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Libertarian Labor Review #14
Winter 1992-93, pages 25-29
A SHORT HISTORY OF IWW ORGANIZING IN ANN ARBOR 81-89
by Mark Kaufmann
We present the following account both as an example of how
IWW militants built shop-floor, direct action-based union locals,
and because the Ann Arbor-Detroit General Membership Branch
played a key role in returning the IWW to its roots as a
revolutionary union after decades of effective isolation from the
shop floor. There are important lessons to learn from these
fellow workers' successes and failures, and perhaps most
importantly from their determination to continue building a
revolutionary union even though their numbers were much smaller
than their dreams.
This account demonstrates that the key to successful
organizing is not money, but rather the committment of grass-
roots militants determined to bring their fellow workers together
in a revolutionary union. Shop-floor efforts were key to the
history detailed below. The University Cellar job branch--a two
bookstore firm that at its peak employed some 75 IWW members, and
was organized a few years before this narrative begins--began
with a core of workers who had been organizing for several years
on the job. Without strong on-the-job organization, all the
outside support in the world can not build a lasting union
presence--a lesson which should be so obvious as to be a cliche,
but which many of our fellow workers (including even some
Wobblies) have seemingly forgotten.
Anarcho-syndicalists played a key role in these efforts.
Members of the Anarchist Communist Federation introduced the
Wobblies to the shop-floor militants who went on to build the IWW
at the University Cellar and other job branches. And one of the
IWW's first public events, in the 1970s, was a presentation by
CNT member Miguel Mesa, who toured the U.S. under IWW auspices in
the 1970s, speaking on the revival of Spanish anarcho-
syndicalism.
At the beginning of the Reagan era the Ann Arbor-Detroit GMB
had been in existence for some six years. We had approximately 70
to 80 members and two job shops under contract, the University
Cellar Bookstore, and a commercial print shop. Between 1981 and
1989, the GMB grew to approximately 150 members, and was active
in organizing workers in Printing and Publishing IU450, General
Distribution Workers IU660, Public Service Workers IU670,
Unemployed Workers and students. We have had a shop-floor
presence in 8 separate establishments. Our members have engaged
in numerous job actions, including two strikes. We have won
recognition at four establishments during this period.
Besides organizing on the job, the GMB has been active in
several solidarity coalitions. For a number of years a Neo-nazi
group attempted an annual march in Ann Arbor. The IWW was central
to the coalitions that organized counter-demonstrations which
eventually drove the nazis out of town. The GMB along with our
job branches worked to extend the Hormel boycott to Ann Arbor and
provide direct aid to the striking P-9 workers.
Currently the GMB is awaking from a two year depression
caused by the loss of the unions largest job shop, IU660 U-Cellar
Branch. The banking industry forced the University Cellar
Bookstore to close two years ago. This forced close to 80 IWW
members onto the unemployment line. Many of these workers are
only now becoming stable in their new jobs. The organizing
potential for the GMB is looking brighter today than at any time
since the U-Cellar closed. A nucleus of wobs have gotten jobs at
the same place and are now secure enough in their employment to
begin bringing the union to their co-workers.
What follows are brief histories of a couple of the industries
and work sites we have been active in through the 1980s.
THE PRINTING AND PUBLISHING WORKERS
The print shop was closed by the IRS because the employer
failed to pay his income tax. Several members maintained their
membership in the union and took the IWW with them to their new
employers. A core group of 4 wobs were established at one outlet of
a Detroit Area printing and publishing business (NRC). The
establishment employed approximately 30 workers at this outlet and
over 200 company wide. Education and direct action defense of
workers rights were to continue for over four years at this
establishment. The primary activities this rank and file group
engaged in were over health and safety and solidarity.
