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Please help build The Association for Union Democracy
Send a link to this letter to a friend, and help build AUD.
June, 2008
Now as ever (and maybe more than ever) we need AUD
AUD and our message of union democracy are more relevant today than ever. We wish we could say that this welcome state results from our progress and our achievements. But within the last year, a broad discussion on the future of the labor movement and the role of union democracy (there has been nothing like it for decades) has erupted out of the labor movement itself. AUD has been an important part of that discussion.
In early May, 101 scholars, writers, and labor historians signed an open letter to Andy Stern, SEIU international president, urging that he reject any plans to impose a trusteeship over the 140,000-member United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW-W) and that he resolve differences with Sal Rosselli, its president, within the framework of union democracy. Steve Early, who recently retired from the staff of the Communication Workers and has a long record as a union reform advocate, took the initiative, along with two colleagues, in recruiting the 101 signatories. He says he was inspired by our piece in New Politics and in Union Democracy Review on the role of intellectuals in the labor movement.
Back in 1995, when John Sweeney ousted the Kirkland-Donahue leadership and took over as AFL-CIO president, his ascendancy was greeted by many scholars and intellectuals, not with a serious discussion of labor's future but by a unanimous celebration of what they saw as his goal: to increase labor’s power. But in the decade that followed came sobering thoughts.
When Andy Stern led his SEIU out of the AFL-CIO along with other unions, he proposed to reorganize and reorient the labor movement to recruit new millions to the union banner. After a period of initial enthusiasm, there were internal misgivings, first from rank and file SEIU activists, then from Rosselli's UHW-W. Their concern: that he was sacrificing the rights of members in their unions and disparaging the values of union democracy in order to facilitate a quickie recruitment of the unorganized. And now those 101 intellectuals worried about the purging of legitimate and principled dissent from the labor movement.
A serious discussion is beginning on the kind of labor movement we are building and over the fate of union democracy within it. The new leadership that is developing within unions at all levels probably makes it impossible to avoid such a discussion. When Sweeney took office back in 1995, he appealed for support from those who were drawn to the labor movement precisely because they viewed it as a force for social justice, or as some put it for "social change." Stern recruited the same kind of activists for his staff, for local leaders and even as heads of massive sectors of the SEIU. Many had been active as community organizers or as civil rights leaders. Some are now ardent supporters of the Stern administration because they are inspired by the union's focus on organizing the minorities, the immigrants, the exploited service workers. Others criticize what they see as his "top down" strategy which, they are convinced, manipulates the membership and has contempt for their individual rights.
Most of them -- we hope all of them -- even when they dispute most violently, are candidates for a serious discussion of labor's future, because they are so aware of its potential. And that's just where AUD comes in. With more than 40 years of campaigning for democratic rights, with our board members who are experts in union democracy, with our Union Democracy Review, with our website, with guidance we provide for hundreds of unionists each year, AUD can contribute to that discussion as no others can.
But we need your help. We still need your help. We need you more than ever because we feel the weight of responsibility more than ever. Won't you please help, this year more than ever!
Herman Benson, Judith Schneider, Kurt Richwerger, Matt Noyes
Secretary Treasurer, Executive Director, Program & Development Director,
Internet Coordinator
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The labor movement is going through enormous challenges and changes. Help us make sure that union democracy isn't overlooked and forgotten.
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