Labour and the Democrats: a messy but necessary affair.
The Christian Science Monitor has one of those terrific, and short, meta-pieces about why labour's big split has occurred and why it matters. The title: "Big labor's split matters -- even to nonunion America." In a nutshell:
- the rise and fall of labor determines the balance of power in the United States. The stronger unions are, the less powerful business is. The weaker they are, the more power shifts to the corporate suite.
- Unions provide "countervailing forces" - the idea that government, business, and labor served to keep a check on one another...Today, unions are too weak, observers say.
- One reason for labor's weakness is the might of money. Organized labor gave $61.6 million to federal candidates and parties in last year's election, says the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. Business interests donated $1.5 billion, some 24 times as much.
- One reason for labor's weakness is the might of money. Organized labor gave $61.6 million to federal candidates and parties in last year's election, says the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. Business interests donated $1.5 billion, some 24 times as much.
- Even government isn't much of a counterweight to business nowadays in determining regulatory and taxation policies, some political scientists argue... "Government and corporations are so intertwined, there is no countervailing power," says Charles Derber, a sociologist at Boston College.
- Another key reason for the weakness of unions is that labor law has not stopped employers from taking increasingly aggressive actions against unions, often with the help of lawyers specializing in union busting... The penalties [for engaging in illegal anti-union activity] are so small that companies often consider them the cost of doing business...It's certainly far cheaper than paying the higher pay and benefits that a union is likely to negotiate...
I'm not at all optimistic about labour's split. Change to Win took with it not only the most successful union of the past decade, Andy Stern's SIEU, but also the union where much of the action is happening today, Joe Hanson's UFCA, which is spearheading the attempt to organize Wal-Mart.
The problem is that the UFCW is incredibly unlikely to succeed in its Wal-Mart organizing drive. The reason is that it's just too difficult to organize in the US under current labour law and current labour law enforcement. Not only is union-busting too easy and the laws protecting strikers too anemic, but, most important, unions must, under current state laws, must hold secret-ballot elections to obtain certification. As I wrote before, the empirical academic literature is unambiguous here; without automatic certification through a card check regime, union drives fail. This might be for perfectly good reasons: i.e. workers who feel pressured to publicly sign a card would reject a union in an anonymous vote. Fifty years ago, when unions were a force to reckon with, this might have been a theoretical debate worth having. But today, it's basicly irrelevent. With unions so weak and business so strong, the only question now is whether we think we'd be better off in a society without organized labour. If the answer is no -- and it should be -- then the one and only point must be to strengthen the union movement, not about whether the mechanisms that do so are completely "fair" to everyone involved.
And here's the catch-22. The only way that labour improves its lot is by getting a government back in power that's sympathetic to its organizers. That's why Priscilla Murolo is mainly right when she's quoted in the article saying that the Clinton administration "didn't do anything for labor," and wrong when she says that "labor is too ready to support Democrats in return for vague promises and cosmetic support." It's true that the Clinton Admin, to their lasting shame, didn't do anywhere near enough to promote the right to organize or to challenge negative public opinion about unions as just another interest group, and that Clinton's labour-friendly appointments to the National Labour Relations Board proved painfully temporary. But it's not true that the unions should therefore give up on supporting the Democrats or that Sweeney was therefore wrong to pour so much into getting Democrats elected. After all, 37 of the 38 Senate and 191 of the 198 House co-sponsors of Ted Kennedy's most recent introduction of the pro-card check Employee Fair Choice Act were Democrats.
So the Democrats owe labour. But more to the point, the Democrats need labour. The reasons are threefold: First, labour provides muscle in campaigns. Without the GOTV efforts of the AFL-CIO through its own locals and, in 2004, through organizations like ACT, neither of the last two US presidential elections would have been close, and who knows how the Congressional contests would have shaken out. Second, the unions give the Democrats their only real source of white male support outside of college campuses, and a political party can't govern effectively without some measure of support from their electorate's dominant racial-gender group. Third, and maybe most important, organized labour is the Democratic constituency that most overtly agitates for such public-good enhancing, and broadly appealing, legislation as a higher minimum wage and funding for the Occupational Health and Safety Board, and expansions of the Family and Medical Leave Act. This is a different, sometimes very different, kettle of fish from a lot of the other interest groups, and from an online activist base whose most pressing desires, though important, often look quite a bit more selective: strengthening environmental protections; bringing the troops home from Iraq; ensuring equal rights for homosexuals; ensuring a woman's right to abortion on demand.