In the summer of 1981 the last union print shop in Ann Arbor
came under attack with a lock out of the unionized employees. IU
450 members walked the picket line with the Graphic Arts Union
members and aided them in establishing secondary pickets in front
of major costumers of the scab shop. After a long strike the
union was decertified in an NLRB election in which only the scabs
were allowed to vote. The GAU workers sought new employment with
one of them getting a job at NRC. He joined the IWW, and worked
for shop floor control at NRC as long as he worked there. This
experience, (the Kolossas strike) along with their previous
experience in organizing a shop only to see it closed by the
government because of the bosses theft, committed the IU 450
workers to shop-floor control rather than legal certification.
Despite the activities of the IWW at NRC over four years we never
won control over the shop floor. The union was effectively ghettoized
among the printers with those having the most to gain from
organization (the low paid bindery, xerox and microfilm workers)
remaining Mr. Blocks. Despite shop wide action over health and safety
the majority of the workers remained passive employees awaiting the
handouts of the boss.
The organizing activities of the printing workers became focused
on the creation of an Ann Arbor Printers Cooperative. Along with
members of the GMB and other local activists these printers endeavored
to create a worker owned-worker managed print shop. The effort to
create this cooperative undoubtedly sucked up much energy that could
have gone into organizing. The printers' cooperative functioned for
approximately four years and was the only union print shop in Ann
Arbor during that period, carrying the proud bug of the IWW.
The Printers' Cooperative collapsed in 1984, becoming a privately
held partnership. It remains the only union shop in Ann Arbor today,
affiliated with the Detroit-area Allied Printing Trades Council.
In the winter of 1985 the GMB was contacted by advertising sales
reps. for the Detroit Metro Times newspaper. These workers were so
enraged by their treatment at the hands of management that they had
already gone on strike when they contacted us. We helped them maintain
their picket line for several weeks. These workers failed to win all
of their demands, but they did improve the working conditions and pay.
They also stripped away the radical chic facade behind which the boss
exploited the workers.
In 1986 an American Speedy Print Shop in Detroit was organized.
The IWW was voluntarily recognized by the employer. Negotiations over
a contract broke down after a couple of bargaining sessions. The union
was able to raise base wages, but broke down through high turnover of
employees. The shop only employed 5 to 6 workers and in the course of
just a few months all of the original employees left or were laid off.
Printing and publishing remains one of Ann Arbor's chief
industries. With the exception of two small shops employing less than
a dozen workers, the entire industry remains unorganized. Employers
are committed to keeping the industry nonunion. The GMB hopes to
return to organizing in the printing trades in the future but since
1986 our resources have been focused on other industries.
IN DEFENSE OF U OF M CLERICAL WORKERS
The University of Michigan is the single largest employer in
Washtenaw County. It has a long history of union busting activity. As
I write this story a nurse's strike at the U of M Hospital has been
squelched by the courts, and service workers at the same hospital are
continuing a three month informational picket.
In 1985 AFSCME began a clerical workers organizing drive.
Organizing among U of M clericals goes back to the late 70's. For a
short time the UAW had a contract covering the clericals, but that
union was decertified and at the time of the AFSCME drive the
clericals had been without organization for several years. At the
beginning of the AFSCME drive a group of medical transcriptionists
approached the GMB asking for advice and assistance. We helped them
arrive at an understanding with AFSCME where their special conditions
would be included in negotiations with the university. The leadership
of this group of transcriptionists immediately came under attack by
management. The entire work group also came under attack through rapid
equipment changes and speed ups.
Working with this rank-and-file group, we advised them not to
wait for an NLRB election to begin working as a union on the shop
floor. It was decided that a strategy of aggressive use of the
existing grievance procedure along with concerted actions to protect
members on the job could effect immediate changes in working
conditions. Group grievances resulted in workers receiving back pay
and a revision of the piece rate system. This victory couldn't be
tolerated by the administration. Shop floor harassment and
intimidation of the of transcriptionists became a daily event. Shop
floor supervisors setup employees for theft charges and used any
pretext to discipline the rank and file leadership.
