Union leader for UNITE-HERE: Rev. Michael Roberts
By Ray Feliciano (Interview May 8, 2008)
Q: We’re here with Rev. Michael Roberts, the Albany District Director of UNITE-HERE, which
looking up online, UNITE-HERE is an acronym that stands for Union of Needle trades, Industrial and Textile Employees.
“It used to be. It isn’t anymore since post-merger. So, it’s just UNITE-HERE now. Both of them were
acronyms, but they’re not any longer. It’s just UNITE-HERE. Makes the world a lot simpler.”
Q: Does it still take care of the same constituencies. For example, needle trades and textiles. I didn’t see
that on the list of groups that you cover. Are those jobs that we don’t have anymore in this country?
“Well, as you know, we’re losing them, and have lost them over the last couple of decades at huge rates. My
region in particular, the Rochester region, which is actually really all of upstate New York has much, if not all
of what needle trades workers there are left in the area. But there’s just not a lot left anymore. There’s a bit of a
cross-over to the industrial laundries, which we include as textile workers. That, of course, can’t go anywhere.
They’re the people who launder the floor mats or uniforms and fix uniforms, repair uniforms. That kind
of stuff. That business you can’t really offshore. And we represent the industrial laundry workers also.”
|
Albany District Director for UNITE-HERE,
union leader Rev. Michael Roberts meets with
TIC publisher, Ray Feliciano.
(photos: Nancy Muldoon)
|
Q: What is the union’s position on outsourcing?
“Well, outsourcing is a really problem. We’ve got people
living in desperate poverty in other nations because
these jobs pay so poorly. And we’ve got our own citizenship
living in some cases poverty but certainly with
poor health care, because these kinds of well-paying
jobs have just evaporated, so these trade agreements
have been a complete disaster in our opinion.”
Q: What is the purpose of a union?
“Well, unions basically are groups of workers at a particular
site or shop, who band together to create their
own association, a right that’s guaranteed by the Constitution,
and to collectively bargain. They band together
in order to collectively bargain with their employer.
They pay dues, which supports staff people like me who
help them with the negations and also enforce their contract.
So, if any kinds of injustices are committed on the
job that are prohibited by the contract, people like me
go in and file grievances, and more often than that actually,
the member themselves will start the grievance
process. They will file grievances. The union stewards
will file grievances on behalf of their coworkers, and
then if it reaches a high enough level, someone will, a
staff member like me, will go in and pick it up from
there, and take it to resolution. It is also for banding
together for political purposes. For instance, lobbying
potentially against trade agreements, but certainly also,
IDA reform. It’s a big deal.”
Q: IDA?
“Industrial Development Agencies are these generally
county agencies that are put together to figure out how
to encourage business in particular counties. And they
have a real history in New York of giving away an
awful lot of tax money to employers who then don’t
respect the rights of their employees, which is a real
problem for us. So, that’s just another kind of thing that
we lobby for. Also my union in particular is pretty tight
with the Pride Agenda, so we’re active in lobbying for
Gay and Lesbian rights.”
Q: You had mentioned that it’s a band of workers
gathering together. However, is it optional for
workers? Isn’t it true that once there’s a union in a
shop, the workers have to become union members?
“In some states it’s true. In New York, that’s true. So,
for instance, when a union is forming there is some kind
of representational process, whether that’s a national
labor relations board election or whether or not it could
be a community election, or it could be card check process,
which is just people signing a union card saying, ‘I
want to be represented by the union.’ Generally, one of
those three means will be used to determine whether or
not a majority of them want a union. Now if they do, in
New York state, then everybody who would be appropriate
for the bargaining unit is in the bargaining unit,
whether or not they voted yes or no. The states for
which that’s not true are generally the southern states,
which are absolutely murderous on unions. The problem being they will pay the non-union workers, as
much or more than the union workers, even though
the union workers and their contract fights are what
gave everybody the wages in the first place, which
is a serious disincentive to participating in the union
and paying the dues, but it’s governed by state law.”
