If you were listening to many of the speakers at the convention in Denver this week, you’d walk away thinking all we need is a Democrat in the White House and presto — unions will make a stunning resurgence in the United States.
Alas, it’s not that easy. Yes, union membership took a nosedive during the Bush years, but the numbers also dropped during the supposed pro-union Clinton years.
Whenever the Labor Day holiday rolls around, you get lots of media writing about unions. It’s a natural I suppose. But the stories are all pretty similar. Either we’re writing about the demise of unions in this country, or we’re writing about how the government has taken the teeth out of union organizing because of anti-union legislation.
But rarely do the stories focus on the responsibilities workers have in helping unionization reemerge.
I’m not disregarding what pro-business politicians do. The latest news from the Bush administration is that the president is contemplating signing an executive order that would knock the feet out from under unions. Bush wants to force unions to use secret ballots when they attempt to unionize a large government contractor, but labor unions prefer an open card-check system so everyone knows who’s saying yes or no to creating a union.
This doesn’t help unions but it’s only a tiny part of what’s keeping organizing down.
Saying that a Democrat in the White House will be union nirvana is simplistic, maintains Gary Chaison, professor of Industrial Relations at Clark University.
“The amount of organizing that needs to be done requires more than changes in rules,” he explains. “Unions have to devote themselves wholeheartedly to organizing and selling the process of collective bargaining.”
Basically, if they can’t convince workers that union representation is a good thing then unions are screwed.
When unions exploded in the 1940s, it was anything but easy to go up against powerful businesses, but a passion among workers helped drive labor’s heyday. It also helped that there were job shortages created by World War II giving workers a bit more bargaining power.
Let’s face it, unions typically thrived during tough times for working stiffs. They were getting so shafted that they needed to turn to someone, something for help.
Indeed, workers face hard times right now. With globalization, shrinking paychecks, loss of pensions, and the increasing price tag for health care, you’d think employees would be eager to sign union cards.
Maybe workers believe government and employers will finally give them a break, so they don’t see the need for unions.
The Democrats have been touting the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation they believe will bolster unionization by making the organizing process easier.
“A key point is that even if the Act was somehow passed by a Senate with at least 60 Democrats and signed by a President Obama, unions would still have to do so much work,” Chaison says. “The Act makes it easier and cheaper and faster to organize, by allowing unions to prove majority support by signed membership cards rather than a secret ballot elections, but unions would have to organize about a half-million new members each year just for the percent of the workforce in unions, presently at around 12 percent, to stand still and not fall further. To increase by one percentage point the unions would have to organize about a million new members each year. The cost of organizing each new member is about $1500, so the cost of organizing would be huge and it is estimated to consume about a third or more of unions’ operating budgets.”
It would all be much easier if workers got so pissed off at their employers that they all just headed over to union halls across the country and asked to sign up.
The question is, would enough Americans ever want to?
August 29th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Eve, do you really think that allowing secret ballots will knock the feet out from under unions? Think about it. Why should unions care if ballots are open or secret? If the workers want organization, they’ll vote for it. Keeping an open ballot leaves those who vote open to negative pressure, ostracism, or even ridicule from the opposite side. I clearly remember being pressured to support unionization in one workplace. It was horrible. By opposing unionization–mostly because I believed that management rewarded workers who did their jobs well (it had been the case with me)–I was made out to be a villain who wanted to limit the opportunities available to my peers. It was horrible.
If people would allow others to disagree with them without castigating them, then perhaps open ballots would be reasonable. Since that is not the case in our society, then I believe people should be able to make the decision whether or not to unionize–a decision that impacts not just the workplace, but the worker’s family as well (through union dues, contractual limitation on compensation, prohibition of side jobs, etc.)–with the full protection of a private ballot.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
You make some good points, and definitely, some union organizers and advocates go over the top and pressure workers. But that’s not the norm.
I’m always big on things being as open as possible in the workplace. I’ve always found it’s best for workers. But, as you point out, it can be abused.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:19 am
It is absurd to contemplate the ideal that Republicans are anti-union. I totally disagree with that because I am an SEIU member and I am a Republican. This is the second time in my life I was in a labor union. I was a member of the USW first, and even then I was a Republican. I am a very vocal Republican, then and now. In fact in 1986 while protesting with extraordinary vehemence the subsequent closing of our livlihood, everyone was shocked by my outright vicious acts of defiance and property damamge. Be rest assured, you can only get the smell of rotting fish out of drywall painted with flat paint only by replacing it and that is what they had to do in the US Steel building , Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania. This is what happens when you piss off a Republican.
Today, September 1, 2008; I marched with my union brothers and sisters in our great country’s oldest and largest Labor Day Parade through the streets of downtown Pittsburgh. I proudly shouted out our union’s name in a modified military cadence. I did not shout out the name of the endorsed Presidential candidate, instead I pouted and frowned. I declared only that expression when they wanted me to say ‘Yes’ to Obama, and I defiantley said ‘YES’ to McCain when they wanted a ‘NO’. I was the only one there who did that. Was I cursed at by my union brethren?..absolutely not. Will they be shocked when by virtue of my experience I change their minds…you bet they will. The point is, I will march with any union brother or sister. I will carry their signs. I would carry them on my shoulders if it will help. Republicans are not and never have been anti-union. That is entirely untrue.
The biggest problem today is that union organizers are concentrating entirely on gaining membership of new venues. And in doing so are neglecting the existing unions who need far better trained leaders. My local looks at me like I am crazy. One organizer says I must be a gift from God. Yet our membership is at a point of absolute apathy. They have been for almost thirty years.
Obama is a good man. He and I are at the same age of 47 and we both smoke Marlboros. I totally agree, believe it or not,with many things he wants to do. He beleives the GI bill should extend to every veteran who has served, combat or peacetime. I am a peace time veteran of the US Army. I can go to the VA and get my teeth fixed but I cannot buy a house with a guaranteed FHA loan. But an 80 year old veteran of the Korean War, who may have been in Korea or Alaska at the time, can today take the loan and buy a house. McCain, an American hero as far as I am concerned feels that the cost of such a benenfit would be far too much for the American tax payer to burden. He is correct, however I still might want to buy a house. Obama feels funding for a VA over haul could be accomplished by further taxing major corporations such as oil and pharmaceuticals. If he did that, how many people would not be employed by those industries further burdening our economy. Obama is incorrect on that. The democratic Congress would fight him tooth and nail on that because their is a high volume of congressman who were elected by those ‘pharmecuetical dollars’. The Bush administration broke through with actual pharmacy benefits for the elderly and medicare recipients. For over 40 years, no one accomplished more on that legislation, but Obama and McCain were against it. There exists alot of common ground on both candidates.
With Obama, the worldly man, we could all expect to see a rise in wages. I beleive that. However it will be gone because taxes to fund more government will most assuredly diminish those gains. McCain will bring down the price of many things, like food. However part of that is because our wages won’t have to be increased, and some things must be sold.
Both candidates will stall education reform. We are at a precipice of changing the way we educate our children using ‘affordable’ technology that is actually decades old. We will incite our children to become more adept at their aptitude rather than trying to create a career course based on every child recieving the same education. Obama, who is a straight A intellectual type would feel that unless you can be as intelligent as he is, maybe you should take up welding. McCain would tend to increase college grants so we have more MBA’s managing big retail stores. Or encourage more military educated adults.
I hope you enjoyed my short story. In closing this, I strongly feel that the next four years will more than likely be as important to our nation as whether you checked the batteries of your smoke alarms when the time changes if you are an alarmist, or perhaps as important as to when the last time you buttered your bread with, was it toasted or not if you are an idiot.
Be safe…