In national elections this year, both socialist Democrat
Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump – a sometime Democrat, sometime Republican –
have exploited the gap that occasionally opens up between the electorate and the leaders of both political parties. But the gap is present in all representative organizations
– including public worker unions in which union administration may occasionally wander
from its democratic mandate.
That representational gap, a potentially explosive fissure within Connecticut unions, put forth steamy plumes of smoke and gas early in the administration of newly elected Governor Dannel Malloy when, following elaborate and secretive contract negotiations, a good many rank and file members of public worker unions felt that the Malloy administration and their own union representatives in SEBAC had been colluding to stiff the rank and file.
Connecticut Commentary noted at the time:
“SEBAC leaders, working in tandem with Plan A salesmen in the administration of
Governor Dannel Malloy, unilaterally changed union by-laws to reduce to 50
percent the votes necessary to pass Plan A after it had been rejected under
previous inconvenient by-laws.”
Casting about for a scapegoat upon which they might
pin their own Machiavellian attempt to fool all the rank and file some of the time,
union leaders hit on The Yankee Institute. But the transparently absurd ploy
didn’t work and, for a time, murmurs went around that some enraged rank and file
members were in favor of ditching the union itself, which had become too clever
for its own good, in favor a different union, a revolt in the ranks that was
ultimately smothered.
Since that time, union administrators in Connecticut
have been more circumspect: Significant changes in union policy and administration
are sometimes shared with the rank and file through their delegate members.
At a recent March 2016 union
meeting, President of
Connecticut’s AFL-CIO Lori Pelletier addressed the members; the purpose of the
meeting was to advise members of a “mandatory reorganization of all the Central
Labor Councils (CLC’s).” The National AFL-CIO, Ms. Pelletier told the group,
according to minutes of the meeting, “wants this reorganization to be completed
by June of this year.”
Under the proposed reorganization, money and authority
would flow from state CLC’s to an “area organization(s),” a new group of labor
business administrators “which all the chapters are a part of,” according to a
message issued by AFL-CIO Northeast Guild Officer Jan Schaffer.
The area organization, Ms. Schaffer noted, “would be
responsible for reporting to both the national AFL-CIO and the IRS… It would have a budget to work from, which
would include money for program work such as local elections, affiliate
contract campaigns or organizing campaigns, legislative fights, policy
initiative, etc.
“The goal of reorganizing the CLC’s is to strengthen
and coordinate the works at the local level – electorally, locally, and
legislatively.”
And, of course, such goals can only be attained by
moving money and decision making authority from statewide Central Labor
Councils (CLC’s) to the new organizational entity controlled by “an executive board
that is made up of the elected officers from each chapter [formerly a CLC]. The
board would consider budgets from each chapter – including fixed costs, such as
rent.”
Very big doings here: The proposed reform would
accomplish the nationalization of Central Labor Councils, a top-down rather than a bottom-up administrative re-configuration
in which money and power – specifically the power of local-governance itself –
would pass from CLC’s to an administrative apparat controlled by national
AFL-CIO head-honchoes. The semi-independent CLC’s, responsive to rank and file
union members, would become mere chapters in a book written by national AFL-CIO
leaders. The reorganization would repeal the doctrine of subsidiarity, which
holds that local governing entities are best able to determine their own fate
and progress.
In large part, the nationalization of state labor
councils is a money grab. Under the prevailing organization, labor union dues ordinarily
pass from rank and file union members to local labor councils; under the new
dispensation dues would flow directly to AFL-CIO’s national apparat, to be
dispensed back to state Chapters – provided the state Chapters tow the national political line. Connecticut’s
rank and file, which early in the Malloy administration rebelled loudly against
a non-representative leadership, soon would find that the power of their voice
is intimately connected to the bank accounts managed by their local councils – which
would be abolished under the new dispensation. There is a profound operative
difference between a budget provided by others and a bank account administered
by local councils.
Or, as Billie Holiday once put it, “Them that’s got
shall get, them that ain’t shall lose. So the bible says, and it still is news.”
Her song should become an anthem of resistance among the self-governing members
– if there are any left – of the AFL-CIO.
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