An Interview With Sara Nelson About "One Member, One Vote"

A union president pushes democratic reform in her own union.

Sara Nelson. (Photo: Getty)

Labor unions are democratic institutions. But their own internal democracy is a work in progress. Surprisingly, most major unions do not allow their members to directly elect the union’s top leadership, opting instead for delegate-style systems that, like the Electoral College itself, water down the ability of voters to exercise their own will. This glaring lack of union democracy has long confounded reformers in the labor movement. Winning direct elections, a reform dubbed “one member, one vote,” has long been a primary goal of activists seeking to unseat entrenched leaders, shake up moribund institutions, or just make their unions into fairer places.

Think of the biggest labor stories of the past year: The UAW strike, the Hollywood strikes by the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA, the Teamsters winning a powerful contract at UPS. What did they have in common? As the labor researcher Chris Bohner pointed out, every union involved in those fights has “one member, one vote” elections. That’s even more notable when you consider that Bohner found that only six of the 20 largest unions in America have direct elections of national officers. The relationship between democratic unions and fighting unions could not be clearer. (The current iteration of UAW is perhaps the best example of this: Shawn Fain was able to become president only thanks to the 1M1V reform, which led directly to the union’s ambitious organizing strategy in the South, which has the potential to be one of the most promising developments for organized labor in decades.)

At the Teamsters and UAW, “one member, one vote” was only won thanks to settlements with the Justice Department in corruption cases. At UFCW, another major union, a similar reform effort was shot down at the last convention with extreme prejudice. It is usually a hard struggle to change the established practices of a major institution, when the people who run the institution benefit by not changing them.

That’s why what is happening at the 50,000-member Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) is so remarkable. Next week, the union holds its Board of Directors convention in Atlanta. There, it will consider instituting “one member, one vote”—at the request of the union’s president, Sara Nelson. In an exceedingly rare move, Nelson (who was a central character in my book) is trying to democratically reform her own union while she is president. We’ll know by the end of next week whether the move succeeds. I spoke to her about why she’s doing this, the challenges, and what it means for the labor movement.

---

---

How Things Work: Was it your idea to put this issue on the agenda? Why now?

Sara Nelson: I’ve been an AFA member for 28 years. Early on, in my time as an activist, I put forward this idea to my local council, and it ended up being an issue that was reviewed by the convention. Why? It’s inherently the most democratic way to run a union. And I was told repeatedly: Our union was built for flight attendants, we keep the union in the hands of the flight attendants, and that should be reflected in every election of every officer in the union.

You’ve mentioned that this issue has been raised at AFA conventions before you became president—21 times, to be exact. Why has it never passed? In the agenda item, you say “real concerns over cost and equal access for all candidates to share their platform prevented passage.” What does that mean?

Nelson: Our union is made up of mainline carriers, regional carriers, charter carriers. There are different sizes of airlines that are represented, and also different sizes of local councils, where flight attendants are based. In the past, in order to run for office, you had to pay for a mailing to go to every member. That was incredibly cost prohibitive. You had to travel to a local council meeting in order to get your story out. There were real concerns about unequal access for people depending on what airline they were from. But all of that is fixed now, with a process that’ll be hosted by the union. All electronic. People can supplement that if they want to, but the union can provide equal access to the platforms and access to the candidates who are running…

When I talk about costs, the cost concerns were both for the union to run a paper nomination process, and another ballot was extremely cost prohibitive. But it was also very costly for any individual flight attendant to run for office, because the only way they could really communicate with people was by paper mail. And all of that is solved now. In addition to the fact that we put in place a nominations process that will cut down on costs as well, and require that there’s a minimum amount of conversations you have to have either with the members or the delegates of the convention in order to be nominated.

It seems obvious how fair this idea is. It’s so obvious that it occurred to you early on in your union days. Why then is “one member, one vote” relatively rare in existing unions?

Nelson: Generally, human spirit is opposed to change. People are used to the way their union runs, and that is a big hurdle to get over—just the idea that there could be change. There’s also concerns that are expressed about, “Do the members know what these officers are doing? Can they hold them accountable?” These are some of the things that are stated. And I think that there’s some merit to some of those considerations. But at the end of the day, you have to spend a long time explaining why a conventional election is more democratic than a direct membership election. In my experience, when you have to spend a lot of time explaining something, that probably means it’s not the most direct route to democracy.

