UE Convention Resolutions
Workplace Struggle
Throughout UE’s history, our union has emphasized that workplace struggle – direct unified action by the rank-and-file members themselves at the workplace – is indispensable to achieving the union’s goals. It is this activism by the workers that is most effective in pressuring management to change its course and yield to demands of the workers.
This emphasis on concerted action in the workplace is a defining feature of rank-and-file unionism, and what most clearly distinguishes it from the business unionism that has been, and unfortunately remains, prevalent in the U.S. labor movement. We do not see the union as a business to which members pay a fee, in exchange for the services of a staff of generously-compensated professionals, who then represent the workers’ interests through legalism, lobbying, and backroom deal-making. We must never forget that a union is a workers’ organization, built by workers as a means to improve their situation through collective action.
In contract negotiations, this means involvement of the members in developing their demands, and in tactics which show support for the bargaining committee and keep the pressure on management. Too many union leaders believe the best way to negotiate a contract is to keep their members in the dark and keep them quiet. But the UE approach has always been to give the members as much information as possible, and to ask them not only to engage in action to support the union’s proposals, but to help formulate the tactics most likely to maximize membership participation.
The same is true in dealing with day-to-day conflicts and violations of workers’ rights that occur between contract negotiations. UE stewards often find that their chances to resolve a grievance before it is even put into writing are increased when the members collectively express their discontent to management. Many UE locals have effectively used such tactics as "mass grievances," signed by every worker in the shop or department, or even delivered to the boss by a mass delegation. UE locals find creative ways, while a grievance is going through the formal steps of the grievance procedure, to remind management of the rank-and-file support for the union’s position. Our reluctance to take our grievances to arbitration grows from our unwillingness to remove our issues from the hands of our members and place our fate on an important case in the hands of a third party. In some UE contracts – notably the GE national agreement – our members retain the legal right to strike over a grievance after receiving the company’s final answer. The existence of this right, even if infrequently exercised, adds a strong incentive for management to see the union’s point of view on grievances.
The UE approach to political action – collective action for political change, rather than attempts to buy influence with politicians through campaign contributions or via paid lobbyists– is closely related to UE’s concept of workplace action. For the growing number of UE members in the public sector, the two areas of struggle are inseparable. They work for units of government, and elected officials at some level that are ultimately responsible for their conditions of work. For public sector UE members, tactics of workplace action and rank-and-file political action are closely intertwined in many of their struggles.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 70th UE CONVENTION:
- Directs the UE at all levels to educate our members about the necessity, effectiveness, and most useful strategies of workplace struggle, including the purchase and use of books such as both Troublemakers’ Handbooks, published by Labor Notes, and to ensure proper democratic structures are in place to carry them out, including, when appropriate, stewards’ meetings and trainings;
- Urges greater publicity for gains achieved by our members through workplace struggle, in the UE Steward, UE News, local union newsletters and other union communication channels.