Local Union Transformation: Analyzing Issues of Race, Gender, Class, and Democracy

During my 28 years of labor movement activism, I have served in every capacity within a local union. I have led and participated in organizing campaigns, contract negotiations, arbitrations, and strikes. Nevertheless, the parts of my union life that I remember best were the struggles to build democratic unions. Some might argue that the best and the worse about the American worker are revealed in the heat of class struggles. They surface, for instance, during those rare acts of courage that might be seen in a violently contested organizing campaign or in a protracted and bitter strike. Yet, I best remembered those union members who gave years of their lives to build a union movement that represented all the workers. Although the pitched battle between the American working class and international capital is fierce and bitter, an essential straggle for the advancement of the American working class is taking place between members in unions. The continued effort by dedicated union activists to make their organizations models of democracy and engines for social justice is a long battle marked with conspicuous acts of courage by working-class people. The fiercest battles within trade unions are waged for union democracy and against racial and gender discrimination. Many authors have pointed to race and gender as major sources of fragmentation within the American working class. Historically, union leaders have viewed racial and gender diversity as a "problem that hindered cooperative action, the formation of labor unions and the maintenance of class unity within unions" (Asher and Stephenson, 1990; Cobble, 1993). Among progressive scholars, it is generally agreed that corporate leaders understand the effect that racial and gender fragmentation has on the American working class and use these divisions to advance their class interests (Davis, 1986; Gordon, Edwards, and Reich, 1986). In an effort to extend our understanding of how unified social action emerges from a multiplicity of identities, this article uses a case study to examine the intersection of race, gender, and class in a local public sector union. This study involved a local union in the public transportation industry. During the first period studied, 1970 through 1992, this union was transformed from a 124-member private-sector union, made up mostly of white male bus drivers, into a 1,800-member multiracial, multi-gender, multi-occupational union. It was a period of tremendous economic, political, social, and ideological change. It was marked by militancy, during which a rank-and-file movement for democracy unseated a 25-year incumbent president. This period also witnessed a change in the union leadership, from being a white-run union to a minority-led union. This study suggests that demographic changes in the work force set objective conditions for fragmentation to occur. Yet, the most decisive single variable in building working-class unity is the subjective factor, i.e., class-conscious leadership. By class conscious, I mean leaders who interpret the U.S. as a social system divided by class relationships: primarily, the working class and capitalist class. Within this context, class-conscious leaders understand that the system of dominance is not simply one of capitalist domination over the working class, but also one characterized by racial and gender privilege. In other words, within classes, there exist structures and cultures of domination by which white males have a privileged position over racial minorities (women and men) and white women. In addition, white men and women share a favored position in the American social system over racial minorities (women and men). I argue that "class consciousness" is a requisite to effective working-class leadership. Such leadership recognizes that workers have multiple identities that are given meaning by their occupation, gender, and race. Ideological "consciousness" leads to activist strategies that create internal union coalitions aimed at increasing democratic participation. …