NOtes

Social Democrats, USA, Spring 1999

In this issue:

SD-LID Holds "Day of Dialogue" in Washington

Can a “Third Way” consensus be crafted around a new, democratic framework of rules for the global economy? What ought the public schools be doing to improve their standing with the public and to fulfill their historic mission to create equal opportunity and a cohesive civil society? How must unions change their services and organizing strategies in order to empower workers in a New Economy characterized by high tech, mobile, and often part time work?

These were some of the questions debated at a January 22 “Day of Dialogue” on American Labor and the New Economy, sponsored by Social Democrats, USA and the League for Industrial Democracy in Washington, DC.

Morton Bahr, President of the Communication Workers of America, argued that the CWA and other unions began adopting to the New Economy some time ago, by redefining “job security” as “employment security” and by negotiating with employers to provide advance training so as to be able keep job skills current with fast-changing technology. He credited Lane Kirkland with having the foresight to predict the convergence of the media, entertainment, and telecommunications industries and urging CWA to become the “hub” for organizing and representing its workers.

Bahr added that “it's a moral responsibility for us to organize the people at the low end of the scale. But the historians who look back at this period, particularly of John Sweeney's presidency, are going to determine our success or failure by whether we are bringing in the high-paid technical and administrative and clerical people.”

Sandra Feldman, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), made the point that the problem with public education in the U.S. is largely the problem of inequality. “If you compare public schools in some states, we're right up there with the highest achievers in the world. But when you add in all the states and the schools with the poorest kids, America drops enormously in that comparison.” To improve public education, she suggested, it is necessary to discover what's right about the good schools and then make sure all the schools have these characteristics – adequate resources, small class sizes, discipline and order, high standards, peer evaluation and review for teachers, and so forth. The voucher remedy, she argued, will make the problem of inequality worse, not better.

Other speakers in the dialogue included Elliott Abrams, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Jenny Bates, Policy Analyst for Trade and Economics, Progressive Policy Institute Project on Trade and the New Economy, Deiter Dettke, Executive Director, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, William Frymoyer, Senior Policy Analyst, Office of Representative Richard Gephardt, David Howell, Associate Professor & Chair, Urban Policy Program, New School University, Stephen Lande, President, Manchester Trade, Ltd., Thea Lee, Assistant Director, Public Policy, AFL-CIO. Richard Kahlenberg, Fellow, Twentieth Century Fund, Joyce Ladner, Senior Fellow, Governmental Studies, The Brookings Institution, David Blankenhorn, President, Institute for American Values, Suzanne Granville, Field Director, Working Women's Department, AFL-CIO, Stephen A. Herzenberg, Executive Director, Keystone Research Center, and John Schmidt, Economist, Economic Policy Institute.

A total of 114 people came to the conference, representing twelve trade union organizations, thirty-one academic and non-governmental organizations, nine government agencies, three congressional offices, and four international institutions.

Several news articles at the end of January reported that the number of union members in the U.S. increased by 100,000 in 1998. Another bit of good news from the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA): there was an 8.9 percent increase in the number of government-supervised union elections, and unions won 51.7 percent of them, up from 49.2 percent in 1997.

"Clearly, the lesson here is that we're not only trying more, we're winning more," Kirk Adams, AFL-CIO Organizing Director, was quoted as saying.

Frank Swoboda noted in the January 26 Washington Post that

“Since 1995, when AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was elected to lead the 13.1 million-member federation on a pledge to return the labor movement to relevance in the American economy, unions have been spending millions of dollars on efforts to expand their membership. The biggest growth spurt in the last five years -- 142,000 new members -- occurred in 1994, the last year that former AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland was in office.”

This comparison may not be quite fair, since the BLS redesigned its methodology in 1994, making figures for that year not strictly comparable with earlier years. A longer-term comparison between the periods 1995-1998 and 1990-1993 reveals that in both periods, union ranks decreased by the same amount – 149,000 members. But as a percentage of the work force, the decrease was greater in 1995-1998 (6.7 percent, as opposed to a 1.9 percent decrease in 1990-1993) because employment has surged during the latter period.

Comparing particular industries in the two time periods, it would appear that the change in membership as a percent of the workforce has worsened during the latter period in all categories except construction and finance/insurance/real estate. Similarly, the change in the percentage of unionization in most occupational categories has been worse in the 1995-1998 period, with the exception of service occupations (excluding protective services) and Transportation and material moving occupations. During the earlier period, the percentage of union membership increased in five occupation categories, including farming-forestry-fishing, professional specialties, executive-administrative-managerial, protective services, and administrative support including clerical. In the latter period, only protective services showed an increase.

Jeff Ballinger passed on this tidbit from an article by Jeff Manning in the Portland Oregonian of January 24, 1999. Makes you wonder what Joseph Ha did during the Cold War. Perhaps he has found a new corporate home for old line apologetics.

