “Fighting Times” (Melrod); “Reviving the Strike” (Burns); “Rebuilding Power in Open-Shop America,” “Tell the Bosses We're Coming,” “Breaking the Impasse” (Moody); “In and Out of the Working Class” (Yates); “Class Action,” “Class Against Class” (Matgamna); “Prison Strike Against Modern Slavery,” “Sick Out Against the Shut Down!” “Save Our Unions” (Early); “Living and Dying on the Factory Floor,” “On New Terrain” (Moody); “Autopsy of an Engine,” “Factory Days” (Gibbs).
And I got it at the Athens, Georgia Public Library!
Red Frog
January 29, 2024
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