Montana Labor Movement Meets With an Eye Toward the Future

By Matt Singer, 5-19-05

Four years after an election that shook up Montana’s labor federation, the Montana AFL-CIO comes together again this week for a convention that could prove just as historic for labor. Two candidates have announced their intention to succeed Jerry Driscoll as Executive Secretary of the federation, seeking to lead Montana’s labor community in what is proving to be a difficult time for organized labor, not just in Montana, but across the country.

Both Jim McGarvey, the current President of the AFL-CIO and Vice President of the MEA-MFT, and Bob Bergren, a member of the AFL-CIO’s Executive Board and the Democratic Whip in the Montana House, have announced their bids for Executive Secretary. Both have described themselves as unity candidates, pledging to strengthen the federation and build union strength in Montana. Yet behind the campaign’s are two simple facts: MEA-MFT, where McGarvey serves as an officer, controls 51% of the vote of the AFL-CIO, and there are grumblings in the state that if McGarvey is elected, which now looks nearly inevitable, some unions are thinking about leaving the federation.

Contrary to a widespread belief, the AFL-CIO is not a union. It is a federation of unions, much like the United States is a federation of states. Montana’s AFL-CIO is comprised of unions that represent roughly 30,000 workers. MEA-MFT alone represents 15,500 of those workers. And this is where (some of) the trouble begins.

For the past thirty years, both America and Montana have seen a decline in the strength of organized labor. Dealing with changes in the industrial structure has been rough. Dealing with outsourcing, technology replacing workers, and the Wal-Martization of the economy is even tougher.

“We have some unions that represent some very traditional labor markets that don’t recognize that their sectors are going away. The jobs have been exported or there’s new technology,� says Eric Feaver, MEA-MFT’s President. “It’s like Bruce Springsteen said: ‘these jobs are going, boys. And they ain’t coming back.�

Just as that pressure has impacted unions nationally, the force has been felt in Montana. The change from industrial, manufacturing-heavy economies to service economies in America’s cities has been matched in the mountains and on the heartland by a shift away from extraction and toward services. In that process, MEA-MFT has seen its influence grow.

The Montana Education Association and the Montana Federation of Teachers were once separate unions, affiliated with the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, respectfully. Eric Feaver led the MEA. McGarvey headed up the MFT. When the two merged, the new union (which shortened its name to simply MEA-MFT) became a potent political force, especially within the Federation. Over the years, as the union has continued to grow its membership, by organizing teachers, government employees, and health care workers, it has seen that power grow.

For Joe Dwyer, Secretary-Treasurer and Principal Officer of Teamsters Local 190 in Billings, that power grew too much within the federation.

“The real motivation was that the teachers [MEA-MFT] had grown to be such an 800 lb. gorilla, so why would I spend what I call per capita tax money when they always carry the day? […] I’m all for teachers, but there’s a whole bunch of the labor movement that isn’t teachers.�

Dwyer’s local had affiliated in the 1990s, during the era of Don Judge, who Dwyer said paid close attention to the Teamsters and reached out regularly. When Eric Feaver, citing Montana’s political climate, helped oust Judge and replace him with Jerry Driscoll, the Billings Teamsters left the AFL-CIO.

Driscoll was a particularly controversial figure in Montana labor. When he rose from President to Executive Secretary with the help of the MEA-MFT, Feaver cited the need to build bridges with Montana’s dominant Republican Party. But it wasn’t Driscoll’s willingness to work across the political aisle that ruffled Dwyer’s feathers. He cites the Teamster’s endorsements of Denny Rehberg in the past as proof that he’s not demanding political purity from the AFL-CIO. Rather, it was Driscoll’s employment background.

