Would Wage Concessions Help the Steel Industry?

[Excerpt]The American steel industry is dying. 150,000 steelworkers are laid off, and thousands of them will never work in steel again. The steel companies will report losses of some $2 billion for 1982, and Wall Street analysts predict— advocate—that as much as 20 per cent of the industry\u27s primary capacity will be eliminated. The loss of steel jobs threatens more than a dozen local and regional economies with decades of Depression-like conditions. And the worst is not likely to be over soon. Even though most people recognize that the primary cause of this situation is the misguided and mean-spirited policies of the Reagan administration, public opinion seems to have accepted a simple logic: If the industry is in such trouble, steelworkers should help it by granting concessions on wages and work rules

Labor Bookshelf

[Excerpt] The four books under review here argue against the statistics by telling story upon story of the activities that clearly have the potential for reversing labor\u27s demise. Most of the stories are about defensive struggles not new offensives, and even the most inspiring victories are hedged with all sorts of qualifications. But you cannot read these books without a sense of renewal and hope for the future, without a sense of what is possible when working people take things in their own hands

The IAM 100 Model : A Debate

[Excerpt] The last issue of Labor Research Review was devoted to what we called the IAM District 100 model for fighting concessions. Six articles over more than 90 pages explained the complex and sophisticated campaign the Machinists waged at Eastern Airlines to win a 32% wage increase and to preserve existing work rules. Three times—in March, June and October of 1983—District 100 Machinists had turned back the demands and threats not only of Eastern, but of the banks to which Eastern owes millions—among them giants of finance like Chase Manhattan and Citibank. But as the issue, which we called UP AGAINST THE GLOOM AND DOOM: Aggressive Unionism at Eastern Airlines, was ready to go to the printer, IAM 100 finally relented and gave up a concessions contract at the end of the year. What we were about to present to our readers as a model of union struggle had just been defeated. After we digested the sick feelings in our stomachs, we decided to go with the issue the way it was. On reflection we still felt that the way IAM 100 conducted itself in an impossibly difficult bargaining situation was a beacon for the labor movement in these troubled times

Committed to Organizing: An Interview with Richard Bensinger, Director, AFL-CIO Organizing Institute

[Excerpt] The Institute\u27s materials emphasize that organizing is difficult, frustrating work. But it\u27s also the best job in America because it is personally rewarding to help workers organize and fight against injustice. Richard Bensinger, a former ACTWU organizer, has been the OI\u27s Executive Director since its inception in 1989. Labor Research Review\u27s Jack Metzgar asked Bensinger to assess the OI\u27s first two years in operation

Firing the Boss! The Steelworkers at Wheeling-Pitt

An interview with Paul Rusen, former USWA District Director

Book Review: Concessions - and how to beat them

[Excerpt] As the title of her book indicates, Jane Slaughter is not afraid to be didactic. This valuable handbook, written for secondary leaders and rank-and-file activists, not only provides a history and sum-up of the concessions experience through the Spring of 1983. It articulates a set of principles and strategies for how to beat them

In-Plant Strategies: Running the Plant Backwards in UAW Region 5

[Excerpt]Besides the Boilermakers, few unions have accumulated much experience with in-plant strategies. United Autoworkers Region 5, however, has piled up an impressive record of victories using tactics similar to those described in Tom Balanoff\u27s article. In fact, the modern use of this strategy (so far as we can determine) begins with UAW Local 282\u27s well-known victory at the Moog auto parts plant in St. Louis in 1982. Since then, other locals in UAW Region 5 have successfully used the strategy to win contracts at a Schwitzer cooling-fan plant in Rolla, Missouri, (1983) and at Bell Helicopter in Texas (1984). And this summer UAW Local 848 finally won a no-concessions contract after 15 months of in-plant struggle at LTV-Vought\u27s aerospace defense systems plant in Grand Prairie, Texas. UAW Region 5 covers eight states in the middle of the country. Regional Director Ken Worley has supported use of this new strategy in carefully chosen situations and Assistant Regional Director Jerry Tucker has been instrumental in developing what Region 5 has come to call running the plant backwards

Labor Bookshelf

[Excerpt] Steel and auto. These are the basics of American basic industry, and the United Steelworkers and United Autoworkers, representing workers in these industries, have been at the very core of the American labor movement. For most of the years since World War II, the membership of these two unions has constituted something like one -seventh of the organized workforce, and the USW and UAW pioneered many of the innovations in collective bargaining that all unions now take for granted

Participating in Management: Union Organizing on a New Terrain

[Excerpt] Seasoned organizers know that all organizing begins one-on-one at your base. The workplace is labor\u27s base and, therefore, the key to the labor movement meeting its many challenges in the 1990s — among them, building stronger worker-to-worker and union-to-union solidarity; being broadly perceived as a champion of the public\u27s interest; and attracting large numbers of new workers into its fold. American society cannot be made better unless there is a thriving, more powerful labor movement. And before labor can help create this better society, it must first take care of its crumbling base

Expanding the Fight Against Shutdowns

[Excerpt] The Midwest Center for Labor Research has been involved, in both direct and secondary ways, in fighting dozens of plant closings. We\u27ve studied similar efforts of labor-community coalitions around the country, beginning with the Ecumenical Coalition\u27s fight to save Youngstown Sheet & Tube in 1977. We also have several years\u27 experience in building community-based economic development projects on Chicago\u27s West Side and in Northwest Indiana. This article argues that, as the crisis of manufacturing has deepened, the fight against shutdowns has accumulated a rich mine of experience and insight upon which it is now possible to wage a series of more effective struggles. It argues that, while fighting shutdowns on one front, labor must take the lead in building diverse local coalitions engaged in systematic efforts to retain and create jobs in the community. This is not only essential for immediate objectives, but can provide an opportunity for labor to begin to mount an aggressive political and economic offensive in the broad public interest