Clearly, Electoral College-style or delegate-style elections in unions tend to benefit incumbents. You’re an incumbent. You were elected under that system. There’s a reason why union presidents don’t typically propose this, right? Because they were elected under the old system, and the old system benefits incumbents. Was that something that you worried about at all?

Nelson: I think that fundamentally when you’re doing your job and you are reflecting what the members want, and you’re a fighting union, then democracy will result in electing leaders who are reflecting the members. Sure, it’s a risk for me as an incumbent to say, “let’s move to a direct membership election.” It’s also going to take more time on my part. I’m probably going to have to work hard during election time. But that working hard also means that I am directly engaging with the members. And today, there is no reason for me to directly engage with members [during elections]. I think that that is wrong. I also think that it undercuts the power of our union. Because when I can go and say, “I have been elected by the members,” it carries more weight. Fundamentally, I believe that our unions are owned by members. I cannot say that with a straight face without advocating for members to have a vote for every officer of the union.

What’s the reception been internally to this proposal?

Nelson: There has been a lot of concern expressed by the delegates, and a lot of questions asked. I think there’s also a sort of shock, and pause, because when this has ever come before the body before, it has come from the rank and file. It’s never come from the leadership of the union. In my view there hasn’t been enough discussion about it, because people are already a little bit shocked about the environment for the discussion—that this is being proposed by the president of the union, when in the past the president of the union has not spoken in favor of this. The last time this was considered was, I believe, the year before I became president [in 2014].

This kind of election reform is a goal that reformers inside of other unions are working towards. Do you hope that if you’re able to do it, it will inspire other unions?

Nelson: Right now, I’m just focused on my own union. That’s my responsibility. I’m trying to just be consistent with what I believe is the power of our labor movement in general. Look—I don’t like the Electoral College. I think a lot of people don’t like the Electoral College. I think it is generally not liked across the country. So how can I be opposed to that, and not be proposing one member, one vote in my own union? This is a place where I have the ability to do something about it. I can’t change how we elect the President of the United States by myself. That is not completely in my control. I can help to work towards that, but I think the way that you work towards that is by making our unions more powerful, giving working people a stronger voice. And that has to start with what I’m directly responsible for, which is my union, AFA. If other unions take inspiration from this— well, let’s hold that to the side. Let’s get through my convention first.

Is there a line from “one member, one vote” up to all of the bigger ideas of what we want the labor movement to accomplish: Organizing more broadly, turning around inequality? Why is this important in that context?

Nelson: I think this is a “no duh” moment. If you’re interested in changing all of those things, and you realize that you have to change the conscious power structure in working peoples’ minds, this is an obvious change that needs to be made in our union democracy. I don’t think this is the one thing that’s gonna do it. But I think it’s extremely obvious that we need more democracy in moments like this, not less.

---

The Hammer

I wrote a book called “The Hammer,” about the labor movement, its potential to save America, and why it hasn’t done so yet. The book was reported all across the country. Sara Nelson is in there. You can buy it from your local bookstore, or wherever books are sold. I hope to announce a few more book tour stops in the near future. If you’re interested in bringing me to your city to speak, email me.

---

More

• This week I went on Adam Conover’s podcast to talk about my book, and what it will take to save the labor movement. As a Hollywood person, he tapes his podcast in an actual professional studio with lighting and set decoration and stuff. It looks good. I also wrote a piece for In These Times this week about the (successful) strike vote by the union representing the University of California’s academic workers, and its potential to supercharge the ongoing campus protests with labor power.

• At the Labor Notes convention in Chicago last month, I got to meet a labor activist from South Dakota named Nate Wendt. He’s an active volunteer organizer with EWOC, helping people across the country form their own unions, and he was volunteering at Labor Notes as well. A true soldier for the cause! He has also been getting chemotherapy in order to fight cancer. A nice thing you can do today is to donate to Nate’s GoFundMe at this link, to help him cover his living expenses during his cancer battle. It’s good for us to take care of one another.

• That spirit of mutual aid is also the business plan for this publication. How Things Work exists only with the support of paid subscribers, who enable me to pay for the electricity that powers my laptop and also buy food to eat while I write these things. If you like reading this site, please consider taking a second to become a paid subscriber now. Your karma will only get stronger.