You are on page 1of 22

COALITION POLITICS

LABOR AND COALITION POLITICS: The Progressive Alliance


by Andrew Battista

In late 1978 Douglas Fraser, then President of the United Auto Workers, assembled a new national coalition of over 100 organizations from the labor, civil rights, feminist, environmental, citizen action, and other movements. Called the Progressive Alliance, this coalition was established to "create an alternative to the direction in which our country appears headed" and to "develop and implement new programs for achieving social, political and economic justice in America.'" The formation of the Progressive Alliance generated considerable enthusiasm and hope among its member groups. But the Alliance was disbanded less than three years from the date of its founding, having made at most a minor impact on U.S. politics. Brief and disappointing though it was, the experience of the Progressive Alliance warrants examination, for it sheds light on two important themes: the problems and prospects of coalition-building among liberal and progressive political forces, and the recent history and politics of the liberal wing of the U.S. labor movement. The origins of the Progressive Alliance lay in three developments: 1) defeat of the Labor Law Reform bill, which dramatized the destabilization of the postwar accord between capital and labor; 2) the failure of the Carter administration to enact the Democratic Party's 1976 platform; and 3) political divisions in the labor leadership during the 1970s.
'Progressive Alliance, "Statement of Principles," Jan. 15, 1979. Unless otherwise identified, all documents (memos, letters, minutes of meetings, reports, position papers, brochures, etc.) referred to in these notes are part of a documentary collection from the Progressive Alhance that was stored in the Washington, DC, office of the UAW and that is now in the author's possession. I wish to thank Mr. Bill Dodds, formerly Executive Director of the Progressive Alliance, and the staff of the UAW Washington office for helping me to track down this collection and for consenting to put it in my possession. Research for this paper was facilitated by a Presidential Grant-in-Aid and a Research Development Committee Grant from East Tennessee State Univ.

LABOR HISTORY

Douglas Fraser's decision to organize the Progressive Alliance sprang most directly from the defeat of the Labor Law Reform bill by Senate filibuster in late June 1978. Organized labor's top legislative priority for the 95th Congress, the modest bill sought only to prevent employer defiance of labor law in order to make effective the existing right of workers to organize and bargain collectively.^ It nonetheless suffered defeat in a Democratic Senate "at the hands of an unprecedentedly broad coalition of business groups" which waged against the bill "one of the most intense legislative campaigns in the history of Congress."^ A critical role in this campaign was played by the nation's largest corporations, including many in the Labor-Management Group and the Business Roundtable, ostensibly political centers of corporate pragmatism." Douglas Fraser was the first labor leader to act in response to this defeat, initially by resigning from the Labor-Management Group, a private consensus-building and advisory body composed of corporate executives and union officials.* In his July 1978 letter of resignation Fraser denounced the campaign as "the most vicious, unfair attack upon the labor movement in more than 30 years" and as evidence that "leaders of the business community, with few exceptions, have chosen to wage a one-sided class war today in this country . . ."* Fraser's letter announced the UAW's intention to "reforge links with those who believe in struggle" and to "form new coalitions."^ This was the first public declaration of Fraser's plan to organize the Progressive Alliance; two months later it was formally launched. As David Brody has argued, the genesis of the Progressive Alliance can be traced to the destabilization of the postwar settlement between capital and labor:* under this accord unions gained organizational security and workers the prospect of negotiated increases in wages and benefits along with a system of industrial jurisprudence at the workplace; in return business secured industrial stability and guarantees of
'On the Labor Law Reform bill see the series by Philip Shabecoff in the New York Times, April 29, May 15, May 25, June 18,1978; Congressional Quarterly Almanac, vol. 34,1978,284-287and Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, "Labor U w Reform and Its Enemies," The Nation Jan. 6-13, 1979. ^The first quoted phrase is from Ferguson and Rogers, 1; the second is from Thomas B Edsall The New Politics of Inequality (New York, 1984), 128. 'Ibid. 'On the Labor-Management Group see William T. Moye, "Presidential Labor-Management Committees: Productive Failures," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Oct. 1980, 51-66 'Douglas Fraser, letter of resignation from the Labor-Management Group, July 17, 1978. The text of Fraser's letter, together with an accompanying UAW press release, was reprinted in Radical History, Fall 1978, 117-122. 'Ibid. David Brody, 'The Uses of Power II: Political Action," chapt. 6 of his Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the 20th Century Struggle (New York, 1980); see especially pp. 245-251.

COALITION POLITICS

^03

its "managerial prerogatives" (i.e., its unilateral right to decide strategic business issues such as pricing, investment, location of production, and technical change).' The defeat of Labor Law Reform registered the breakdown of the economic and political balance of forces that had sustained this accommodation. Fraser himself viewed this defeat as proof that business had "broken and discarded the fragile, unwritten compact previously existing during a period of growth and progress.'"". Of equal or greater importance to the formation of the Progressive Alliance was the failure of the Carter administration and the Democratic majorities in Congress to enact key planks of the Party's 1976 platform. Fraser and other labor and liberal leaders viewed that platform as "progressive," so they expected major legislative gains when the Democratic Party captured the White House and retained its substantial Congressional majorities in the 1976 elections." By 1978, however, many of these leaders were bitterly disappointed, not only by defeat of Labor Law Reform but also by defeat of common situs picketing, by lack of progress toward national health insurance, and by the results of Presidential and/or Congressional action on the minimum wage, the Humphrey-Hawkins full employment bill, tax reform, and energy policy." What Fraser termed the "irresponsibility" of the Democratic Party's elected officials toward the 1976 platform was one of the central problems that the Progressive Alliance was formed to address." In Fraser's view, the failure of the Democratic Party to enact its progressive 1976 platform reflected three underlying problems in the institutional and political structure of the Party. The first was the growing influence of business in the Party, due to its "money power" and to an increasingly bipartisan corporate political strategy.'" The second problem was the absence of institutional mechanisms by which the
'I have obviously depicted the postwar labor-management settlement in only the most schematic terms. For elaborate and persuasive analyses of the nature and development of this accommodation see: David Brody, "The Uses of Power I: Industrial Battleground," chapt. 5 of Workers in Industrial America; Thomas A. Kochan, Harry C. Katz, and Robert B. McKersie, The Thinsformation of American Industrial Relations (New York, 1986), chapt. 2; and Richard Edwards and Michael Podgursky, "The Unravelling Accord: American Unions in Crisis," chapt. 1 of Richard Edwards, Paolo Garonna, and Franz Todtling, eds.. Unions in Crisis and Beyond: Perspectives from Six Countries (Dover, MA, 1986). '"Fraser, letter of resignation. "Douglas Fraser, telephone interview, April 8, 1987. "UAW Washington Report, Oct. 1978, 3; U.S. News and World Report, Oct. 9, 1978, 80. For an analysis of labor's record in the House during the 95th Congress see Marcus D. Pohlman and George S. Crisci, "Support for Organized Labor in the House of Representatives: The 89th and 95th Congresses," Political Science Quarterly, Winter, 1982-83, 639-652. "Douglas Fraser, letter of invitation to the initial planning meeting of the Progressive Alliance, Sept. 19, 1978; Douglas Fraser, telephone interview, April 8, 1987. "Fraser, letter of invitation; Douglas Fraser, "Revitalized left needed for principled politics against corporate power," In These Times, June 6-12, 1979, 18.