“Nike Vice President Joseph Ha wrote in a Jan. 11 letter that human rights and labor activists who are critical of Nike's factories also want to oust the country's authoritarian government. 'The ultimate goal is political rather than economic,' Ha wrote. 'They target Nike because Nike is a high-profile company and a major creator of jobs in Vietnam. Nevertheless, this is the first step for their political goal, which is to create a so-called democratic society on the U.S. model.'
…Ha's letter was a routine follow-up to an earlier meeting he had with Cu Thi Hau, president of the Vietnamese Confederation of Labor, the government-run labor union. Ha thanked Hau for the meeting and then launched into his analysis of the activists' true intentions. In contrast, he stressed Nike's neutrality. "A nation should not necessarily apply the model of another nation," Ha wrote. "Each nation has its own internal political system. Nike believes completely in this." Nike did not intend for the letter to become public, but the Vietnamese government reprinted it in a state-owned newspaper.

On November 24, 1998, the LID sponsored a discussion of the "Third Way," a concept popularized by British Prime Minister Tony Blair as an alternative to both free market capitalism and welfare state regulation. Critics on both the Right and Left have attacked the idea of a Third Way. Charles Krauthammer, writing in the Washington Post of October 2, 1998, dismissed the Third Way as so much "blather," a capitulation by Left-of-Center politicians to adopt all but "0.2 percent" of the conservative agenda. More recently, Jacob Heilbrunn opined in a LA Times piece that European Social Democrats, emboldened by the election of Gerhard Schroeder as Chancellor of Germany, are turning to the Left and rejecting the more centrist Blair/Clinton approach.

Is there a Third Way? One of the intellectual parents of the concept is British social democrat Anthony Giddens, whose book on the Third Way started much of the debate. In it he raises the question of whether social democracy can survive as a distinctive political philosophy, and concludes that it can, but only “if social democrats are prepared to revise their pre-existing views more thoroughly than most have done so far.” Giddens traces the growth of state welfare policy to political forces hostile to the social democratic tradition, and puts forward an alternative strategy based on investment in human capital. "In place of the welfare state we should put the social investment state, operating in the context of a positive welfare society," he states.

Leading the discussion of these ideas were Penn Kemble, Richard Kahlenberg and Rachelle Horowitz. Penn Kemble, now Acting Director of the United States Information Agency, attended the recent Third Way Conference in New York in which President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair participated. Rick Kahlenberg is a Fellow at the Twentieth Century Fund and has written extensively on the topic of class-based affirmative action. He is currently involved in research on the issue of education. Rachelle Horowitz is Consultant to the President of the American Federation of Teachers and is active in Democratic Party affairs.

Joan Suall, a long-time leader and former Executive Director of Social Democrats, USA, died on Sunday, January 17, 1999 from complications relating to emphysema. Joan spent a lifetime fighting for social justice and economic democracy at home and abroad. She played significant roles in many organizations besides SDUSA, including the Jewish Labor Committee, the Norman Thomas Fund, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, the Workmen's Circle, the NY Coalition of Center Democrats, and several Democratic Party clubs, including Chelsea, Midtown, Tilden, and the Village Reform Club. Joan is mourned and will be missed by all who were touched by her passion for a world of peace freedom and democracy. She was married to the late Bertram Suall, the brother of Irwin Suall, who passed away last year. Joan is survived by her nephew, Mark, and by many cousins, relatives and loving friends. A memorial service is planned for the near future.

Jim Burnett, a long-time member of Social Democrats USA died in his sleep during the night of February 2 at the age of 62. He had been ill for about a year. While active in the New York socialist movement, Jim served as National Secretary of the Young Peoples' Socialist League and helped crystallize the synthesis of democracy and socialism for many young people. During the 1960s he moved to Berkeley, California, where he helped guide the SP-YPSL during the tumultuous years of the Free Speech Movement. His home became the center for movement life in the area, hosting meetings with Norman Thomas and other luminaries. In recent years, Jim taught at Lincoln University in the Bay Area. He is survived by his wife, Jane, and son Alexis.

Jeff Ballinger, who has led SDUSA for the past couple of years, left in October 1998 to take a position at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government to work on a project involving a new constitution for Turkey. He remains a thorn in the side of Nike, running Press for Change from his new home in Cambridge. He can be reached at (617) 494-6423, or at jeffreyd@mindspring.com. Jeff has an great article in the Fall, 1998, Dissent magazine entitled “Nike in Indonesia.”

David Jessup left the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center last September to establish a new Project called the New Economy Information Service, which will attempt to create a network for information-sharing and discussion among trade unionists and others concerned about the effects of globalization and technological change on our families, our communities, and the wider world. Using the latest information technologies, the NEIS provides documentation, news and analysis on such important issues as the New Unionism, democracy and the global economy, education reform and strengthening families in a changing culture.

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