For 18 years, Gallup has been asking people this question:
Would you personally like to see labor unions in the United States — have more influence than they have today, the same amount as they have today (or) less influence than they have today?
This year, more people than ever before (39 percent) want unions to have more influence and the lowest number (28 percent) of people want them to have less influence. Since unions created the middle class (which is now rapidly disappearing), perhaps that should come as no surprise.
At an approval rating of 61 percent, it appears that labor unions are recovering from the slump that occurred during the Great Recession of 2009 when the approval (48 percent) dropped below 50 percent for the first time since Gallup began collecting the data.
So why are there more right-to-work states than ever before?
Unsurprisingly, Democrats approve of unions far more than do Republicans, by an 81 to 42 percent margin. That’s probably why the states that have passed “right to work” laws tend to be red. And currently, there are a lot of red states.
In 1981 Ronald Reagan destroyed the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization when he fired 11,000 workers. The union had protested unhealthy working conditions and went on strike for a reduced work week (equivalent to the hours worked by controllers in other countries) and increased early retirement benefits.
Historian Joseph A. McCartin concluded that the 1981 strike and defeat of PATCO was “one of the most important events” in late 20th century U.S. labor history. Donald J. Devine, the director of the Office of Personnel Management at the time, said “When the president said no ... American business leaders were given a lesson in managerial leadership that they could not and did not ignore.
“Many private-sector executives have told me that they were able to cut the fat from their organizations and adopt more competitive work practices because of what the government did in those days. I would not be surprised if these unseen effects of this private-sector shakeout under the inspiration of the president were as profound in influencing the recovery that occurred as the formal economic and fiscal programs.”
In retrospect, it surely did influence the recovery, as well as the creation of an economic elite that would go on to benefit from any future gains made by that recovery. It certainly helped lead us to a place where they would control all of the wealth, or at least enough to buy a president.
From the Thom Hartman blog comes a list of the labor movement’s achievements that benefit all workers:
- End child labor
- Establish the legal right of workers to form unions and collectively bargain for wages, benefits and working conditions
- Establish the 8 hour work day and paid overtime
- Win workers' comp benefits for workers injured on the job
- Secure unemployment insurance for workers who lose their jobs
- Secure a guaranteed minimum wage
- Improve workplace safety and reduce on the job fatalities
- Win pensions for workers
- Win health care insurance for workers
- Win paid sick leave, vacations, and holidays as standard benefits for most workers
- Win the right for public sector workers to collectively bargain
- Win passage of the Civil Right Acts and Title VII which outlaws job discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin
- Win passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act
- Win passage of the Family Medical Leave Act
Since the GOP-led war against organized labor, we have seen attacks on all of these accomplishments. Trump is the current leader of the war on workers and has ordered the reversal of several OSHA safety regulations as well as cuts in the budget for OSHA:
The spreadsheet lists OSHA’s proposed budget at $543,257,000, $9,530,000 less than the FY 17 enacted budget, or a 1.7% cut. We don’t know any of the details, except that the “skinny budget” eliminates OSHA’s $10.5 million Susan Harwood grant program, which could account for the cuts. We also don’t know whether money has been shifted among accounts, for example from Enforcement to Compliance Assistance. Given that OSHA has had a flat, or declining budget since 2010, any further cuts — especially in enforcement — can be devastating for workers. So get ready to put your lobbying shoes on.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is taking an even larger hit:
NIOSH, on the other hand, is getting whacked — a 40% cut, from $335.2 in FY 2017 down to $200 million in 2018. The is a particularly hard blow for workplace safety and health research, especially on top of the demise of the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety.
But these are details in the larger picture of the wealth redistribution that appears to have accompanied the demise of labor unions.
Labor union membership has never exceeded its peak in the 1950s, when it accounted for around 35 percent of all workers. As of 2016, union membership is down to 10.7 percent. For those lucky enough to be in a union, the usual weekly earnings were $1,004—or $202 higher than non-union members’ median weekly earnings of $802.
While there are some things that a United States president or senator can do to fight the rising inequality, until we start growing our union movement, the economic elite will remain in charge.