Fruits of Their Labor
Undergraduates connect the power and problems of union organizing to inequality

Fall 2006, Volume 28, Number 1

A striking Congress Hotel worker

Inviting a union organizer, a striking hotel worker, and a labor historian to speak, the spring 2006 Undergraduate Lecture Series on Race, Poverty and Inequality (ULRPI) covered the topic of “The Future of Labor Organizing in America” in May.

ULRPI is a student-run organization dedicated to engaging other undergraduates in a dialogue on some of America’s most persistent problems, focusing on the roles that policy-oriented research and activism play. IPR co-sponsors the organization, which is part of the Northwestern Community Development Corps.

A Union View

Keynote speaker Anna Burger, leader of the Change to Win Coalition, discussed the continuing need to organize more workers during her May 17 lecture, “It’s Time to Make Work Pay.”

Change to Win, which represents six million workers, was formed when four unions withdrew from AFL-CIO in July 2005, including the Service Employees International Union and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Burger pointed out the main reason behind the split—a perceived overemphasis in the AFL-CIO on electoral politics rather than grassroots tactics to add more union members. Currently, one in eight workers are unionized, versus one in three some 40 years ago, she said.

“Wages are stagnant, health-care costs have gone up, housing has gone up,” Burger said, enumerating some of the difficulties workers face today. “Productivity has gone up 68 percent, but wages haven’t.” She linked the lack of a unified worker voice to poor working conditions, low wages, and ever-
diminishing benefits.

An Academic View

On May 12, IPR Faculty Associate Nancy MacLean, professor of history and African American studies, outlined how the labor movement has created more equality in the workplace. “Most history books and classes never give labor the kind of attention it deserves,” she said.

MacLean talked about some of the research from her recent book, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Harvard University Press, 2006).

American workers have unions to thank for the 40-hour workweek, paid vacations, pensions, and Social Security among other benefits, MacLean emphasized. While unions have had their share of problems, they have also demonstrated how to use the democratic power of numbers to “help David fight Goliath,” she said. “Solidarity is the only way to gain fundamental change.”

A Worker’s View

Speaking through an interpreter, striking hotel worker and union member José Alvarado expressed his hope on May 12 that the actions of Chicago’s Congress Hotel employees would serve as an example to hotel workers of what can be done and how they can fight.

Alvarado put a human face on a strike that has dragged on since 2003 when the Congress Hotel’s final contract offer cut wages 7 percent and slashed benefits. “Every worker deserves dignity and respect regardless of nationality and color,” he said.

For more information, please visit http://groups.northwestern.edu/ulrpi/.