LABOR HISTORY

Party's elected officials could be held accountable for enactment of the Party platform, a problem symptomatic, in Fraser's view, of the deplorable lack of principle and responsibility in the U.S. party system.'' These two ultimately rested on a third and fundamental problem: the fragmentation of liberal political forces, which dissipated their potential power in the Democratic Party. Hence a "principal motivation" in Fraser's decision to form the Alliance was the need to coordinate progressive political forces in order to assert their full collective power in the Democratic Party." Finally, the origins of the Progressive Alliance lay in the internal politics of the union movement, specifically in divisions in the labor leadership during the 1970s. The areas of tension included: the Vietnam war; the relationship of labor to the Democratic Party; the relationship between organized labor and the new social movements (the antiwar, civil rights, women's, and environmental movements); George Meany's leadership of the AFL-CIO. At some risk of oversimplification, these disputes tended to align the top leadership of the AFL-CIO (its executive officers and Executive Council majority), with its base in the building and construction trades unions, against a bloc of liberal and progressive labor leaders drawn from unions in the manufacturing, public, and private service sectors.*^ Particularly divisive was a series of decisions by the Federation leadership regarding labor's relationship to the Democratic Party. First, the AFL-CIO opposed the reform process initiated in the Party after
Fraser, letter of resignation; Fraser, letter of invitation; Fraser, "Revitalized left needed F;raser had been concerned with these and other problems in the party and electoral systems since he assumed the Presidency of the UAW in 1977. In that year Fraser initiated a series ot meetings between top UAW officials and a group of academic social scientists-including among others Lee Benson, George Gerbner, Joel Fleischman, Ira Katznelson, and Christopher Arterton-to discuss problems in (and reforms of) the party system and electoral process such as voter registration laws, the low and class-skewed rates of voter turnout, campaign tinance, the absence of a strong issue orientation in election campaigns, and the lack of party responsibility. Although these meetings were soon terminated by decision of the UAW txecutive Board, they were an important influence in the formation of the Progressive Alliance. Many of the academic participants in the meetings subsequently played significant roles in the Alhance, and the discussions in the 1977 meetings influenced the Alliance program. Don StiUman, interview, July 17, 1986, Washington, DC; Stephen Schlossberg, telephone interview. Mar. 26, 1987; Lee Benson, telephone interviews. May 9, June 12 1987 Fraser, telephone interview, April 8,1987; Douglas Fraser, "Functions of the Progressive Alh1T t^'^^ memo of May 3, 1979; Michael Harrington, telephone interview, April 13, 1987. 7 Information on the intra-labor divisions of the 1970s may be found in Philip Foner, American Uiborandthe Indochina War: The Growth of Union Opposition (New York, 1971); John Herhng, Change and Conflict in the AFL-CIO,'')isse/i/, Fall 1974,479-485; Graham Wilson Unions in American National Politics (London, 1979); and Andrew Battista "Political f T T / i " Organized Ubor, 1968-1988," paper presented to the 1989 Annu'al Meeting (W- Midwest Pohtical Science Association, Chicago, April 13-15, forthcoming Polity

COALITION POLITICS

405

1968; second, it refused to endorse or campaign for George McGovern as the Party's Presidential candidate in 1972; and third, it renounced involvement in the Party's 1976 Presidential nomination process.** Unable to abide the marginalized role in the Democratic Party to which these decisions relegated organized labor, the liberal unions acted in defiance of them as an informal labor caucus in support of the Party's reform process, formed the Labor Committee for McGovern in 1972, and established the Labor Coalition Clearinghouse to coordinate their participation in the 1976 Democratic nomination process." It was these liberal unions that formed the core of the Progressive Alliance. In addition to the UAW, this group included the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), International Association of Machinists (IAM), National Education Association (NEA), Communications Workers of America (CWA), Graphic Arts International (GAIU), United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW). These unions organized the Progressive Alliance, provided the bulk of its funding, occupied its strategic leadership and staff positions, and retained a controlling influence over its agenda and activities.^" Without denying the specific and central role of Douglas Fraser and the UAW, the formation of the Progressive Alliance must be understood as an effort by a larger bloc of liberal unions to establish a framework for labor politics outside the confines of the AFL-CIO. The origins of the Progressive Alliance suggest that its nature and potential significance were threefold. First, the Alliance was conceived as an anti-corporate political coalition and as an alternative for labor to collaboration with business. Second, the Alliance was established as a progressive reform caucus in the Democratic Party in order to promote "party reform aimed at creating a stronger, more accountable, more ideological Democratic Party" and the "transformation of the Democratic Party into a genuinely progressive people's party."" Third, the Alliance represented a bid by the liberal labor leadership to con"William Crotty, Party Reform (New York, 1983), especially chapt. 7 and 131-133; Wilson, chapts. 2 and 3. "Ibid.; see also Alan Ehrenhalt, "The Labor Coalition and the Democrats: A Tenuous Romance," in Charles Rehmus, Doris McLaughlin, and Frederick Nesbitt, eds.. Labor and American Politics (Ann Arbor, rev. ed., 1978), 215-221. "The list of unions in this paragraph does not exhaust either the unions enrolled in the Alliance or the general category of "liberal" unions; it merely comprises the dominant unions in the Alliance, as judged by levels of participation, distribution of leadership and staff positions, and the pattern of financial support for the Alliance. Both documentary and interview evidence confirm the claims made in this paragraph about the unions that formed the core and directive group in the AUiance. "Fraser, letter of invitation.