Q: Can you explain the difference between and
Open Shop and a Closed Shop?
“That is the difference between an Open Shop and a
Closed Shop. So, these southern states that are
called the Right-to-Work states have what we call
Open Shops, meaning once the union is established,
still the membership don’t have to be members, and
they don’t have to pay dues. Closed Shops are
shops in states like New York where once it’s
established that there’s a union in there and the
union is recognized, everybody that’s appropriate
for the unit is in.”
Q: And if you could just explain again in your
own words why that makes sense to unions. That
in a closed shop, if you’ve done the negotiating
it’s to benefit all the workers?
“Yeah, the reason it’s disabling to the workers
union if not everybody is in, because if they aren’t
in then, number one, that collective isn’t absolute,
and number two, bosses are perfectly able to incentivize
people away from the union, away from paying
dues, by granting them wages or benefits that
they’re not giving the union workers, even though
the union workers are responsible for creating the
floor for wages anyway. Their contracts set what
the insurance payments will be, what the pension
will be, what the wages will be. And in order to
break the union, all they have to do is to make it
more attractive to stay out of the union, dry the union
up, and then force wages or benefits of any kind
back to whatever levels they feel like. There will be
no protection.”
Q: What is the union’s position on
undocumented workers?
“Our union’s position on undocumented workers is
absolutely clear. We lobby on their behalf on a
regular basis. Lobby for immigration rights in general
on a regular basis. The United States needs this
labor. It uses this labor. But at this point, in an exploitative
manner. It’s OK to use this labor. The
United States needs this labor, but they need to be
paying fair wages, and they need benefits. They
need protection under the law. It’s entirely exploitative
to use a workforce like this. It’s as close to
slavery as you can come while still having any kind
of money change hands.”
Q: Would you say that unions are still as
powerful as they were in their ‘hayday’?
“No. Clearly not. We had 36% some odd percent of
the workforce, and now we’re down to something
in the neighborhood of 12%. That makes a big
difference. However, we’re disproportionately
powerful, because union members vote at
disproportionate rates. They’re very politically
active compared to the kind of run of the mill
citizenship, and although I can’t remember the
numbers from last time out during our presidential
election, they vote disproportionately Democratic.”
Q: When you said 36% down to 12%, for
clarification, are those national numbers?
“Those are national numbers, yeah. The Albany
area it pretty highly organized. It’s certainly above
national averages.”
Q: What would you say is the most common
grievance you hear from workers? And how are
grievances addressed?
“Well, there are forms of, uh…just, you name it. I
don’t think that there is a common profile. I mean
people get fired for no good reason. People get
their schedules sometimes maliciously rearranged
just to make life difficult for no good reason.
People have their jobs changed from one job to
another. Their working conditions changed without
any kind of consultation with the workers. Now,
contracts cut down on this stuff quite a bit. It still
happens though, so I mean this kind of stuff is the
basis of most grievances.”
Q: You mentioned contracts and of course, that
brings my mind back to the Writer’s Strike.
Striking seems to be the nuclear option for unions.
Obviously you’re weighing your workers
not receiving any paycheck at all versus making
a stand. How do you go about weighing that
breaking point where it’s gotten to that level
where you feel there is no option but to strike?
“Well, the top piece of that, the most important
piece of that is whether or not the workers feel
they’ve got a definable issue that is so important to
them that it’s worth it, because they’re going to experience
a lot of pain. It’s not easy to strike. Things
happen during strikes. And people lose money during
strikes. The first, centerpiece of that whole
thing needs to absolutely be, A) You got some kind
of problem that’s a problem that must be fix, not a
problem that can be lived with. And B) You’ve got
the fortitude to see it through. Those are the top
questions. If the answer isn’t ‘Yes’ to both those
things, then it’s just not worth doing. Whether or
not strikes are good things or bad things from my
perspective depends on the context. I mean greed
exists. It’s a real force in the world. And without
collective action, without people standing together,
there is no check to that greed in the workplace. I
mean the employers hold all the capital. Their form
of power is capital. Workers don’t have the capital.
