UE Convention Resolutions
Build Jobs With Justice
And the People’s Movement
UE has a strong and proud tradition as a democratic, rank-and-file union. Our union is accountable to the members through regular membership meetings, frequent election of stewards and officers, strict financial controls, open books, and constitutional limitations to prevent staff control of the union. From the smallest grievance in the workplace to the boldest political aspirations of working people for a better world, we know that change comes not from leaders, experts and politicians, but from working people taking action in solidarity with each other.
Unfortunately, this rank-and-file approach to trade unionism has not been widely embraced in the American trade union movement. UE exited the CIO in 1949 as that industrial union federation was coming to embrace the bureaucratic, top-down business-unionism of the AFL. With no national labor federation today supporting UE’s rank-and-file trade unionism, we have looked for, and found, trade-union and community allies in a number of other important social formations. Among them are Jobs with Justice, Labor Notes, Grassroots Global Justice and the World and U.S. Social Forums.
The birth of the Jobs with Justice (JwJ) movement in the late 1980s was a response to failure of business unionism in the U.S. When the women and men of Eastern Airlines struck in order to defend their hard-won wages, benefits, and working conditions, the AFL-CIO, and the labor movement at large, was ill-equipped to provide adequate support for this struggle. JwJ was born to provide support for working people’s direct struggles against big business and their political front men.
Jobs with Justice has developed steadily since its inception. It is now the leading national coalition that unites labor, youth, community and faith organizations, and operates in more than 50 chapters across the country. Several hundred thousand people annually participate in some struggle, activity, or campaign led or initiated by JwJ. Whether walking picket lines, supporting organizing campaigns in the face of furious employer resistance, or staging town-hall style Workers’ Rights Board hearings as a means of gaining publicity for our battles and agenda, JwJ does the work that the labor movement too often finds itself incapable or unwilling to do.
UE has been a member of Jobs with Justice since its beginning of the more than 20 years ago. We commend JwJ for its honest, no-nonsense approach to worker solidarity and support. Jobs with Justice has always respected our contribution and welcomed our presence, demonstrating the real meaning of the phrase "labor unity." Our participation in Jobs with Justice has never been conditioned on affiliation to the AFL-CIO.
Since the last UE convention, our union has participated in many JwJ activities at the national and local level, as well as benefitting from those actions. UE members across the country participated in the JwJ National Day of Action for labor rights, in several healthcare action committees, and in numerous strike and contract support campaigns. Support from JwJ continues to be a key part of our organizing and contract campaigns and working with UE members to develop coalitions with our communities and student populations.
Labor Notes and its growing network of supporters have been promoting rank-and-file unionism within the U.S. labor movement for over two decades. Their monthly magazine, web site, and book publishing have become an indispensable resource for U.S. trade unionists. UE leaders, rank-and-file members, and staff contribute regularly to Labor Notes, providing an opportunity to share our experiences and analysis with other trade unionists worldwide. Labor Notes conferences are now the largest gatherings of rank-and-file union members in the country. A sizeable delegation of UE members attended the 2006 Labor Notes conference and played important roles there, with UE Local 1110 leader Alejandro Sosa speaking at one of the plenary sessions and several UE members leading workshops.
Since 2002, UE has participated in the World Social Forum (WSF), where trade unions and social movements from around the world gather under the banner of "Another World Is Possible" to discuss how to oppose corporate globalization and replace it with alternatives that place people over profits. Our participation in the WSF has strengthened our ties with trade unions in Brazil, India, and many other countries, and has been useful in building concrete relationships of solidarity with other workers who share the same employers. It has also led to our participation in Grassroots Global Justice (GGJ), a national alliance of U.S. labor and community organizations, based in and accountable to working-class communities, communities of color and indigenous peoples. UE has been a member of GGJ’s coordinating committee since its inception in 2002, and UE Local 150 co-hosted GGJ’s 2005 membership meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The U.S. Social Forum (USSF), a gathering of over 10,000 worker and community activists from around the country, was carefully designed to reflect a rank-and-file or grassroots perspective through the leadership of GGJ. UE had one of the largest trade-union delegations at the first-ever USSF held in the summer of 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia.
The basis for UE’s participation in national and international coalitions, organizations and gatherings such as Jobs with Justice, Labor Notes, Grassroots Global Justice and the World and U.S. Social Forums has always been a desire to build a movement that is more vigorous, responsive, and relevant, and to work with allies – both trade unions and community organizations – regardless of affiliation status, size, or politics. If another world is possible, a world of justice for working people, we need to build a movement based on the rank-and-file to make it real.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 70th UE CONVENTION:
- Calls on UE at all levels to participate in, support, and join Jobs with Justice, and to foster the formation of new local chapters where the need arises;
- Calls on UE at all levels to participate in the Jobs with Justice national meeting to be held May 2-4, 2008, the Labor Notes Conference, April 11-13, 2008, and local and regional social forums being held in preparation for the second U.S. Social Forum in 2010;
- Reaffirms UE participation in Grassroots Global Justice (GGJ);
- Encourages UE members to subscribe to Labor Notes, for UE locals to purchase bulk subscriptions to distribute to their leadership and membership, investigate the purchase of Labor Notes books, and for UE members to continue to submit material for publication.