SG

Unions emerged out of the working class but they are not class organizations. They bring together a subset of workers with a common workplace who look to the union to represent their particular interests. During the postwar period of growth and near full-employment, the wage gains and private welfare state negotiated (pensions, health care) spread to other unionized workers (and a few more universal demands like Social Security spread even more generally). But — and this is the lesson of the past three decades — that period has ended. Sectional unionism, even when militant, was no match for the corporate/state counter-attack of the 80s and 90s.

The class war against workers demands a class response. Public sector unions must not only talk about the importance of social services but restructure everything they do, including their collective bargaining demands and strike tactics, to prove they are truly leading the fight for social services. Private sector workers need to confront the dilemma that the prime concern of their members is jobs while unions are only about the price of labor. And unless they begin to challenge their dependence on corporations for jobs — that is the sanctity of private ownership over production — they will keep getting dragged into collaboration with their bosses versus solidarity with other workers. Unions can’t become revolutionary organizations but if they don’t develop a class sensibility in developing their strategies and practices, the future will continue much like the recent demoralizing past.

This applies not only to bargaining and state policy but also to bringing new members into unions. The paradox is that new members may only be looking for traditional union gains but traditional union organizing won’t dramatically expand unionization. If unionization is primarily about “growing” unions and increasing the dues base some unions might make gains here and there (often with dangerous compromises) but we won’t see the breakthroughs in new sectors critical to union revival. Unless the goal is the broader one of building the working class as a social force (“deeper organizing” as Jane McAlevey puts it), it is unlikely that we’ll see the necessary commitments, energy, creativity and cooperation across unions.