Bullhorns versus Bullsh*t

 “Tell the Bosses We’re Coming – A New Action Plan for Workers in the 21^st Century,” by Shaun Richman, 2020

This is an odd book.  Richman is a former staffer with the AFT and UNITE-HERE. He describes how labor in the U.S. has been bound – like Gulliver by the Lilliputians – in complex, multiple and archaic labor laws, concepts, economic constraints and politics.  After all, the laws and state are capitalist, though he doesn’t say this.  He says labor is “trapped in a rotten anti-union system;” “Unions bargain like it’s still 1950;” and within the labor movement “a moral and strategic rot has set in.”

Richman mentions exclusionary bargaining; the open, closed and union shop; corporate benefits; no-strike pledges and wage freezes; collective bargaining, unfair labor practices and grievances; ‘replacement’ workers and sub-contracting; off-shoring and closing plants; wildcats, strikes and slowdowns; management ‘rights’ and forced arbitration; working without a contract and ‘work to rule;’ new organizing versus internal organizing; labor splits, unions acting as disciplinarians and union raids. 

Yeah, it’s all there from the union perspective.

Richman focuses on large labor law, Supreme Court and NLRB decisions that tie labor’s hands: the Wagner (NLRA) and Taft-Hartley Acts; the Wooster, Harris-Quinn and Janus Supreme Court decisions; the General Electric/McCullogh Co. and MacKay NLRB cases; and mentions the PATCO and Phelps Dodge disasters.  

In the process he gives credence to labor-management cooperation and not opposing union leaders, as he’s against ‘rank and filism.’  He leaves politics to the Democrats, so his is a purely syndicalist view. He doesn’t mention automation, which is a key aspect of union job losses and which many unions can’t or won’t bargain over.

So what is Richman’s solution to his impasse, this hobbling of labor by capital’s state, which has gone on for decades?   After all, Taft-Hartley is now 75 years old.  What is ‘da plan, boss?’  What are you going to “blow up”?

Richman suggests some nuts-and-bolts small-bore changes, but realizes that the Sweeney and “Change to Win” strategies stalled.  He does not focus on what is going on outside unions.  The Fight for $15 campaign, the teacher wildcats, the siege of the Wisconsin State House, Starbucks certification victories and the recent union victory at Amazon on Staten Island all came from union ranks or were separate from the stagnant union federations.  This fact is unaddressed.  His new strategy suggests going outside the standard U.S./Canada union format. 

Here are Richman’s suggestions:

1.    A “left-wing strategy of judicial activism” with a Constitutional® challenge to unequal and unfair applications of labor law.  And a “Labor’s Bill of Rights,” which he published in In These Times, a mild liberal / social-democratic publication. He suggests filing ULP charges frequently, especially on forced ‘at work’ anti-union meetings.

     2.   Sign up active minorities to unions, not everybody in the shop.  Dues are not the main issue.  This ends ‘exclusive representation,’ manipulated majority votes and avoids a future Janus for private employers.

     3.   Multiple union representation in workplaces.  “Bring the chaos.”

     4.   Bring back the strike, as the strike has been severely restricted in the U.S.  He has no silver bullet, but gives credit to the IWW, new unions and wildcats by non-union and union workers.    

     5.   Federal payroll dues check-off.

     6.   Revive state NIRA industrial labor boards to get universal labor improvements in a company or industry.  This takes the onus of a loss off the union to the board.  He suggests this replace some collective bargaining.

     7.   German-style “works councils” or work committees at workplaces that try to get more control over conditions and ‘management prerogatives.’ (This was suggested in the Transitional Program” but as a way to prepare to take over a business as part of a planned economy.)

     8.   Ending ‘at-will’ employment. I.E. federal law would define what ‘just cause’ is for termination everywhere.

     9.   Union-controlled health care plans partially funded by firms.

     10.     Use union pension investments to influence corporate boards.

     11.     “Fix” the NLRB through ‘fixing’ Taft-Hartley language.

     12.     “Outlaw state ‘right-to-work’ laws.”

As you can see, this is a collection of pretty wonky, legalistic, small to medium ‘practical’ fixes – many of which would need a huge power bloc to actually push through.  

Union Win at Amazon

Richman claims that the present labor structure was demanded by every U.S. capitalist.  The fact is there are capitalists with crueler ideas than the bind of collective bargaining.  Just look at the reactionary South or the libertarian tech industry.  It seems some of his methods would ‘take the gloves’ off from both sides … which would be good.

Richman never goes beyond trade-union issues.  His strategy is still within a ‘trade union consciousness’ embedded in capitalism, as Lenin labeled it in 1902. But the fact that a former union staffer is at his wits end about the stagnant labor structure in the U.S. is to be commended.   It’s a shit show and he knows it.

The most glaring flaw Richman shares with others who want to revive unionism is that ‘politics’ is outside his purview, left to the capitalist Democrats. (Though he calls unions ‘political institutions’…) He was excited in 2020 when he actually thought the 2020 Democrats were going to overturn Taft-Hartley!  How did that work out?

Every single mature labor movement in the world creates a political organization to represent its interests in government – a labor party, a workers’ party, a social-democratic party, a socialist party, a communist party. For instance, our neighbor Canada has the New Democratic Party, which is tied to Canadian unions. Nada here, which shows you how immature the U.S. labor movement still is.  A labor party was tried in the 1990s but was intimidated out of existence.  Nor has Richman any demands beyond unionism – no social demands, no program, no nothing.  

None of this – and more - will actually be accomplished without the revival of a strong, mass, full-blooded, hard-core socialist movement. This is a good book for unionists as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using these terms: “Reviving the Strike” (Burns); “Rebuilding Power in Open-Shop America,” “Night Shift” (Macaray); “A Snake Slithers Up the Mississippi,” “In and Out of the Working Class” (Yates); “Class Action,” “The Cradle Will Rock,” “Class Against Class” (Matgamna): “Striking to Survive,” “Damnation,” “In Dubious Battle” (Steinbeck); “Prison Strike Against Modern Slavery,” “Sick Out Against the Shut Down!” “Riot, Strike, Riot,” “Save Our Unions” (Early); “Living and Dying on the Factory Floor,” “On New Terrain” (Moody); “Factory Days” (Gibbs).   

Red Frog has been a member of the Bakery Workers, Garment Workers, Iron Workers, Teamsters, UE and IBEW, serving as a steward and on a contract negotiation team.

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

April 3, 2022