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Victories and new battles
for democracy
Two hundred twenty-five registrants came to sessions of the
AUD national conference in New York April 7-9. It was not the
largest ever; but, in one respect, it was the most impressive.
Most were unionists and supporters actively involved in union
democracy-related campaigns. Interested sympathizers were
there, but most were engaged. Those who were fighting hard
battles against the odds told of their ordeals; but this time there
were even more reports of encouraging victories.
The conference opened on Friday with seven union democ-
racy success stories, experiences which summed up the whole
three-day conference, rich in diversity, involving men, women,
whites, African-Americans, rank and filers, seasoned oldtimers
and local leaders new to the cause.
That evening, the conferees heard from Larry O’Toole, in-
ternational president of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Asso-
ciation, and from Tim Brown, international president of the
Masters, Mates and Pilots. They told similar stories of how
these licensed marine officers, after long and bitter reform
battles, freed their unions from the control of crooked offi-
cials. Then, came a range of reports from professional seafar-
ers to professional musicians.
Lucinda Lewis told how her International Conference of
Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM), beginning in the
early 1960’s, won the battle for democracy inside the Ameri-
can Federation of Musicians.
Elinor Levine, young new president of the Coalition of
continued on page 5
Democracy:
burden or asset in union organizing?
In Dissent, spring issue, Katherine Sciacchitano, writing on
“Unions, Organizing, and Democracy,” searches for a way to
combine effective organizing with educating to “develop and
nurture democratic leadership among the new workforce.” Con-
vinced that the two must be linked, she cautions against those
who, in the rush to organize with least delay, “don’t give work-
ers a voice in how they are organized.” She is obviously one
who knows her subject: former labor lawyer and organizer, now
a teacher at the AFL-CIO George Meany Center for Labor
Studies; she draws upon an intimate knowledge of two organiz-
ing campaigns and perhaps participation in them: the SEIU
1996 campaign against Beverly Enterprises in Philadelphia and
a CWA campaign at US Ainvays, both of which she found in-
structive and encouraging.
“The revitalized AFL-CIO,” she notes, “has set its sight on
nothing short of movement building.” But there are serious
contradictions. “Organizing is shaped by what a small group
of insiders know and impart rather than by workers exercising
power. We end up further from, not closer to, our goal of
movement building.” in the haste to win NLRB elections,
“certain tasks are postponed: developing rank and file leader-
ship, member education, building the kind of enduring local
union organization that can give workers power and change
their lives....Where winning is impossible, the union walks
away....Workers develop a healthy fear of abandonment.”
We need more than militancy; she says “...the crucial link
between union campaigns and movement building is not just
militancy.... Movement building requires understanding how
learning and organization take place at the bottom....it means
paying attention to workers’—not just organizers’—accounts
of organizing.”
For insight in reforging the “essential link between an ac-
tive membership and movement building,” she looks to the
distant days of the thirties and the Great Depression: “the up-
surge of organizing wasn’t sudden, and it wasn’t simply the
product of the CIO. Union successes of the 30’s and 40’s were
continued on page 12
No. 130
AUD’s 30th Anniversary conference
Published by the Association for Union Democracy
Participants discuss organizing in a Saturday panel
Inside Stories
2
Teamsters election rules
11
IUOE Local 30
3
Teamsters retrenchment
11
LIUNA
4
Postal Workers victory
12
SEIU
9
Shorts
14
Where we stand
10
Charles Delgado
15
CUNY professors
10
Challenging iliegal dues
16
Carpenters conference
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