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Labor Needs a New Survival Plan
Republican Scott Brown's Senate victory last week deprived President Obama and the Democrats of their filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate and made Obama's health care plan a high-profile casualty. There was also collateral damage for already-frustrated union backers of the president. The White House staffers and congressional leaders who've been assuring them that labor law reform was next on Obama's agenda now can't prevent a filibuster of the Employee Free Choice Act.
The act was designed to boost aid worker organizing and bargaining in the private sector, where union membership dropped 10 percent last year, the largest decline in 25 years. But employee free choice set off a firestorm of business opposition, long before Obama backed the legislation as a candidate last year.
Corporate America does not want to risk heavier penalties for committing unfair labor practices, like firing union supporters. And management is particularly incensed about the bill's "card check'' provision. It would trigger collective bargaining wherever a majority of workers signed cards demonstrating their support for unionization.
During the health care reform process, some industry groups ended up allying themselves with the administration, in return for lucrative concessions. Even prior to last week's election, an informal Capitol Hill committee was cooking up a compromise on labor law reform to appease wavering Democrats.
In this "EFCA-lite'' version of the bill, employer recognition based on card check would remain voluntary. But the National Labor Relations Board - now one of the slowest moving federal agencies - would be directed to hold expedited elections, thereby reducing opportunities for unlawful tactics designed to thwart union representation.
This watering-down of proposed workers' rights protections and Obama's now fatal delay in bringing the Employee Free Choice Act to a vote late last year follows a familiar historical pattern. A version of the same thing happened under Jimmy Carter and then, in worse fashion, with Bill Clinton.
In 1977-'78, President Carter first pressured unions to go along with weaker amendments to the National Labor Relations Board than they originally wanted. Then, after being weakened itself during a Senate battle over the Panama Canal treaty, the White House failed to expend any remaining political capital on marshaling what was then a much larger pro-labor majority to overcome a GOP filibuster.
Fifteen years later, Bill Clinton didn't even introduce NLRA changes. Instead, he placated labor by appointing a presidential commission to study the topic. The panel frittered away the only two years during Clinton's presidency when Democrats controlled Congress. Its reform proposals were dead on arrival by 1994, after voters swept the GOP back into power in midterm elections.
Last June, top union leaders met with Obama and were told that health care legislation would come first and then the Free Choice Act. Since then, the administration has repeatedly dangled the carrot of labor law reform whenever labor made common cause with other critics of "ObamaCare.'' Unions were even pressured to accept things like a future tax on negotiated medical coverage because defeat of the president's plan would be a victory for the Republicans and, thus, the death-knell of the Act.
Now, in a true case of déjà vu all over again, Americans are seeing the latest opportunity to strengthen their workplace rights, as promised by the Democrats, simply vanish. In the president's State of the Union address Wednesday, the state of unions - and employee free choice - wasn't even mentioned.
In the wake of this latest rebuff, labor activists must return to the drawing board and quickly develop a fall-back strategy - for defending and extending collective bargaining - that doesn't hinge on amending federal law. It won't be easy.
19 Comments so far
Show All"The act was designed to boost aid worker organizing and bargaining in the private sector"
This act was and is designed to provide the unions with a tool to produce de facto unions without bargaining or organizing.
Only a dishonest person or one that hasn't actually read the bill would claim otherwise.
We need unions to protect workers against unfair labor practices, but no one needs corrupt unions or unions that ask for special treatment.
To get the full text of this act (EFCA) go here: www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1409. You will note that it tries to equalize the playing field of the power of corporations against the workers who do not have their economic resources. Also, please note the recent decision of the "supreme" Court in upholding Corporations as people as if their overwhelming economic power did not matter. Have you ever tried to organize a work place? Your comment, "to produce de facto unions without bargaining or organizing." does not consider the fact that actually getting fellow workers to sign union cards is also organizing--the bargaining comes later, after a majority sign on. The whole point of this is to stop employers' tactics of "union avoidance" tactics by giving them the time and power to do so.
why bother arguing facts with people like that....... the term cognitive dissonance was coined by the authors of a book titled "when prophesy fails".
it followed doomsday cults AFTER the doomsday didn't occur..... instead of facing the facts and realizing that the "prophet" was wrong and the life on earth didn't end they instead became more enamored w/ the cult......
hence the term cognitive dissonance...... applies perfectly to the guy who thinks unions are getting a free ride at everyone else's expense.....
you can show them the facts til the cows come home and it won't matter... actually the more facts you show them proving they are wrong will only entrench them deeper in their errors!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
mtdon, I once heard the definition of "stupidity" as "Acting in spite of what you do not know". Your line, "actually the more facts you show them proving they are wrong will only entrench them deeper in their errors!" reminds me of this definition. For me it is necessary to learn to argue well, that is all. The right should not be able to do this unchallenged and a union brother whose head is not wrapped too tightly needs a little education.
