A Democratic Socialist's Fifty Year Adventure
Milton Tambor
Copyright 2021 Milton Tambor
All rights reserved
First Edition
Fulton Books, Inc.
Meadville, PA
Published by Fulton Books 2021
Photo by Reid Jenkins
ISBN 978-1-64952-845-2 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-64952-846-9 (digital)
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Foreword
Norm Markel
Greetings to all trade unionists, democratic socialists, and anyone interested in class struggle, both local and international. In Milt Tambors memoir, youll read about a life devoted to both participating in and organizing for economic and social justice.
Milt was the son of a Jewish cantor, born on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1938. His career as a socialist organizer included serving as staff representative for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 25, and most recently organizing Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America (MADSA).
His involvement in the struggle against imperialismboth as a participant in and organizer of street actions against the Vietnam War and against US support of reactionary forces in Nicaragua and death squads in El Salvadorled to his engagement with radical politics.
In a chapter on his work for the AFSCME local, Milt points out the difference between organizing lower paid workerslike clerical, maintenance, and paraprofessionalsand social workers, who were less likely to see their class interests as workers. Later, as an assistant education director for AFSCME, Milt helped unions organize classes in steward training and collective bargaining. We can learn a lot from Milts experiencesfor example, how to engage in left wing politics while being active in a labor union.
Milts commitment to humanistic Judaism, the importance of learning and teaching labor history, worker education, and international solidarity makes him an important role model, like those he honors, who enabled his own political maturing. I am grateful that my dear friend and comrade has shared this account of his life with all of us.
Norman Markel cofounded MADSA with Milt Tambor. He was the first president of the United Faculty of Florida, and is a member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. His father, Azriel Isadore Markel, lost the tips of his index fingers on an assembly line at his first job in this country, then drove a laundry truck for thirty-five years, and was a loyal member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Acknowledgments
This memoir is dedicated to Helen Samberg and Saul Wellman, who inspired me to engage in trade union work as a democratic socialist. I have been enormously fortunate to have worked with Barbara Joye and Barbara Segal throughout this writing process, and without their assistance, this book would not have happened.
To my Detroit and Atlanta comrades who have fought on the side of social justice and worker rights, I am most grateful.
Finally and above all, I would like to thank Linda Lieberman, the love of my life and my wonderful partner, who provided the support and understanding needed to carry out this project.
Introduction
What is a socialist trade unionist? After thirty-three years as a full-time local union president, staff representative, and assistant education director with the Michigan American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), I felt the need to make sense of my career in organized labor and to assess, in particular, whether being a socialist influenced my trade union work. So when I was invited by the Detroit chapter of Detroit Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to make a presentation on the topic Socialism and Labor, I jumped at the opportunity.
As a Detroit DSA member, I could share my reflections on my work as both a socialist and a union representative with comrades.
To answer that question, I offered an outline of what I considered to be guidelines that a socialist trade unionist should adhere to. These included the following: advancing union democracy; promoting local union diversity and inclusion; advocating a living wage for all workers; organizing the unorganized; fostering worker education; building coalitions around social and economic justice issues; supporting labor rights and international labor solidarity; engaging in political action; developing progressive/socialist caucuses within unions; and joining and being active in a socialist organization.
As a result of the presentation and positive feedback from DSA members, I considered writing an essay about my own experiences as a socialist trade unionist. I would then be able to determine when and how union and left wing politics were joined together. I was now ready to look critically at events in my activist and union life stretching over four different decades.
In 1969, as president of AFSCME local union 1640 representing workers in nonprofit agencies in Detroit, I led the workers out on strike. One of our demands was that grassroots community organizations needed to be represented on the funding bodies of community chests.
In the 1970s, the local unions opposition to the war in Vietnam deepened my involvement in anti-war activities. As a cochair of the Detroit Coalition to End the War representing labor, my activities were inextricably linked to New Left and peace movements. Later in that same decade, I joined a New Left organization, New American Movement (NAM). In NAM, I would develop a clearer sense of identity as a socialist trade unionist, which would lead me to form a socialist caucus within the AFSCME local.
In the 1980s, I linked up with group of labor activists from the UAW to form the Michigan Labor Committee on Central America, which I chaired for five years. We challenged the cold war foreign policy of the AFL-CIO and reported on our fact-finding trip to El Salvador, where unionists were being murdered by right wing death squads.
In the 1990s, my work with the Michigan AFSCME education department allowed me to develop educational material for rank-and-file union members, which included labor history, economic inequality, and political action.
It soon became obvious that any full treatment of all these events could not be covered in an essay. Instead, I was looking at something more akin to a memoir. In a full account, I would have to address these other basic questions: What constitutes socialist trade union practice? How do social and political conditions affect the work of socialist trade unionists? At the back of my mind, a more crucial question then emerged. Was there a future for unions? Would the continued assaults on organized labor ultimately result in its demise? Labor history hinted at an answer. At the onset of the Great Depression and after open-shop campaigns waged by big business against organized labor unions, membership in the US slipped into single digits.
Then came the upsurge in the 1930ssit downs, general strikes, and massive organizing by rubber, steel, and auto workersresulting in a dramatic growth of union membership. In the 1960s, a new segment of the working class, public sector workers, gained union representation under state bargaining laws. I would conclude that unions, the one institution geared toward protecting and defending workers, would hang tough. To counter the attacks by the right, major changes in organized labors strategies and institutions would likely be required. Support for alt-labor formations, such as worker centers, could also be crucial.
