As organized labor gears up for four years of constant battles with a Republican White House, a necessary task is to construct permanent coalitions with allies in Hispanic, African-American, environmental, gay/lesbian and womens rights groups.

AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney isn't quite ready to openly say the new Bush administration will wage a continual war on workers, but interviews show he has given the go-ahead for building such a wide-ranging permanent coalition.

And even if he didn't say the war is on, other leaders interviewed during the February AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in Los Angeles realize the need to build such a permanent coalition - and are doing so.

Building on Seattle
"We're in constant contact" with the coalition of environmental and worker rights groups which joined labor at the November 1999 World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle, says Teamsters President James Hoffa. "That coalition is active and we'll do the same things with them on (unsafe) Mexican trucks (entering the U.S.) that we did on permanent normal trade relations with China."

The Teamsters also emphasize to the groups that safety and trade and environmental issues are "a matter of jobs," though they realize that on some issues important to labor, the coalition will disagree internally, he adds.

"We don't have promises from them" - the coalition allies - on specific issues, says Teamsters Legislative Director Mike Mathis. "But we know we have to work together. In the past we haven't asked. We have to ask." And coalition disagreements will not, unlike the past, lead to a coalition collapse, Mathis predicts.

Stewart Acuff, deputy Midwest regional director of the AFL-CIO, has spent his past career constructing such wide coalitions, in Atlanta and elsewhere. He says Sweeney actively encourages them, and he calls them critical. So does United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez, whose union has depended on such coalitions for almost 40 years.

Acuff says such coalitions must extend to "non-traditional allies" besides the organized civil rights, womens rights and minority rights groups. "The other track is the anti-sweatshop kids of Seattle," he says. Acuff calls building such a coalition "a bigger test for labor, because we must not only educate the sweatshop kids, but our own members to accept them.

"Our vision is broad enough to make the effort and sophisticated enough to understand the need to do it," he explains. Thus labor is educating the new allies that the right to organize is a globalization issue - and as a way to keep the coalitions active and together.

Such constant coalition building is paying off at the local level, and may pay off nationally, Acuff believes. For example, students from the University of Illinois-Chicago, the University of Chicago and DePaul University all are heavily involved in UNITE's drive for card-check recognition of laundry workers.

Education is key
Rodriguez calls such education and construction of continuing coalitions critical to labor's future, to defending ourselves, and to "creating a better U.S. society."

When dealing with national issues and confronting the ruling Republicans, "There's no way we can do it alone," he says.

Rodriguez adds one other element to the coalition-building needed to protect ourselves: Labor must include members of those other groups - ethnic and gender - in its own leadership. He says the American Federation of Teachers, the Service Employees, the Food and Commercial Workers and his union do so.

But labor must also educate members of its allies, who have often not joined us on labor issues, he warns. "We can't take for granted that our issues, such as the right to organize, are theirs, and their issues are ours. We've got to talk to them to ensure that their members really understand the reality of what's at stake. We must do some type of programs to educate them. If we don't, we can't assume they will be with us."

Such education and continual coalition-building are needed because big business and other anti-worker forces are already primed, ready and have friends in Washington.

"They are very focused and they have put their resources there" for causes such as company unions, comp time instead of overtime and paycheck deception, Rodriguez says. "There'll be a number of different efforts to go after labor," he warns.

Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates news service. Used with permission.