by Tom Wetzel (NWU Local 3)
As a member of the National Writers Union, I was dismayed but not surprised at the dictatorial moves of the UAW bureaucracy at the latest national Delegates Assembly of the NWU.
In order to consolidate its hold, the UAW sent a two-person team of paid hacks to intimidate the delegates into submission: a sub-regional director, Julie Kushner, and a lawyer from DC, Gary Bryner.
A series of bylaw and constitutional changes were ramrodded through, taking away the right of union members to vote on dues increases and future decisions. Jonathan Tasini, the president of the NWU, had apparently made a deal with the UAW bureaucrats that the NWU would be brought into conformity with the way UAW does things, but without this being well publicized among the membership. The NWU delegates assembled in Las Vegas at the Circus Hotel were bluntly confronted with what "doing things the UAW's way" means.
When lawyer Bryner denied the appropriateness of proposed amendments to the changes in the bylaws, often just by saying "No," debate ended and that was that. Z Magazine reports that one delegate finally asked him what would happen if they approved changes he didn't agree with. He replied they would have to come before his desk for approval and he'd deny them. And "if we insisted on keeping them she asked?" His blunt reply was that the UAW would put the NWU into receivership — that is, impose a dictatorship. The UAW has a long history of disgraceful, dictatorial behavior towards local unions, so Bryner's reply simply states the normal practice of "Solidarity House" (home of the UAW appratchiks). But it was this sort of coercion that forced the majority of delegates to resign themselves to the UAW's dictates.
When a member suggested carrying the discussion over to a second day, Kushner insisted that the changes demanded by the UAW had to be done that day because the next day she had to be home to oversee a birthday party sleep-over.
The new scheme abolished the existing system of local unions of the NWU, creating a nation-wide amalgamated local. For example, this means that the locals — henceforth called "units" — are not permitted to have their own bank accounts. Every single expense must be invoiced from the national office. That national office is already overworked and barely able to function as is, and it will be difficult for a union with a declining membership afford the expense of hiring a professional accountant to do the work.
San Francisco member Bruce Hartford, a former national secretary of the union, resigned, stating that altering the NWU's structure without a vote of the members "is an utter violation of the most basic principles of democracy." Since the NWU's constitution had required such a vote, not holding it means that these changes in the NWU charter are of dubious legality. Said Hartford: "The new...order centralizes all authority and power in a cabal of paid functionaries, guts our NWU locals, and eviscerates the Delegates Assembly into a meaningless charade." (Z Magazine, 12/03). The Delegates Assembly also voted a large dues increase. In the past, such a dues increase could not be imposed without a vote of the members. But with the UAW-imposed changes, no such vote is now required.
The NWU was already declining, partly due to the collapse of its health insurance program. Membership shrank from 7,200 two years ago to about 5,460 in October, 2003. With a flurry of resignations after the Las Vegas farce, further decline seems quite likely, unless somehow the NWU can extricate itself through disaffiliation. This is simply another example of how the top-down, self-interested bureaucracies of the AFL-CIO unions are incapable of being "home" to living organizations that directly involve working people to deal with the issues that affect them. In the union mail ballot election, held after the national meeting, the incumbent president, Marybeth Menaker, and her slate, were defeated two to one by an opposition slate. Perhaps this is a backlash against the heavy-handed UAW takeover, and the top-down methods of the outgoing administration of the union.