When one thinks of a social justice movement, powerful images of the civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. marching in Selma, Alabama or addressing thousands on the steps of the Washington Monument come to mind. That civil rights movement was a grassroots movement that attempted to change attitudes toward race relations. Other social justice movement images include the anti-war movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when thousands of young people demonstrated in communities and college campuses across the country. This was a social justice movement that ultimately raised the consciousness of the public to oppose the Vietnam War.
The labor movement is not often viewed as a social justice movement. But, contrary to popular brief, the labor movement has a long history of social justice movement participation from the early days of the Knights of Labor to the current immigrant organizing activity in California.
Many lessons have been learned from this history. The revitalization of the California labor movement is the direct result of a return to the old ways of community coalition building, political independence and community-based unionism. It is a way for labor to continue its historic role in moving a social justice agenda forward.
One example of labor’s historic participation in social change is the struggle for the eight-hour workday. This was a historic struggle that involved millions of workers from around the world. It was a social movement that took almost a century to get the policy makers and ruling elite to accept the idea of an eight-hour workday. Today, the eight-hour a day and 40-hour workweek is common language in union contracts and is generally expected.
Many of the struggles led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) are classic examples of the labor participating in and leading social movements. The concept of “one big union” was used to mobilize multi-racial, multi-cultural communities. People of color, men and women, workers in the fields to workers in sweatshops, all organized under the idea of one union. The message of the IWW was a simple one: a militant labor movement connected with the community was the only vehicle for creating any type of social change. The Wobblies, as IWW organizers were called, were more than just labor organizers, they were agents for social change.
In fact, in 1919 militants such as the great IWW and Communist leader William Z. Foster led community-based labor organizing drives in meat packing and steel as well as other industries that laid the groundwork for CIO successes in the 1930s. This success by the CIO centered on the basic philosophy that only a powerful workers movement challenging the power structure would create social and political benefits for the workers. The CIO struggles to organize the auto, steel, agricultural and mining industries to name a few, are classic examples of how militant labor activists change working conditions by participating in and leading social justice movements.
Many of the tactics and strategies of community and political organizing used today are not new. Labor had used many of the same organizing efforts decades earlier. For example, in the 1930s progressive labor community and political organizations in California involved labor unions such as the International Longshoreman’s and Warehouse Union, the United Electrical Workers Union, the International Ladies Garment Union, the United Cannery and Agricultural Packing Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) and many others. For many of these unions community organizing was critical factor in improving the lives of community and union members.
UCAPAWA was one of the only unions that had women in leadership positions and was active in organizing the Mexican community. As a result of this organizing effort by UCAPAWA, advances in maternity leave and equal pay were key labor developments that would affect all workers. Is it any wonder that unions such as the United Farm Workers (UFW) use many of the same tactics and strategies in their organizing campaigns?
In California, César Chávez and the UFW effectively mobilized thousands of supporters and during the 1960s and 1970s galvanized the Latino community behind the rights of farm workers to organize. The grape boycott and lettuce strikes of the 1970s were important to an entire generation of young Latino activists. The grape boycott inspired many others such as suburban housewives, students and even people from other countries such as Japan, Canada and Mexico. Many of those who participated in the farm workers campaigns received their first organizing experiences in the struggles of the UFW.
Because of the success of the UFW, many unions are now attempting to organize the undocumented worker by using the model of grassroots community organizing or community-based unionism. This is especially true in California. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor under the leadership of Miguel Contreras has secured many important victories in moving the immigrant community into a social movement for worker rights.
It is important to focus on labor’s approach to political and community organizing and how this organizing has been used to create avenues of social movement activism. It is also important to understand how the trade union movement has developed over the years. It is in this review of the labor movement that we can best understand the similarities between the past and today’s AFL-CIO approach to community and political organizing.
We can understand how the labor movement has focused attention on organizing the unorganized, especially in the immigrant communities. This is why the labor movement continues to be an important institution. Today, union members continue to be involved in an all-out effort to mobilize members and educate workers on community and union issues.
Independent labor political organizing in key areas of California is a major factor in securing impressive contracts and political victories throughout the state. In addition, grassroots organizing has allowed a strong labor-to-neighbor, working families message to resonate with union members and their families.
The late César Chávez once said, “When you have people together who believe in something very strongly – whether it’s religion or politics or unions – things will happen.” Community-based unionism and labor’s role in social justice movements is indeed the future for the labor movement. It is this type of organizing that will make “things happen.”
--David Trujillo is a contributor to Political Affairs.
