Stewards, Pt. 3
Strong unions require strong shop stewards, or some equivalently named organizer, spokesperson (to both management and the “big” union), and representative of workers, who works alongside them, and under the same basic conditions. The steward addresses work complaints, provides counseling, educates workers on their union duties and political affairs, explains the union’s policies, maintains the unity of the work group, and providing group leadership.
In the early 1980s, as it was clear that the labor movement was in decline, Al Nash, a former worker, steward, union officer, and union educator, wrote The Union Steward: Duties, Rights, and Status (1983) and British and American Union Stewards: A Comparative Analysis (1984) to divine what had gone wrong. He began his 1984 piece with a short synopsis. At its inception, writes Nash,
the CIO emphasized that stewards should be integrated into the collective bargaining agreement and allocated important rights and responsibilities. For instance, the United Auto Workers… wanted workers to play an important part in making decisions about collective bargaining and in the union generally and controls were,
“set up . . . in the union from top to bottom to make sure the policies followed by the union were those which had been decided on by the rank and file members themselves. And shop stewards were elected in the shops instead of being appointed from above to assure that the influence of workers would be effective.” How to Win for the Union: A Handbook for UAW-CIO Stewards and Committeemen, 1945.
So, greater responsiveness and greater democracy were tied together, and both were at least rhetorically tied to strong unions.
Yet as early as 1949, in spite of this vision of the steward’s role, the power of stewards began to fade. .. the steward’s participation in the formulation of policy that existed during and for a brief period… has, to a large extent, disappeared; and American stewards have lost the ability to be an effective instrument through which rank-and-file workers can voice their disagreement with official union policies and actions.
A “Conflict of Interest”
What had happened? Nash suggests that the fundamental problem is a conflict of interest between the steward and union officers. The steward is “subject to the same bureaucratic authority, economics, and working conditions, as are his coworkers.” For a steward to be effective - which means, at least in part maintaining the respect of their work crew - they must, at least in part, come into conflict with management and be prepared to challenge its prerogatives. Yet the union official sees steward aggressiveness as more troublesome than welcome.
The union official is concerned about defending the organizational integrity of the union. Challenges to management’s prerogatives increase its resistance to the union, and may endanger the security of the union… The steward chips away at management’s control structure… The top union official attempts to control the efforts of the steward to chip away and urges upon him the judicial approach to grievance settlement and the need to respect the sanctity of the collective bargaining agreement.
As a result, the union official pressures the steward to
file grievances (this is what Nash means by “the judicial approach”) instead of engaging in shop floor action or even informal (non-contractual) resolution of problems with supervision.
become “a quasi-agent of management in enforcing the collective bargaining agreement and company rules.” This is what Glaberman called becoming a contract policeman.
give their primary allegiance to the union and its official policies, rather than to their constituents. Since the steward must rely on the good will of union officials to process those grievances (and for possible advancement into the union hierarchy) they are schooled in obedience. That’s a distasteful situation; the result is a gravitational pull toward more identification with union officials and less with the “unreasonable” expectations of members.
Thus,
American stewards as a collectivity remain adrift, lacking spokesperson, tradition, and ideology. The collective bargaining agreement, union structures and bylaws, and recession, not to say management, militate against an increase in the authority of stewards…. Unable to cope with the structural problems causing work discontent, he has become primarily a manager of discontent [this was a phrase C. Wright Mills had used in 1949 to refer to union officials], often going through the motions of conflict rather than dealing with its substance.
A British Comparison
Already, in 1984, the power of British stewards was being curtailed by their national unions and the pressure of Thatcherism. Still, those British stewards retained more power and autonomy. Why? Probably most important was that national agreements were mostly silent on questions of managerial authority - that was determined by negotiations within the workplace. Unlike in most American contracts, grievance procedures were voluntary, and could be supplemented or superseded by workplace action. While in the United States workers are told to “comply [with management’s order] and grieve,” in Britain, “many unions insist on a provision in the agreement, or follow customs and practices, requiring the preservation of the status quo… the practice that existed before the grievance is continued until settlement of the grievance.”
