The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.63/No.3           January 25, 1999 
 
 
How Should Militant Workers Describe AMFA?  

BY ERNIE MAILHOT AND ARLENE RUBINSTEIN
Letters from readers Edwin Fruit and Larry Johnston printed in the January 11 Militant concerning the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) posed important questions for working-class fighters who seek to function effectively in the unions and be part of today's resistance.

Both raise the question: Is AMFA a union? They point to the Militant's characterization of AMFA as a company-minded union- busting outfit, referring to articles written as rank-and-file workers in the International Association of Machinists (IAM) were campaigning against AMFA in the union representation election at Northwest Airlines.

Our view is that the Militant's position on AMFA has been correct. When the Militant articles described AMFA as a "company-minded outfit," this did not refer to the ranks of IAM members at Northwest who felt a certain attraction to AMFA's positions or who felt repelled by the IAM officialdom's misleadership. It referred to AMFA's leadership and the program they promote. This small group, for 40 years, has made their reason for being trying to divide off unionized mechanics from other airline workers. Up to now they have only succeeded a handful of times.

AMFA did win the election at Northwest. When the National Mediation Board certifies the election, almost 9,500 workers at Northwest will become members of AMFA. Thus it will no longer be a tiny outfit outside the union ranks, but a union.

It's useful to think of the discussions rank-and-file union fighters so often have with our co-workers who speak of the union as if it were the officials. We always answer, "No, you and I are the union."

Wherever mechanics were part of a fight with other workers against the bosses, AMFA has usually won little support. For example AMFA met with limited success at Eastern Airlines, where mechanics refused to be bribed by airline boss and union- buster Frank Lorenzo's offer to cut them a separate deal. Instead of becoming part of the company's attempt to weaken the unions at Eastern, they joined and helped lead the fight of all the workers.

During the Eastern strike, AMFA official Vic Remeneski presented a different strategy. He told the Atlanta Constitution newspaper in 1990, "When you've got a product that is needed, you don't have to be militant." Later that year, AMFA succeeded in splitting mechanics at the Trump Shuttle at LaGuardia Airport from the IAM, thus weakening the Eastern strike.

It's instructive to look at how some of the best fighters in the Eastern strike reacted to the AMFA victory at the Trump Shuttle. Even though AMFA did not support the strike, some AMFA members from the shuttle continued to picket at Eastern and were welcomed. Some strikers went out of their way to talk to as many AMFA members as they could, treating them as fellow union members, and urging them to raise strike support with other AMFA members and in AMFA meetings.

AMFA is currently trying to split mechanics away from other IAM workers at United, US Airways, TWA, and other carriers. The Militant will continue to campaign against AMFA. But where workers are represented by AMFA the place for class-conscious workers is shoulder to shoulder with the membership.

Johnston also wrote, "In my observation AMFA's conduct is not notably different from real unions when they conduct raids against other unions." A similar criticism of articles in the Militant has been made by some AMFA supporters in Atlanta who argue that AMFA's perspective of cooperating with the company is no different from what the United Auto Workers (UAW) has been doing for years.

Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay, written in 1940 by Leon Trotsky, a central leader of the October 1917 Russian revolution, examines the challenges before the trade unions in the imperialist era. Trotsky notes a "degeneration of modern trade union organization throughout the world" in terms of their ability to defend workers' interests. He explains that "either the trade unions of our time will serve as secondary instruments of imperialist capital to subordinate and discipline the workers and to obstruct the revolution or, on the contrary, the unions will become tools of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat." This explanation of how badly the unions need to be transformed in order to be effective is even more relevant today.

It's true that the top labor officialdoms of the UAW, Teamsters, IAM, and AMFA have similarities in their positions. The reason IAM officials cannot effectively counter AMFA's craft union argument is because it is the logical conclusion of divisions among workers that the IAM tops have already agreed to. Examples include multitier wage setups, support for "quality circles," "Buy America" campaigns, and a variety of other "teamwork" programs that the bosses promote to try to convince us that we are a "family" - at GM, UPS, or Northwest Airlines. All these orientations have been serious blows to the IAM as an industrial union.

But the logical conclusion of the IAM bureaucracy's course does not make it the same as AMFA. The IAM, UAW, and other unions were forged in the heat of massive strikes in the 1930s in trucking, auto, steel, textile, and other industries that broke the hold of craft unions and formed industry-wide unions for the first time. They have a mass base in the working class. Despite the discontinuity between these struggles in the past and the present union leadership, industrial unions were built, and in large part remain intact. This puts workers in a stronger position to advance against their bosses.

AMFA, on the other hand, has no history of struggle and is not an industrial union. For most of its history it has had virtually no members. It has a history not of organizing workers, but trying to divide existing unions, even while they are involved in intensified struggle with the company. Workers who are in AMFA start off on a weaker basis to fight, saddled with a union whose tops have a policy that openly calls for working with the company to defend their members' prerogatives by selling out other workers who are "less skilled."

Unionists at Northwest face the same challenges as before the election - the as yet unsettled contract fight, winning back the jobs of workers who were fired in the course of the contract fight, and uniting workers in all job classifications to beat back company demands. Union members will need to build union solidarity with other social struggles as well. One good example is the Black farmers who have been waging a powerful fight to defend and regain their land.

Arlene Rubenstein is a cleaner at Northwest Airlines in Atlanta who will soon be a member of AMFA. Ernie Mailhot is a member of the IAM in Miami.

 
 
 
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