Confessions of a Union Buster – Forgive me comrade, for I have sinned

If unions had a collective mythos, then the union-buster would be its demon. Called in by employers to thwart unionisation drives, the union-buster sows fear and discord wherever they tread, skirting and sometimes crossing the bounds of legality. All is fair in love and class war, after all.

In accordance with Sun Tzu’s dictum in The Art of War that warfare is the Tao of deception, union-busters operate, if not in secret, then at least under the cloak of deception and misdirection. Their art consists of appearing to do one thing while actually doing another. Countless organisers have seen their campaigns end in defeat without being fully aware of the forces arrayed against them. However, some of these covert tactics have been illuminated by repentent deserters. One such convert is Martin J. Levitt, a former union-buster from the United States who had his Damascene Moment and revealed the union-buster’s arsenal of deceit and discord in his Confessions of a Union Buster.

I first came across a reference to Levitt’s book in the union organising manuals of veteran activist Jane McAlevey. McAlevey devoted much space in her own writing on preparing union organisers for the inevitable counteroffensives employers unleash on their workers if the latter seek to build a union, with Levitt’s Confessions being a key source. Levitt’s memoirs are indeed insightful, but what I had not expected was the extent to which they are also, and possibly primarily, indeed a confessional.

Central to Confessions of a Union Buster is an equivalence between the immorality of union-busting and the moral collapse of the union-buster’s themselves. The pain inflicted on hundreds of workers deprived of higher wages, better working conditions, and dignity, is mirrored in the pain Levitt inflicts on himself and his marriage through alcoholism and familial neglect. Levitt portrays himself as a Faustian figure, having made a bargain for fame and fortune, he is unable to extricate himself from the union-busting business even as he senses that it is slowly destroying him, until his path culminates in rehab, the dissolution of his marriage, and personal bankruptcy.

There is something quite American about this narrative, and while I have no reason to doubt Levitt’s sincerity – though there are evidently some who do – it fails to convince on multiple counts. For one, it is clearly not the case that undertaking morally objectionable work unfailingly rebounds on people personally. For all Levitt’s faults, there are plenty of people out there inflicting substantially more harm on their fellow human beings without experiencing a similar psychological implosion to Levitt. Reading his memoir, it is not the union-busting that drove him to alcoholism and destroyed his marriage, but rather a combination of unacknowledged trauma, failures to communicate and a lack of emotional regulation. In short, the dysfunctional gender roles prevailing in the US of the 1970s. Regardless of whatever else it may or may not be, Confessions is an excellent portrayal of the havoc caused by toxic masculinity.

Even if unethical actions did have personal consequences, the equivalence that Levitt seeks to draw smacks of the unreconstructed arrogance that derailed his life in the first place. Merely considering sheer numbers it is clear that the cumulative harm inflicted by Levitt on others far exceeds what he brought upon himself. Moreover, Levitt’s bankruptcy was at least preceded by a time of largesse and luxury. The same cannot be said for the workers whom he denied a $1 per hour pay rise.

None of this detracts from the value of the book in illuminating vividly the ugly business of union-busting. The procedure itself is straightforward enough, and is contained in a small appendix at the end of the book. The power of Confessions is Levitt’s detailed evocative descriptions of the psychological terror he unleashes on the unsuspecting workers who had the temerity to try and improve their lot. ‘Show, don’t tell’ fully applies here. It is one thing to understand theoretically that turning supervisors against their workers is an effective strategy. It is another thing altogether to read the harrowing real-life accounts of humans being pummeled into emotional submission before being used as tools against their fellow workers in a psychological war of attrition that can last for months. If nothing else, the insight Levitt gives into the ugly reality of class war should act as a powerful corrective to a naive idealism that believes that all we need to do is win in the marketplace of ideas.

To spare readers the need to read Levitt’s book, the method boils down to these core elements:

  1. Recruit all supervisory and middle-management staff as shock troops to be deployed against the workforce, either willingly or unwillingly.

  2. Use your shock troops to create a hostile environment in the entire workplace.

  3. Remind workers that their pain only started when the union arrived on the scene, and that the easiest way to make it stop is to get rid of the union.

  4. Exploit any legal avenue or loophole to your full advantage and refuse to engage in good faith at all times.

  5. Gerrymander your bargaining unit, and get rid of any pro-union workers where possible.

  6. If you lose and the union wins recognition, drag out the contract negotiations until you can start again at step 1.

Simple, brutal, and clearly effective. Levitt’s heyday may have been fifty years ago, but we see his tactics at work to this day, with employers firing union organisers, indoctrinating workers through constant captive audience propaganda sessions, and inflating the bargaining unit by importing unorganised or agency workers. In that sense, Confessions has lost none of its relevance.

Does that make Confessions the essential activist resource the cover suggests? Probably not. The specificity of the time and place for which it was written, the absolutely atrocious editing, and its primary purpose as a plea for forgiveness, negate Confessions potential as a universal organising manual. Its lessons have been well absorbed and expounded more effectively elsewhere, including in McAlevey’s works. However, as an insight into the practical psychology of a union-busting campaign Confessions still has value, and it works brilliantly as an educational tool to help workers understand their enemy.

We don’t know whether any contemporary union-busters wrestle with the same demons as Levitt. In Confessions he suggests some do. Our lived reality suggests many probably don’t. In a way, it is immaterial. Contrary to Levitt’s implied premise, there is no divine justice we can rely on to rid us of our adversaries. There is only the justice we fight for ourselves. Together. One workplace after another.

Notes & Suggestions

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