LABOR HISTORY

Struct a political role for labor distinct from that played by the AFLCIO. At the first meeting ofthe Progressive Alliance, in Detroit in midOctober 1978, some delegates proposed the organization of a new political party." The Alliance never officially ruled out this option." However, the third party option was not a live strategic issue in the Alliance and was never seriously discussed.^" At the initial meeting Douglas Fraser had declared that a third party was "not a good idea at the present time; it just wouldn't work."" Even apart from Fraser's opposition, there was no substantial support in the Alliance for a third party venture. But if the Alliance was bound by the pre-existing commitments of its partners to be a Democratic coalition, it was at the same time a coalition born of rising dissatisfaction with the current drift of the Party. In launching the Alliance, Fraser proposed that reform or transformation ofthe Democratic Party should be the coalition's strategy." Thus the formation of the Alliance was an attempt to establish a progressive caucus in the Democratic Party in order to reform its structure and program. The Alliance pursued this party-caucus strategy in four principal ways. First, the Alliance sought to coordinate the political forces on the Democratic Party's liberal wing. In the view of Fraser and others, organizational fragmentation and political competition among liberal forces had weakened them and made the Party vulnerable to business and conservative influence. By providing an organizational mechanism to aggregate the interests and coordinate the activities of liberal forces, the Alliance sought to make possible a reassertion of their power in the Democratic Party. Fraser conceived this task of coordination as one of rehabilitating the old liberal-labor alliance and relating it to newer groups and movements among youth, minorities, and women.^^ Second, the Alliance promoted a more progressive agenda and program for the Democratic Party. The Alliance staff prepared position papers on such issues as the proposed balanced budget amendment, national health insurance, plant closures, state and local tax reform, and the Equal Rights Amendment and distributed them among Party leaders and activists by means of a computerized mailing list of some 20,000 persons." At the 1980 Democratic National Convention the Al"Soiidarity, Oct. 15-30, 1978, 5. {Solidarity is a journal published by the UAW.) "Political Process Commission, "Mandate for the Subcommission on Political Parties," Jan.
16, I70O.

"Christopher Arterton, telephone interview, April 3, 1987. "Solidarity, Oct. 15-30, 1978, 5. "Fraser, letter of invitation, 3, and the "Tentative Agenda" appended to this letter. Traser, telephone interview, April 8,1987; Fraser, "Functions of the Progressive Alliance"- Michael Harrington, telephone interview, April 13, 1987. "Douglas Fraser, 'Tunctions ofthe Progressive Alliance"; "Notes of 4/23/79 Meeting" (unsigned

COALITION POLITICS

407

liance submitted an "Economic Bill of Rights," that proposed "extending to all citizens the basic elements of a decent existence" by means of publicly guaranteed economic rights to employment, a living wage, decent housing, medical care, a quality education, adequate social insurance, and others." The Alliance failed to win its incorporation in the 1980 platform. For more long-term programmatic influence in the Democratic Party, the Alliance established an Issues Commission to generate innovative solutions to economic and social issues and to integrate them into a comprehensive agenda and program.^" Prominent intellectuals were recruited; however, such work as the Commission accomplished was not widely circulated in the Democratic Party." Third, the Alliance moved to develop linkages with the Democratic Party's liberal and progressive candidates and public officials. The Progressive Issues Project was intended to provide a source of intellectual and political support for Democratic candidates and officials, especially at state and local levels. Also, at the time of its demise the Alliance had under consideration a proposal to organize a Progressive Caucus in the Congress; the Alliance would supply this Caucus with policy advice and political support while the Caucus could press the Alliance's legislative and budgetary goals." These examples indicate some inclination to establish the Alliance as an organizational base for the coordination and support of liberal candidates and officials in the Democratic party.'* Fourth and lastly, the Alliance sought institutional reform of the Democratic Party to ensure the accountability of Party officeholders for enactment of the Party platform. The objective of "platform accountability" was the pivot of Fraser's conception of the Democratic Party as a "responsible party," one that would be ideologically coherent, programmatically oriented, organizationally strong, and accountable , to its members.^" At the 1980 Democratic National Convention the Alnotes of Alliance staff planning meeting); memo from Edgar James to Stephen Schlossberg and Don StiUman, April 9, 1979. "Progressive Alliance, "Democratic Credo: Economic Bill of Rights" (no date). ^"Progressive Alliance, "Instructions for the Commissions," Jan. 14, 1979. ^'Among the intelleauals recniited to serve on the Issues Commission were Marcus Raskin, Richard Barnet, Robert Borosage, William Cannon, Wassily Leontief f, David Gordon, Leonard Rapping, Martin Camoy, and Hazel Henderson. Memo from Marcus Raskin and Jacob dayman to Issues Commission, May 19, 1980; Marcus Raskin, "Issues Commission Report" to the Progressive Alliance Executive Board, Oct. 29, 1980. "Marcus Raskin, memo of April 9, 1980. "Fraser himself was thinking along these lines, judged by his memo "Functions of the Progressive Alliance." " O n Fraser's and the Alliance's advocacy of "party responsibility" see Fraser, letter of invitation; Fraser, "Revitalized left needed . . . "; and Progressive Alliance, "Statement of Principles."

