Some Contradictions In Oregon's Labor Movement

I have attended three important labor conferences over the past two weeks. A number of contradictions in our labor movement stand out from these events.

*The primary message from the left in the labor movement now should be that unions should be accountable to the entire working class, and not just the union membership. When this is raised with labor leaders at the grassroots they get it easily enough. One contradiction we face is that there is not an organized left presence in Oregon's labor movement overall at a time when workers could, or should, be moving leftwards. Another contradiction forms around the most class-conscious labor leaders being hesitant or afraid to speak and lead from a position of class consciousness.

*The Occupy movement has changed the debate nationally and within the most progressive sectors of the Oregon labor movement as well. At the same time, however, labor is divided over its relationship to the Occupy movement. Two contradictions stand out here: there is an identification with "the 99% message" but not with a more specific class-conscious politics, and there is a suspicion of "leaderlessness" at a time when labor does not lead.

*The most progressive trade unionists in the state are actively supporting the Occupy movement, but an understanding of that movement within labor is uneven. Labor is not seeking to dominate or subvert the Occupy movement.

*Anti-racist and anti-homophobic work in Oregon's unions clearly needs to pick up and engage more workers, especially young workers.

*Progressive workers who are paying attention in Oregon see, in the main, no contradiction between mass action and political action. What happened in Wisconsin is seen perhaps as a necessary step towards a wider and larger Occupy movement: labor sees sees the struggle in Wisconsin as a logical progression of needed steps to defend itself and not as prioritizing (or selling out) one form of struggle for another.

*The labor movement in Oregon is having a difficult time uniting around a program or core demands for jobs. The contradiction between the labor and environmental movements remains real and potent. We also face a division between private sector and public sector unions and between the two main public sector unions in the state.

*Unions are moving to endorse Obama at different and contradictory speeds and with different processes at work. At the same time, unions are gearing up for local races and regional or statewide ballot measures. Some populist struggles seem to have fallen off of labor's table for the immediate future--issues like a state bank, for instance--while other populist issues (some kind of social insurance, retirement security for all, sick days for all) seem within reach.

*The Health Engagement Model (HEM) issue is the ghost who will not go away. We cannot say that there is an open struggle over HEM within labor, but we can say that those people in labor who seem most supportive of HEM generally see the management of people, rather than the empowerment of workers, as a strong part of labor's role or as a primary union mission. There is also a wholly justifiable concern that if HEM fails universal healthcare in Oregon, or at least healthcare for state workers, will be set back.

*There remains a primary contradiction in the labor movement between labor as an institution and labor as a movement, or as a force within social movements.

These contradictions are apparent because there is enough of a left-wing in the labor movement to make them so. That left-wing is not living up to its responsibilities by remaining unorganized and dispersed. For the time being perhaps these contradictions serve to motivate a creative tension within the labor movement. Their resolution will be worked out in the actions workers and unions take between now and the 2012 elections.