Their form of power is literally their bodies, or
people power. It’s capital power vs. people power.
And that capital power is deployed out there alive
and well and at work every single day, and there
are times when that people power has to stand up
and say, ‘Enough. That we were not designed like
cogs in a wheel to increase your capital. We’re human
beings. We demand and deserve a fair share,
and it’s time for you to recognize that.’”
Q: In the event of a strike, does the union try to
help its workers get by on those lean months, or
are they pretty much on their own at that point?
“Yeah. There’s generally strike funds. And I would
you know, certainly be active in trying to solicit
food from various religious organizations or
whoever is out there. Try to help people figure out
alternative ways to handle bills. It’s probably,
maybe you’re going to get to this, it probably
important to say that strikes happen very
infrequently. I’ve never led a strike. I’ve
participated in them, but I’ve never led a strike in
my career. It’s certainly not the preferred way of
going about things. I mean, in general, with
reasonable employers, the goal is for both sides to
prosper. I enter all situations that way. I really
would prefer for both sides to prosper. I don’t want
my companies going out of business. But on the
other hand, employees deserve their fair share.”
Q: I had found this quote from you while doing
my research. You were saying “Our obligations
to our members entail obligations to their employers.
In this kind of industry, in manufacturing in
general, you've got to be able to work creatively
and cooperatively with these employers or we'll
all lose — we won't be able to keep these jobs in
the United States.” How do unions go about balancing
getting the best deal for their workers
versus being equitable with the companies
they’re serving?
“When you got a responsible employer who wants to
do the right thing, which in my view is, succeed in
business, and make sure the employees get their fair
share of the profit, when you’ve got an employer behaving
like that, it’s really... I have a responsibility to
my members, to help that person succeed. His or her
goals are my goals also. So, we can certainly lobby to
help… that quote was in the context of the manufacturing
sector. We can certainly lobby to help with the
kinds of tax breaks and incentives that governments
can hand out, whether it’s at the state level, at the
county level, or the city level, to help them succeed.
And our lobbying to create global labor law and environmental
law is also in the big picture an attempt to help
out these little business people in the United States.”
Q: In many contracts it states that workers are not
allowed to walk out or strike. How is this possible?
“They’re part of No-Strike; No Lockout clauses. So a
single clause covers both things. The agreement is that
during the life of the contract the workers won’t strike,
and management won’t lock them out. So it’s kind of a
quid pro quo agreement. It goes back to early twentieth
century that began to be normal in contracts. A
[inaudible] back in the day, and they were very aggressive
union activists prevalent in the early twentieth
century, where quite against that kind of stuff, as they
were against arbitration. They didn’t want any kind of
arrangement that curtailed the power of the workers, or
curtailed the responsibility of the workers to fight for
themselves. So, for instance the No-Strike; No Lockout
clause curtails the ability of workers to strike. It
ends their ability to strike during contracts. Strikes
only happen between contracts when you come to a
complete impasse. But we now also have arbitration
clauses, which govern grievances that can’t be settled.
If the union and the employer have a grievance going
on, and they take through the various steps that are
outlined in the contract, and no settlement can be
reached, we go to a third party, an arbitrator who decides
the case for us. Well, that’s also a relatively new
arrangement. Back in the day, the workers would have
solved that themselves by kind of banding together and
doing whatever they felt like they needed to do.
Certainly walking off the job was one of those kinds of
things, or a strike would be one of those kinds of
things. But much has changed since then.”
Q: Health insurance, I would image, is a growing
concern for unions representing their workers. Is
this one of the larger problems facing unions when
negotiating these contracts since obviously health
insurance costs keep going up and up for the
employers. Is this one of the bigger sticking points?
