[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/05/MN9H1LQQH7.DTL]
Organized labor and the Occupy movement have been like passengers on the same bus, yelling the same things out the windows. So far, nobody has leaped for the driver's seat.
But when rains have turned the Occupy tents to muddy flaps and the crowds have dwindled to the hardest-core believers, there just may come a time when the two movements will grab the wheel together.
That's the hope of union organizers who have been peripherally involved in Occupy camps around the nation but not allowed or inclined to try to lead the leaderless movement - and of some Occupy activists as well.
Protesters with the Occupy movement don't like anything that smacks of establishment or leadership, and the labor movement is a form of establishment with a hierarchy and member-elected leaders. Seems like a bad fit.
Building a movement -
But look past that, and the grievances expounded by the two groups sound like they were written in the same campfire session: Tax wealthy corporations, rein in corporate greed, boost pay and rights for working people.
"I absolutely see a bright future for the two movements working together," said Josie Camacho, executive secretary-treasurer of the Alameda Labor Council. "But there's a lot of education that has to happen in the building of a movement. We have to take it one day at a time, listen and engage."
Throughout the 165-tent Occupy Oakland camp in Frank Ogawa Plaza, which has drawn the most publicity in the nation over the past couple of weeks with a general strike attracting thousands and a pair of riots, protesters are becoming more receptive to linking arms with labor.
"It makes perfect sense for us to hook up," said 36-year-old Kevin Seal, a writer who lives in Oakland and is one of several spokespeople for the camp. "The more we can focus our message, the better off we'll all be, and labor really knows how to focus.
"The challenge is how that hooking-up process goes."
The idea of aligning with labor has been discussed several times in the camp, particularly after a community rally called "Jobs Not Cuts" on Oct. 15 at Laney College that many Occupiers attended.
"The camp wasn't ready for it yet, and probably still isn't," Seal said. "We all like labor, but don't know how to incorporate them into the general assembly (organizational meeting) process. We've got growing pains and are still figuring things out."
Disadvantages on both sides -
There are dangers for both sides. While many Americans see labor unions as champions of the working stiff, others see them as just another entrenched interest and, public-employee unions in particular, as a contributor to state and local government's economic problems. Occupy activists consistently say they are trying to force change from outside the usual channels.
"We all feel there is a need for a solution, but it will be something we haven't even imagined yet," said Tim Andres, a 60-year-old participant in the Occupy San Francisco effort.
An alliance could be similarly toxic for unions, if the minority of anarchists who revel in attacking police with bricks and lighting things on fire becomes the dominant face of the otherwise nonviolent Occupy movement.
Union leaders say they are content for now to watch the movement mature, and they've been pitching in behind the scenes all along.
During Wednesday's general strike in Oakland, for instance, members of the Service Employers International Union acted as peacemakers, calming down some of those who wanted to break windows. They were gone from the scene at night, when Occupy's provocative faction took over.
For several weeks, the California Nurses Association has helped run medical tents at both the San Francisco and Oakland Occupy camps.
"I'm not sure where this is all going, but the challenge is how to move this whole discussion to a higher level," said Liz Jacobs, a registered nurse and spokeswoman for the nurses union. "We have the same goals, and we want to get to Occupy phase two, or second edition, or whatever you want to call it."
Like other union leaders, she said she has no interest in taking over Occupy. Nobody is sure what the "higher level" will be - but labor leaders say the Occupy energy is one of the most hopeful things in years for injecting new fire into the long-flagging world of unionism.
They point out that the decline of union membership in the United States, from 20 percent of workers in 1983 to 11.9 percent in 2011, roughly correlates to the erosion of median household income. That figure, which went up about 10 percent throughout the late 1980s and '90s, has fallen each of the past 10 years to its current level of $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Shifting the conversation -
Meanwhile, in the past 30 years the average CEO's pay shot from 40 times the average worker's salary to a ratio of 350-1, according to former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
"Working people at the AFL-CIO are inspired by the Occupy movement," said Jeff Hauser, a spokesman for that union's national office in Washington, D.C. "They're singing from the same hymn book that labor has been singing from, and they've shifted the national conversation back to economic inequality.
"We're excited about their new energy, and the labor movement has never been a stranger to overnight pickets and showing strong solidarity."
Jacobs pointed out that in June, before the Occupy surge, the nurses union began promoting a tax on big-business financial transactions that it said could raise $350 billion a year. A labor rally in Washington in October 2010 attracted more than 100,000 people.
But neither of those efforts drew a fraction of the headlines the Occupy camps have.
"I've found that even some of the young anarchists are very receptive to guys like us," Stan Woods, a member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said as he visited Occupy Oakland last week. "Overall, we have the same concerns.
"Our problem has been maybe too much centralization. Theirs is maybe too much decentralization. We can meet in the middle."
Such a meeting wouldn't be unprecedented, said Richard Abrams, author of "America Transformed: Sixty Years of Revolutionary Change" and a UC Berkeley history professor emeritus.
Political challenges -
Abrams noted that in the robber baron era of the late 19th century, there were huge marches on Washington that eventually helped lead to workplace reforms such as the eight-hour day and a ban on child labor. Likewise, the grassroots rallies and sit-down automobile plant strikes of the 1930s helped form the modern labor movement.
"Of course," Abrams said, "it's far more difficult to get pro-labor legislation today because vast amounts of money are pouring in for business-friendly candidates and to destroy unfriendly candidates."
Lance Iversen / The Chronicle
Kevin Seal, an Occupy Oakland spokesman, says members have discussed forming ties with labor.
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