Labor Education and the Labor Movement’s Ability to Win

Merle Ratner

Labor 669 E001, Professor Marianne LeNabat

June 30, 2021

Introduction:

        How does education help renew the labor movement?  Answering this question depends on what one means by renewal, and renewal toward what end!  The end I would posit here is the full liberation of the working class.  For a labor movement to achieve this, it would have to win the abolition of exploitation^[1] (in the Marxist use of the term) and the achievement of a society where work and workplaces are organized in the interests of the working class (and the broader popular classes) with particular priority to its least stable sectors made up of Black and other people of color, immigrants, and women.  I believe that this entails ending capitalism and replacing it with a worker controlled and centered system of socialism.

        For education to renew the labor movement it must provide workers with an understanding of the working class, the relationship between labor and the owning/managing class, the goals of the labor movement, the importance of solidarity between workers in the U.S. and internationally including the necessity of racial/gender equity/equality, the importance of seeing workers in their communities (whole worker organizing) and be rooted in the idea that the union is the workers and that the workers run the union.^[2] 

        Any strengthening of the labor movement would be a move in the right direction.  However, I believe gains will not be sustained unless key forces in labor have a long range goal of ending capitalism and replacing it with a working class centered society.^[3]  We are in an unstable period in the neoliberal stage of racial monopoly capitalism.^[4]  It appears that neoliberalism may be morphing into something else, but I am not sure into what – there seems to be a crisis of legitimacy which could lead to a more ameliorative form of capitalism (to reinforce capitalist hegemony) or to right wing authoritarianism (a la Trumpism).^[5]  Either way, without class conscious labor education, the chances of developing a labor movement strong enough to build the kind of worker power which would permanently lead to a decent life for all workers is slim.  

        The criteria I will use in this paper to determine what type of worker education will develop the labor movement’s ability to win will be whether it builds the working class as a class for itself^[6] and whether it can play an important role in building a vital movement to defeat capitalism.

        I will try to define three types of workers education, give examples of their strengths and weaknesses, and then examine which type has been most successful in advancing the labor movement’s ability to win.

Three Types of Worker Education^[7]

        The first type of worker education is business/banking education. This started with the early craft unions and now remains the default form of education in the AFL-CIO.  This form of education focuses mainly on skills transmission, particularly technical skills.  These include vocational training (apprenticeships and ongoing worker skills training conducted by unions,) union skills training (how to read a contract; conduct a grievance; health and safety regulations,) and limited political education to obtain worker support for labor’s favored candidates.  Since the decline of the labor movement and the AFL-CIO’s avowedly greater emphasis on organizing, skills training has included how to do outreach to workers through house visits (as we heard from Nate who took the AFL-CIO organizing institute course,) and other basic organizing skills.^[8] 

        The training operates as a transmission belt of information from the union leadership to the workers and is also connected with building loyalty to the leadership.  This education seeks a greater share of the pie for workers through a partnership with the bosses with whom it sees some common interests in capitalism.  The politics of this type of education tend to be narrow rather than proletarian internationalist, although, with the demise of AIFLD (the cold war international arm of the AFL-CIO) some AFL-CIO unions have embarked on forays into cross border organizing.  Conspicuously absent from this education is a full history of the working class and the labor movement, a discussion about the nature of exploitation and class struggle and a focus on developing critical thinking among members.^[9]

        Examples of this type of education include that carried out by the AFL-CIO organizing institute, most construction unions and many, but not all, of the member unions of the AFL-CIO.^{[10] [11] [12]} 

        The strength of this business/banking education is that the AFL-CIO and many of its unions have the resources to conduct training and a large network of apprenticeship programs in the construction industry that can provide good stable jobs for a part of the working class.

        The weakness of this approach is that it doesn’t educate workers as part of a conscious class (often speaking more about the “middle” class,) it doesn’t build worker power or movements collectively and if it threatens union leadership, it can be easily eliminated.