LABOR HISTORY

liance submitted a "Resolution for a Commission on Party Accountability" calling for establishment of a special Party committee to consider reforms which would "yield an effective and disciplined effort to implement the Platform of the National Democratic Party. "^' The Alliance's "Resolution" was adopted by the Convention, and subsequently the Democratic National Committee created a Platform Accountability Commission, one of whose chairpersons was Terry Herndon, a prominent member of the Alliance.^* The success of the Alliance proved a hollow victory. The Commission's final report was a mere two pages in length and confined to generalities. Of all the reform commissions created by the Democratic Party since 1968, the Platform Accountability Commission was almost certainly the least consequential." This outcome is unsurprising. The Progressive Alliance was officially disbanded before the Platform Accountability Commission began its work, leaving the Commission without an organized base of support in the Democratic Party. ^* The willingness of Fraser and other leaders to disband the Alliance after they had secured establishment of the Platform Accountability Commission apparently reflected the failure of this particular reform objective to enthuse, unify, and mobilize the various organizations and constituencies that composed the Alliance. Platform accountability and party reform were high priorities for a group of union leaders. Party activists, and intellectuals in the Alliance, but seem not to have been for other key groups in the coalition, including the civil rights and feminist organizations and the citizen action groups. The Progressive Alliance was ultimately without consequence as
Expositions of the doctrine of party responsibility may be found, among many other sources m Frank Sorauf, Party Politics in America (Boston, 5th ed., 1984), 341-344 and chapt. 16; and Richard L. Kolbe, American Political Parties: An Uncertain Future (New York, 1985) Part One. Fraser was influenced and supported in his advocacy of party responsibility by political scientists who had participated in the 1977 meetings with the UAW leadership and/or were recruited into the Alliance. (In addition to those named in note 15 above, this group also included Kenneth Prewitt and James Sundquist.) Some academic commentators on the responsible party model have claimed that there is an affinity between it and parties of the left or a preference for an interventionist state. Whether or not that is so. Alliance advocates of party responsibility viewed it as a means to a more progressive (or even social democratic) Democratic Party. "Progressive Alliance, "Resolution for a Commission on Party Accountability." "On the Platform Accountability Commission see Crotty, 37, 42-43, 107-109. Crotty's discussion, however, fails even to mention the central role of the Progressive Alliance in the establishment of the Commission. "For an account of the final report of the Platform Accountability Commission, see the National Journal, May 26, 1984, 1026. "Even had the Alliance remained in existence to support the Platform Accountability Commission, it is doubtful that genuine platform accountability would have been achieved- at the least, it would have encountered extremely formidable resistance. See Crotty, 107-109

COALITION POLITICS

409

a reform caucus in the Democratic Party. There is no evidence that it significantly influenced the structure, agenda, or program ofthe Party. This was due not only to the coalition's brief life-span, but also to problems in the Alliance's Party-caucus strategy that would have limited its effectiveness even had the Alliance endured. First, the Alliance's Party-caucus strategy was weakened or even undermined by a self-imposed prohibition on direct electoral activity by the coalition." This prohibition prevented the Alliance from enhancing its leverage over the Party's elected officials, either by presenting its own candidates or by extending or withholding support for selfdeclared candidates, and from making use ofthe opportunities afforded by primary elections to promote its agenda and program and to mobilize the Party electorate behind it. The electoral prohibition was imposed in order to defuse a potentially explosive division in the Alliance between supporters of President Carter and supporters of Senator Edward Kennedy for the 1980 Democratic Presidential nomination."" A full-fledged Party-caucus strategy required concerted participation in the Party's candidate nomination processes; but as a large and diverse coalition the Alliance was exposed to candidate rivalries and divided candidate preferences, so that intra-party electoral activity held a significant potential for disruption of the coalition. Second, the Alliance's Party-caucus strategy did not directly address one of the most fundamental sources of the waning power of liberal and progressive political forces in the Democratic Party: low, declining, and class-skewed rates of voter turnout in both primary and general elections."' These and related problems, such as voter registration laws, were formally included in the agenda of the coalition's Political Process Commission."^ In fact the Alliance never attended to these issues, which were subordinated to the drive for platform accountability. Progressive re-

"When the Progressive Alliance incorporated, it obtained a tax-exempt status that imposed a formally nonpartisan role on it and proscribed direct electoral activity. "Although disencbantment witb Carter was widespread in the Alliance, some of its member organizations eitber favored Carter's renominationa prominent example was the National Education Association, which was bound to Carter and Mondale for establishment of the Department of Educationor at least were disinclined to challenge an incumbent eligible for reelection. Douglas Fraser, "Functions of the Progressive Alliance"; Fraser, telephone interview, April 8, 1987; Terry Herndon, telephone interview, April 15, 1987; Newsweek, Oct. 30, 1978, 31. "See Walter Dean Burnham, The Current Crisis in American Politics (New York, 1983), Parts II and IV; Edsall, cbapt. 5; and Francis Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Why Americans Don't Vote (New York, Pantheon Books, 1988). "Political Process Commission, "Mandate for the Subcommission on Voter Registration and Congressional Reapportionment," January 16-17,1980; Political Process Commission, "Mandate for the Subcommission on Citizen Participation," Jan. 16-17, 1980; Bill Dodds, letter to members of the Political Process Commission, April 1, 1980.

'*1

LABOR HISTORY

form in and of the Democratic Party, if it was possible at all, required a vast expansion of the active electorate through mobilization of the growing and class-concentrated ranks of non-voters, but this was not an immediate desideratum of the Alliance. Shortly after the Progressive Alliance formed, Douglas Fraser declared corporate wealth and power the chief obstacles to equality, justice, and democracy, and "misuse of corporate power" the common enemy of all the classes and groups in the coalition. He advocated that the coalition conduct a "broad yet targeted anti-corporate offensive" in order to recast public debate around the proposition that "corporate irresponsibility is the problem" and to mobilize public support for "corporate accountability.""' As a result the Alliance initiated three projects. The first anti-corporate initiative focused on the role of corporate money in politics, and was stimulated by the explosive growth of corporate and trade association political action committees (PACs) after 1974. The Alliance's Political Process Commission planned to conduct research into the scale and significance of corporate investment in electoral politics, to publicize the issue of corporate campaign money, and to propose changes in the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA)."" In early 1980 the Alliance published its research on corporate PACs,"* but thereafter the Alliance was inactive on the issue, and no legislative campaign to amend FECA was ever mounted. A second initiative involved the development and promotion of progressive alternatives to the economic strategies and policies advanced by corporate and conservative interests in response to the stagflationary economy of the 1970s.'" This task fell to the Alliance's Issues Commission, which established an Economic Policy Subcommission headed by prominent liberal and left-wing economists."^ The Subcommission managed only to produce a few discussion papers and pamphlets, due in part to problems arising from the divergent theoretical and practical orientations of the economists who directed it."* It is noteworthy, however, that research originally commissioned by the Alliance led to one of the most important analyses of stagflation and critiques of corporate/conservative economic strategies written by left economists in
"Douglas Fraser, "Progressive Alliance Organizing Projects," memo of May 7, 1979. "Political Process Commission, "Mandate for the Subcommission on Political Parties " Edgar James, interview, Washington, DC, July 16, 1986; Bill Dodds, memo of April 1, 1980. "Fraser, "Progressive Alliance Organizing Projects"; Fraser, "Revitalized left needed . . . "; David M. Gordon, "Toward a Progressive Strategy on Economic Issues for the 1980s," Jan. 1980 (paper prepared for the Issues Commission of the Progressive Alliance). "The Economic Policy Subcommission was headed by Wassily Leontieff, David Gordon, Gar Alperovitz, and Leonard Rapping. Memo from Marcus Raskin and Jacob dayman to Issues Commission, May 19, 1980; David Gordon, telephone interview, April 17, 1987 "David Gordon, telephone interview, April 17, 1987.

