The following article about Wellstone Action advisory committee member Dave Foster and former Wellstone staffer Josh Syrjamaki appeared in the September 5, 2004 issue of the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune.
Steelworkers trying to resuscitate unions, by Doug Grow, Star Tribune, September 5, 2004
Ever wanted to be a member of the mighty Steelworkers' union?
It's never been easier. No muss, no fuss, no heavy lifting.
All you need do is crank up your computer (www.USWA.org/am) and pay $40 ($20 if you're a student or unemployed). Just like that, you're an official associate member of the Steelworkers.
After months of tinkering with the concept, the Steelworkers officially are unveiling a plan this Labor Day weekend to put life into the long-struggling union movement. Minnesota is a prime testing ground.
The idea is simple and huge. New and old. It revolves around the fundamental concept that all wage earners have common concerns. They must unite or continue to watch jobs and benefits disappear.
The Steelworker behind the plan is Dave Foster. In 1975, he became a bricklayer at North Star Steel in St. Paul. He was represented by the Steelworkers union.
He sat on negotiating committees, he walked on picket lines and then, 15 years ago, was elected to the post of director of District 11 of the union, a district that includes Minnesota and a dozen other states.
Through all of that time, he's watched union membership in the country fall. Not coincidentally, wages and benefits for American workers have fallen, too.
"Over the years I've kept asking myself why we can't form an organization that fits the needs of workers," Foster said. " ... This is about getting power back in the hands of workers again."
Foster doesn't blame the decline in traditional union membership on workers as much as he blames the rigidity of unions.
"Why have we let the government define what the union is?" Foster said. "If we continue to accept those 1930s assumptions, we inevitably head to oblivion."
In a global economy, Foster said, unions can't be tied to ancient rules. Certainly, corporations no longer play by those rules. If employers don't get what they want from wage earners, they simply ship jobs overseas.
Associate membership will NOT create traditional bargaining units in a workplace. Rather, associate members will have an organization that runs parallel to the traditional Steelworkers union. There is to be a spot on the Steelworkers board of directors.
In addition, the Steelworkers are establishing such things as a hot line and offering workplace counseling services to all workers. Feel you're being cheated, harassed, discriminated against? Call the Steelworkers.
Associate members also have access to union-only benefits such as health care savings, job training, educational opportunities and features that help safeguard workers' rights.
Foster cited the largest workplace lawsuit in U.S. history -- Wal-Mart workers vs. the corporation over pay shortages -- as an example of where unions have lagged behind the needs of workers.
"That suit came out of a law office, not a union," Foster said. "We should be the first line of defense for workers. Those Wal-Mart workers should have been able to come to us. But, in the past, when [nonunion] workers have come to us, our stock answer is always, 'Here's some cards, form a union and get back to us.' That's not good enough."
Foster cites studies showing that in a culture free of stereotypes about unions, free of traditional rules about organizing, 40 percent of the U.S. workforce would chose to join a union. Currently, that number is 12 percent, continuing a long decline from the early 1980s, when 20 percent of the American workforce carried union cards.
The Steelworkers effort to rebuild a worker movement is going to be a door-by-door process headed by Josh Syrjamaki, a grassroots organizer for the late Paul Wellstone.
Syrjamaki said he's been received warmly in the preliminary stages of lifting this huge dream, signing up 1,200 people to be associate members of the Steelworkers.
"It runs the gamut from college students to laid-off steel workers to a lawyer or two," Syrjamaki said.
Both Foster and Syrjamaki have close ties to progressives in the environmental and peace movements. (The Steelworkers have opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning.)
It should be noted that other unions also are in early stages of attempting to build similar associate membership programs, which is fine with Foster.
This is not simply about building one union, he said. This is about returning to a time when unions were a vital part of all aspects of community life. Wage earners seemed to be able to understand their commonality.
Words such as "community" and "commonality" may sound naively idealistic -- or, gasp! even socialistic -- in this era of what's-in-it-for-me cynicism.
But maybe wage earners finally have begun to see what's in for them if they don't come together.