“Yeah. It’s huge. It’s the top issue in all negotiations
these days. It’s the one issue without which you can’t
get an entire settlement. It’s probably the biggest piece
of the economic pie anywhere. And it’s a real problem.
We need a national solution. And again, in our union,
particularly in the hotel sector, we’ve done quite well
with that. We have 100% coverage, or 100% employer
paid insurance for all of the upper echelon hotels with
the exception of one which is new and having financial
trouble, but that’s the area standard for us in the
Capital District area.”
|
Q: Sometimes you hear about contract negotiations
where they negotiate or reduce pensions or stuff
like that. Doesn’t that seem almost unfair to negotiate
away something that someone worked for, figuring
they were going to retire and then have this?
Something they’ve already done their part for?
“Sure. Whether or not it’s unfair, this is not happening
in my union. We’re by and large a… our organizing
these days is directed to the service sector, its
hotels, its gaming, it’s also industrial laundries, restaurant
work, that kind of stuff. What you’re talking
about, is for the most part, is manufacturing. The
UAW is probably the biggest one that has faced
these kinds of problems. I wouldn’t be critical of
them. They’re facing economic hardship on a scale
that the rest of us aren’t. Their industry is collapsing.
The hotels aren’t collapsing. I wouldn’t criticize
them for what they’ve got to do. It’s also true
that we’ve got, I don’t know how many generations
of families out in Detroit that have been able to put
kids through college who no longer have to assemble
cars for a living, thanks to the kind of benefits
they got out of the UAW. It’s a tough situation.”
|
Union leader for UNITE-HERE: Rev. Michael Roberts
|
Q: The other day I was passed this flyer from
another union that does construction on hotels.
How much solidarity is there with other unions?
“There is complete solidarity. If they need us, we’re
there. If we need them, they’re with us. People
came and helped us, or were willing to help us with
a contract struggle we had up in Gideon some time
ago. Didn’t end up needing it, but they would have
been there. I will certainly be there for them.”
Q: How do you go about recruiting union
members, or do you not even need to recruit?
“We don’t recruit union members. The employers
hire new employees, who become union members.”
Q: Some people have a negative connotation of
unions, and still think back to the Teamsters and
corruption. Would you say there is still an image
problem with unions regarding corruption?
“Sure. Yeah. No question about it. We are the most
scrutinized, federally scrutinized kind of institution
that I am aware of these days. However, the perception
that there are problems I’m sure is still out
there. However, I think though that it gets over emphasized,
given every now and again these national
polls will be done about the numbers of people who
would be members of unions if they could be,
which is an interesting question all by itself.
There’s a reason why it’s hard to be in a union,
which is probably as important as anything we’ve
talk about so far. But the responses are, and the rate
are in the 60 or more percentage rate of people on a
national level who would be part of unions if they
could be. The problem with becoming a union
member these days is that the National Labor Relations
Act, the NLRA, has been entirely co-opted by
corporations over the last thirty years or so. So that
when we’re holding elections for people to decided
whether or not they want to be union members,
these companies can harass and intimidate the voters
with impunity. And even if they do break the
NLRA, there are no penalties. The catch phrase is
there are only remedies, there are no penalties under
the NLRA. So, literally if we’re holding a union
election, and the company knows that you’re a
leader, in your workplace. You’re telling other
people, ‘Look. We need decent healthcare. We need
wages. We need to vote…They can fire you, which
is illegal. And it would take months, or years, if we
could, to get you your job back. And they wouldn’t
owe you any kind of damages whatsoever. They
might owe you back-pay, but if you did any other
work during that period of time, they would subtract
that from your back-pay. So, leaving ethics or
morality aside, it’s actually the right thing for corporations
to go out and fire the pro-union voters.
They won’t get hurt. The worst case scenario for
them is they might owe some back wages, but in the
meantime, they’ve completely crushed their employees,
who are so terrified that they’re not likely
to try and organize again, and this happens over and
over and over again. And even when employees
fight off these kinds of campaigns, and vote ‘Yes’,
and get their union, employers increasingly just
really refuse to bargain, so it may take as much as
eight years just to get the first contract. By which
point, who knows if there’s any of the original employees
even there.”
