Sept. / Oct. 2006

Power to the people

Workers mobilize other workers to political action

Photos: GEORGE WALDMAN

Vince Vincentini of UAW Local 600

Cassandra Wade, UAW Local 6000 Worker-to-Worker coordinator, foreground, with Anthony McNeil, who works in the Michigan Department of Human Services, and Consuelo Cleveland, from the Department of Treasury.

The same strategy the UAW uses for organizing new members works just as well for mobilizing existing members around political campaigns. It’s called Worker-to-Worker, and it’s working pretty well in Region 1A.

The Michigan region covers most of Wayne County (including part of Detroit), Monroe and Washtenaw counties, and extends to the Ohio border.

Two veteran Worker-to-Worker coordinators can testify to that – Cassandra Wade of UAW Local 6000, which represents 17,000 mostly white-collar state workers throughout Michigan, and Vince Vincentini of UAW Local 600, which represents 13,000 mostly blue-collar workers in Dearborn, Mich.

Both have been active educating and mobilizing co-workers around political action almost from the inception of Worker-to-Worker. In 1999 the UAW International Executive Board approved the program and urged all locals to commit staff, leadership and membership to its implementation.

The goal of Worker-to-Worker is to build power in the political arena in order to win victories around such issues as national health care, fair trade and the right to organize, critical concerns of workers that cannot be won through negotiations with individual employers.

As UAW President Walter Reuther learned from his father who heard it from the revered labor leader Eugene Debs, “There is a relation between the bread box and the ballot box. What we want to achieve must be won not only in the workplace but in the political arena as well.”

One-on-one communication plays a big part in successful organizing drives because when people talk to each other they realize they are not alone in their struggles. This technique works with organized members, too, in finding common ground around political issues.

“Worker-to-Worker is about talking with workers in their workplace and tying it to community action. The most important part of the program is getting people’s feedback. People like to give their ideas, and they don’t like to be told what to do,” says Wade, who was a probation/parole officer in Detroit before becoming a full-time steward-at-large.

“Because people don’t like to be told how to vote, we don’t do that. We just give them information they can use to help make up their own minds,” Wade says.

The Local 6000 Worker-to-Worker program began in 2001 the year before the local kicked off a petition campaign to get a pro-union referendum placed on the 2003 Michigan ballot. Local 6000 and other public employee unions were trying to win collective-bargaining and binding arbitration rights for state workers.

“Since it was tied to an issue members cared strongly about, it wasn’t hard to get volunteers,” Wade recalled. More than 70 percent of Local 6000 stewards in Wade’s Detroit district volunteered to become part of the phone tree-like structure that eventually reached out to every one of the 7,000 state workers in Region 1A.

The vote was close, but the state workers’ referendum lost.

“It was a pretty hard loss to take,” Wade says. “But we have kept our Worker-to-Worker structure going so we can address other issues members care about, such as affirmative action, minimum wage and national health care.”

An electrician for 34 years at Ford World Headquarters and the Ford Rouge Complex in Dearborn, Vincentini recruited his fellow Employee Resource Coordinators when he was asked by his president to set up a Worker-to-Worker structure for the 1,100 member maintenance and construction unit at Local 600.

“Worker-to-Worker is a much-needed program because so many workers are totally disconnected from politics and government,” Vincentini says. “They view politics as a spectator sport and choose not to get involved. But the outcome from politics can have a deep impact on their lives. Football is a spectator sport where if you lose you might feel bad, but the next day life goes on,” he said.

Wade and Vincentini have words of advice to local unions starting their own Worker-to-Worker programs. “Just remember it’s going to be difficult to keep things going, especially after the initial excitement wears off. But you have to find ways to stay in contact with people consistently, even if it’s by e-mail,” Wade said.

“It’s absolutely crucial you have the buy-in from elected leadership. Some of them may not want to get involved in politics because they think it will hurt their chances for re-election,” says Vincentini. “But when they see the membership’s positive response to the union taking action around important issues, the leadership will definitely see that Worker-to-Worker is the way to go.”

Sam Stark