Summary
Working people in America are facing a serious crisis.
Domination by corporate special interests at the expense of working families
is steadily increasing, and victories for working people are the exception,
not the rule. While union members in America are better off than nonunion
workers, the continuing decline in union strength is making it harder and
harder even for union members to achieve and maintain real gains.
We cannot reverse these trends and build a more just and humane society unless
millions more workers join unions.
A much stronger,
united labor movement is the key to winning real victories for working people
both on standards for pay, benefits, and working conditions and on broader
economic and community issues that affect us all. Yet, the percentage of the
workforce in unions continues to drop -- to 13.5% overall and only 9% in the
private sector.
We have to build the strength to overcome one of the biggest obstacles to
uniting more workers in unions: employer interference.
Polls show that 50 percent of American workers who don't have a union want
one. That's more than 50 million workers. But employer interference -- much
of it currently legal -- prevents all but a handful from uniting in a union
each year. Legislation could protect workers’ right to form a union, but
without finding ways to reduce employer interference and increase the
percentage of workers in unions, the labor movement cannot build the strength
to win those reforms.
Trying harder – simply doing more of what we're doing now -- won't help
millions more workers join unions.
Even if the labor
movement could somehow double or triple the number of workers who join unions
each year, the percentage of union members in the workforce and the strength
of union members in nearly all sectors would continue to decline.
To change the balance of power between workers and corporate interests,
overcome employer opposition, and help millions of workers unite with us, the
labor movement must build strength in numbers in particular industries,
markets, employers, political jurisdictions, and unique skilled occupations.
A labor movement that has national industry and market strategies can…
·
Achieve enough
unionization in an industry or market, or demonstrate a serious plan to do so,
so that nonunion workers have more incentive to take the risk of trying to
join the union and employers less incentive to resist.
·
Use collective
bargaining by existing members -- including strikes if needed -- to win the
right of other employees of the same employers to join the union so everyone
will be stronger.
·
Develop long-term
bargaining, organizing, political, and community strategies based on strength
in and deep experience with an industry or market.
To build industry and market strength,
the labor movement needs a structure and strategies that have that focus.
Union members have
shown that we can win when we have…
·
Unions that have the
size, resources, focus, and skill to unite the strength of workers in
particular industries, markets, employers, political jurisdictions, and unique
skilled occupations.
·
A united strategy
that uses our combined political, bargaining, capital, and community resources
to reduce employer interference with workers trying to form unions.
·
A commitment to act
like one united movement to carry out industry strategies -- pooling
resources, coordinating in dealing with employers and elected officials, and
holding each other accountable.
·
A strategy to build
workers’ strength in both the private and public sectors – because one cannot
be sustained without the other.
The labor
movement's current structure and culture actually stand in the way of building
workers’ industry and market strength.
·
While corporations constantly restructure to
build and maintain strength, the labor movement's adjustments too often are
too little, too late. If workers were to start from scratch to design a labor
movement that could build industry strength in today's economy, it surely
would have a very different structure and culture than we now have.
·
Without making a conscious strategy decision,
the labor movement has become a collection of a few very large general unions,
each of which may organize workers in any industry or sector and may, like
SEIU, be a mixture of workers in different sectors. Nearly half of all
AFL-CIO members are in 6 of the federation's 65 affiliates, and more than 3/4
are in the 15 largest. In 13 of the 15
major sectors of the economy, at least 4 unions have a significant presence.
In 9 of those sectors, there are at least 6 significant unions.
·
Meanwhile, many affiliates lack the strength
to pursue effective industry strategies. The average membership of the
smallest 50 affiliates is 58,000.
·
The unions of the AFL-CIO generally do not
work together to design and carry out strategies to build workers’ industry
and market strength.
·
The rules the AFL-CIO unions have created do
not provide for mutual accountability to carry out united action.
·
United strategies are not in place for unions
in the private and public sectors to work together to build workers' strength
in both, to help workers form unions in the huge emerging nonunion service
sector, nor to reestablish workers' strength in traditional sectors such as
manufacturing.
The labor
movement desperately needs a new debate leading to new joint action
based on a
recognition that we either sink or swim together – and that the ultimate test
of a new strategy will not be whether SEIU or other individual unions benefit
as institutions but whether working people build and exercise the strength to
win.
1.
Working people in America are facing a serious crisis.
q
We don’t have the strength to stop living
standards from declining.
q
The decline in standards for most workers
makes it increasingly difficult to achieve and maintain gains for union
members.
q
While helping more workers join unions is the
key to winning more victories for working people, the labor movement generally
lacks the strength to reduce one of the main obstacles to workers forming a
union: employer interference.
A.
Declining living standards.
¯
Workers not sharing the benefit of productivity growth.
Until 1973, median worker pay and benefits went up as productivity went up.
Since then, productivity has increased by 55% while median compensation has
risen less than 10%.
[1]
In the past year, worker productivity rose 5% while real weekly earnings
actually declined.[2]
¯
Growing inequality of income.
From
the end of World War II through 1979, family income grew roughly equally
across the income spectrum.