Q: What would you say is the most common
misconception regarding unions?
“I would say that that image of them being somehow
shady. I mean no one is as scrutinized as we
Union leader Rev. Michael Roberts are by the federal government. All of our money is
watched very carefully. I would say that that’s the
number one thing. However, I would also want to
add I think we exaggerate that. Most people out in
the country understand that it would be in their
benefit to be in a union. However, they’re afraid, for
various reasons, to even try.”
Q: What are typical union dues?
“Thirty four, five, six bucks a month in this union. It
depends on your position. Depends on how much
money you make. We are creating also a part-time
dues structure so that people that are paid part-time
can pay half.”
Q: Approximate how much infrastructure does it
take for the union to represent a thousand
people? What is the ratio of what you need in
order to be effective?
“It’s a good question that there is not a specific
answer to. It depends on a number of things like the
geography and the nature of the workforce. For
instance, if you’ve got a workforce that only works
days, and it’s a pretty tight geographic area, that by
and large can be serviced by a smaller number of
people. If you’re work force works around the clock,
and is spread out over a large geographic area, like this
local is for instance, it just takes more. However, all unions
are running as efficiently as possible these days.”
Q: What else would you like people to know
regarding unions?
“I think that one of the most important things that I
want people to know when I’m out speaking about
this stuff is that unionization isn’t anything other
than that original freedom of association that’s
guaranteed by the Constitution. And it’s a real shame
that we’ve gotten to the point that companies are
allowed to frustrate our freedom of association to the
degree that they’re able to these days. It’s not some
strange ideology that crept in from someplace. It
comes to us out of our Constitution. I think that’s
really an important piece of what this is all about.
I’m also, as you know, ordained, and we haven’t
gone down that road. That’s one of the primary
pieces that I can really talk about also.”
Q: I wanted to keep it towards the union topic.
I’m pretty much wrapping up…Would you say
that unions are facing a new kind of laissez-faire
capitalism in a way with management? Are we
getting back to the times where the power to the
corporate side is unbalanced?
“Unquestionably. That’s the problem we’re experiencing
with the National Labor Relations Act and the
NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board right
now. Law is like a living animal. It goes through
phases, and it’s really clear at this point that Labor
law in the United States is broken. It’s suffering as
are the workers that it seeks to protect. These days
have been called the ‘Return to the Robber Baron
Era’. The planet is kind of the new Wild West. They
can go anywhere. I’m told that one of the former
presidents of [company name withheld], one of these
giant company CEOs was saying that it’s too bad
they can’t build factories on barges because you
could then move it from Mexico to China to the next
county after China starts to catch up. And it would
save the building costs.”
Q: Do you think with the way the economy and
the trends with gas prices going up and up, do you
think we’ll be seeing more from unions in the
future? That they’ll grow stronger again?
“I think that they’re probably is a bottoming out
point. Or at least I certainly like to hope so. As an
organizer, I’ve spent years organizing, I would say
the biggest obstacle to organizing that I’ve faced is
hopelessness. Not a disbelief that people banding
together are stronger than people that don’t band
together. That’s pretty obvious and very few people
doubt that. But people who are just so beat up, and so
scared that they just don’t have any faith in their
ability to stand up. Or in other words, hopelessness I
think the biggest obstacle I’ve faced. And I do
believe that once you press people past a certain
point, hopelessness becomes overridden by, I’m not
sure what, anger or desperation. They aren’t good
things. However, sometimes it’s what’s necessary I
think to fuel justice.”
Audio clip
Audio clip from The Informed Constituent May 8, 2008 interview with Rev. Michael Roberts,
the Albany District Director of UNITE-HERE.
- Voice 1 - Ray Feliciano
- Voice 2 - Rev. Michael Roberts
- Voice 3 - Nancy Muldoon