Methinks you need to rethink your premise 'de facto unions without bargaining or organizing'. It is the de facto grip of employers over union organizing rules that is the corruption. The Constitution guarantees the right of all to assemble and redress their grievances. It is hypocritical and somewhat comic to assert your opponent has a say in authorizing the manner in which you organize.
It is the plantation mentality embedded in the minds of people that pose an obstacle to the democratic processes of the working people. As it has always been it is police state force and courts siding with employers that maintain the basic unfairness. Your argument is specious.
Regarding corrupt unions: again this is hypocritical given the corruption endemic in industry management that seeks to lower the pride, health, wellbeing and rights of its workers. A certain level of toughness is required to combat the owner class. It is apparant you lack understanding of historical union development.
By the way a similar form of toughness will be necessary if Americans are to ever recover their democracy. No small amount of disobedience will be required as no one will give it back freely as the naive think Obama will.
Peace
Workers can form the "Employee Free Choice Action" out on the streets through the General Strike! Direct Action Gets the Goods!
anyone who thinks obama is pro-union and is going to actually do anything what-so-ever to help the unions is delusional!
remember the union meeting w/ obama a few weeks ago where the unions agreed to support the taxing of their health care benefits?
I'd bet money that obama threatened the unions that there would be no EFCA if they didn't support the taxing of their benefits instead of taxing fatcat multi-millionaire freeloaders.....
and now we know he's drilling a hole in the plan to actually accomplish NOTHING while appearing to "fight" for the unions.....
what a disaster in slow motion........
one and done obomba.......
Well well well, if it isn't that same old blaming technique. We all know that today's Republicans have no respect for labor unions but as a friendly reminder, there are plenty enough Democrats who are also against labor unions. But let's not stop there. We need to also keep in mind that labor unions themselves aren't what they used to be. Ever since Reagan's handling of PATCO, labor unions have fallen for the need to push themselves to corporate levels. That my friends you will not find with labor unions here in China and India. It is different but labor unions in the Far East are not about money but about work fairness and safety. Railroad strikes can get annoying at times but in the end, they do it to ensure fairness to employees and long term satisfaction to traveling customers. In a sense, they are striking for the interests for everyone while strikes in America are personal. To put it best, labor in America is a dead man walking. Labor needs a genuine revival plan, not a survival plan.
The term "camp follower" is, or was, a euphemism for prostitutes and similar opportunistic tradespeople who followed marching armies to, er, drum up business.
I associate it with Napoleon, but I guess there have been "camp followers" ever since the first group of club-wielding belligerent cavemen left for an overnight excursion to raid the caves in the next county.
I respect unions in a historical sense, and belong to one, such as it is. But I think the status quo is worse than presented in this article.
Bad enough that union leadership felt forced to make deals with the devil in the post-WWII era, and joined forces with organized crime (non-government OC, that is) to reshuffle capitalism's stacked deck with brute force and muscle.
Worse yet is that the larger and more established major unions and union coalitions became, the more susceptible they became to becoming co-opted.
And perhaps worst of all are corporatized power junkies like Andy Stern, a smooth executive pimp who sees rank-and-file union members as a constituency to promote his clout as a "player"-- charlatans who prefer to efficiently "partner" with employers and government to ensure their own VIP status and pacify their chattel with a diet of crumbs.
Earlier this month, "union leaders" shamefully agreed to support Obama's abominable No Insurer Left Behind corporate bailout-- the antithesis of badly-needed health care reform. The White House agreed to scale back a proposed tax on health insurance plans that may have applied to participants in union plans.
One measly, rotten carrot slice was all it took for the union leaders to throw themselves down on their collective backs. To add insult to injury, the slice they greedily devoured happened to be a nice little wedge between union members and the common citizen, who in theory will have to pick up the slack if this "break" for union members becomes a reality.
