UE Convention Resolutions
Restore the Right to Strike
The right of workers to withhold their labor is among the most fundamental of human rights. Even in contract negotiations that end in settlement without a strike, the right of employees to strike, and their willingness to do so if necessary, is often indispensable to winning an acceptable contract. No democratic society worthy of the name can truly claim to respect the liberty of its citizens and deny their right to strike.
The founders of our union recognized that the precious principle of rank-and-file control was not by itself sufficient to achieve our goals in the workplace and in society. Thus the preamble to our Constitution spells out the all inclusiveness of the working people we seek to organize, and calls on the union "to pursue at all times a policy of aggressive struggle to improve our conditions."
Today, employers, pundits, politicians, and even some "labor statesmen" tell us that strikes are obsolete and that the way forward for working people is to make common cause with their employers. This argument is not new. In the 1920s, the heyday of company unionism, employer initiated programs such as profit sharing, stock ownership plans, and management productivity schemes were in vogue. Working people's wages and living standards stagnated, and the few strikes that did take place were smashed through use of scabs and anti-labor court injunctions. With unions weakened and co-opted, with the onset of the Great Depression employers were able to engage in massive wage cutting.
The upsurge of working people in the 1930s, led by the newly born Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.), was marked by aggressive struggle, including many significant strikes, resulting in the establishment of industrial unions in mass production industries. The strikes and struggles of the 1930s laid the basis for unprecedented progress for working people in the ensuing period.
Today in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, many employers are predictably using aggressive tactics reminiscent of the 1920s and 1930s. They are seeking to undo past union gains in bargaining, and are taking advantage of the fact that the right to strike has been badly eroded. Where that right exists at all, it often amounts to the "right" to be permanently replaced with scabs. This has led to a precipitous decline in the number of workers striking. Last year, only about 70,000 workers of major corporations were involved in work stoppages according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), down from over 2.5 million in 1971.
In the public sector, most workers lack the legal right to strike. In some cases while the right to strike may exist on paper, the bureaucratic maze that public sector workers must traverse prior to any strike has rendered the right to strike practically meaningless. As a result, public sector workers are particularly vulnerable to budget-cutting attacks by politicians.
In the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), there has been no move to resurrect the strikers' rights bill to outlaw permanent replacement scabs that failed to pass during the Clinton administration. There would be no need for the controversial first contract arbitration provision of EFCA, if the right to strike was fully restored. Employers would have all the incentive they need to bargain a fair contract.
Far from being outmoded, aggressive struggle and the right to strike has never been more relevant or vital to our membership and to the labor movement as a whole. UE Local 1110 members at Republic Windows & Doors proved that another old 1930s tactic, the "sit down," is alive and well. Their example provided inspiration and hope to trade unionists across the country.
A broad grassroots campaign by labor and its allies is necessary to reestablish our right to strike without limitation, and without the threat of being replaced. This includes the right to strike over unresolved grievances during the life of the contract, as exists in the UE-GE National Agreement.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 71st UE CONVENTION:
- Calls for the continued use of the strike as a primary weapon against the employer, with special attention to careful preparation, timing, and organization of any strike, including full membership involvement and the mobilization of all possible community and political support;
- Recommends renewed education of members on UE strike policy, and encourages locals to seek the right to strike on expired grievances as part of their collective bargaining demands;
- Calls upon locals and regions to make as part of their political action work, restoration of the right to strike, the extension of that right to all public sector workers, and the outlawing of the use of scabs, as part of any comprehensive labor law reform.