Where AFL-CIO Chief’s ‘High Road’ Would Go
John J. Sweeney is widely credited with reinvigorating U.S. labor after years of complacency and shrinking relevance. Sweeney, now 65, has preached the importance of organizing almost nonstop since taking over leadership of the powerful AFL-CIO four years ago.
The amiable, soft-spoken leader, the son of Irish immigrants, attended his first union meetings at the knee of his father, a New York bus driver. His mother was a domestic worker. Sweeney often attributes his passion for labor causes and his empathy for working-class concerns to his upbringing. He made his name in national labor circles by leading the Service Employees International Union through landmark campaigns to organize immigrant and minority workers, including janitors and home-care providers. Four years ago, after launching a rare outsider’s challenge, he won the presidency of the labor federation, which represents 13 million members.
He spoke with The Times at the end of the AFL-CIO national convention in Los Angeles in mid-October.
Q: You’ve often urged employers to take a high-road approach as they compete in an increasingly global, high-tech economy. Could you elaborate?
A: I like to use the example of U.S. Steel. I visited the plant recently, and here’s a plant that’s operating with probably half the work force of 10 years ago, with highly computerized production. They can change specifications, the thickness of steel, all by computer now, and for that they need a highly trained work force.
The company has invested in these workers, provided the training necessary for the new technology. It’s also provided training for workers being attrited out to other jobs in U.S. Steel or even other jobs and other careers elsewhere. They have gone to the extent of paying some of these workers to get college degrees. If U.S. Steel can do that--invest in their workers and be a profitable company--then why can’t more employers be investing? This is what I mean by the high road.
The best period of time to talk about this is right now, in a successful economy. Employers have to invest in their work force. They can’t be relocating work to the most exploited and most low-wage regions of the world and regions of our own country. They have to realize that workers helped create the successful economy, the productivity, the profits.
I’m not going to argue what CEOs should be getting, but for God’s sake, share a little bit with those who helped you achieve what you achieved. And it’s not just employers; there are people in Congress who are in the leadership there who are doing everything they can to avoid a minimum-wage increase, doing everything they can to avoid health-care improvements. We tried to get health-care reform a few years back. There were 35 million Americans without health-care [insurance] then. Here it is 1999, and it’s up to 44 million. That’s a national disgrace. Retirement plans in the private sector are decreasing. That’s not right, whether you’re a compassionate conservative or a liberal Democrat. It’s not about where you are in the political spectrum. It’s what’s right and what’s wrong.
If we don’t put this debate on the moral issue, then we’re missing an opportunity. These folks who are in the leadership of the business world and people who are elected to public office have to face up to the fact that workers deserve respect and they deserve some dignity. We’re not a Third World country.
Q: And yet many employers seem focused on reducing costs above all else. What would it take to change their minds?
A: I think the government has a role in this, and the labor movement certainly has a major role. To those who want to go the low road, we’re going to mobilize the labor movement politically and every way we can to try to pull them back.
Q: As you’re well aware, fighting a union has become quite acceptable, and has spawned a huge industry of consultants and attorneys. Do you think unions can overcome that opposition as they try to rebuild strength?
A: It’s really difficult to project. All I can say is the labor movement will be organizing more aggressively than they’ve ever organized. We’re going to be as militant as is necessary to represent workers, but at the same time we’re going to be looking for opportunities to cooperate in labor-management partnerships. The bottom line is: How do we protect workers?
Q: Could you speak more about the idea of partnerships?
A: We are looking for employers who want to work with us. The labor movement is certainly anxious to have that kind of partnership, and we’re seeing some success at it in some industries. But we’re also seeing that some employers are so greedy, they don’t want workers to have a voice. They’ll do everything they can to hamper any organizing activities. There are a lot of horror stories out there.
Q: The 1980s have often been described as the decade of greed. Do you think those years helped set the tone for what you’re describing?
A: I think in the ‘80s, the greed was complemented by some of the Reagan-Bush activities. When Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, he sent a strong message to employers around the country about how you should treat workers. And then all the mergers and all of these other transitional things that happened in corporate America--layoffs, reductions. They got their lead from Ronald Reagan.
Q: These days, wage disparity in America seems to be getting more attention, particularly with the presidential campaigns heating up. Do you see a more sympathetic tone developing?
A: I was giving a speech in Washington last year, and I look out at this group of business types and I see this guy that I recognize. We went to the same grammar school together, and he hadn’t changed. I give my high-road speech, I come off and he comes over and I say: ‘John Fox, how are you?’ His father and my father drove a bus together, the same route, in the Bronx, N.Y. He’s the image of his father. So he says: ‘What have you got against the rich? All you do is dump on business types, people making money.’ So I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He was a retired naval officer. He had started a defense contracting business. He was probably a millionaire. So I said to him: ‘How the hell do you think you got where you are? You think you got there by yourself?’ He said, ‘You’re damn right.’
Unfortunately, that’s a common opinion that you hear among these new-rich crowds. These young folks that have been so successful recently on Wall Street. They’re in for a surprise, a shock, because it’s not always going to be great. We hope that it will be for a good, long bit. But those fast-growing millionaires have to understand that the wage and wealth gap--the worse it gets, the more troublesome it’s going to be as a societal problem. People are not going to stand on the sidelines as they see that small group getting wealthier and wealthier. And I’m not talking about low-wage workers. I’m talking about middle-management and middle-income folks. Their standard of living is declining too.
Q: What will workers’ relationships with managers be like in the next generation? Will they change?
A: I hope so. We can only go by what workers tell us. We did a young workers’ survey and found there’s a lot of hope out there, but also these workers have a lot of reservations about their employers. They’re seeing more and more jobs that may be good-paying but have no health insurance, no pension, no retirement security.
They realize that they’re going to work in many jobs throughout their lives, unlike their parents, who may have worked in two or three jobs. There’s a realization that technology is changing rapidly, but they are not sure they’re going to get the training they need in order to advance. They’re probably more concerned about that than the fact that they will change jobs often.
Another interesting part was the realization that they couldn’t solve the problems of their workplace by themselves. There was an awareness that they were going to have to have some collective action. I’m not saying that they’re jumping on the union bandwagon necessarily, but they certainly realize that they have to come together.
Q: That sounds like good news for unions. Will organized labor be able to capture that unrest?
A: The labor movement, as we go into the next century, has to be constantly analyzing the changes that are taking place, developing the techniques that are most successful in representing and organizing workers in these changing times. We have to build and mobilize at the grass-roots level around legislative issues, around policy issues, using all of the latest techniques, whether it’s polling or the Internet, to make sure we’re on the right track with workers’ priorities.
As an example, we have a group of high-tech workers who were communicating with each other on the Internet. They were talking about their complaints, job grievances. In many cases, they were probably getting very decent wages, but they were treated as independent contractors. They got no health insurance, no retirement security. And one of our unions happened to start a relationship with them. After a while, they were meeting in the labor council’s office in Seattle. They gave them office space, let them use the phone, staff. Nobody’s forcing them to join a union. But they’re talking about how they can come together. How do they get some collective action? It’s a process that they have to go through. We would be crazy to try to force them to fit into an existing structure. But there will be a new structure, and it has to be a structure that they’re comfortable with.
