Labor Movement

The planned merger of the Steelworkers, Auto Workers and Machinists unions is the biggest-ever union consolidation in U.S. history, and union officials say it won't be the last.After losing millions of members because of corporate consolidations and restructurings, Big Labor is fighting back by consolidating and restructuring itself, a move that is drawing even grudging admiration from union busters.But as labor leaders, sounding strangely like corporate managers, began last week to laud the advantages of economies of scale, questions abounded.

Oakland, California. -- Few American workers expect to run their places of employment, even in these days of deceptive calls for labor-management cooperation. But workers do expect and want to run their unions. Since the earliest days of progressive unionism, workers have advocated direct election of officers, at all levels. Rank-and-file democracy makes unions strong.That's what makes the coming election for leadership of the AFL-CIO a wisp of hope in what are grim times for America's labor movement.

It is too bad that Lane Kirkland had to be pushed out as president of the AFL-CIO when he could have bowed out gracefully after five decades in service to organized labor. At 73, fixed in his ways ("This is what I do; I don't do anything else") and unwilling to "demean" himself by going on national TV as the unions' top spokesman, he already had stayed too long when younger, aggressive leaders ushered him into retirement.His awkward exit may have the added result of denying the succession to Thomas Donahue, the AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, who labored so long in Mr. Kirkland's shadow.

AT THEIR annual winter board meeting last week, America's unions emphatically mended fences with President Clinton and the Democratic Party. Concretely, they voted to put an unprecedented $10 million into Mr. Clinton's campaign for universal health insurance and to mobilize rank-and-file support. And they will resume their customary contributions to Democratic fund-raising operations.With a handful of exceptions, labor will also work to elect and re-elect Democrats to the House and Senate.

PRESIDENT Clinton's dramatic personal intervention to settle the American Airlines strike was well-timed, not just to rescue the Thanksgiving plans of travelers, but to mend his battered fences with the labor movement.Labor took a real beating in the press during the NAFTA debate. Unions were depicted as protectionist, reactionary, anti-Mexican and worse. The Clinton White House, which counts heavily on labor to raise money, rally voters and lobby congressmen, joined in the chorus of labor bashing.

IT'S time for a different NAFTA. To avert disaster, the president should withdraw the proposed agreement before Wednesday's vote, go back to the negotiating table with the Mexicans and do what it takes to enlist sufficient support from his own party.With the White House still at least 25 votes short, Mr. Clinton's current up-or-down strategy on NAFTA portends a donnybrook for both the president and NAFTA's congressional opponents. If NAFTA is defeated, Mr. Clinton and his party will suffer a self-inflicted wound -- and that doesn't have to happen.

NEW YORK -- When the Titans of labor gather to make polic for the 15 million members of the AFL-CIO, 28 white men, two women, two black men and one Latino sit at the table.Even though women comprise nearly one-third of union members and minorities one-fifth, women head only two of the 88 international unions, and black men head just two others.The glass ceiling is visible and strong in the labor movement. Although gains have clearly been made in middle management ranks of unions in the 20 years since the emergence of coalitions of black, Latino and female union members, they have a long way to go before they break the invisible barrier to power and influence.

As she sauntered out of her usually quiet Social Security Administration office at quitting time Wednesday, Eileen Freter walked smack into a clump of jostling, obscenity-shouting union activists -- and history.She and her 12,000 fellow SSA workers at the Woodlawn complex are a focus of one of the biggest raids in American history, and an important experiment in union democracy.For Ms. Freter and many like her, a fight between two unions over the right to represent federal employees is little more than a rear-guard action in a doomed cause.

Washington-- As Labor Day approaches, the ritual examinations of the state of the unions will proceed. Lane Kirkland, president of the AFL-CIO, will be in the news, in the columns and on the talk shows.Hard-boiled journalists will ask Mr. Kirkland about the decline of the labor movement -- isn't the unionized proportion of the work force down? Hasn't labor lost political clout -- isn't the Mexican trade treaty moving forward over labor's objection? Isn't the AFL-CIO out of touch with its membership -- why does it oppose Clarence Thomas and support a civil-rights bill that may likely yield quotas?

THE HISTORY of the American labor movement is a murky area in the country's collective consciousness. It's not exactly a prime topic in high school classes and it is virtually ignored by most other cultural outlets.NBC's movie tonight, "Long Road Home," tries to do its part to correct that, but in the way it treads on this relatively unexplored territory, the film breaks no new ground, instead taking the safe way home. Still, it deserves some credit for its good intentions."Long Road Home," which will be on Channel 2 (WMAR)