        The second type of worker education is what I call social unionism education.  This education includes skills education (vocational and union skills training) and at least a cursory history of the union and the labor movement, along with some discussion of the interests of the boss being averse to the union members.  There is usually more attention given to issue education on racism, sexism and immigrant rights. Popular education methods, including train the trainer and worker educator models, are more often used in social unionism education, although not with the full revolutionary intention that Paolo Freire described.^[13]

Social unionism education aims to build worker power and solidarity.  It may recommend involving the members in decision making in the union but this involvement, in practice, ranges from significant to paltry.  This education is tied to unionism that ranges from progressive to social democratic and that seeks not only more power for workers at work but also a fairer shake for working people in the U.S. under a reformed capitalism.  It may be linked to a more internationalist viewpoint but usually has not completely broken with national chauvinism.  

Social unionism education is practiced by unions like SEIU 1199 and the New York State Nurses Association and some other of the more progressive Change to Win unions (and possibility of a few AFL-CIO unions.)^[14]

        The strength of social unionism education is its greater emphasis on gaining worker power, its use of worker educators and popular education models.  Unions like 1199 in NYC also use culture as a form of education through its Bread and Roses program.  There is also a degree of union solidarity culture that is encouraged, to a greater degree than in the business/banking model of education.  This model may also encourage a labor-community coalition approach to organizing and may be more open to working with non-union organizations, like worker centers, than the business/banking model.^[15]

        The weakness of the social unionism education model is that social movement unions have a fraught relationship with the (government or private) owners involving a dialectic of struggle and pragmatic compromise. Thus, it doesn’t go far enough in teaching about the roots of exploitation, the interests of the working class and the need to move beyond capitalism. And this type of education is often still too enmeshed in building loyalty to union leadership to allow the type of education that is truly liberatory.^[16]

        The third type of worker education is what I call class struggle education.^[17]  This is education based on the premise that the capital relation, exploitation and surplus value need to be ended in order for working people to control their workplaces, the nature of work and the whole society, in their own interests.  It encompasses the widest range of worker education from skills and issue education (from a more radical political perspective) to an expansive study of the history and current state of capitalism and the labor movements, worker exploitation and political economy, working class strategy and tactics, ideology and culture, critical thinking, public speaking and writing, competency in math and science, social sciences, etc. Popular education in form and content is used, as well as a priority on workers teaching other workers. Organizing education is addressed not only to the worker at the point of production but at Jane McAlevey’s “whole worker” in their community, social sectors, etc.^[18]  This education is truly internationalist – aimed at building real, active solidarity with workers in other countries and fighting against national chauvinism here.  Union skills education is much broader than contract interpretation or grievances and trains workers to collectively and democratically make decisions to assure that, as UE says, “the members run the union”.^[19]   New forms that this type of education might innovate include offering paid apprenticeships to rank and file workers to learn to become union leaders.

        Examples of this type of education include Brookwood Labor College, Bryn Mawr Summer School, and today, unions like United Electrical, probably ILWU, and worker projects like the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee.  Unions like the Chicago Teachers Union and the United Teachers Los Angeles seem to be heading towards this approach to education. My sense is that Jane McAlevey supports this approach as well, although her worker education training is more narrowly focused.^{[20] [21] [22]}

        The advantage of class struggle education is that it builds militant, conscious class struggle.  It has the potential to lay the basis for new organizing successes in key sectors of the economy.  Its practitioners tend to be more open to all sorts of workers including those in the growing precarious layers of the class.  If this work grows in scale and is adopted by more unions, the class collaborationist (or accommodationist) sector of the labor movement will be weakened and there will be even more room for class struggle education and organizing to expand, dig deep and win real victories.  There could be greater inroads in organizing some key chokepoints of the U.S. economy like education, warehouse distribution and transportation which would, in turn strengthen not only labor but an anti-capitalist, liberatory project as a whole. Class struggle education offers a tantalizing vision of a labor movement which embodies a class for itself!

        The weakness of this model is that it is still practiced by a relatively small and under-resourced group of labor organizations and faces hostility and red-baiting from both the AFL-CIO, the bosses, and the U.S. far right wing.  As is often the case with many left movements, class struggle education is somewhat siloed in various geographical regions and different unions, workers centers and universities.  While there is a United Association for Labor Education, (which has many leftists but is open to all labor educators without political distinction,) there is no national left strategy for promoting and organizing this kind of class struggle worker education.

