In the thick of the swirling rumors and buzzing tensions that filled the days before its convention opened, the AFL-CIO pulled out all the stops to mount a day-long organizing conference July 24. "Changing to Organize, Organizing for Power" featured PowerPoints on a giant screen and more than three dozen speakers, some from as far away as Taiwan, Cambodia, Chile and Brazil. The panels ran back-to-back from 8a.m. to 5:30p.m., with a break for the "United to Win" pep rally at noon.
"For this or any other labor movement the fundamental source of power is workers united and in motion," AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff told the conference’s opening session.
The conference painted a picture of the many-sided effort needed to channel this power into change.
The morning sessions unrolled the steps unions need to take to build their ability to organize and carry on strategic campaigns. They also emphasized the need to change and fortify labor law.
Strategic campaigns, like the ILWU’s drive at Blue Diamond Growers, apply many kinds of outside pressure to back up the workers’ in-plant organizing. The ILWU is using community, labor and political support, media outreach and legal tools to help the Blue Diamond workers.
Strategic organizing also means using the power unions have through existing contracts and their industry positions. This approach helped the United Auto Workers win contracts for thousands of workers at auto parts factories in the South, said UAW Vice President Bob King.
"You have to have a vision and never give up," he said.
The afternoon panels explored the role of labor councils and state labor federations, and the potential power of local and global alliances.
"It takes a well-resourced, fully staffed central labor council with strong support from its state federation to build a movement," said King County [Seattle] Central Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer Steve Williamson.
The central bodies can focus solidarity for union battles and knit labor and community allies together for political campaigns, he said.
The community work helps strengthen unions internally as well, Denver Area Labor Federation President Leslie Moody pointed out.
"We are thinking about how to mobilize our members," Moody said. "Our members don’t just work."
The Denver Federation has worked closely with other groups to get "community benefit agreements" from development projects that use public money. These agreements include provisions for local hiring, decent wages and environmental protection.
The conference’s last segment, "Bringing Justice to the Global Economy," drew out several examples of global union campaigns against multinational employers. One was Quebecor World, the world’s largest commercial printer.
Quebecor operates in 17 countries on four continents. In 2000 the AFL-CIO, the Graphic Communications International Union (now the Graphic Communications Conference/IBT) and Union Network International, a federation of communications and service unions, convened a Quebecor Working Group. They held an international conference in Memphis, Tenn. in late 2003 that launched a campaign to organize six Quebecor plants in the U.S.
"We saw the abuses facing U.S. workers and thought we could be next," said Juan Palma Lora, who works at a Quebecor plant in Santiago, Chile. He also heads the Quebecor workers’ union in his country. Under pressure from workers, shareholders, clients and public officials all over the world, Quebecor agreed in May 2005 to remain neutral during organizing campaigns at its U.S. plants. It is due to sign a global neutrality agreement in August, Lora said.
"Trade union internationalism cannot be an extra," said International Confederation of Free Trade Unions General Secretary Guy Ryder in closing. "It must be integral to our organizing."
—Marcy Rein