COALITION POLITICS

411

the 1980s: Beyond the Waste Land: A Democratic Alternative to Economic Decline, by Samuel Bowles, David Gordon, and Thomas Weisskopf' developed a strategy of wage-led growth that the Alliance might have promoted as an alternative to pro-business programs. It should also be mentioned that in March 1980 the Alliance sponsored a well-attended conference in Washington, DC, to examine the corporate/conservative attack on social regulation and to devise strategies for the maintenance and extension of occupational, envirormiental, and consumer health and safety protections.*" The third anti-corporate initiative was carried further and conducted rather more vigorously than the other two. Prompted by influential staff members, Fraser and the Alliance's Executive Board early on committed the coalition to a campaign against the economic dislocations generated by plant closings and the mobility of private capital." While this campaign was never governed by an articulated strategy, it came to have several elements. The first step was to promote public awareness of the causes and consequences of plant closure. For this purpose the Alliance commissioned a comprehensive study of plant closures and relocations by Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison and published the resultant report in 1980 under the title Capital and Communities: The Causes and Consequences of Private Disinvestment.^^ Demand for this study was such that the Alliance reprinted it three times within six months and then published a condensed edition to widen its accessibility." (Bluestone and Harrison's report for the Alliance was later published commercially, in revised and expanded form, as The Deindustrialization of America.^'^ The Alliance also produced a radio documentary and other media projects to publicize the issue of plant closings.
"Samuel Bowles, David M. Gordon, and Thomas E. Weisskopf, Beyond the Waste Land: A Democratic Alternative to Economic Decline (Garden City, 1984). Originally published 1983. See page vi for reference to the Progressive Alliance; also, David Gordon, telephone interview, April 17, 1987. '""The Progressive Alliance," undated brochure; Progressive Alliance, "Regulatory Controversy: The Case of Health and Safety," Mar. 7 and 8, 1980 (packet of conference materials). The conference was partially funded by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. "Fraser, "Progressive Alliance Organizing Projects." Don Stillman and Edgar James were the Alliance staff members who urged Fraser to pursue a campaign on plant closings and "runaway shops." Stillman had previously published a paper on the issue: Don Stillman, "The Devastating Impact of Plant Relocations," Working Papers, 5, no. 4, July-August 1978, reprinted in Mark Green, et al, eds.. The Big Business Reader (New York, rev. ed., 1983), 137-148. "Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, Capital and Communities: The Causes and Consequences of Private Disinvestment (Washington, DC, 1980). "Raskin, "Issues Commission Report." The condensed version was Barry Bluestone, Bennett Harrison, and Lawrence Baker, Corporate Flight: The Causes and Consequences of Economic Dislocation (Washington, DC, 1981). "Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization of America- Plant Closings,

412

UBOR HISTORY

A second part of the campaign was the organization of a new laborcommunity coalition to combat plant shutdowns and relocations in Pennsylvania. In late 1979 the Alliance placed a UAW official in Philadelphia to organize a Delaware Valley Coalition for Jobs. The Coalition was successfully organized and was active in the Philadelphia area and at the state level." For whatever reasons, the Alliance did not attempt to replicate this Coalition in other communities or states. The third component was to assist and coordinate existing state and local coalitions that were seeking to control or remedy plant closings through community action, legislation, or collective bargaining. Thus the Alliance convened regional conferences on the problem of plant shutdowns and migrations in Columbus, Ohio in April 1979, in Boston in January 1980, and in Portland, Oregon in April 1980. All three conferences were heavily attended and appear to have galvanized and unified local and state-wide campaigns against plant closings in the relevant regions. Demands for more of these conferences outstripped the capacity of the Alliance to provide them." Also, in January 1980, the Alliance and the Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies jointly published a "Plant Closings Strategy Packet" designed to aid and coordinate citizen-labor coalitions across the country by providing detailed information on the status and content of federal and state plant closing laws and bills, in state and local groups active on plant closure issues, and on resources available to such groups." The fourth and final element of the Alliance's campaign comprised initial steps to promote national legislation to regulate plant closings. The Alliance released the report Capital and Communities in its entirety to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and to the House and Senate Labor Committees, and Professors Bluestone and Harrison delivered extensive testimony to the House Committee on Small Business in early 1980.** The Alliance advocated national plant closing legislation. Had the Alliance proceeded further with a national legislative

Community Abandonment, and the Dismantling of Basic Industry (New York, 1982). See page ix for the author's acknowledgment, though not by name, of the Progressive Alliance. ""The Progressive Alliance" (brochure); "Plant Closings Strategy Packet," edited by William Schweke and published jointly by the Progressive Alliance and the Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies, Jan., 1980, 6. "Raskin, "Issues Commission Report"; "Notes of 4/23/79 Meeting"; "The Progressive Alliance" (brochure); and "Plant Closings Strategy Packet." The former Executive Director of the Alliance has judged its plant closings conferences to have been very successful and of considerable impact; Bill Dodds, telephone interview, June 18, 1987. "Ibid. "Statement of Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison before the House Committee on Small Business, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Feb. 12, 1980.