Conclusion: The Role of Worker Education in the Future

        While class struggle education is in the minority of worker education today, it must take root and expand among a greater part of the labor movement if the movement is to win power in the future.  It is only with this type of education, and the anti-capitalist politics that it is imbued with, that workers can take charge of our own unions and push them in the direction of finally ending our own exploitation.  Worker-run unions must go hand in hand with class struggle education and politics since worker control without left politics could lead to an Alinskyist type of right wing populism.

        How this can be done requires some creativity. Progress must be made within our labor organizations but can also be made in other ways.  For example, popularizing the idea of being working class as a desirable class location, rather than promoting “middle class” aspirations (especially now with the recognition given to essential workers) can be done by launching cultural work together with musicians, on TV and radio, in theaters, etc.  Groups like EWOC could start a nation-wide labor education project open to all workers (including the unemployed.)

        Class struggle education has unlimited potential to transform the labor movement but this will not happen unless we organize it and win more power in union and worker organizations!  Our ability to unleash this potential is also impacted by the strength of the U.S. left and socialist movements overall.  If we can develop left/socialist unity on politics and strategy, it will be an immeasurable boost for class struggle worker education.  Together workers face a momentous challenge, but we must meet the moment with determination, dedication and humility!

Bibliography

AFL-CIO, Department of Organization and Field Services, Numbers That Count, A Manual on Internal Organizing, June 1988

Altenbough, Richard J, “The Children and the Instruments of a Militant Labor Progressivism: Brookwood Labor College and the American Labor College Movement of the 1920’s and 1930’s,” History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Winter, 1983)

Brown, Jackie and Katz, Leanna, “The Bryn Mawr Summer School Prepared Workers for the Class Struggle,” Jacobin Magazine, https://jacobinmag.com/2021/03/bryn-mawr-summer-school-women-workers-industry

Carlson, Kenneth D., “Labor Education in America,” Review of Educational Research, Apr., 1971, Vol. 41, No. 2, Science and Mathematics Education (Apr., 1971), pp. 115-130.

Cedar&Slate, “Brookwood Labor College and its Impact on the American Labor Movement,” https://newbrookwood.wordpress.com/2019/03/12/the-journey-begins/

Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, “In Case of Emergency, Fight Back, When We Fight We Win,” https://bbhosted.cuny.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-56540274-dt-content-rid-445306194_1/courses/SLU01_LABR_669_E001_1216_7W1/EWOC%20Organizing%20Guide.pdf

Freire, Paulo, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum, 2005.

Fraser, Nancy, “American Interregnum,” New Left Review, Sidecar, April 9, 2021, https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/american-interregnum

ILWU, “How the Union Works,” https://www.ilwu.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/How-the-Union-works-2016.pdf 

McAlevey, Jane, ENG Participant Manual Strike School, Day 5: Community & Whole Worker Organizing + Big Bargaining, https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vTQ1PqNiIdi-QLjP1–VV8sEFu4wEmvQ0yqZCzhl8WOByjbJ-4WbHtRsjp3MRCh6DY93159lVLqXMkK/pub?fbclid=IwAR3pLpE9qFzh9mMzXBISQ6ZEQrHRXcX0f4C5xboJQz6TObkAv8dEA16UcLM#h.m1m9c59k91jr

McAlevey, Jane, No Shortcuts, Organizing For Power in the New Gilded Age, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016

New York State Nurses Association, “Labor Education, Fact Sheet, What is a Union,” https://d3ovkdufrefcl9.cloudfront.net/laborEducation/laborEdPart1/whatIsUnion.pdf

New York State Nurses Association, “Updated Labor Education Training,” https://www.nysna.org/blog/2020/04/09/join-upcoming-labor-education-training#.YN5_YUwpCUk 

New York Taxi Workers Alliance, Building Worker-Power, https://www.nytwa.org/mission-history 

Phillips-Fein, Kim, “Does that Elephant Bite,” New Labor Forum, Spring, 2003, http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/newlaborforum/old/html/12_article7.html 

UE, “Them and Us Unionism,” https://www.ueunion.org/ThemAndUs/ 

UE, “UE, Who We Are,” https://www.ueunion.org/uewho.html