Yet with Change to Win taking away three, and with UNITE-HERE, maybe four, of the most vital unions in the federation, breaking up local activist labour councils, and redirecting their dues from AFL-CIO political organizing, the Democrats lose a much needed source of funding and the important, widely attractive, demands that go with that funding. Which makes it harder for Democrats to win. Which makes it less likely that Kennedy's card check bill will ever get out of committee; that permanent striker replacement will ever be banned; that labour-friendly appointees will return to the NLRB; that penalties for union-busting will ever go up; and therefore that either of the union blocs will be successful in their newfangled service-sector organizing efforts, no matter how intense their new competition makes them.
It all comes down to the one thing I disagree with in the CSM article, it's closing passage:
At some point, [sociologist Charles Derber] says, the increasing economic stress and dislocation of many workers will become so great that it will create political instability and discontent sufficient to revive a new voice for labor - perhaps even trade unions.
"We are already close to that level," he adds.
That's, IMO, the fundamental mistake progressives make these days, thinking we're "near that level". No matter how unequal and how uncertain American society is, the US is so rich that most people who hold any political clout at all live better lives than they did 50 years ago. With so much affluence around, and no obvious class system, it's hard to convince people they need an organized voice, that things could be a lot better, that it's worth the risk and discomfort of making greater demands, particularly with the political force of the right telling them all the time it just ain't so. To the extent that people are stressed and unhappy, it's like Thomas Frank recently said, the sense that "that we are all in the grip of historical forces beyond our control, that the “invisible hand” is pulling the strings these days and that there is nothing we can do about low wages or outsourcing or the rest of it".
Of course, letting working life get worse so that we "hit that point" and it can get better isn't the answer anyway. That's the same hoary old logic that has led to centuries of death and misery and failed "revolution" all over the globe. The answer, unsatisfactory as it might be, lies in electing Democrats (or Republicans like Arlen Spectre who support the union cause) who can rewrite the rules to make it easier to organize. And on the other end of the stick, it's pretty damn essential that the Democrats, the next time they get the chance to do so, make sure that they really work like hell to deliver.
- the rise and fall of labor determines the balance of power in the United States. The stronger unions are, the less powerful business is. The weaker they are, the more power shifts to the corporate suite.
- Unions provide "countervailing forces" - the idea that government, business, and labor served to keep a check on one another...Today, unions are too weak, observers say.
- One reason for labor's weakness is the might of money. Organized labor gave $61.6 million to federal candidates and parties in last year's election, says the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. Business interests donated $1.5 billion, some 24 times as much.
- One reason for labor's weakness is the might of money. Organized labor gave $61.6 million to federal candidates and parties in last year's election, says the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. Business interests donated $1.5 billion, some 24 times as much.
- Even government isn't much of a counterweight to business nowadays in determining regulatory and taxation policies, some political scientists argue... "Government and corporations are so intertwined, there is no countervailing power," says Charles Derber, a sociologist at Boston College.
- Another key reason for the weakness of unions is that labor law has not stopped employers from taking increasingly aggressive actions against unions, often with the help of lawyers specializing in union busting... The penalties [for engaging in illegal anti-union activity] are so small that companies often consider them the cost of doing business...It's certainly far cheaper than paying the higher pay and benefits that a union is likely to negotiate...
I'm not at all optimistic about labour's split. Change to Win took with it not only the most successful union of the past decade, Andy Stern's SIEU, but also the union where much of the action is happening today, Joe Hanson's UFCA, which is spearheading the attempt to organize Wal-Mart.
The problem is that the UFCW is incredibly unlikely to succeed in its Wal-Mart organizing drive. The reason is that it's just too difficult to organize in the US under current labour law and current labour law enforcement. Not only is union-busting too easy and the laws protecting strikers too anemic, but, most important, unions must, under current state laws, must hold secret-ballot elections to obtain certification. As I wrote before, the empirical academic literature is unambiguous here; without automatic certification through a card check regime, union drives fail. This might be for perfectly good reasons: i.e. workers who feel pressured to publicly sign a card would reject a union in an anonymous vote. Fifty years ago, when unions were a force to reckon with, this might have been a theoretical debate worth having. But today, it's basicly irrelevent. With unions so weak and business so strong, the only question now is whether we think we'd be better off in a society without organized labour. If the answer is no -- and it should be -- then the one and only point must be to strengthen the union movement, not about whether the mechanisms that do so are completely "fair" to everyone involved.
