A labor piece a few days late for May Day, but the way things are around here, it's MayDay every day.
Unionization and collective bargaining are about power, and law plays a key role in allocating power between workers and employers. In fact, you can think of law as putting a heavy thumb on the scale. Each change in the law, no matter how subtle, tips the balance of power one way or the other. In fact, labor law is all about power and freedom for workers to exercise some control over their working lives. It is ultimately about what sort of society we want to live in and hand on to future generations.
This is no exaggeration. Consider how many of the basic rights and benefits we take for granted exist only as a result of the hard work and dedication of thousands of union men and women who struggled to win these rights for all people in the United States. The United States labor movement's accomplishments include:
Ending child labor
Establishing the eight-hour work day and paid overtime
Winning workers' comp benefits for workers injured on the job
Securing unemployment insurance for workers who lose their jobs
Securing a guaranteed minimum wage
Improving workplace safety and reducing on-the-job fatalities
Winning secured pensions for workers
Winning health care insurance for workers
Establishing paid sick leave, vacations, and holidays as standard benefits for most workers
Winning passage of the Civil Right Acts, Title VII, the Equal Pay Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and many related state laws which outlaw job discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin
Winning passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act
Winning passage of the Family Medical Leave Act
No subject but Labor Law so clearly demonstrates the roles of power and strategy intertwined with law. The National Labor Relations Act was created for the express purpose of equalizing bargaining power between employees and employers and using that power to promote improved wages and working conditions through collective action and collective bargaining. In many ways, the NLRA has been a true success story.
The labor movement has empowered working people to act as citizens of a democracy. Union members vote in percentages far exceeding nonunion members. In the 2000 elections, for example, unions registered 2.3 million new voters, made 8 million phone calls to get out the vote, passed out more than 14 million leaflets, emailed people urging them to vote, and supported hundreds of candidates and issues in elections. Beyond electoral politics, unions in recent years have worked for and supported legislation intended to benefit workers and the impoverished in this country. See People-Powered Politics and Winning for Working Families: Recommendations from the Officers of the AFL-CIO for Uniting and Strengthening the Union Movement (Apr. 2005). In addition, the international labor movement is a major force in the global campaign to eradicate sweatshops, joining together with students and others committed to economic justice in the global economy. The labor movement today fights for immigrant workers' rights, including by working for legislation to extend democratic rights to undocumented workers. Unions have called attention to the fact that current immigration laws allow employers to use the threat of deportation against undocumented workers seeking fair treatment on the job.
Unions throughout the country have led coalitions that have won "living wage" laws in Los Angeles, Detroit, Boston, and more than 50 other cities and counties nationwide. Most of these laws require contractors who receive public funding to pay their workers wages that will lift them out of poverty. How Unions Bring Low Wage Workers Out of Poverty
Of course, unionization is a complex issue about which people feel a great deal of passion. During recent years, for example, there have been some scandals involving union officials. Many employers oppose unions on the grounds that union wage demands cut profitability and prevent employers from taking actions unilaterally. Most important of all, the percentage of workers who are union members has been declining. The causes of that decline are complex, and law may be one of the causes.
For those interested in the future of politics and the welfare of our society, it is clear that unions have an important role to play. But we are on the verge of losing their power and organization and, as a result, these benefits. As power and organization are lost, wages and working conditions spiral down. There has long been a wholesale attack on the key institutions that create, protect, and buttress power for those who would otherwise be powerless.
That attack is taking place on many fronts. One is the privatization of public sector work. Another has been squeezing the budgets and power of the agencies that protect unions and workplace rights, including the NLRB and OSHA.
But one of the most dangerous attacks has come through the judiciary. Conservative judges are so substantially rewriting the laws unions sweated blood for so they do not provide the protetions they were supposed to. There are no workplace laws that have been immune. We are currently seeing attacks that are undermining the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
For unions, the most pernicious attack has come through the appointment of archconservatives to the NLRB. They are engaged in tearing the guts out of the protections offered workers to discuss their working conditions with one another and make common cause, destroying the right to bargain collectively, as well as on many other fronts.
Each of these deserves its own deep analysis. But the point here is that as go unions so goes our democracy.