VIEWPOINTS : Labor Must Flex Its Social Muscles : Peace, Justice More Important Goals Than Jobs at Any Cost

In today’s labor movement, debates that have long taken place behind closed doors are finally becoming more open as a declining union movement is forced to look for new answers.

For a union official to be for “jobs” is like a politician being for motherhood, but some union officials are asking “jobs at what cost?” and the even more heretical question, should “jobs” always be labor’s primary objective?

Six years of Reaganism have led to a decline in the attractiveness of the free enterprise trickle-down theory.

In practice, the carte blanche for capital has led to a dramatic decline in working-class family and community life with the decently paid unionized worker as the prime casualty. Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on human work argued: “The position of rigid capitalism continues to remain unacceptable, namely the position that defends the exclusive right to private ownership of the means of production as an untouchable dogma of economic life. The principle of respect for work demands that this right should undergo a constructive revision both in theory and practice.”

To blunt such criticism, many corporate executives have changed their rhetoric from the pursuit of profit to the pursuit of jobs.

Defense contractors, construction companies and even toxic polluters routinely use “job blackmail” to coax workers and their unions into supporting corporate objectives that are opposed to the broader public interest. To wit:

- Last year, a “Jobs With Peace” initiative was brought before Los Angeles County voters to explore a regional investment strategy intended to wean the community from an unhealthy dependence upon military contracts.

Lawrence Frank, who directed the campaign, explained: “We expected the vociferous opposition from the military contractors. But while we did attract substantial union support, the proposition’s defeat was partially because many labor unions would not even explore alternatives to the warfare state for fear of ‘losing jobs.’ ”

- Santa Monica’s movement for slow growth has run into some opposition from construction unions. Mayor James Conn said: “We are trying to find a synthesis between providing jobs and providing a decent quality of life for the people who live and work in our community. Some in the unions seem to think ‘construction means jobs, therefore construction is good.’ But we also need streets that are not jungles of traffic and air that people can breathe.”

Any efforts to present the union movement as monolithically pursuing a narrow self-interest, however, are off the mark.

The impressive participation of labor unions in the April 25 demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco reflects a different vision and strategy for labor.

Dozens of unions represented by hundreds of locals and tens of thousands of rank-and-file members marched with religious leaders, minority organizations, environmentalists, women’s organizations and anti-war groups to demand an end to aid to the Nicaraguan contras , stronger sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid regime and a transition to less military production at home.

While many union officials saw labor’s participation as a breath of fresh air, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland actively lobbied against union involvement on the grounds that the demonstrations called for “cutting off U.S. aid to the democratically elected governments of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala . . . and support for guerrilla forces seeking to overthrow the democratically elected Duarte government.”

Other union officials distanced themselves from Kirkland’s cold war posture, but argued: “What does getting out of Central America have to do with jobs at home? It’s time to be practical.”

In practice, however, labor leaders who have identified their interests with an aggressive foreign policy abroad and corporate objectives at home have produced neither idealism nor jobs.

Unemployment has now stabilized at levels considered unacceptable only a few years ago; part-time employment and declining real wages mean that many of the employed cannot survive on the wages they make, and union membership has plummeted to 18% of the work force from 32% in 1955. So much for “job-oriented” practicality.

Conversely, the movement to reconstruct social unionism is critical strategically to reverse the nation’s business-oriented ideology and to place socially responsible employment (“Jobs With Justice”) at the center of a new industrial policy.

If unions want federal legislation to create a new bill of rights for labor or to restrict the right of corporations to close down productive plants; if unions want to consider transitional programs away from military employment that will involve direct subsidies to affected workers, if unions want unemployed workers to honor their picket lines and consumers to support their boycotts, they will need to project a new idealism and consolidate new allies.

When Kirkland attempted to prohibit labor’s participation, he did so despite acknowledging “the inclination of many (union councils) to respond favorably to requests from political, church and other community organizations that may have been supportive of labor on a variety of issues.”

The April 25 marches, rather than isolating labor from the social concerns of its allies, reflected a new sense of coalition that is essential to achieving any of labor’s objectives.

The growing debate in the labor movement is healthy and long overdue. Kenneth Blaylock, president of the American Federation of Governmental Employees and an outspoken supporter of the demonstrations, explained: “There’s a difference of opinion within organized labor about the problems in Central America. But that doesn’t bother me. Labor was split in 1963 on civil rights. It was split later over the Vietnam War. We were right then, and we are right now.”

Labor’s support for a broad social agenda is not an isolated phenomenon.

For example, Stanley Hill, executive director of American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees Council 37 in New York; Henry Nicholas, president of the National Union of Hospital & Health Care Workers, and Jack Sheinkman, president of the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union, were all active advocates of the April 25 demonstrations.

That growing number of elected union officials, still clearly in the minority, are rejecting company appeals to narrow self-interest and a militaristic definition of the national interest.

The movement for jobs with justice, if understood not as a slogan but as a strategy, offers some encouraging prospects for labor’s revitalization.