With Spotlight on L.A., Unions Put New Strategies to Test

For five years, organized labor has been trumpeting its more “strategic” approach to bargaining and organizing. This week, Los Angeles has had a good look at what that means.

When the MTA bus drivers’ strike stalled, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor called on African American ministers, immigrant rights groups, state legislators and other carefully cultivated allies, hoping to stir up a “public uprising” to pressure the transit board.

Six months before county workers began their general strike, leaders of that union brainstormed to come up with a pithy message that would resonate widely, boiling it downto two words: Fair Share. The union then spent about $700,000 to broadcast its message through television and radio ads.

And as the commercial actors’ strike dragged into its sixth month, a strategist on loan from the national AFL-CIO helped the Screen Actors Guild launch a boycott of Procter & Gamble, a major advertiser. The national labor federation also coordinated sympathetic work slowdowns with other unions at the plants of another advertiser, General Motors.

In all three cases, the striking unions have had the strong support of their members--a classic and essential element of a successful strike. But unions have learned the hard way that it takes more than solid membership to win these days. That’s where the strategic thinking comes in.

‘Everything Done More Deliberately’

Putting pressure on corporations, building alliances with religious and community groups, prodding political allies to take strong positions, and creating a sense of crisis and urgency are all part of the bag of tricks unions are pulling from this week.

“There is nothing new under the sun, but today, everything that is being done is being done more deliberately, and with more imagination,” said Ron Blackwell, who directs corporate affairs for the national AFL-CIO.

One sign of the change: Blackwell’s office, which helps unions organize and bargain strategically, didn’t exist until four years ago. Its creation was one of the first moves by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who took over the federation in 1995 and has been widely acclaimed for bringing new energy to organized labor.

The same kind of transformation is happening in union locals and county and state labor federations across the country, but nowhere is it more evident than here, now. Indeed, what’s happening in Los Angeles today probably will be in the textbooks on labor history tomorrow.

A behind-the-scenes look at the strike against the MTA, led by the United Transportation Union, gives some insight into that new approach. While the UTU has run the strike and led the negotiations, staff from the County Federation of Labor worked almost full time to organize rallies that draw from dozens of unions, help shape the UTU’s communication to the news media and build support from community groups.

The federation has held several strategy sessions, during which UTU President James Williams gave an update on the strike and leaders of other unions with strike experience offered advice. “The more people you have contributing information, maybe even bringing up an old idea in a new way, a new twist, is helpful,” said Rick Ortega, a member of the UTU’s negotiating committee who has sat in on three such sessions. “Some good ideas have come out of those sessions.”

Independent Observers

One concrete suggestion was to prod the MTA board to allow independent observers from the community to sit in on the negotiations. Within a week, a letter was on its way to the transit board from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles, signed by 32 community leaders, including African American ministers, immigrant rights organizers, local elected officials and a representative of the Bus Riders Union.

On another front, the county federation called on state legislators, including Assembly Speaker Bob Herztberg, to apply pressure to the board to settle, noting that the state controls much of MTA funding.

What made the county federation’s effort remarkable is that the UTU is not affiliated with the federation, or with the national AFL-CIO. But because the strike was seen as a test of the strength of unions in Los Angeles, the organization--which represents 800,000 union members in Los Angeles--felt it needed to back the strikers, a spokesman said.

Similar coordination has taken place on a national level with the SAG/AFTRA strike, which is entering its sixth month. A strategic organizer has been on loan from the national AFL-CIO almost from the beginning, and has helped coordinate actions with other unions, such at the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which joined the actors for a “day of solidarity” action against AT&T; in mid-July.

“Up until this strike, I would say SAG has not had all that close a relationship with the AFL-CIO. But we know things are different in this economy and we need their help,” said Greg Krizman, a spokesman for the Los Angeles-based union. “It’s been a tremendous help to have Teamsters drivers turning away from GM plants [when there are SAG pickets], and to have union members inside the plant telling us what’s going on inside,” Krizman said.

On Tuesday, underscoring the national federation’s interest in the SAG strike, Sweeney appeared with a host of celebrity actors to announce the Procter & Gamble boycott.

Of course, the strike is still on at six months--which hardly points to the success of strategic planning. But Krizman said substantial progress was made during talks last month, and new negotiations are set for Oct. 25. And he noted that one particularly sore point for actors--a proposal that residual payments for network television ads be eliminated--has been dropped.

Similarly, the Service Employees International Union, Local 660, representing 47,000 county workers, was unable to move the County Board of Supervisors to meet its demands for a 15% raise despite an expensive media campaign and polling that showed strong public support.

“We’ve learned that the assumptions that you usually base a strategy on--that public officials will be responsive to public opinion--you’ve got to toss that out the window in this case,” said Local 660 spokesman Bart Diener. “We’re disappointed,” he added, then cut the call short. The reason: another meeting on strategy.