Why Millennials Should Care What Happens to Unions in America

August 28, 2013 by Andrew Baker

Monday marks the 130^th celebration of Labor Day Monday in the U.S. Aside from a day off work, and holiday sales at the stores, what does Labor Day still mean? And should Millennials be worried about the answer?

For a lot of reasons, personal and altruistic, every Millennial, whether you work in an industry with a union presence or not, should care deeply about the future of unions in America.[1]

• Unions promote fairness in the workplace giving workers – that includes you – a stronger voice on the job and protect workers from unfair treatment.

• Unions encourage the development of a sense of community, and foster participation in the workplace community and the community at large. This is good not only for a progressive policy agenda, but for our democracy in general.

• Unions boost wages for the 99%.  This is a good thing (see Elysium).

 

Unions promote fairness in the workplace

Without union representation, the on-the-job life of many employees is subject to the whims of the boss. Most individual workers simply lack the leverage to demand a voice in how things are decided in the workplace. Whether it’s how work schedules are set, how much paid vacation is offered, or whether someone should be fired, most workers don’t have the clout necessary to make effective demands on the boss.  With a union, workers have an opportunity to make the boss listen to them. Union representation hardly guarantees worker demands will be met, but it increases the odds dramatically.

Having a union in the workplace often means workers feel better about themselves not only on the job but in their lives.  If you’ve ever done any door-to-door political canvassing, you’ve probably noticed a difference between the overall self-confidence of union households versus non-union households. A 2005 study supports this hypothesis, suggesting that self-reported life satisfaction rises with union density and that union member have higher life satisfaction than nonmembers.[2] In short, unions allow employees to be more fully human.

 

Unions promote democracy

Unions encourage and facilitate a sense of workplace community among employees, and in doing so unions foster worker participation in the community at large. Unions and their members get involved in politics at the local, state and national level. Unions increase the likelihood that workers register and vote and increase their involvement in democratic politics. [3]

The labor movement is crucial to achieving goals that are good not just for “labor,” but for everyone. You all have seen the bumper sticker that says, “Labor Unions – The folks who brought you the weekend.” Yes, unions did play a pivotal role in the creation of the five-day work week. They were also instrumental in the passage of many other laws that have made our lives more humane, including child labor laws, workplace safety laws, the eight-hour day, and civil rights and family and medical leave legislation.

Even if you are not someone who wholeheartedly endorses a progressive agenda, you should still appreciate unions as a countervailing force to the influence of corporations and the wealthy in politics.  For a democracy to be viable, for it to avoid turning into an plutocracy, those not at the top must have a meaningful role in the political process. Can we be sure the interests and concerns of the “rest of us” will be heard in the world of money politics if there are no unions to check the political power of the rich?

 

Unions promote prosperity

Unions boost employee wages. This is one of the main reasons that employers resist unionization.  A weak labor movement has gone hand in glove with a decline in wages. Over the last decade or so, more and more jobs are in the low-wage service industry. Good paying jobs that support a middle class that can afford a good education for its children so that they too may land good jobs are becoming harder and harder to come by. Many low-paying jobs that used to be entry level or seasonal jobs reserved for teens and those just starting out in the job market are now being counted on to support families.  We seem to be heading toward a future in which people will no longer be able to work their way out of poverty.[4] A strong labor movement is not a panacea for these ills, but it’s certainly one of the medicines in the cabinet.

Improved wages are of course good for the worker who receives the raise, but they are also good for the community as a whole.

There is no disputing the fact that the gap in wealth and income between those at the top and those not is greater than at any time since the 1920’s, or that over the last three decades the wages and salaries for those in the bottom 90% have grown about 15%, while those in the top 1% have seen an increase of almost 150% and those in the top 0.1% of more than 300%.[5]

Growing inequality is a problem today just as it was during the Depression when federal labor laws were first enacted.  Our economy is consumer-driven, and when the broad-based consumer society cuts back on consumption, our whole economy suffers.[6] It is hard to imagine that low wages are good for our economic growth when private-sector job creation over the past decade, a time of extraordinarily depressed wages, has struggled just to keep up with population growth. [7]

Putting pure economics aside, a huge gap between the haves and the have nots is simply bad for democracy.  As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis remarked, “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

Unions and their ability – even if limited – to increase income for those not at the top of the economic ladder can help address the growing income gap in America.

 

What’s happened to unions?

In 1955, 33.2% of the private workforce was unionized.  In 2012, only 6.6% of all workers in the private workforce were union members. What happened?

Many factors have contributed to labor’s decline, including the gale force winds of globalization, but employers increasingly willing to exploit the weaknesses of American labor laws have also been a huge factor.

The number of employer violations of federal labor law has risen dramatically since the 1950’s. Workers are fired every day for union activities, and nonunion workers know it.  In one survey, 43% of workers in a sample believed they would be fired if they joined a union.[8]

Employers have little to fear if they are found guilty of violating labor law. The penalties are paltry compared to what’s available for violation of other civil rights laws. One sample suggests that the average penalty an employer faces for illegally firing an employee because of union activities is only $2,700.[9]

American unions have also been weakened in recent decades because the power of labor’s main economic weapon, the strike, has been decimated by employer use of “permanent replacements.”

Permanently “replaced” strikers are technically not fired; they are put out of work until an opening becomes available at some point in the future. For a worker, this sounds an awful lot like being fired. Employers used shy away from the nuclear option of “permanent replacement.”  Then in 1981 President Reagan fired over 11,000 striking air traffic controllers, and in one stroke emboldened private employers to use their “permanent replacement” weapon in response to almost every strike.  Since then the frequency of strikes in the U.S. has plummeted.[10]

All of this means that our legal system for “protecting” workers’ right to engage in collective bargaining is broken.  And until the public begins to understand this, it’s not going to change.

 

Millennials Do Care About Unions

The silver lining in all this is that Millennials actually do care about the future of unions in America.  According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, fully 61% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 view labor unions favorably.  That’s 10 points higher than the national average.[11]

Is there an opportunity here for organizing among younger workers? Yes, but only if they will take up the cause.

In the meantime, those who care about the labor movement in the U.S. need to spread the word that “Union” is not a dirty word, and that politicians and employers who trash unions don’t speak for the majority of us.

 

 

The material on this website is provided by Beeson, Tayer & Bodine for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult with their own legal counsel before acting on any of the information presented. Some of the articles are updated periodically, and are marked with the date of the last update. Again, readers should consult with their own legal counsel for the most current information and to obtain professional advice before acting on any of the information presented.