AFL-CIO launches union drive

By Roy Rydell

The AFL-CIO has set aside the week of June 19th to 25th to organize actions that focus public attention on the problems workers face when they attempt to join together in unions to improve their lives.

Titled "7 Days in June," a 57-page organizer's manual says that "workers, our unions state federations [and] central labor councils" will work together with community leaders, clergy and public officials in a series of nationally-coordinated actions "to say that employer interference with worker's choices is unacceptable."

This year's activities will build on last year's June 24 actions that saw thousands of workers and their supporters organize events in more than 70 cities around the country. "With an entire week of events, this year's activities will be bigger and bigger," Liann Ainsworth, one of the AFL-CIO staff members charged with coordinating he campaign, told the World.

With three weeks yet to go activities are already planed for some 50 cities:

In Houston, Texas the "Justice Bus" of the Harris County Labor Council will take to the road again.

In Monterey, Calif., workers who are trying to bring the benefits of union organization to the state's strawberry pickers will join a demonstration organized by HERE Local 483.

Workers at the Avondale Shipyard near New Orleans who, six years ago, voted for union representation, will take their case to the community with a town hall meeting.

And in Atlanta, the central labor council is organizing support for truck drivers at Overnite Transportation and flight attendants from Delta Airlines.

The campaign will come to New York City on June 10 when the central labor council will organize a protest at a seminar sponsored by the notorious union-busting firm of Jackson Lewis, Schnitzler, Krupman. The seminar is part of the firm's Executive Enterprises Series titled "For a union free environment and unionized Employers."

The AFL-CIO has been making giant strides in creating what it calls an "organizing culture" under its new leadership elected in 1995. But the legacy of the years of government-sponsored strike-breaking that began when President Reagan broke the strike of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers (PATCO) in the summer of 1991 lingers on. His actions put a "made in USA" label on union busting and helped set the stage for outfits like Jackson Lewis, Schnitzler, Krupman who together rake in a total of some $300 million annually.

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935 affirmed labor's right to organize and bargain collectively. The act set up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that conducts elections for union representation and investigates charges of unfair labor practices by employers.

In additions to interfering with the right to organize unfair labor practices include refusal to engage in collective bargaining with a union.

In recent years the Board and its procedures have become an obstacle rather than a help to unions in organizing campaigns and negotiating a first contract. For this reason, many unions have adopted the tactic of ignoring the procedures of the NLRB and using direct action to will representation and contracts.

But for all of that, the right to organize is still on the books and the AFL-CIO intends to see that this right is fully protected, thus one of the reasons for the 7 Days in June campaign.

Another legal prop for the labor movement is the Fair Labor Standards Act. (FLSA) of 1938 which abolished child labor, established a minimum wage of 25 cents an hour and set a 44-hour work week. Today the minimum wage is $5.15 per hour.

Neither the NLRA or the FLSA happened out of thin air or out of the kindness of the boss class. They were the result of the pressure generated by the mass movements for jobs, Social Security and unemployment insurance - movements that were, to a large extent, led by Communists.

Many Communists were put on the payroll by John L. Lewis, leader of the United Mine Workers, who hired them in the CIO organizing drives. The New York Labor movement should be proud of the fact that they helped convince New York Sen. Robert Wagner lead the fight for the NLRA, often referred to as the Wagner Act.

When the act was passed it gave tremendous impetus to the organization of workers in the steel, auto, mining, packing house, maritime and other mass production industries. Workers signed up by the thousands once they knew they had the legal right to organize. The workers who joined these union became the membership of the CIO and the CIO became the core of progressive class struggle trade unionism.

The best way to protect the hard won legal rights that Labor has won, are by the political action campaigns organized by the AFL-CIO such as "2000 in 2000," that will work to elect 2,000 members of union families to public office across the country.