Bending the Arc - Together

By Jeff Johnson

Recently I was elected President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. As a trade unionist for 31 years and a member of the labor movement for even longer, it is both my honor and privilege to take on this job and to work with you for a stronger movement and a more just society. At the get-go, I also want to say that I am a proud member of PSARA, joining the first moment our dear friend Will Parry asked me.

One of my favorite quotes from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (paraphrasing a 19^th century preacher) is this:  “The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.”  Of course Martin Luther King was referring, not to the physical laws of nature, but rather to the fact that social change occurs when the collective will and strength of the people “call the question” on those in power.  The labor movement has long worked at bending this arc.  I believe it has yet to play an even more important role.

Our power as workers comes from speaking with one voice. Workers have a stronger voice at work and in the legislature and Congress when our union density grows. While it is critical that we grow our union density, particularly in the private sector, it is at least as important to build our labor and community movement density.

Union density in Washington State in 2009 was 20.2% of the workforce,  fourth highest of all 50 states. This number does not include the 1,000 members of PSARA or the members of State Alliance for Retired Americans, the Pierce County ARA, or our local union retiree associations. Labor movement density rises when we add our retiree advocates to the numbers. And frankly, my experience with PSARA suggests that if we were measuring activism, and not just numerical density, each retiree activist ought to be counted two or three times.

But brothers and sisters, we are in a world of hurt. Not since the late 1920s has there been so grotesque a disparity in the distribution of income and wealth in the United States; in our state, poverty is at an all time high (one in four of our children lives in poverty); foreclosures are skyrocketing; and realistically when you include those who have given up looking for work because there is no work and those employed part time involuntarily, about 18% of our workforce is unemployed.

So we have hard work ahead. We have to organize more workers into unions, more retirees into the Alliance, and more community members into the movement. We need to set bold goals and then create realistic strategies for growing our labor/community movement density. I don’t think it is unreasonable to reach a density goal of 30% within the next 15 years.  

But to accomplish this we need to rebuild, and in some cases build for the first time, labor’s infrastructure. We need to identify, recruit and educate young people from the ranks of labor and the community to run for elected offices.  We need to develop sectoral organizing strategies, with a focus on “excluded workers.”

We need to drill down deep to reach into our rank and file with real news, analysis, and proposals.  We need to create a significant worker education center that provides leadership training for our labor and community members.  We need to strengthen our work with community groups and in particular with immigrant worker communities.  

And we need to rebuild an infrastructure for labor and community culture.  What’s wrong with having a little social life while we work? 

We can’t do this work without the support and activism of our retirees. You bring to the table an invaluable perspective, a sense of history, and a wealth of real-world experience. We need to work with you to recruit more members into PSARA and the Alliance and to find significant funding for your operations.

We need to create opportunities for you to mentor our youth as we work together to create a stronger and more just society. And finally we need you to help us develop our common strategy for organizing in the wider community for a shared sense of values and purpose.

The Washington State Labor Council and I look forward to working closely with you in 2011 and beyond.

Let us “bend the arc” together.