And here's the catch-22. The only way that labour improves its lot is by getting a government back in power that's sympathetic to its organizers. That's why Priscilla Murolo is mainly right when she's quoted in the article saying that the Clinton administration "didn't do anything for labor," and wrong when she says that "labor is too ready to support Democrats in return for vague promises and cosmetic support." It's true that the Clinton Admin, to their lasting shame, didn't do anywhere near enough to promote the right to organize or to challenge negative public opinion about unions as just another interest group, and that Clinton's labour-friendly appointments to the National Labour Relations Board proved painfully temporary. But it's not true that the unions should therefore give up on supporting the Democrats or that Sweeney was therefore wrong to pour so much into getting Democrats elected. After all, 37 of the 38 Senate and 191 of the 198 House co-sponsors of Ted Kennedy's most recent introduction of the pro-card check Employee Fair Choice Act were Democrats.
So the Democrats owe labour. But more to the point, the Democrats need labour. The reasons are threefold: First, labour provides muscle in campaigns. Without the GOTV efforts of the AFL-CIO through its own locals and, in 2004, through organizations like ACT, neither of the last two US presidential elections would have been close, and who knows how the Congressional contests would have shaken out. Second, the unions give the Democrats their only real source of white male support outside of college campuses, and a political party can't govern effectively without some measure of support from their electorate's dominant racial-gender group. Third, and maybe most important, organized labour is the Democratic constituency that most overtly agitates for such public-good enhancing, and broadly appealing, legislation as a higher minimum wage and funding for the Occupational Health and Safety Board, and expansions of the Family and Medical Leave Act. This is a different, sometimes very different, kettle of fish from a lot of the other interest groups, and from an online activist base whose most pressing desires, though important, often look quite a bit more selective: strengthening environmental protections; bringing the troops home from Iraq; ensuring equal rights for homosexuals; ensuring a woman's right to abortion on demand.
Yet with Change to Win taking away three, and with UNITE-HERE, maybe four, of the most vital unions in the federation, breaking up local activist labour councils, and redirecting their dues from AFL-CIO political organizing, the Democrats lose a much needed source of funding and the important, widely attractive, demands that go with that funding. Which makes it harder for Democrats to win. Which makes it less likely that Kennedy's card check bill will ever get out of committee; that permanent striker replacement will ever be banned; that labour-friendly appointees will return to the NLRB; that penalties for union-busting will ever go up; and therefore that either of the union blocs will be successful in their newfangled service-sector organizing efforts, no matter how intense their new competition makes them.
It all comes down to the one thing I disagree with in the CSM article, it's closing passage:
At some point, [sociologist Charles Derber] says, the increasing economic stress and dislocation of many workers will become so great that it will create political instability and discontent sufficient to revive a new voice for labor - perhaps even trade unions.
"We are already close to that level," he adds.
That's, IMO, the fundamental mistake progressives make these days, thinking we're "near that level". No matter how unequal and how uncertain American society is, the US is so rich that most people who hold any political clout at all live better lives than they did 50 years ago. With so much affluence around, and no obvious class system, it's hard to convince people they need an organized voice, that things could be a lot better, that it's worth the risk and discomfort of making greater demands, particularly with the political force of the right telling them all the time it just ain't so. To the extent that people are stressed and unhappy, it's like Thomas Frank recently said, the sense that "that we are all in the grip of historical forces beyond our control, that the “invisible hand” is pulling the strings these days and that there is nothing we can do about low wages or outsourcing or the rest of it".
Of course, letting working life get worse so that we "hit that point" and it can get better isn't the answer anyway. That's the same hoary old logic that has led to centuries of death and misery and failed "revolution" all over the globe. The answer, unsatisfactory as it might be, lies in electing Democrats (or Republicans like Arlen Spectre who support the union cause) who can rewrite the rules to make it easier to organize. And on the other end of the stick, it's pretty damn essential that the Democrats, the next time they get the chance to do so, make sure that they really work like hell to deliver.
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