At the June 2010 convention of the United Auto Workers (UAW) it is anticipated that current Vice President Bob King will be elected president of the union.   King, with the reputation in many circles of being a progressive, is confronted with some dramatic choices with a union in dire circumstances.

The United Auto Workers, in the late 1970s, commenced a process of retreat.  It was a retreat both from a bold external approach toward societal change that transcended the formal union movement, but also a retreat within its core industries—the automobile industry in particular (with the membership dropping from approximately 600,000 auto workers to approximately 120,000)—based on an entire philosophy that associated concessions to employers with something they called “partnership.”  With each concession, the leadership of the union assured the membership that a closer relationship with the Big Three employers (Ford, GM, Chrysler) was improving.  With each concession, however, the circumstances facing the younger workers and the newer workers worsened.

When the UAW made the dramatic concession, just a few years ago (2007), to assume healthcare, pension and unemployment responsibilities for its members through a mechanism known as the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA), there was a gasp from auto worker activists and their allies.  This meant that the liability no longer fell to the auto industry but, instead, fell to the union.  In fact, if the VEBA collapses, it is speculated that as many as one million auto company retirees could lose their health coverage.  Former UAW President Doug Fraser was reported as saying, at the time of the agreement, that he prayed that there would not be a major economic downturn, otherwise, the UAW itself would be unable to cover the costs of the VEBA.  To put it another way, the UAW was walking through a minefield blindfolded.

By the way, a major economic downturn took place less than a year later, for those who did not notice, and every auto worker has his/her fingers crossed.

The UAW has been generally unsuccessful in developing an organizing strategy.  While foreign auto makers have established manufacturing plants in the USA in order to get cheap, non-union labor, the UAW has not constructed an approach that takes into account the strategy of the auto makers.  These auto companies, e.g., BMW, Toyota, have moved to non-union areas of the USA, particularly the South and, despite often being unionized in their home countries, have gone out of their way to convince workers that unionization will be contrary to the interests of the workforce.  So far this has succeeded.   The UAW has done precious little to reach out to African American communities in the South, for instance, and turn their unionization campaigns into broader campaigns for economic justice.

Instead, the UAW has been distracted with organizing targets that are not key to their core industries (auto, aerospace, farm instruments).  Three examples that come to mind are teacher assistants at universities, casino workers and public sector workers.  While these groups desperately need unions, it is far from clear why the UAW should be using limited resources organizing these workers rather than concentrating on organizing the millions of manufacturing workers who still are very much part of the US economy, including but not limited to workers in the auto parts sector.

If/when Bob King is elected he will have to make a number of decisions.  Will he preside over the slow but continued death of a union that was, at one point, one of the most dynamic unions on the US scene?  In the alternative, will he chart a new course?  Is the philosophy of concessions and partnership so central to the culture of the UAW, or is there a consensus that exists to make a break in the direction toward active and broad-based struggle?

As I watched the attacks on the auto industry in 2008 – 2009, and the manner in which the political Right dismissed the notion of economic aid to this industry while they were quite silent about assisting the financial industry (at least initially) it led me to understand one thing and question another.  What I understood was that the political Right was attacking the auto industry not because of any contempt that they had for the GM, Ford and Chrysler Boards of Directors, but rather their contempt for the workforce.  The auto industry, at least the Big 3, is too unionized and has too many workers of color to warrant any sort of governmental assistance, as far as the political Right is concerned.

Yet here was my question.   In the face of the attacks that the auto workers were receiving, including but not limited to attacks on the UAW, why did the UAW not mobilize?  Why were there no major demonstrations in cities with auto plants?  Why did the UAW not march on the offices of the right-wing politicians who were prepared to consign the auto industry to death?  What was the UAW waiting for?  Had the philosophy of concessions and “partnership” so permeated the union that they had concluded that resistance was futile?

Bob King may be the last chance for the UAW.  If he is prepared to take the union in a different direction, he will need allies.  He will need forces outside of the UAW who will support a more activist and confrontational UAW.  But he will also need these forces, including but not limited to community-based organizations, as real partners rather than friends of the moment.

I am not sure that I even want to speculate on the future of the UAW if King decides to go the ‘safe’ route.  The ‘safe’ route is one that might protect the bureaucracy of the UAW—at least for a while—but it is one that ensures that auto workers will continue their decent into economic hell.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice   (University of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.