So these bulwarks of worker freedom have degenerated into being the camp followers of the political elite and vested interests. It's hard to get all "Norma Rae" about union membership when union leadership has increasingly adopted a policy of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em".
· Yr Obd't Servant
Understand your sentiments regarding corrupt unions--this is why we need independent unions run by the workers as volunteers.
Thanks.
It's not a bad model for running government, either-- although I don't expect such a radical reform to happen in my lifetime, if ever.
While I was trashing Andy Stern in my previous comment, I forgot to add something that fits your response: my sense of co-opted union officials like Stern is that they see themselves as power brokers, professional gamblers by another name playing with "membership" in the abstract as chips.
In turn, they provide "services" or benefits to loyal, trusting (submissive) membership.
As you note, this is implicitly a top-down stance in which the membership takes its cues from the leadership instead of the reverse. Never mind all the in-house marketing pretending to offer empowerment; that's exactly the strategy used by the award-winning Obama marketing campaign to sucker the naïve and desperate. It worked.
This is exactly the bogus paradigm of "trickle-down economics", aka "voodoo economics".
· Yr Obd't Servant
sierra7
Same old story.....The "corrupt" union officials sold out the rank and file way, way back after WW2, when they jumped (actually it started during WW2; read our history in Italy) on the foreign policy bandwagon in order to have the illusion of a "place at the labor/capital table." That never happened, and over the years the major union heads, the corrupt politicians, both democrat and republican sold out labor to globalization, bolstered by the weak response by labor leaders to Reagan's destruction of the air traffic controllers.
There is only one, and only ONE answer...the streets!!!!
Concludes Steve Early: "In the wake of this latest rebuff, labor activists must return to the drawing board and quickly develop a fall-back strategy - for defending and extending collective bargaining - that doesn't hinge on amending federal law. It won't be easy." This article describes, but nowhere attempts to explain why, history records repeated rebuffs (i.e., betrayals) by Democrats of their labor supporters. This article fails to draw the obvious conclusion--long argued by Ralph Nader et al.--that organized labor's support for the Democrats is a self-defeating reformism that should be abandoned in favor of the independent self-organization of working folk. Yes, "It won't be easy," but the alternative is perpetuating the "liberal" lie that the Democrats are anything other than a representative of the corporate capitalist/imperialist elite.
How about this--don't support politicians who betray you. If there are no Democrats or Republicans who will support you support a third party candidate who will. Speaking as a union member critical of union leadership I will say that you don't know how pitiful weak and coopted you look when you go along with Democrats who have no real intention of supporting you or your members. Better to lose standing for your principles than to lose being compromised.
Labor is being crushed in the class war, the real "long war." Obama is merely the new face of the opposition, the capitalists.
Organize! Organize! Organize!
Why does organize seem to always mean a recognized labor union that can negotiate for workers?
Can't workers at a factory organize a social group that might raise money for laid off workers to help them through tough times? or to discuss choosing/supporting people to run for political office from their own ranks, perhaps retired workers?
Women's associations in the late 1970s did this for categories like secretaries that established labor unions weren't interested in. One was 9 to 5. I am not sure how lasting the effects, but now secretaries are administrative assistants, sometimes men, and thanks to computers there are a lot fewer people doing this job. Professional associations can be activitist and can even push employers to improve the working conditions of employees, but there are always members who resist activism and others too ready to cut their own deal.
My dad was a union member. Not a great union, but that he was unionized allowed him a living wage and made it possible for him to pay for a private primary education. Not having to go to my public school was a truly lucky break for me. I guess I am of the camp that even a bad union is better than no union. Of course, it's a great thing when workers fire their union and go to one that better represents them.
Wages are the big contradiction in your idea. Lack of union power has resulted in a declining share of productive value going to workers. Coupled with the rampant outsourcing, workers have fewer resources. Like you I believe in organizations of ordinary people, run by them, not experts, but they can't be sports teams or bowling leagues. Employers are mostly only too willing to buy the uniforms. On the other hand, that might be a great "cover."
Perhaps a social organization of workers at a factory could act as a gauge by which unions could tell what the chances were that they could unionize a certain workforce. Perhaps a social organization could offer at least some spiritual support to workers as they tried to unionize. Perhaps certain bonds between individuals could be formed that would aid in unionizing.
for example, the president and CEO of TIAA-CREF, Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., who serves on President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, is caught outsourcing local jobs to India:
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=131783&catid=339