COALITION POLITICS

campaign, it could have proposed the controls and remedies recommended by Bluestone and Harrison." Although the Alliance's campaign against unregulated plant closures and capital mobility was limited and inchoate, it was arguably the most significant and successful activity of any kind undertaken by the Alliance. No other Alliance activity generated an equivalent level of outside interest and response or served as well to relate the Alliance to emergent concerns and mobilizations at the grass roots. Moreover, as a broad coalition of national organizations, most of which had state and local affiliates, the Alliance was well-suited both to encourage the further formation of grass roots coalitions and then to coordinate and lead a national campaign for plant closing legislation. Promising if halting steps in this direction were taken by the Alliance before its demise. The Progressive Alliance aimed its anti-corporate initiatives at important components of business power but they were clearly limited in design and execution. It is doubtful that the Alliance would have had the will or capacity to sustain and expand its "anti-corporate offensive" had it survived. For even as the Alliance was conducting its anti-corporate politics, powerful economic pressures were driving its dominant unions away from the coalition's anti-corporate and reformist orientation. The stagflation, foreign competition and import penetration, and massive job loss in key sectors that characterized the late 1970s and early 1980s increasingly turned Alliance labor leaders toward cooperation and tactical alliances with employers in order to preserve jobs and maintain the institutional viability of unions. An early instance ofthis process, with special relevance for the Alliance, was the case of Chrysler, which was hurtling toward bankruptcy in 1979, endangering the jobs of 140,000 direct employees and union members. This prospect led Fraser and the UAW to lobby jointly with Chrysler to secure Federal loan guarantees, to negotiate major wage concessions to the firm, and to assume a seat on the Chrysler board of directors.*" According to one Alliance leader, this pattern of UAWChrysler cooperation, however necessary, served to moderate or even reverse the anti-corporate rhetoric that had pervaded Fraser's inauguration of the Progressive Alliance." While the Chrysler case was unique in many respects, two other examples illustrate the general tendency of foreign competition and im"Bluestone and Harrison, Capital and Communities, chapt. 8. 'See Robert B. Reich and John D. Donahue, New Deals: The Chrysler Revival and the American System (New York, 1986). "Bill Dodds, interview, July 14, 1986, Washington, DC. For a different view see 'UAW seat on Chrysler Board: What It Means for Workers," Solidarity, Nov. 19, 1979.

LABOR HISTORY

port penetration to turn many Alliance unions toward protectionism and political coalitions with business on trade issues. First, after 1978 the UAW entered into a lobbying coalition with the Big Three domestic automakers to obtain quotas on Japanese auto imports; by 1981 this joint effort had led to "voluntary restraint" by Japan." In search of a more long-term solution, for several years after 1980 the primary legislative objective of the UAW was "domestic content" legislation to require that a percentage of all cars sold in the U.S. market be composed of American-produced parts." Second, in 1980 eight of the leading unions in the Alliance also joined the Labor-Industry Coalition for International TVade (LICIT), an alliance of large firms and unions in basic industry that sought more aggressive trade policies, trade law enforcement, and Federal assistance to industry in order to advance the competitive position of U.S. business." A 1983 LICIT report declared that". . . cooperative efforts by industry and labor, such as the LaborIndustry Coalition for International TVade, have convinced those of us involved that an often surprisingly broad range of consensus exists (or can be developed) among labor, management, and government on issues affecting the future of American industry."" Furthermore, stagflation and deindustrialization also led many Alliance and other labor leaders to favor the development of corporatist arrangements for management of the political economy. In order to control the burst of inflation in the later 1970s, Alliance labor leaders like Fraser and William Winpisinger, President of the Machinists union, called for a national incomes policy in which wages, prices, and all types of income would be subject to controls negotiated among business, labor, and government; admitting that business might not be prepared to accept the new "social contract" entailed in such an incomes policy, Fraser indicated that "if [industry] were willing to take that step, I'd be willing to work with them."" In the 1980s most labor leaders advocated a national industrial policy in which representatives of business, labor, and government would in concert plan microeconomic and capital allocation policies to shape the pace and direction of industrial development. For organized labor such an industrial policy seemed to hold the promise of preserving jobs in unionized manufacturing sectors

"Reich and Donahue, 244-245. "Edsall, 171; I.M. Destler, American Thide Politics (Washington, DC and New York, 1986) 72-73 " O n LICIT see Kevin P. Phillips, Staying on Top: Winning the Ttade War (New York] 1986) 30-33, 70-71, 149. ' "Ibid., 101. ""Interview: Douglas Fraser," Challenge, Mar.-April 1979,33-39; "Interview: William Winpisinger " Challenge, Mar.-April 1978, 44-53.

COALITION POLITICS

415

and of enhancing labor's control over the industrial process even without increasing union coverage of the work force." The movement of the Alliance's core unions in these latter directions almost certainly weakened their commitment to the strategy of anti-corporate reformism and contributed to the dissolution of the Alliance. Thus the critical limitation on the Alliance's prospects as an anti-corporate, reformist coalition was the weak, defensive, and beleagured position of the labor movement at the time. The most imperative pressures on Alliance and other unions in this period were to protect unionized industries, preserve jobs, and maintain their own institutional viability, and the most expedient means to these defensive ends were (or were thought to be) alliances with business, protectionism, and corporatist planning arrangements. However, if such strategies were expedient or even dictated in the short-run, in the longer run they were unlikely to lift labor out of its weak and defensive position, for they held little or no potential to reverse the two most crucial determinants of labor's limited and waning industrial and political power: the low and declining rate of union coverage of the labor force, and the political demobilization of the working class.** On April 15, 1981, two years and six months after its founding meeting, the Executive Board of the Progressive Alliance officially dissolved the coalition. In a letter announcing the decision Fraser explained that "It did not seem possible . . . to sustain an appropriate level of interest and funding for the continuation of the Alliance."" The Executive Board's action was foreshadowed several weeks earlier when Fraser decided that he could not continue as chair of the Alliance.^" Indeed, since the Alliance had already been inactive for some months, the Board's decision seems merely to have confirmed that the Alliance was a defunct organization. Yet, it might have been possible to salvage the Alliance at the time the Executive Board acted. Prior to the Board's decision, a plan had emerged whereby Terry Herndon, Executive Director of the National Education Association, would succeed Fraser as chair ofthe Alliance. The plan had Fraser's approval, at least initially, and many members

"Edsall, 237-238. "On thefirstof these problems see Richard B. Freeman and James L. Medoff, What Do Unions Do? (New York, 1984); and Michael Goldfield, The Decline of Organized Labor in the United States (Chicago, 1987); on the latter see especially Piven and Cloward. "Douglas Fraser, letter of April 27, 198L "Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover, "Liberal Alliance Falls Apart at Strange Time," The Washington Star, Mar. 23, 1981.