The certification election for AFSCME came and was lost by an
extremely close margin. The victory over AFSCME emboldened the
administration and they moved to eliminate the "trouble makers" in the
transcriptionist department. The election defeat caused extreme
demoralization among the transcriptionists. The unity and solidarity
they had shown in the months leading up to the election collapsed
under management attack.
The administration had singled out two women in the department to
make examples of and both were being dragged through the university
disciplinary process in route to firing. AFSCME just disappeared and
these two rank and file activists were left twisting in the wind.
Lacking any workplace solidarity for these two leaders the GMB
aided them in defending themselves through the labor boards. This
legalistic struggle is still continuing three years after the unfair
labor practice charges were filed and four years after the events. One
woman has accepted a cash settlement from the university for unlawful
discharge. The second woman continues to pursue her unfair labor
practice charges. The GMB role in this struggle has been mainly
advisory. We have also pressured AFSCME to represent the workers. The
story of AFSCME desertion of rank-and-file activists at the university
is an entirely different story, one which highlights the bankruptcy of
business unionism. The solidarity the GMB has shown for the clerical
workers has included representation at grievance meetings, Michigan
Employment Security hearings and Michigan Labor Relation Board
hearings. The production of newsletters and the organizing of
demonstrations in support have also been key to our activities.
Through our activities the university has been unsuccessful in
carrying out their retaliatory acts against this woman.
In the one department where the IWW had some influence four
managers were either fired or given early retirement, the rank-and-
file activists have kept their jobs, and remain active in a limited
way in protecting workers rights.
GENERAL DISTRIBUTION WORKERS VICTORY AND STRUGGLE
Industrial Union 660 Peoples Wherehouse Job Branch was organized in
1982 and won their first contract in 1984. The Wherehouse remained an
IWW shop until 1992, when its owners sold its assets to an out-of-state
competitor in order to break the union.
The Michigan Federation of Food Cooperatives' Board of Directors
through at least six separate managements pursued a policy of either
breaking the union or co-opting it. They have spent easily $2,000 per
worker in this attempt. This works out to 70 to 80 thousand dollars
over six years.
The organization of the IWW at the workplace begins on the shop floor
and includes a stewards council and a branch council. Key to the workers at
the warehouse was their ability to participate in management. Worker
participation was guaranteed by our contract and gave workers some day-to-
day control over their working conditions. An egalitarian wage scale where
every worker makes the same regardless of task helped keep worker
participation meaningful.
The 30 plus warehouse workers who organized into the IWW in 1982
were above all committed to democracy. The local branch maintained
itself through the labors of nearly everyone either taking a turn on the
Branch Council, serving as a steward or working on one of the various
committees of the branch. The union's stand on democracy in the
workplace and equal treatment of all workers were its most potent
weapons.
The union won a very powerful contract in its first negotiations
and successfully defended that contract through two subsequent
negotiations. Our contracts ran for two years twice and one year once.
Between negotiations, management is constantly attempting to erode the
contract through arbitrary actions. These have resulted in two
spontaneous work stoppages, numerous demonstrations and educational
activities among the member-owners.
Since the warehouse was organized, a continuing effort has been
made to broaden the organization to other IU 660 workers in
cooperatives. Small groups of workers have been formed in several of the
member cooperatives of the Federation, many of these members are member
owners of the Federation. The potential for a worker/consumer alliance
to bring the cooperative movement in Michigan back to its democratic
roots exists.
THE RESURGENCE OF THE ANN ARBOR TENANTS UNION
The Ann Arbor Tenants Union was formed in 1968, organizing
thousands of tenants into a direct action force against landlordism. By
1985 that noble beginning was ancient history. The Tenants Union had
become a bureaucratic lobbying group.
In the depths of the Reagan depression the GMB became involved in
unemployed organizing. This effort was unsuccessful primarily through
the union's resources being spread too thin. This work did bring some
new members into the GMB, and when one got a job at AATU he brought the
union with him.