However, from 1979 to 1998,
while the top 5% had a 64% increase in real income, the bottom 20% of families
lost ground and the middle 60% saw little or no gain.
[3]
¯
Extreme inequality of wealth.
In 2001, the richest 1% of households controlled about 38% of the nation’s
wealth, while the bottom 80% held 17%.
[4]
·¯
Decline in health care affordability, coverage, and quality.
·o
Health care costs rose by 13.7% in 2002 and are expected to rise another 15.4%
in 2003.
[5]
·o
Workers' share of premiums is rising even faster -- up 27% in 2002.
[6]
o
More
than 1 out of 3 workers don't have employer-provided coverage.
[7]
·o
41.2
million people were uninsured in 2001, up by 1.4 million from 2000. More than
80% of them were employed.
[8]
o
About 37 million adults have no drug coverage.
[9]
·o
Soaring Health Care Costs
(Average annual premiums)
|
|
Understaffing contributes to 1 out of 4 incidents leading to hospital patient
deaths or injuries, according to the industry's accrediting agency.
[10]
·¯
Decline in secure retirement benefits.
·o
Half
of people who work are not provided pensions by their employer.
[11]
o
While in 1979 more than four of five retirement plans provided defined,
guaranteed benefits, today a majority of plans provide only a defined
contribution, with no guarantee of benefits.
[12]
o
About two-thirds of retirees depend on Social Security for at least half their
income, and for one in five it's their only income. Yet, the average benefit
is only $874 per month.
[13]
Now, anti-worker politicians want to privatize the system, putting benefits at
risk.
¯
Parents working longer hours, with less time to spend with family.
Two-parent families had to work an average of 12 weeks more per year in 2000
than in 1969.
[14]
·¯
Largest transfer of wealth in history from working people to the rich as a
result of tax changes.
The
2001 Bush tax law reduced by $832 billion the contributions by the wealthiest
20% to public services for working people and other public needs.
[15]
¯
11 million working people denied right to vote and other rights because they
are undocumented.
The
power of working people in elections and on the job is drastically cut when a
significant percentage cannot fully participate.
[16]
¯
Severe cuts in vital public services at federal, state, and local levels.
As
those whose wealth skyrocketed in the 1990s pay less to support public
services and as unemployment grows, many states are facing the largest
deficits ever, threatening funding for education, health care, and other
needs. Meanwhile, Bush proposes to turn over services 850,000 federal workers
provide to profit-making corporations.
¯
Trade agreements that help corporations drive down living standards and buying
power for workers everywhere.
o
Trade agreements like NAFTA that protect corporate interests but not workers
have cost 3 million U.S. jobs and have helped many employers hold down U.S.
wages and benefits by threatening to move abroad.
[17]
Meanwhile, wages in Mexico are lower and poverty levels higher than before
NAFTA. Many workers in both the U.S. and Mexico are now losing jobs as work is
being shifted to even lower-wage countries in Asia.
B. Increasing difficulty in achieving and maintaining gains
for union members as standards decline for all workers.
è
Attacks on living standards and security.
Contract negotiations for many union members these days are not about taking
major steps forward but about fighting to maintain their jobs or their health
and retirement benefits.
o
Union members average only 11.5% more in wages than nonunion workers similar
in occupation, experience, region, and other factors.
[18]
o
Average wages for white-collar workers are essentially the same for union and
nonunion employees.
[19]
o
The
biggest differences are still in health coverage (84% of union workers but
only 62% of nonunion)
[20]
and pensions (69% of union members are provided defined benefit plans but only
14% of nonunion workers are).[21]
o
Blue-collar workers receive more than twice the health benefits that nonunion
counterparts receive, and 3½ times the pension benefits.
[22]
·è
Attacks on worker rights through government action.
Recent attacks like those listed below may become even more frequent as a
result of the 2002 elections:
-o
Use
of presidential executive power to undermine the ability of union members at
major airlines to negotiate freely with their employers.
-o
First-ever use of the Taft-Hartley law by the president against workers who
were locked-out by their employer, as the White House attempted to undercut
the ability of longshore union members to negotiate freely.
-o
Repeal of the Clinton “ergonomics” standards established to protect workers
from preventable injuries caused by poor job design.
o
The
right to a union stripped from 170,000 public service employees under the
so-called Homeland Security law
[23]
and from thousands of Justice Department employees by executive order.
-o
“Project labor agreements” that provide fair treatment to workers on federally
funded construction jobs ended by executive order.
o
“Right to Work" for Less passed in Oklahoma and discussed elsewhere.
o
Other anti-worker state ballot initiatives that divert workers' resources from
fighting for new gains even if the ballot measures are voted down.
o
Use
of tax money by Connecticut’s governor to pay for strikebreakers brought in by
nursing home owners in a state-wide strike.
C.
Lack of strength to reduce one of the biggest obstacles to
workers who want a union: employer interference.
Ø
50% of American workers who don't have a union say they would vote to have
one,
according to a new national poll. That's more than 50 million workers.[24]
More than 50 million don’t have a union but want one
|
|
Ø
Nearly 7 million public employees in 22 states aren't provided a legal process
for achieving union recognition.
