COMMENTARY ON UNIONS : Internal Impediments Hinder Resurgence of Labor Groups : New direction and reoriented priorities are necessary if they want to succeed in mobilizing workers and be heard.

For years now, private sector unions have been moaning about their decline in membership--now totaling about 10% of the work force--and their loss of political clout.

Is a reversal around the corner? Do events of recent weeks serve as a harbinger of union resurgence?

We recently witnessed a bold strike by immigrant drywall workers in Orange and surrounding counties, and the success of Hotel Employee, Restaurant Employee Local 11 in Los Angeles in renegotiating a master contract with major hotels after much public feuding over the use of a controversial video to dramatize the workers’ issues. (Local 11 is headed by Maria Elena Durazo, the only Latina in California leading a major union.)

Just last month, Angela Keefe, from a sister hotel and restaurant local in Orange County, defeated a touted but more moderate male union official. Keefe, who is bilingual, garnered considerable support from immigrant workers, and her election slate, unlike her monolingual opponent, included Latinos.

Are these limited examples of worker assertiveness and progressive union leadership an anomaly or the tip of the proverbial iceberg?

What is clear is that these noteworthy labor-organizing activities and similar ones over the last several years have several common denominators. The most active and successful union organizing has been among largely Spanish-speaking immigrant workers. These workers are no strangers to exploitation. For example, a garment industry once centered south of the civic center in Los Angeles has spawned sweatshops in Orange County as well as the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys. Conditions in this industry are similar today to those that early immigrants to the United States encountered on the East Coast.

Another common factor is that the leaders supporting and guiding these organizing efforts have broken the mold of more traditional union bosses. They are reaching out to minority, immigrant and frequently non-English-speaking workers rather than resist organizing them or labeling them as threats to successful union-organizing campaigns.

These new leaders sense that a labor resurgence is possible. However, unions in Orange and Los Angeles counties will not experience a turnaround of their rapid decline without removing key internal impediments.

One obstacle to a union rebirth is the failure to commit substantial union resources to serious organizing campaigns. The number of full-time union organizers statewide, actually organizing, can be counted in the dozens.

Unions also limit their growth by citing the crippled economy or hostile governments (federal, state or local) as a deterrent rather than an opportunity to reach out to disaffected workers. Students of labor history know these are fertile organizing times. The United Farm Workers did their best organizing when Ronald Reagan was governor of California. The American labor movement was built by agitating discontented workers and then effectively involving them.

Another obstacle to the resurgence of labor is the union approach of measuring successful organizing by only the number of new members, new contracts or renegotiated contracts. Or worse, by how few decertification fights were lost.

When will we see a new measure of success? Perhaps increasing the education or participation by membership should be given higher priority. A “beyond-dues and grievances” strategy might include leadership training for union members to prepare and motivate them to recruit new members. Leadership training would also equip members with the public skills to tackle the many problems facing union and non-union families alike. Imagine hundreds, if not thousands, of trained union rank-and-file members impacting problems such as dangerous neighborhoods, inferior schools, inadequate health services and the need for decent, affordable housing.

A union resurgence would be more likely if unions trained members to become “community stewards,” not simple shop stewards handling grievances. Community stewards would serve as magnets for the people they mobilized and would promote a far different image of the role of unions in our society. It would be hard to imagine Peter V. Ueberroth and Rebuild L.A. snubbing unions with hundreds of community stewards, as he has done to present unions to date.

Also frequently overlooked by today’s labor leaders, and often misunderstood by them, is the capacity of organized religion to educate, encourage, empower and defend the workers who make up their often large congregations. Many Catholic and Protestant churches are avoiding the decline of mainline U.S. churches by actively embracing Latino and Asian immigrants.

Is the vitality immigrants bring to their churches transferable to today’s unions? The successful 1987 campaign to raise the California minimum wage by nearly a dollar an hour might suggest so. This campaign was the work of church-based organizations, with only the peripheral support of unions. More than 500 immigrant workers culminated that Moral Minimum Wage campaign by gathering one evening at Salesian Catholic High School in East Los Angeles. They prayed with and were saluted for their efforts by Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony, who had spent nine months participating in their campaign to influence the Industrial Welfare Commission. Families towing dark trash bags containing their overnight belongings boarded buses for San Francisco where the next morning their work would result in victory before the IWC.

A union resurgence finally will result when union leaders look on their membership (as did those in the minimum wage campaign) and themselves--and not their political action funds--as their most precious resource. .

Unions must wean their hopes and contributions from their political patrons who devour dollars for campaign ads that would be better invested in developing the union’s human capital: the workers. Ironically, the offices of many union officials display photos of union leaders with prominent politicos, but seldom do prominent politicians display photos of themselves with union leaders.

Union resurgence? And in Orange County? It’s possible, but not without new direction and reoriented priorities.