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Labor history buffs, arch I-
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Professional Staff Congress:
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vlsts, librarIans, researchers:
UDA/UDR bound volumes collect articles covering 37 years of the struggle for union democracy from the expulsion of
two
machinists In 1959 to the crisis in the Teamsters in 1996.
Union Democracy in Action
The predecessor to UDR.
All
issues of the newsletter published by Herman Benson way back then, before the founding
of AUD.
Union Democracy
1972— 1981
These first issues of UDR have been out of print
but the bound volumes are available.
All
volumes
$35.
Any
three, $90.
All
five,
$150.
Teamster reform: from page
8
An earlier experience should have rendered Ed Stier wary about the art of timing. After he had been trustee of Teamsters Local
560
for maybe a year or more, he was confident enough about progress against the Provenzano crime family to call for elections. The result was a disaster. The racketeer old gang won every post. Stier persisted, did an excellent job under onerous conditions, and finally appears to have gotten rid of the Mafia. But there, armed with full power, it took him ten years to win that battle. He does note that the government has already had over ten years in the IBT, and it has already ousted over a hundred crooks. The lesson is, however, that while ten years may be enough in a local of a few thousand members, it has proven inadequate in the far more intractable case of an international union of a million and a half members once dominated by organized crime.
In any event, the Hoffa regime is determined to proceed; the RISE program is already being implemented. It will take time just to nail down the details and put the elaborate structure in place. (It is impossible here to outline the plan in its full complexity.) Then, it could take years to see how it actually handles cases. Meanwhile, there are misgivings enough to make it foolhardy even to consider a prompt lifting of the existing effective government monitorship. The Independent Review Board is still there. The court-appointed investigator is still there. For a long time, Teamsters will need these monitors, independent of the ruling union regime, just to discover whether the new scheme is working. How else can they get an objective report? +
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Elections in this union of faculty staff at the City University of New York prove that democracy can be a dangerous thing—for those in office. With 6,000 of the 9,500 members voting, the insurgent New Caucus defeated, 55% to 43%, an administration that had held office for
24 years, taking 18 of 20 seats, including all top officers. Barbara Bowen, at the head of the opposition ticket, was elected president, defeating Richard Boris, incumbent, who headed the administration Unity slate.
The election was a model of democracy. Both sides could get their full message to the entire membership. The pre-election issue of the union’s paper, mailed to all members, allotted five full tabloid pages to each slate. Votes were counted by the American Arbitration Association.
Over the years conditions at the city university have been deteriorating. The full-time staff has been cut drastically; salaries have lagged; real state and city funding has been cut. The New Caucus, led mainly by younger teachers, proposed to “Build political support for a fully funded CUNY..
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.by uniting our ranks, establishing alliances with labor, politicians, students, and communities.” Obviously, the membership felt it was time for a change. In this democratic union, it was simple to make that change.
claims. They argue that some contracts involve trade-offs in which new employers are permitted to pay wages that undercut the union scale. CDUI member Paul Inferrera maintains that this kind of concessionary bargaining is unjustified in the midst of a building boom and high profit margins. Most of the critics welcome the end of those “fiefdoms” which permitted local business managers to build little local political machines (often corrupt), take care of themselves, and lord it over the membership. But, they insist, the modernization of the union has become a pretext for what is not necessary: eliminating the right of members to vote on contracts, to elect district officers by direct vote, to vote on their level of dues, to elect business agents and have a voice in day-to-day collective bargaining. Modernization and centralization, they say, do not require that the executive secretary treasurer be endowed with virtual dictatorial powers.
As the name of their new group suggests, Carpenters for a Democratic Union International want a union that will be effective and democratic. +
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Review
Vol. 1
Vol. 2
Vol. 3
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June 2000
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15
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Union Democracy Review
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15 |
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