Further, the “organizational integrity” of the unions themselves was much more dependent on the activity of their stewards. Because there was no “exclusive representation” in British labor law, individual workers could switch unions at any time, if they felt their shop floor representation was inadequate. It was the steward that signed up members into the union and collected dues - here, both of those functions are automatically handled by management. (In American public employee unions, since the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, enrollment is no longer automatic.)
Is There Hope?
Nash, like many writers on the labor movement, tries to maintain a sense of optimism. In the past, “rank-and-file leaders were able spontaneously to assert their demands under the most trying historical circumstances.” Pressure from workers to improve the quality of work life continues unabated. In the face of declining economic circumstances, new union leaders will surely recognize that the role of the stewards will have to be enlarged to re-energize the rank-and-file. In these circumstances, “it would be surprising if the steward did not strive to reassert his or her rights.”
As this substack’s readers know, I am skeptical of pollyanna-ish claims that relief and respite is just around the corner. Still, in Nash’s analysis of what has gone wrong - and what was different in Britain - we can see some of the elements necessary to build more powerful steward systems; the path to them, though, is difficult.
In Part 4, I’ll summarize some of the key elements underlying the powerful and aggressive stewards Huw Beynon describes in Working for Ford, and present some of my own conclusions.
“Back to the Stone Age” - American Precedents
Roosevelt: Firebombing of Tokyo; Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Truman: “US bombing destroyed 95 percent of North Korea’s power generation capacity and more than 80 percent of its buildings.”
Johnson: “On 31 December 1967, the Department of Defense announced that 864,000 tons of American bombs had been dropped on North Vietnam during Rolling Thunder {1965-67], compared with 653,000 tons dropped during the entire Korean War and 503,000 tons in the Pacific theater during the Second World War.”
Nixon: “Christmas [1972] Bombings” of Hanoi and Haiphong. This is one I personally remember. In the lead-up to the 1972 election, Nixon and Kissinger had announced a peace agreement with the North Vietnamese. In early December, Nixon pulled the agreement off the table, claiming resistance from the South Vietnamese government, and demanding better terms. North Vietnam refused, and the bombing of the two largest cities in North Vietnam commenced. As Wikipedia notes, “On 27 January 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed along the same terms as the initial October agreement.”
In my view, Nixon’s claim of seeking new terms was a ruse to send a message to other nations that they better not cross the United States. Even when it loses a war, it is prepared to wreck destruction and devastation.
The “Second World” and the Iran War
Last week, I wrote about the possible re-orientation of Asia toward Iran. Clearly, Iran is working toward this end, with its announcement this week that passage through the Strait, and transit fees, will be based on “friendly,” “neutral ,” or “unfriendly” status, and its confirmed negotiations about passage with Oman, which controls the other, but shallower, side of the Strait.
Today, briefly on the “Second World,” a term Mao Zedong used in the early 1970s for (Western) Europe, Japan, Australia, and Canada, industrialized/developed/capitalist nations that Mao hoped would detach themselves from alliance with, and support for, the United States. That hope was largely illusory then; today, with the United States both weaker yet more truculent, those waters are muddier. On the one hand, we saw the rhetorical support for the speech of the Canadian Prime Minister Carney that “integration” into the American hegemonic system has become “the source of… subordination.” Yet just a month later, Carney issued a declaration of support for the United States in its sneak attack, assassination campaign, and war on Iran. A month after that, Carney announced new sanctions against Iran because “Canada will not tolerate actions that undermine regional and international peace and security.”
Similarly, the European Union waffles. One notable example is its “Joint statement on the situation in Lebanon.” There, while “call[ing] on Israel to avoid a further widening of the conflict including through a ground operation on Lebanese territory,” it avers that, “the responsibility for this situation lies with Hezbollah.” The statement “strongly condemn[s} all recent attacks on UNIFIL contingents,” but uses the passive voice to avoid mentioning the Israeli perpetrators. Nor does it mention the almost daily violations of the 2024 Lebanon truce agreement and the 2025 Gaza truce agreement by Israel.
Breaking: Earlier this morning, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced “she would seek talks with the Iranian government, perhaps as soon as Wednesday.”
On the one hand, the “Second World” governments clearly recognize that the United States is the source of many of their troubles. On the other hand, old habits die hard.
A Blast From the [Recent] Past
I ran across this just recently shuttered gas station in South Yonkers on Saturday