BY JOHN STAGGS
PHILADELPHIA - With fanfare, the top officials of the
International Association of Machinists (IAM), the United
Auto Workers (UAW), and the United Steelworkers of America
(USWA) recently announced they would merge to create a
single 2 million-member union. It was the top story in the
news July 28.
This merger will not strengthen the labor movement and workers should oppose it. What lies behind the deal is a retreat from the type of working-class struggle that is needed to defend our rights and living standards.
The plan to join forces was discussed behind closed doors and signed by the executive boards of the three unions, after which the three presidents held a press conference to announce the merger. The rank and file memberships of the these unions had no say.
The announcement follows the recent merger of the United Rubber Workers with the USWA and the coupling of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. In fact, there have been 21 union mergers in the past four years.
The July 27 Wall Street Journal quotes a "senior UAW official" as saying, "It's how you survive in the 90's."
UAW president Stephen Yokich summed up his reason for the merger in the word, "strength." George Kourpias, president of the IAM, said the merger will give workers "the numbers to fight." At the press conference announcing the plan, Steelworkers president George Becker said he was "so excited about this it almost brings tears to my eyes."
What seems to be making these labor officials so happy is not the expansion of union power, but the expanded dues base to maintain the high living they have grown so accustomed to atop the labor movement.
The union officials project that the new union will be formed by the year 2,000, after all three presidents are scheduled to retire.
As part of the agreement the unions will begin combining certain efforts right away, primarily to boost their influence inside the Democratic Party. They are hoping the projected merger will win them back some political clout among the capitalist politicians they so faithfully serve.
But the Democratic Party has less and less need of these officials now. Little of the union leadership's "legislative agenda" was given consideration while the Democrats controlled both the Congress and the White House.
Government programs that labor leaders are accustomed to help administer are being slashed. Their waning influence is also behind the push to refurbish the image of the top leadership of the AFL-CIO, by getting rid of federation president Lane Kirkland.
Both Democratic and Republican parties are responding to increasing economic instability and deepening crisis by moving to the right. Their debate is over how to deepen the assaults on our wages and benefits, including Social Security and Medicare. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and President Bill Clinton both want to cut. It's only a question of how deep and how fast.
What will strengthen the unions today is building support for the struggles of workers and others fighting for their rights. Thousands of UAW members are right now battling Caterpillar, the biggest earth-moving equipment manufacturer in the world.
What has helped strengthen that year-long strike, and given union members the resolve to keep fighting, has been the support of thousands of other working people. Recent expanded picket lines in the Peoria area and other centers of the strike, and the solidarity rally of 3,000 unionists in Decatur, Illinois, on June 25, showed the company that the workers still have some fight in them. At the same time their fight needs more backing from the whole labor movement in order to win.
The labor movement needs to champion affirmative action and join with students and others who have been protesting the attacks on this important gain that helps to unify working people.
Our unions should campaign around a real program to guarantee jobs for all by shortening the workweek with no cut in pay and launching a massive public works program.
We can respond to the step-up of raids taking place in many factories that victimize workers from other countries, and fight for equal rights for immigrants.
Fighting along these lines will unite working people and help to push back the capitalists' bipartisan offensive on our rights, and living and working conditions.
The July 28 New York Times quotes Steelworkers president George Becker as saying, "Workers want somebody to protect them, to stand up and fight for them."
But the working class is a fighting class. Workers, together with farmers and other allies, have the strength and capacity to change the world. The road forward for working people can be seen in the powerful example of Cuba, where the working class has established its own government, and reorganized society to benefit workers, not capitalists.
Right now hundreds of young people including unionists from the Machinists, UAW, and other unions, are participating in the Cuba Lives Festival. When they return from Cuba, report-back meetings will bring the example of the Cuban revolution and the power of the working class to life for working people in the United States.
Fighting for the Caterpillar workers, joining union picket lines, getting behind the fight to defend affirmative action and immigrant workers. This is the direction that will lead to a stronger labor movement today. The projected merger of the UAW, USWA, and IAM will not.
John Staggs is a member of UAW Local 1695.