UNIONS ARE GROWING -- FINALLY
By Dick Meister
Here’s some welcome news you may not have heard: The percentage of U.S.
workers in unions actually increased last year. It was the first increase in
more than 30 years, and could very well mark the beginning of a steady
reversal of what has been a steady decline.
That’s good news for all of us, since widespread unionization is one of the
essentials for a truly healthy middle class and thus a truly healthy
economy.
The news is from a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that
unionized workers made up 12.1 percent of the workforce in 2007, up from 12
percent in 2006. It may sound meaningless, but that increase of one-tenth
of one percent means that overall union membership grew by 311,000 to 15.7
million -- the highest total in many years.
The increase, mind you, comes at a time when workers and unions are under
great and growing pressure from employers and the virulently anti-labor Bush
administration and its Republican allies. They also face a continued slowing
of job growth and increase in unemployment, as many jobs move abroad,
especially those in the once heavily unionized manufacturing industries.
What’s more, real wages continue to drop, and though employer profits
continue to rise, the share of national income going to the workers’ wages
and benefits has sunk lower than it has been in four decades.
Given those circumstances, it’s remarkable that unions have grown at all –
but hardly remarkable that many workers seek unionization as virtually the
only way to improve their deteriorating conditions.
Neither is it remarkable, however, that employers and the Bush
administration and its allies have done their best to thwart the workers –
to the point that, as recent studies show, more than half of those who
want to join or form unions have been unable to do so. That includes at
least 60 million workers whose fear of illegal employer reprisal keeps them
from even trying . Their fear is real: Every year more than 60,000 workers
who do try are punished, half of them fired.
The recent union growth stems largely from new organizing efforts by the
AFL-CIO and the Service Employees, Teamsters and five other key unions that
left the AFL-CIO three years ago to form a rival Change to Win federation.
But it will take more than those efforts to bring union membership to all of
the millions who want it – and need it.
It will require a thorough revamping of the National Labor Relations Act
(NLRA) that’s supposed to guarantee U.S. workers the unfettered right of
unionization -- plus the election of a Democratic president to fairly
enforce the law, as Democratic office seekers generally have promised to do.
The NLRA has grown so feeble and is so poorly enforced that employers have
been able to routinely intimidate union adherents.
They commonly use such tactics as ordering supervisors to spy on union
organizers and to threaten pro-union workers with firing, demotion or other
penalties. They order workers to attend meetings at which employers rail
against unions and falsely claim that unionization will force workers to pay
exorbitant dues and lead to pay cuts and layoffs or even force the employers
out of business. They hire high-priced “union avoidance” consultants to help
them with their dirty work.
Employers have little reason to fear government action. The penalties for
violations are slight, at most small fines or small back-pay settlements for
workers who are wrongly fired. Workers, at any rate, fear complaining about
violations because it usually takes months – if not years – for the
government to act, and they meanwhile risk being fired or otherwise
disciplined.
In nearly a third of the relatively rare instances in which workers are
able to vote for union representation in the elections currently required by
the NLRA, the employers refuse to agree to a contract with the winning
union. Workers who strike to try to force them to reach an agreement or
otherwise follow the law may be permanently replaced.
The essential revamping of the NLRA would be carried out by a bill that’s
long been pending in Congress – the Employee Free Choice Act. It would
subject employers to stiffer fines, swiftly imposed, and make further
revisions aimed at returning the Labor Relations Act to its stated purpose
of encouraging unionization.
The key to that is a provision that would automatically grant union
recognition on the showing of union membership cards by a majority of an
employer’s workers, rather than holding an election. The law was like that
originally, with no lengthy election campaigns and thus much less
opportunity for employers to intimidate workers.
Under another provision, employers who stalled in negotiations on a
contract with workers who choose unionization would have the terms
determined in mediation or dictated by an arbitrator.
The new numbers showing an increase in union membership are
heartening. But the law must be reformed if U.S. workers are to finally be
guaranteed the vital right of unionization.
Copyright © 2008 Dick Meister