LABOR HISTORY

of the Alliance felt strongly that the coalition should be preserved. The succession plan was nevertheless blocked, vetoed by some Alliance unions." Whatever the merits and potential of the succession plan, it is undeniable that by early 1981 the Progressive Alliance was in a state of disrepair and immobility, and that there was insufficient support among Alliance unions to maintain the coalition. What explains the decay and dissolution of the Alliance? To begin with, the history of the Alliance does not suggest that its decline was a function of an inherent incompatibility of interests among its member groups. Certainly coalition-building was complicated by the social diversity, organizational autonomy, and specificity of interests of the main Alliance constituencies (e.g., labor, women, minorities), and some issues did prove, or would in time have proved, divisive in the Alliance. But with the partial exception of the CarterKennedy split, which was managed, there is no evidence that the Alliance was ever plagued by explosive conflicts of interest or principle or that its demise was a consequence of disputes over substantive issues." A more signiflcant source of decay, according to some former members of the Alliance, lay in the unequal power relations among the key groups in the coalition. In this view, the dominant position and role of the unions impaired coalition-building; above all it reduced the interest and participation of important non-labor groups, notably the civil rights and some feminist organizations, by relegating them to a token role and by limiting the coalition's agenda to labor's priorities." Union dominance undoubtedly shaped the dynamics of coalitionbuilding in the Alliance, and very likely weakened it. The Alliance unions did not use their controlling position to shape the coalition's agenda around the speciflc institutional or segmental interests of labor; such issues as US. trade policy or Federal labor law were never even raised in the Alliance. However, while Alliance labor leaders sought to em-

"Terry Herndon, telephone interview, April 15, 1987; Bill Dodds, telephone interview, June 18, 1987. Both Herndon and Dodds are of the opinion that it was the opposition of the top leadership of the AFL-CIO to Herndon and NEA that led a few Alliance unions to veto the plan. The NEA was then and remains outside the AFL-CIO. Douglas Fraser has since argued that the Executive Board decision to dissolve the Alliance was the right thing to do, though he has freely granted that the decision was criticized and that many Alliance members, including some on the Executive Board, believed that the coalition should have been preserved. Douglas Fraser, telephone interview, April 8, 1987. "Christopher Arterton argued persuasively in an interview that the history and demise of the Alliance were not most fruitfully approached in terms of divisions and conflicts of interest within the coalition. Christopher Arterton, telephone interview, April 3, 1987. "Rademase Cabrera, interview, July 16, 1986, Washington, DC; Joann Howse, interview, July 15, 1986, Washington, DC; see also Germond and Witcover, "Liberal Alliance Falls Apart at Strange Time."

COALITION POLITICS

417

phasize the common interests of the coalition's partners, they defined these in terms of traditional party and class/economic issues (hence the emphasis on reform of the Democratic Party and on anti-corporate initiatives), into which gender, racial, environmental, and other priorities were not fully assimilated. Thus the problem of union dominance was not that it permitted labor to pursue particularistic interests but that it permitted labor to deflne the coalition's general interests. Insofar as it hampered coalition-building in the Alliance, union dominance was an intractable problem because it was rooted in the unmatched (within the Alliance) financial resources of the coalition's unions. A more equal distribution of power and decision-making in the Alliance would have required a more equal distribution of the financial costs of the coalition, but it is not clear that this could have been achieved in practice. On balance, however, the damage from unequal power relations was limited, and was more a potential threat to the long-term viability of the Alliance than a direct cause of its actual collapse. As other former leaders and participants in the Alliance have credibly argued, union dominance was acceptable to most non-labor groups, who recognized the need for a broad progressive coalition, believed that they would beneflt from it, and understood that only the unions possessed the resources necessary to sustain it.^'' In this light, the decisive source of the decay and dissolution of the Progressive Alliance lay in the shifting political objectives and strategies of its leading unions. l\vo types of programmatic and strategic reorientations among Alliance unions, both of which were occasioned by the declining economic and political situation of organized labor, initially undermined their ability to provide effective leadership to the coalition and eventually deflected them from the very strategy of coalition-building with other social movements. Most Alliance unions focussed on job preservation and industrial renewal and thus were diverted from reformist coalition-building to collaboration with employers, protectionism, and corporatist planning. Here it need only be added that this type of reorientation was especially pronounced in the case of the UAW, the founding and always the principal union in the Alliance. The looming collapse of Chrysler obviously commanded much of the UAW leadership's time and attention from at least mid-1979." More broadly, the deteriorating state of

"Terry Herndon, telephone interview, April 15, 1987; Heather Booth, telephone interview. Mar. 20, 1987; Michael Harrington, telephone interview, April 13, 1987. "Reich and Donahue, 99.

LABOR HISTORY

the domestic auto industry at the time confronted the UAW with massive membership losses: from 1979 to 1981, essentially the life-span of the Alliance, UAW membership declined from a bit over 1.5 million to just over 1.2 million.^* These problems meant that Fraser's "own union constituents were relying on him to devote his full attention to the parlous condition of the automobile industry"; a UAW official explained Fraser's decision to step down as chair of the Alliance by saying that "Our membership was not going to understand any extracurricular forays."" The second type of reorientation among Alliance unions was a growing tendency toward "labor unity" and regroupment in the AFLCIO. Once again the UAW most clearly revealed this shift. During the last year of the Progressive Alliance Fraser was involved in negotiations with the AFL-CIO leadership (and with the leadership of his own union as well) for the reaffiliation of the UAW to the Federation. The UAW approved reaffiliation through regional conventions held in April 1981, the very month the Progressive Alliance was formally disbanded, and rejoined the Federation the following June.'* The temporal coincidence of the UAW's reaffiliation and the dissolution of the Progressive Alliance led some to see a direct causal relationship between the two; others have flatly denied this." While a direct cause and effect relation is doubtful, the reaffiliation of the UAW epitomized larger tendencies that drew Alliance unions away from coalition-building with non-labor constituencies and toward a partial rapprochement with the leadership of the AFL-CIO. By the early 1980s the Alliance unions, most of which had been at odds with the Federation leadership for over a decade, had two key reasons to restore "labor unity" and regroup inside the AFL-CIO. The first was the escalating management and government offensive against unionism, ty^pified by the decertification of PATCO and the concession bargaining of 1982. The reaffiliation of the UAW to the Federation was prompted by a desire on both sides "to strengthen labor's role in American industry and politics at a time of economic distress and mounting conservative successes at federal and state levels.'"" Referring to such problems, a UAW official explained reaffiliation as follows: "We decided we should do what unions always do, which is to be

"Leo Ti-oy and Neil Sheflin, Union Sourcebook (West Orange, NJ, 1985), 3-16, Table 3 71 "Germond atid Witcover. "See New York Times, May 1, 1981, B16, and July 2, 1981, A14. "Bill Dodds, interview, July 14, 1986, Washington, DC; Stephen Schlossberg, telephone interview. Mar. 26, 1987. "New York Times, July 2, 1981, A14.