Over the course of two years the practices of self-organization,
direct action and democracy were reintroduced to the Tenants Union.
Education, demonstrations and rent strikes are the primary tools the
Tenants Union uses in its struggle against landlordism. The GMB came to
the realization that working people spend almost all of their time in
two places, where you work and where you live. It is in these two areas
of daily life where we believe it is possible to create some class
consciousness.
Tenants organizing has spread to organizing the homeless. Ann Arbor
is an extremely stratified community, one that attempts to hide its
poverty-stricken and drive its working class into other communities. The
struggle to make the homeless visible in the age of Reagan yuppiedom
strikes at the heart of the "american dream" that the "good life" awaits
us all.
The Tenants Union is primarily financed through the student
government of the U of M. It is organized as a worker-collective and has
been an IWW shop since 1986. Its existence is tenuous, constantly under
attack by the Regents. It is a center of student activism at a time when
activism is passe for most students.
A FEW LESSONS LEARNED
We have learned a couple of lessons in our many struggles. One
worker struggling for her rights is a "trouble maker"--easily isolated
by the boss, and used as an example to the rest of the work force as
how not to be. Two workers on the job struggling for their rights are
a UNION. A weak one perhaps, but one that will still strike fear into
almost any boss. And one that will be able to win some gains for all
on the job.
The bosses today are only slightly more sophisticated than the
ones the IWW faced 80 years ago. Divide and rule is the axiom that the
boss lives by. Racism, sexism and elitism are his primary ideological
weapons. Co-optation, intimidation and reprisals are his tactics. He
will highlight and use every difference between workers to set them
against one another. Equality, democracy and solidarity are the keys
for fighting back. It is the UNION's primary role to develop and
support these principles among workers.
We must never forget that we are all slaves to the capitalist
system. As slaves our consciousness is constantly being molded by our
masters. As individuals we are easy prey for the master classes. As a
UNION at the point of production, no matter how small, it is possible to
proclaim one's FREEDOM from the ideology of oppression and one's
resistance to the reality of exploitation.
For 80 years the program of the IWW has been EDUCATION,
ORGANIZATION AND EMANCIPATION. To practice this program the union must
struggle to create EQUALITY, DEMOCRACY AND SOLIDARITY.
A FEW COMMENTS ON TACTICS
In the above stories one will note the diversity of tactics
employed. The S.E. Michigan GMB (The Ann Arbor/Detroit GMB changed its
name in the mid 80's) has never been dogmatic concerning the tactics
workers employ to protect themselves. It is clear to us though that the
tactics that fall under the heading DIRECT ACTION are by far the most
formidable. Almost every job site that we have had influence at has
employed direct action against the boss at some time. The boss fears
direct action by his slaves more than anything else in life. To directly
challenge the bosses' rights to control you can alter the conditions
under which you work for years.
Even when you fail the workplace will never be the same again.
The struggles of the IWW in Michigan have not been one resounding
success after another. We can take solace though in knowing that where
ever we have struggled our masters and their lackeys have paid. In the
12 years that the IWW has been active in organizing on the job in
Michigan we have forced three business to close rather than accept the
bosses terms and conditions. The number of managers and supervisors
who have lost their jobs because of our activities nearly equals our
union's membership. At Peoples Wherehouse, where we had some job
control for five years, turnover among managerial staff nearly
exceeded that of the workers who outnumber them 5 to 1.
WHO JOINS THE IWW
The IWW is not a business union or an employee organization.
We are an organization built on CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS. Our masters have
attempted to annihilate working class consciousness for 50 years. The
sorry state of the american labor movement demonstrates that they have
been quite successful. The class struggle is waged not just at the
point of production. It is waged in the mind and spirit of every
working person. Individuals from every race, class background and
ethnic background have been members of our GMB. For most members the
IWW has been only a transitory experience. But an experience that has
altered their consciousness. Every crack in the consciousness of the
ruling class is one more place where the seeds of freedom might
eventually flower.