The same is true for millions of contingent workers, farm workers, and
employees designated as supervisors under the law.
[25]
Ø
Most workers will choose to have a union if their employer doesn't interfere
with their choice,
as shown by the experience of those employees who have the legally established
right to organize in the public sector – where employer interference
traditionally has been much less. One study found that 80% of public workers
won union elections, while fewer than half of private sector workers did.
[26]
Ø
An average of only 84,000 private sector workers per year make it through the
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) process to win a union representation
election,
[27]
and
only about a quarter of those have a contract in place five years later. Some
workers organize through non-NLRB election processes, including public sector
elections and recognition after presenting cards, but their numbers aren't
enough to keep the union percentage of the workforce from dropping.
Ø
About 24,000 workers won cases in 1998 proving they had been illegally
discriminated against for union activity.
In most cases, it takes so long to process cases and the penalties are so weak
that the employer action has the intended effect of discouraging other workers
from supporting a union.
[28]
Ø
Some of the most effective interference by private sector employers is
legal
–
for example, pressure on employees during work time by supervisors who control
their working conditions, schedules, and chances for promotion, or mandatory
meetings with management to be browbeaten into opposing a union.
Ø
A combination of legal and illegal tactics is used against virtually every
group of private sector workers who try to form a union:
[29]
o
91%
force employees to attend meetings to hear anti-union presentations.
o
80%
require immediate supervisors to attend training on how to attack unions.
o
80%
hire
outside consultants to run anti-union campaigns.
o
79%
have supervisors deliver anti-union messages.
o
Half
of employers threaten to shut down if employees unionize.
o
31%
illegally fire workers because they want to form a union.
2.
Trying harder – simply doing more of what we're doing now -- won't be enough
to prevent the continuing decline in labor’s strength and workers’ living
standards.
Even if the number of workers who join unions each year doubled or tripled,
from the current 84,000 per year
[30]
through the NLRB process to 168,000 or 252,000, the percentage of union
members in the workforce and union members' strength in nearly all sectors
would continue to decline.
A. Declining
strength in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the total workforce.
[31]
|
| |
From 1956 to 1978, the number of workers in unions barely grew at
all while the workforce grew by millions.
The small increase in membership masked a steady drop in
union members’ percentage of the workforce from 32% in 1956 to 23%
in 1978.
From 1978 to 2001, union membership declined from 19.5 million to
16.2 million and the percentage of the workforce in unions dropped
from 23% to 13.5%.
|
|
B.
Disappearing strength in the private sector.
A drastic decline of union membership in the private sector has not only left
private sector workers without the strength they need but also deprived public
service employees of a key organized political constituency to help maintain
and improve vital public services.
From
1973 to 2001, the number of private sector union members dropped from nearly
15 million to 9 million – from 24.2% of the total private sector workforce to
9%.
Meanwhile, the number of public sector union members rose from 3 million to
more than 7 million – from 23% of all public employees to 37.4%.
[32]
C.
Lack of strength to stop
the devastation of union jobs in manufacturing.
From
1973 to 2001, union manufacturing jobs dropped by 66% during a period in which
the total number of U.S. manufacturing jobs dropped by only 12%.
[33]
Big corporations have been able to win trade policies that have made it easier
to move jobs overseas while doing little to maintain domestic manufacturing
industries nor raise labor standards and workers' buying power in other
countries.
They
have also been able to reduce unionization through a shift to nonunion
white-collar jobs, corporate restructuring and contracting out, job-cutting
technology, and the expansion of nonunion industries such as high-tech
electronics.
About
85% of the approximately 16 million manufacturing jobs still in the U.S. are
nonunion. Protecting the remaining union jobs and figuring out how to help a
substantial number of those nonunion workers join unions remain major
challenges for the entire labor movement.
Manufacturing union
membership
[34]
|
Yr |
Manuf. union members |
% of all members |
Total decline |
% decline |
|
73 |
7,827,700 |
38.9% |
|
|
|
|
78 |
7,076,800 |
34.2% |
750,900 |
9.6% |
|
|
83 |
5,302,800 |
27.8% |
2,524,900 |
32.3% |
|
|
88 |
4,516,000 |
22.1% |
3,311,700 |
42.3% |
|
|
93 |
3,591,800 |
19.2% |
4,235,900 |
54.1% |
|
|
98 |
3,127,200 |
15.8% |
4,700,500 |
60.0% |
|
|
01 |
2,658,100 |
14.6% |
5,169,600 |
66.0% |
|
·D.
Little strength in fastest growing sectors and
companies.
[35]
In private sector industries that are losing employment, 20.2% of workers are
in AFL-CIO unions, but union membership is only 8.5% in sectors that are
growing. In many high growth sectors (retail trade, business and personnel
services, finance and insurance), the percentage of union membership is less
than 3%.
In
general, jobs in these sectors are more difficult to move overseas than jobs
in manufacturing, but the labor movement has no coordinated plan to help these
millions of workers join unions.