COALITION POLITICS

419

united."*' Generally, as one labor analyst noted in 1979,". . . now that the union movement is confronted with serious multiple problems, there are more issues that pull it together than divide it."*^ Second, the succession of George Meany by Lane Kirkland as President of the AFL-CIO in 1979 provided further grounds for the reaffiliation of the UAW and for the cessation or reduction of hostilities between union leaders like William Winpisinger or Jerry Wurf, President of AFSCME, and the top leadership of the Federation. The marginalized role in the Democratic Party to which Meany's leadership had consigned organized labor since the late 1960s was one of the deepest sources of tension between the Federation leadership and the liberal wing of the labor movement. Kirkland's elevation alleviated that basic source of tension, for ". . . upon succeeding Meany in 1979, Lane Kirkland defined his principal brief as the concentration of labor's resources to recapture a dominating position within the Democratic power structure."*^ This newly common desire to restore the labor-Democratic alliance served to partially reconcile the liberal unions with the new Federation leadership.*" It also probably sealed the fate of the Progressive Alliance. As much as anything else, it was the felt need to escape labor's marginalized status in the Democratic Party that prompted the liberal unions to coalesce in the Progressive Alliance. Kirkland's political strategy for the labor movement thus undermined much of the rationale for the Alliance; when the AFL-CIO was again available as the institutional base for the mobilization of labor influence in the Democratic Party, the utility of the Progressive Alliance for its liberal unions was greatly diminished.** The Progressive Alliance represented an attempt by the liberal wing of the union movement to establish an institutional, programmatic, and strategic framework for labor politics alternative to that provided by the AFL-CIO. The liberal labor leadership was unable to sustain this alternative labor politics in a difficult economic and political situation. Among most Alliance unions, the reformist and social democratic elements in the Alliance program yielded to a more narrow and defensive agenda of protectionism and industrial policy. Coalition-building with liberal and progressive groups and movements gave way to alli-

"Ibid. "Stanley Plastrik, "The State of the Unions," Dissent, Spring 1979, 147. "Mike Davis, Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the US Working Class (London, 1986), 261. "Ibid., 261-266; Plastrik, 147. "For similar arguments about the demise of the Progressive Alliance, see Germond and Witcover; and Davis, 261-266.

420

LABOR HISTORY

ances with employers, advocacy of corporatist bargaining, and regroupment in the AFL-CIO. It would be difficult to exaggerate the centrality of the Democratic Party in the political calculations of the liberal unions; particularly since the late 1960s, the problems and prospects of the laborDemocratic alliance have overarched virtually every political move of these unions, including both the formation and the dissolution of the Progressive Alliance. Particular economic and political difficulties and pressures explain the inability of the liberal labor leadership to sustain the type of labor politics represented by the Progressive Alliance. In general it can be said that at the time organized labor was in too weak and defensive a position to provide leadership to liberal and progressive political forces or to seriously promote a social democratic or reformist program. But it is precisely in relation to the weak and defensive position of organized labor that the Progressive Alliance must be evaluated as an alternative framework for labor politics. Did the Progressive Alliance represent a political strategy by means of which organized labor might have overcome its weak and defensive position? For organized labor as a whole, several problems have for some time underlain its economic and political weakness: (1) the low and declining overall rate of unionization of the workforce; (2) the geographical and sectoral concentration of union membership and the consequent geographical and sectoral limitation of union influence; (3) the segmentation of labor markets and the stratificationby income, skill, race, and gender - of the wage-earning class; (4) the political disorganization and demobilization of the working class; and (5) the bureaucratization of unions. These problems set limits on the power potential of the union movement; they are crucial because they bear directly on the very bases of labor's economic and political power: numbers, organization, solidarity, militance, and money. Any significant recovery of labor's social role and political power requires the resolution of these problems." However necessary and worthy the Progressive Alliance was on other grounds, it did not address these critical sources of organized labor's economic and political weakness. In fact it is difficult to see how the

"For substantiation of the claims made in this paragraph, see Wilson, chapt. 8; Burnham, Parts II and IV; Edsall, chapts. 4 and 5; Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, Right TUrn: The Decline of the Democrats and the Future of American Politics (New York, 1986), chapts. 2 and 7; Goldfield, Part I; Piven and Cloward, chapt. 5 and Epilogue; Davis, chapts. 2, 3, and 7; and David Gordon, Richard Edwards, and Michael Reich, Segmented Work, Divided Workers: The Historical TYansformation of Labor in the United States (Cambridge, 1982), chants. 5 and fi and Epilogue. chapts. 5 6 anrt Fni'Inonc

COALITION POLITICS

421

political Strategy embodied in the Alliance could have contributed materially to the resolution of labor's specific problems, as some critics recognized at the time the Alliance was formed." Indeed, a major potential pitfall of the pursuit of coalition politics by the liberal unions was that it might have been, or become, a substitute and compensation for the difficult work of resolving labor's most serious internal problems. Instead, liberal labor leaders turned to the leaderships of non-labor organizations and formed a "leadership alliance" among the alreadyorganized. In a word, the politics of the liberal labor leadership in the late 1970s remained a politics of organizational elites rather than of mass mobilization. Here lies the crucial limit of the political will and capacities of progressive unionism.

"See the important articles by Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, "The State of the Unions," The Nation, April 28,1979,462-465; and by Stan Weir, "Doug Fraser's Middle Class Coalition," Radical America, Jan.-Feb. 1979, 19-29.

You might also like