A conversation with Gloria Mattera

Make a bold electoral statement

Gloria Mattera has been a leader of the New York Metro Labor Party, the nation's largest Labor Party chapter, since the founding convention.

The founding convention is on my list of top firsts. It was so exciting, so unbelievable to be there. And I think we rode that high for awhile. But I have to say that for me, as a chapter officer, it's really been a daily commitment, whether it's writing a letter, calling up people, getting people to a rally, doing a phone bank. And I feel that those things are a big part of what builds the party.

We were fortunate in New York - we started out with a lot of Labor Party members in the metro area. And we were very pro-active in letting people know that we have a chapter in New York and encouraging them to join. And we've had steady recruitment since then.

Gloria Mattera voting at last year's Chapter Convention Photo: ©Michael Kaufman

We haven't really identified the surefire recruitment tool. We recruit people in ones and twos. I'd say we have a good activist base, but it's small in comparison to the number of members. And only a small group of those activists are recruiting. It's the one-on-one, family, friend, workplace, community connection that gets us new members. At the last Labor Day parade, we handed out thousands of flyers, and I don't know if we got more than one or two inquiries as a result.

Talking to people who are new to politics takes a long time. It doesn't work to just hand them a flyer on the street. It's a longer-term thing. We have a group that's been going out tabling in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, almost every Saturday for the past several months, doing the 28th Amendment Campaign. After they'd been out there for weeks, they got invited to the local civic association. There are a few people they've met who are interested in the Labor Party, but it's slow. The table out there every week mimics what you might do talking one-on-one to your coworkers or fellow union members.

We've had some events, like the fundraiser with Michael Moore, that were really an attempt to go outside our immediate circle, to get the Labor Party name out there to places it's never been before. That's one of our goals - to push the envelope a little. We had the Liverpool dockers come and speak, but we made sure they went around to the five boroughs and to classrooms - to really get out to new audiences, to people who aren't already into politics.

We've been very persistent, the officers of the New York Labor Party, in pushing some of the unions that are attached to the Labor Party to get out and do things. I think the unions have to take more of a giant step and not be looking over their shoulder all the time. There are some unions in New York that are really dedicated to the Labor Party, but there seems to be a little barrier to getting through to other unions. Chapter activists can volunteer to be a part of union efforts, and can support the unions, and try to understand that it's not easy for unions to make that leap. But in some ways, we're out of that picture. Our job is to build the Labor Party where we have connections and contacts.

I think both the national Labor Party and New York are suffering from not enough field capability. If we had an Ed Bruno [New England's Labor Party organizer] in New York, I think it would make a big difference. And we are working on that. CWA Local 1180 in New York has committed to making a monthly contribution to support a full-time Labor Party organizer in the City, and we are working to get other unions to pledge support for it. Our goal is to get $75,000, but we're not near that yet.

I see electoral work as being an important part of building the Labor Party. I don't agree with people who say that if we don't pass the electoral committee's proposal, we'll die out. But I think it's the logical next step. I think there is a group of people out there who will be energized by campaign work and will want to go out and lay the groundwork in communities so that we can run one or two local candidates.

We're very confident that the electoral committee's recommendation is going to pass, and we'll fight for it pretty much as is. And then we want to get out there and really figure out how to do it. We want to be one of those model cities that the national picks to run a campaign!

I am also really excited about doing a campaign around healthcare. I think it will be a little easier to engage people on this issue than it has been on the 28th Amendment Campaign.

I'd really like us to come away from the convention making a bold statement that we are committed to being an electoral party. What I don't want to see at the convention is real, artificial or perceived dichotomies between people - unions versus chapters or left versus right.

A lot of people didn't think the chapters would even survive after the last convention, but we did. A lot of the credit is due to the chapters' own efforts to prove themselves. But nationally, I think Tony Mazzocchi has really stayed committed to building the Labor Party in the communities and to having a place and a forum for people who are not in unions to be able to participate. And I think that for all the criticism you read on e-mail or anywhere else, he's been a key to keeping the chapters going.

I'm hoping that at least some of the chapters are going to go to the convention being able to say, we've done some really good work, some good recruiting. It's true that some chapters haven't been doing a lot since the last convention, and we all need to think about what that means, whether they need some help, or whether they've just given up.

At this point I think that the Labor Party is, for the most part, as fair as it can be structurally. Because we still have to build the movement more solidly in the trade unions - we need their resources and the potential political power that they have. So I can see why they get more delegates and votes. I keep saying to people, If the chapters showed up at the convention with doubled memberships or doubled resources, we could make some demands for getting more representation. But if we go there with participation having dropped off, it's hard to argue that we need more representation. I do think there are certain instances where the chapters could get a better deal, but I think right now the balance between chapters and unions makes sense.

I really think we need to go to the convention with a good tone and to keep that going. At the founding convention there were a lot of times when people were feeling negative, and people felt a tension between unions and chapters. Some of that tension still exists, and I know where I stand and I'll be vocal about it. But we should be positive about the fact that we are still here over two years later. We're still a vibrant party. And we have made gains - even if it's not by leaps and bounds. That's okay - because we're about long-term building, sinking our roots in communities and workplaces.

I'm about as excited about this convention as I was about the last one. At the founding convention, for the first few hours, we were just blown away. I think we're maybe logistically more ready this time. I know a little more this time about how we need to conduct ourselves at a convention - like the Robert's Rules of Order. I've learned a lot being a chair at our meetings. My feeling is that my time is going to be precious at this convention. We need to get our most articulate, fighting delegates up there. And we cannot deviate from the important points we need to make about building the Labor Party. We can't digress or beleaguer the chair with points of order. What I'd like to see is exciting debate around political content.

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