To Build a Stronger Labor Movement, Go to the Members

[This article is part of a Labor Notes roundtable series: How Can Unions Defend Worker Power Against Trump 2.0? We will be publishing more contributions here and in our magazine in the months ahead. Click here to read the rest of the series.—Editors]

I’m a fourth-generation union glazier. I remember being a kid sitting around the dinner table when my dad was on strike, thanking God for the Painters union (IUPAT) even when times were hard. The history of our union’s struggle is in my blood, and I’ll never take the sacrifice members before me made for granted.

But a lot of our members today are disconnected from our union, and I get why.

This certainly isn’t a problem unique to the Painters. For as long as I’ve been alive, the labor movement has been complacent, coasting by and believing our wins to be permanent and guaranteed—and that if we stay under the radar, the corporate elite and the politicians won’t bother us. All of this while we watched union density drop to new lows.

In 1973, construction unions represented 38 percent of workers in the industry (already a big drop from the 87 percent we represented in 1947). Last year, we represented just 11 percent.

ACTIVATE EVERY MEMBER

As we’ve watched our rights, our membership, and our power erode over the last few decades, it’s become obvious that business as usual just won’t cut it. That’s why our union has embarked on our Building Union Power campaign, an effort to engage and activate every single IUPAT member.

As president, I, along with other elected officers of our International, have been traveling to our District Councils throughout North America to train delegates, apprentices, officers, stewards, staff, and other activists on the history of the labor movement and our union.

We discuss the challenges ahead—both issues internal to our union and ones that affect the entire labor movement—and how we can tackle them together. We practice answering tough questions and having hard conversations.

Local union staff and member-activists are instructed to take these tools onto jobsites and into meetings to train rank-and-file members. We want every member to feel “touched” by the union, to hear from us and to know (1) we’ve got their back, and (2) we also need them to show up, participate, and drive our union forward.

WALKING THE BATTLEGROUNDS

Leading up to the presidential election, I traveled through battleground states with many members of our union’s General Executive Board. I was lucky to get the opportunity to talk with hundreds of our members about the big problems facing us today.

But when we got to my hometown of Philadelphia, I knew Trump was going to win the election.

While the city itself is a reliable Democratic stronghold, very few of the members I spoke to were excited about voting for Kamala Harris. Whether that was for legitimate reasons or unfounded ones such as Trump’s claim to be pro-worker, our members weren’t excited about our candidate.

They didn’t trust our union enough to vote our way, and they didn’t understand what a Trump victory would mean for the working class. I knew then that we needed to get deeper with our members.

MEMBERS WANT TO HEAR MORE FROM US

While the vast majority of our officers and staff come from the tools, we all have a lot on our plates—from finding good jobs to keep members working, to flipping bad jobs from non-union to union, to responding to members’ issues and needs.

It can be easy to lose focus and become disconnected from the individual members. I don’t blame anyone for that. I myself am guilty of it.

SUPPORT LABOR NOTES

BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR

Give $10 a month or more and get our "Fight the Boss, Build the Union" T-shirt.

That’s why the Building Union Power campaign is so important: it forces all of us to get out there and stand shoulder to shoulder with our members, hear from them, learn from them, and understand what they are dealing with day in and day out.

The number one thing I’ve heard from members I’ve met on jobsite visits is that they just don’t hear enough from their union. From our perspective, we are constantly trying to communicate with them in different ways. But clearly it’s not getting through, so we need to try something new.

It’s a good thing that members want more from us. It means they’re hungry for contact, for information, for a relationship with their union. There’s so much misinformation out there, and it’s essential that they hear from their union about what really matters.

A FIGHTING UNION

I know we have a tough road ahead—union apathy won’t be fixed through any one campaign. But I have a responsibility to the 140,000 members of my union, and I can’t sit by and do nothing as our members lose their connection to the IUPAT.

Every member joins the IUPAT for the same reasons—fair wages, good benefits, retirement, and stability—believing that with a union card, these things are guaranteed. But everything we’ve won has been through a hard-fought struggle, and if we don’t start fighting again, the labor movement will continue to decline and the wealthy will continue to tighten their grip on society.

For the survival of our union—and to preserve good, safe construction work—we need every member to understand what’s at stake and get in the fight.

POLITICAL EDUCATION

I often get comments that we need to “get politics out of our union,” and I understand the sentiment. It’s exhausting talking about politics all the time, especially when both parties continue to disappoint us all. And I genuinely understand that many of our members feel like they only hear from their union around election time.

But right now we’re unfortunately seeing just how important politics are in the labor movement. Whether we like it or not, the decisions our politicians make have a major impact on our union, our pocketbooks, and our communities.

Just a few weeks ago, the Trump administration cancelled $20 billion in infrastructure work in New York and Chicago. While the administration claims it's because of those areas “DEI” policies, these attacks seem to be more about punishing political enemies and pursuing the whims of his administration, at the expense of union members and the entire working class.

As our political system gets even more polarized, the fact of the matter is that there are very few Republicans on the federal level who are interested in working with us, despite claims that the Republican Party is now the party of workers. And the ones that do often only want to work with us in cynical and self-serving ways.

While both parties pay lip service to workers and actually serve the elite, the current Republican Party barely even pretends to be pro-union and is so ideologically anti-worker that it is difficult to find common ground on nearly any issue. Whenever they’ve been given the opportunity, they’ve canceled contracts, stopped work, and turned workers’ lives upside down.

BUILDING INDEPENDENT POLITICAL POWER

If we’re going to defeat Trump and any other anti-worker politician, we’re going to need a wellspring of organized workers. We can’t cower in fear and hope Trump’s authoritarian power grab blows over. We have to organize new members, build independent political power in our communities, and educate our fellow workers and our communities about what is at stake. We have to hold every politician who isn’t pro-worker accountable, regardless of party and regardless of rhetoric.

I believe that the labor movement needs our own set of policies and our own independent political movement for this country to succeed. We cannot keep riding the coattails of one party or another or hoping that this next go around, we’ll get our turn. We need an army of workers who understand the history of their union and the labor movement—and who are ready to fight for a new labor movement, just like our forefathers did for future generations.

Jimmy Williams Jr. is president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, representing over 140,000 active and retired craftspeople in the United States and Canada.