Why Unions Are Like Typewriters

By Frank Joyce, AlterNet. Posted July 14, 2005.

From the mid-1930s to about the mid-'70s, U.S. unions prospered because of several favorable forces. During the Depression, workers were incensed by abysmal working conditions and poor pay. After World War II, they were agitated by a sense of postwar entitlement in the context of the great wealth they were creating. Workers were restless and militant -- their struggles were seen as universally beneficial, and they enjoyed broad public support.

Capitalists believed that unions were preferable to a working class oriented toward Soviet socialism. (Had there been no Soviet Union, would anything like the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 have passed in the first place?) It's forgotten now, but before, during and after WWII, the political environment gave some latitude to "socialist" ideas, governments and organizations.

Throughout this period, mass production was creating a need for mass consumption. Capital had its own reasons for increasing the purchasing power of workers. It was a period of "primitive consumer accumulation." Industrial production was concentrated -- making the strike a very powerful weapon.

Beginning in the 1960s, civil rights, feminist and anti-war movements generated a different kind of social struggle, shifting energy away from the labor movement, but also dominating the attention of labor's natural enemies. Unions were more or less left alone.

But by the end of the 1970s, those conditions were no longer in play. Socialism was in rapid decline. Workers had achieved much of the prosperity and respect they sought, as well as the contentment that comes with it. Credit cards and other forms of consumer debt replaced unions as the main means of getting homes, cars, TVs and other "stuff" of the middle-class. Increased work time and low prices also offset falling wages.

Capital had become highly mobile. Unions were increasingly perceived as special interests whose gains came at the expense of other workers or the general public. Multiple production sites, replacement workers and other factors undermined the power of strikes. Visionary union leaders gave way to pragmatic union bureaucrats with significant institutional interests to defend. Union growth took a back seat to defending previously won gains. And when organizing was attempted, employer opposition that had previously been ineffective was replaced with opposition that to this day, prevents or defeats organizing drive after organizing drive.

Meeting New Challenges

The 20th-century labor movement has every reason to be proud of its achievements. But the new century presents workers with a radically different set of challenges -- and opportunities. Can a new labor movement take us to an even better place? Absolutely.

We now have the opportunity to build a movement for a radical new idea -- democracy in the workplace. In the process, unions can be reinvented, either by changing existing unions or starting new ones. That's exactly what the coal miners, autoworkers and steelworkers did with their own "new" economy at a comparable point in the 20th century.

Because unions in the 20th century experienced significant growth and power, an illusion was born: that workers had won the struggle for rights. But despite the successes of recent worker demonstrations -- such as the Flint sit-down -- workplace rights have yet to be won in the US.

It has taken decades for most unions to realize that the 1935 Wagner Act is actually not the Magna Carta of workplace democracy. As is now obvious, in the hands of dedicated anti-union employers, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) is at least as effective at preventing unions as permitting them.

A Voice For Workers

In the global economy of capitalist hegemony, a workplace without some form of guaranteed worker representation is like a city without a city council. Citizens don't have to fight tooth and nail to create city councils -- it's assumed that every city has an elected body. So it should be in the workplace.

What might this look like? Existing workplace democracy models include the co-determination that is the law of the land in Germany and the "Team Act" arrangements proposed in Congress in response to the 1994 Dunlop Commission report. (The Dunlop Commission was appointed by President Clinton to look into the state of labor-management relations. Its recommendations were rejected by organized labor.)

American unions are already engaged in redefining and repositioning themselves as a voice for workers. One example: the member growth strategies and political maneuvers currently being used by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The rhetoric of SEIU supports organizing over politics. But what SEIU says and what SEIU does are quite different. Almost all of SEIU's high-profile growth spurts have come from leveraging governors and other elected leaders -- not from the mobilization of incensed workers.

Frank Joyce is a journalist and labor communications consultant. He is writing a book on reinventing unions.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »