By Elaine Bernard
The decline in strength, density and influence of the labor movement must be a concern for all of us—even if we are not union members. It has led to stagnating and/or declining wages and benefits for private-sector workers, undermining the entire community. In a Hobbesian world of labor markets, no single sector or group can remain an island of good wages and working standards in a sea of declining standards and conditions.
In addition to the economic impact, the decline in unions also has had a detrimental impact on our democracy. The fact that the union movement builds democratic communities is crucial—but little recognized. By bringing together workers who have few rights, who are isolated as individuals and often compete against each other, unions forge a community in the workplace. They help workers understand they have rights, and they provide a vehicle for exercising those rights. They provide a powerful check to the almost total power of management in the workplace. And they fight for the right of workers to participate in decision making in the workplace.
Rights at work, including freedom of association and the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively, are key underpinnings of a democratic society. Alexis de Tocqueville observed that "in democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others." Where, but through the union movement, do millions of American workers learn how to democratically combine, not with an exclusive community of their choosing, but with a workforce hired by an employer and molded into a community though union organizing?
But labor movements and other communities of common interest don't just happen. They must be consciously constructed with a lot of hard work, discussion and organization. Crafting democratic communities in the workplace is an ongoing process, rather like democracy. And like democracy, it's a process that can be rolled back or reversed.
The decline in union strength and influence also can be seen in a wide variety of public policies. States with strong union influence (through greater union density) generally contribute considerably more annually per student to education. They also have significantly higher levels of support for workers who are unemployed and for injured workers collecting workers' compensation.
Workers who are union members also have many other advantages. They are far more likely to have employer-paid health insurance and guaranteed pensions than nonunion workers. Union workers are paid nearly 30 percent more than those doing the same work in a nonunion environment. But the union advantage is a two-edged sword.
By one measure, the 30 percent union wage premium, the U.S. union movement is the most successful in the world. No other labor movement has such a large union premium. But by another measure, the failure to socialize the gains of unions—whether through legislation, regulation or extension of collective bargaining standards throughout the country—has resulted in the United States having the weakest labor movement of any advanced industrial country.
Increasing the percentage of U.S. workers who belong to unions and turning around the decline in the union movement will be difficult. To get a sense of the pace and scale of organizing required, consider the following: In 2007, unions had a very good year and signed up one-third of a million workers. Yet, to raise union density by a modest 1 percent, unions would need to organize more than four times that many workers, or about 1.5 million workers. To return to the 22 percent union density that labor enjoyed in 1981, unions would need to organize more than 10 million workers.
A challenge of this magnitude may explain why "Organize or die" has become a mantra for the U.S. labor movement. But questions about organizing who, into what and how have lead to countless hours of debate on strategy, tactics and structure which ultimately, led to a split within the U.S. labor movement. Unfortunately, neither the AFL-CIO nor the unions that split from the AFL-CIO to form the "Change to Win" have been able to stem the decline in U.S. union membership through organizing.
At least part of the problem is that organizing the unorganized one workplace at a time through the bureaucratic and cumbersome procedures set out in 1935 in the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) will not be sufficient—as is evident in the high, but ultimately disappointing, membership increase in 2007.
Modest labor law reform, such as the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, which is vehemently opposed by Big Business, would help restore a degree of fairness to the NLRA. But even the adoption of these reforms would leave U.S. labor rights well short of internationally recognized standards of freedom of association and the freedom to collectively bargain.
Organizing is important, but it also needs to be more than signing up new members. Rather, the future of unions and their power rests with an informed, committed membership who understands that they are the union and that the power of the union rests with them. Today, the vast majority of union members did not join the union movement through their participation in organizing campaigns. Rather, they became union members by getting a job in a unionized workplace, with membership seen as simply one more automatic deduction from a dwindling paycheck.
So, a further "organizing" challenge for unions is learning to transform these inactive and potentially reluctant "dues payers" into informed, committed union activists. Because when workers decide to form a union, they are taking a stand to transform their workplace. And, in the process, they transform themselves and their co-workers. An organizing drive may start with a few workers talking about specific problems and grievances, but before long they are broadening their critique to include general issues, such as their right to a voice in the workplace. Successful organizing campaigns are not just an explosion of grievances against the employer—they also are a positive assertion by workers that they are more than hands for hire and that they have a right to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment. Not surprisingly, union members gained through new union organizing are among the most committed and enthusiastic activists.
And for all of the discussion about density and structures, the key place where this transformation happens is in the local union. It's the experience members have at the local level that determines whether they will see their union as just an agency, or whether they will grow to understand that the power of the union is not in its full-time staff and officers, but rather is embodied in the membership and is in the workplace at all times whenever union members are present. And it is committed activist members who are the best promoters and organizers of unions.
The thousands of local unions across the country are the keystone of the labor movement because they're the springboard for membership participation and leadership development (whether in unions, politics or the community).
This raises an important challenge: As some unions seek to centralize resources and build regional and national capacity, do they weaken locals and their role as a vehicle for membership engagement? Unions must build membership but also must meet the challenge to build qualitative strength by involving more members in the union's activities. To succeed, unions must be more than instruments for winning wages and resolving workplace grievances. In fact, unions are instruments of transformation of members and of society at large, and it in this wonderful transformation where the real power of unions rests. The vital role of unions is to serve as schools for democracy in a society where there are few places to practice democratic decision making. And the most important place where workers can exercise their rights is at the workplace.
Unions are the premier institution of a free, democratic society, promoting democracy in the workplace, as well as economic and social justice and equality.
Is the goal of unions merely to build lobbying power, the political influence of its leaders to get a little more for its members? Or is it to transform power in society as a whole by extending democracy to the workplace and the economic sphere and ultimately to break up concentrations of power, influence and wealth?
If labor's goal is the transformation of power, then this means leading a democratic struggle throughout society and at workplaces. It means constructing democratic unions and moving beyond a strategy of simply seeking to lobby those in power and instead, build a democratic alternative to the concentration of power and wealth.
Elaine Bernard is of the at Harvard University Law School. This article originally was published in , the online publication of the (DSA), and has been excerpted with permission. The full version also can be found at DSA's blog, .