“I didn’t like the fact that Jerry doesn’t really represent employees,� Dwyer says. “Jerry hasn’t represented workers for years. You need to be out amongst them in order to represent them as best as you can. Sometimes, he lobbied for employers we represented. We didn’t necessarily like the direction.�

For some of the other workers who left the 2001 convention angry, though, political leanings clearly had something to do with it. Roughly a month after Driscoll was elected Executive Secretary (McGarvey was elected President at the same meeting), a group of union activists founded the Progressive Labor Caucus, seeking to create an outlet for the many vociferous and proud liberals in Montana's unions.

Gene Fenderson, the Executive Secretary of the PLC spoke briefly with New West. He described both Driscoll and McGarvey as “corporate� and “right-wing.� But Fenderson also repeats some of Dwyer’s concerns about the MEA-MFT. “One of the responsibilities of the majority is to protect the rights of the minority,� Fenderson says. “The MEA-MFT has not seen fit to do that in Montana.�

Both Feaver and McGarvey bristle when they hear this criticism. Feaver notes that if Dwyer and the 1700-strong Teamsters 190 returned to the federation, that single move would place the MEA-MFT back out of the majority.

“In part, Joe’s saying, ‘MEA-MFT’s more successful than we are.’ We’re not looking to be the 800 lb. gorilla. He could be in the AFL-CIO and he, with that simple act would put MEA-MFT back in the minority. I hope Joe and all the others that feel the way they do will wade right into the AFL-CIO. Let’s march into the future together on the issue. Let’s not say, ‘You’re big’ and stop working together. I think that’s self-defeating and not very useful.�

The bigger issues facing labor in Montana, he says, have less to do with the size of one member of the federation and more to do with the need to unionize Montana’s service industry, bringing union pay and benefits to those workers. Feaver says if the AFL-CIO did that, the MEA-MFT would probably stop looking so much like an 800 lb. gorilla and would instead start to resemble a 200 lb. weakling.

McGarvey, in turn, says Dwyer never gave him or Driscoll a chance: “I would say that Joe was basically the only one who left. His union was the only one that left the AFL-CIO when Jerry and I were elected. He left before he found out what our program was, which to me, doesn’t give him much ground to criticize.�

Dwyer, in turn, says McGarvey failed to reach out to the whole union movement during the past four years. Within the past four years, Dwyer’s own local struck in Billings, as did the Billings Education Association. “Teachers were on our picket line, just like the Teamsters were on their picket line. […] I sure didn’t see the AFL-CIO around when we struck in Billings. I never got a phone call from Jerry or Jim McGarvey, even to say, ‘Look, I hear that you’re in a battle. Is there anything MEA-MFT can do?’ The BEA was wonderful. Their President was on the line. Their teachers were a God-send.�

The fear of MEA-MFT domination of the AFL-CIO seems to only be spreading. Both Dwyer and Bergren told me that they have heard rumblings of additional unions ready to follow the Teamsters’ lead if McGarvey is elected Executive Secretary, something that would now require a change of the MEA-MFT’s decision, something that is, in other words, not very likely.

Dwyer eyes the future and muses that this may be inevitable, that he doesn’t think that “labor is ever going to heal itself until it falls apart.�

Bergren is more hopeful. He says he is running as a unity candidate. He wants to bring together the unions in the AFL-CIO, including ones that have left and ones that are considering leaving. But even if he is unsuccessful, he says, “The biggest thing is to hold the AFL together. […] I think it does a disservice to everyone if they [unions] decertify. That takes their strength and their voting power. I’ll be as active as I ever way. Taking your ball and going home is not the answer.�

Substantively, the two candidates seem to disagree on very little. Neither of them offered a bad word regarding the other. In fact, it was made clear that they wanted to avoid that. Both preached the message of unity, of growth, and of political strength.

In fact, once someone digs through the animosity held by some of these players, it is clear that all of them are discussing at root, many of the same concerns: creating a strong voice for the workers they represent, extending union benefits to the workers they hope to represent, and helping Montana’s working families have a better life. When the delegates leave Billings this weekend, the AFL-CIO will have not just a new Executive Secretary, but changes up and down their Executive Board. [End of article]