UE Convention Resolutions
Organize the Unorganized:
The National Organizing Plan
The well being of working people is directly linked to the strength of organized labor in our society. If the voice of the nation’s unions is stronger, social and economic conditions are better. If the voice of labor is weaker, there is more want, more greed and more exploitation
It is no accident that decades of decline in union density in the U.S. have been accompanied by a decline in the real wages of the average worker, as well as declines in the number of workers with health insurance and guaranteed pensions. It is likewise no accident that a growing economic divide and a rising wave of intolerance have taken shape as big business and its allies have taken advantage of the diminished presence of organized labor.
If you want to know why the millionaire CEO of a major company earns more in a day than you do in an entire year, consider that union membership as a percentage of the overall American workforce has declined to levels last seen seven decades ago at the time of UE’s founding. If you want to know why only one in five workers has a guaranteed pension today, consider that only one in every fourteen workers in the private sector is a union member in today’s America. The forces of labor and capital are badly out of balance.
The declining fortunes of the labor movement threaten the survival and relevancy of both our union and our movement. Both must grow if we are to sustain our viability and strengthen our ability to advocate for the needs and desires of the working men and women we represent.
The potential for growth and resurgence is there. Pollsters report that 60 million nonunion workers want to join a union today. More than half of all workers polled say they would vote for a union if given the chance. And wage and benefit surveys show there remains a distinct advantage to union membership. Union members earn 30% more and are more than twice as likely to have a real pension.
However, powerful forces are thwarting the desire of workers who want union representation in America. The organizing landscape is a cruel place where bosses employ consultants to wage psychological warfare against workers seeking to organize, where employers regularly threaten plant closures and immigration raids, and where activists are fired in 25 to 30 percent of all campaigns.
UE’s campaigns of the past two years have placed us smack in the middle of these contradictory conditions. From California to Connecticut, our organizers have spoken with scores of workers who yearn for union representation to better their lives. At the same time, workers involved in our campaigns have been repeatedly assaulted with the terror tactics of modern union-busting. Thousands have been deceived, hundreds have been threatened and dozens have been fired, simply for exercising their fundamental right to organize a union. In one case this year, massive discharges during a UE organizing campaign led to a back pay award surpassing $1.9 million.
UE’s experiences in the organizing arena demonstrate beyond doubt that organizing is an act of courage in the workplace. Our solid membership gains and real growth prove that many workers are courageous and that organizing is possible. The proof is in West Virginia and Connecticut and several other states where UE grew through organizing the unorganized in 2005-2007.
Most of our organizing successes featured a bold, activist approach to union-building. Picket lines, protest rallies, strikes, public hearings and political action were all part of our campaigns. We remained committed not only to aggressive organizing but also to trying out new organizing approaches.
Our gains reconfirmed that core elements of our national organizing strategy – organizing across economic sectors, building in base areas, building on recent wins and involving our members – continue to make strategic sense and should continue to inform our plans.
Organizing is the first mission of trade unionism. It is the first step toward better jobs, better lives and a better world. It is the challenge that will determine the future of our union and all others.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 70th UE CONVENTION ADOPTS THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZING PLAN TO BUILD OUR UNION:
- UE will organize across the industrial, service and public sectors of the U.S. economy, uniting workers from diverse places of work in the common pursuit of justice through the practice of our unique brand of militant, democratic, member-run unionism;
- UE will focus on building its ranks in and around our existing base areas, seeking to expand our power and influence in geographic areas and types of workplaces where the union has an established presence and giving top priority to areas where the existence of viable organizing targets, the availability of staff, the active support of our members and community allies, and other key economic or strategic factors enhance our prospects for success;
- UE will build on its broad, new success in the public sector in Connecticut, West Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia and other states by undertaking new campaigns among state, municipal and school employees to continue the organizing momentum gained through recent victories;
- UE will research and develop a new database of nonunion sister-shops in the manufacturing sector, starting with new plants of interest in the General Electric chain, and will designate these and other plants in the electrical and rail equipment, plastics and packaging, and metal working industries, along with selected plants in the Chicago-Milwaukee area, as priority organizing targets;
- UE will invite local independent unions to join UE as the national home of independent, democratic, member-run unionism, and we will offer refuge to workers seeking to escape from corrupt conditions and join in the practice of democratic trade union principles;
- UE will expand its groundbreaking work on the labor rights front by developing new strategic links tying together the UE-led struggles for collective bargaining rights for public employees in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, including the possible expansion of UE’s International Worker Justice Campaign to encompass all three states;
- UE will continue to test new organizing models and methods in all sectors, including alternative strategies for gaining recognition of the union as well as strategies aimed at building non-majority unions in workplaces where formal recognition cannot be achieved in the short term;
- UE will build its ranks through internal organizing wherever open-shop conditions exist, including in states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska;
- UE will continue to develop strategic, cross-border solidarity links among workers at transnational companies that are unionized abroad and have UE contracts in the U.S., and we will maintain global organizing alliances to strengthen organizing campaigns and promote workers’ rights at home and abroad, including alliances with Jobs With Justice and other domestic organizations active in defense of workers’ rights, and with the Authentic Workers’ Front of Mexico (FAT), the National Confederation of Trade Unions of Japan (Zenroren), and with global unions, including the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), Public Services International (PSI), and other relevant groups;
- UE will evaluate and pursue, where promising, organizing initiatives linked to global agreements under which transnational employers headquartered abroad, but with facilities and operations in the U.S., have pledged respect for the right to organize and bargain;
- UE will involve its rank-and-file members in organizing whenever possible, including through Regional Organizing Councils (ROCs) and other local committees or formations devoted to planning and carrying out our organizing strategy, defending workers’ rights and promoting labor law reform. UE locals are encouraged to authorize payment of lost time to support membership involvement in organizing and to fight for better union leave provisions in their collective bargaining agreements to enable greater member participation in building the union;
- UE will take care to respect cultural and language differences in its organizing work and to respond to divisive anti-immigrant and racist issues in workplaces and communities during organizing campaigns. We will reach into our ranks to find more volunteer organizers from diverse backgrounds and will encourage locals to address racial and cultural issues in internal organizing.