Is the Department of Labor relevant anymore? Why is the Labor Secretary not part of the Administration’s economic team? This is probably a legacy of the deal Big Labor made with Big Business and Big Government in the 1950s. For throwing under the bus (my favorite catch phrase of the 2008 election) the leftists and social unionism, the AFL-CIO got from Big Business guaranteed COLAs (cost of living allowances) and de facto recognition of Labor’s legitimacy in the capitalist economy. For embracing a right-wing, pro-corporatist foreign policy, the AFL-CIO got Big Government support for the concessions Big Business was granting. The deal was the Big Compromise. It ushered in an era of business unionism (in which Labor did not contest the authority of capitalists to manage the economy – at the firm, micro, and macro levels) and Labor as a working-class bulwark against – not communism as it claimed, but leftism of any sort. So, how did that work out?
Well, we haven’t exactly had serious government support for labor since then. In the 1960s, organized labor was strong and liked things they were they were. So, there wasn’t much call for labor policy reform. Except, of course, if you were a farm worker or black or female, etc. The Wagner Act exempted agricultural and domestic workers in a nod to Southern racist and class ideology (these industries were populated by blacks and Latinos, as well as poor whites).
In 1970, deindustrialization started to hit home. The decline of manufacturing began as early as the late 1940s in some areas (Detroit, for instance), but its impact on the economy was not felt until 1970 when American capital began to restructure in face of renewed competition from Japan and Europe. Labor density was high in manufacturing and related industries because that was where the jobs were for decades. Upon the decline of these jobs, we saw a significant decline in union memberships. By the 1976 election, there was a serious problem for Big Labor. Mass layoffs, abandoned plants, attacks on efforts by cities and communities to keep plants open through eminent domain, breaking strikes, moving jobs, and violations of the Big Compromise by Big Business even in the face of concessions by Big Labor. By 1976, we had already entered the Era of the Weak Labor Department.
President Carter is known for appointing a union guy to Labor Secretary. But, what did it get us? Carter had Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress and could never agree on any labor law reform at all, although by the late seventies the system was clearly broken and the need was established. A missed opportunity and then...Reagan. The Right had its opening and seized it at the earliest possible opportunity. In 1981, the air traffic controllers’ union, PATCO, struck. Public employees legally prohibited from striking, Reagan fired every single one of them. He sent a clear signal to Big Business. The Big Compromise was over; attack on all fronts and the federal government will have your back.
Big Labor had spent nearly forty years conceding power for immediate personal gain for its members. Forgetting all the years of struggle, community organizing, and social unionism that created its strength in the first place, the AFL-CIO had purged most of its strongest and committed leaders and organizers, had given up any claims to social and management issues in favor of incremental wages that had not always come, and embraced a right-wing foreign policy that undermined its credibility with progressives at home and everyone else abroad. And, to add a touch of irony, PATCO endorsed Reagan in the 1980 election. A union of Reagan Democrats was going to be the first intentional casualty of the joint Big Business-Big Government War on Unionization. And few in Big Labor thought it important to come to PATCO’s aid. It was a stroke of strategic genius by the Right, but one borne in the original unholy compromise and the selfish embracing of small current gains for the few at the expense of long-term gains for all workers.
OK. Let’s just accept for the moment that things got really bad for unions and workers under Reagan and Bush the First. And their Labor Departments were useless. If you don’t accept this premise, let’s discuss it. But, for now, I am assuming this to be a true statement. In 1992, we get a Democratic president and Congress again. And we even have a kinda progressive as Labor Secretary. We again saw some rumblings of labor law reform in the form of a commission, but nothing came of it. Certainly after 1994, when the Republicans took control of Congress such reform was dead – but the Democrats had two years and got nothing from it. President Clinton made some good appointments at Labor during his tenure, but was concerned about neutrality in the labor arena. Does anyone worry about neutrality when it comes to Treasury? Why only at Labor, Interior, and EPA? Well, this is not the time for neutrality at any of these departments. (By the way, in case you missed it there has been no neutrality under Bush the Second - it's been downright hostile to labor and worker issues.) After fifty years of the Era of the Weak Labor Department, we cannot rebuild an equitable economy by accepting the "reality" that corporate and right-wing political interests have scripted for us.
What can a strong Labor Department do for creating an equitable economy? I argued in an earlier post that we need a strong labor movement to support and prod progressive economic policy. An instrument to support a renewed labor movement is the Employee Free Choice Act, which will counter the anti-worker policy we have seen in the era of the Big Compromise and the Weak Labor Department. We need strong advocates for our settled and explicit public policy to support and favor the right of workers to organize collectively. Neutral is not acceptable. Are we neutral about free speech, about freedom of religion, about the right to vote? Are we neutral about freedom, about equality, about democracy? These are all core values of our republic...as is the right to organize and collectively bargain! It’s time to end the Era of the Weak Labor Department and begin again to vigorously enforce our public policy and advocate for the rights of workers to decent wages, safe and healthy workplaces, and respect.
We should know soon who will be Labor Secretary. My hopeful, now that David Bonior and George Miller have taken themselves out of the running, is Mary Beth Maxwell. But, in any case we need to put the pressure on the Administration to make good pro-labor and pro-worker choices at all levels of Labor, especially including the regulatory agencies such as NLRB, OSHA, etc. It's time to begin the Era of the Strong Labor Department!