CQR Labor Unions' Future - Sage Publications

Labor Unions’ FutureCan they survive in the age of globalization?

The American labor movement suffered a major

blow at its 50th-anniversary convention in Chicago

in July. The beleaguered AFL-CIO split nearly in

half as seven unions formed the rival Change to

Win coalition. The seceding unions argued that the AFL-CIO, led

by John Sweeney, had been spending too much time and money

trying to get Democrats elected to national office and not enough

time recruiting new members. The defections reflect the concern

over declining union membership in recent years, due in part to

automation and job outsourcing. Some 3 million U.S. factory jobs

alone were lost between 2000 and 2003. As he starts a new term,

Sweeney confronts the possibility of more defections, businesses

that are aggressively anti-union and unafraid to move operations

abroad and a younger generation that knows little about unions.

The split also raises questions for the Democrats, who historically

derived funding and votes from the labor movement.

I

N

S

I

D

E

THE ISSUES ......................711

BACKGROUND ..................718

CHRONOLOGY ..................719

CURRENT SITUATION ..........723

AT ISSUE ..........................725

OUTLOOK ........................727

BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................730

THE NEXT STEP ................731

THISREPORT

Striking graduate teaching assistants at the Universityof Pennsylvania demand recognition of

their union last year.

CQResearcherPublished by CQ Press, a division of Congressional Quarterly Inc.

thecqresearcher.com

The CQ Researcher • Sept. 2, 2005 • www.thecqresearcher.comVolume 15, Number 30 • Pages 709-732

RECIPIENT OF SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS AWARD FOR

EXCELLENCE ◆ AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION SILVER GAVEL AWARD

710 The CQ Researcher

THE ISSUES

711 • Do today’s workersneed unions?• Are unions protectingU.S. workers from the im-pact of globalization?• Should unions changetheir focus?

BACKGROUND

718 Birth of the MovementAmericans worked 12-14-hour days when the labormovement was born inthe 1880s.

718 Protecting LaborStates passed wage-and-safety laws in the early1900s.

718 Mafia TiesIn the 1950s investigatorsfound mobs had infiltratedthe Teamsters and otherunions.

722 Busting UnionsUnions fared poorly dur-ing the Reagan and firstBush administrations.

CURRENT SITUATION

723 Change to WinSeven unions left the AFL-CIO to form a new labororganization.

724 Anti-Union ClimateCongress and the Bushadministration are viewedas anti-union.

727 Legal ActionLegal rulings protected somebut not all union rights.

OUTLOOK

727 Recruiting PushHeavy union organizing is ex-pected in the months ahead.

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

712 Teachers and Police Leadin Union MembershipMore than a third are unionmembers.

713 Union Participation HasSteadily DroppedDecrease was 50 percent inpast 20 years.

716 ‘Right to Work’ Laws Enacted in 22 StatesSuch laws make it harder forunions to organize.

719 ChronologyKey events since 1886.

720 Married to the Mob?The Mafia has been tied toseveral unions over the past50 years.

724 Student Activists Fight forWorkers’ RightsHigher wages for janitors is akey issue.

725 At IssueWill the split in the AFL-CIOrevive the labor movement?

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

729 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.

730 BibliographySelected sources used.

731 The Next StepAdditional articles.

731 Citing The CQ ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

LABOR UNIONS’ FUTURE

Cover: Striking graduate teaching assistants at the University of Pennsylvania demand recognitionof their union last year. Some observers say students and other youths represent the futureof the labor movement. (Getty Images/William Thomas)

MANAGING EDITOR: Thomas J. Colin

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR: Kathy Koch

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Kenneth Jost

STAFF WRITERS: Marcia Clemmitt, Peter Katel,Pamela M. Prah

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Sarah Glazer, David Hosansky, Patrick Marshall,

Tom Price

DESIGN/PRODUCTION EDITOR: Olu B. Davis

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Melissa J. Hipolit

A Division ofCongressional Quarterly Inc.

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT/GENERAL MANAGER:John A. Jenkins

DIRECTOR, LIBRARY PUBLISHING: Kathryn C. Suárez

DIRECTOR, EDITORIAL OPERATIONS:Ann Davies

CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY INC.

CHAIRMAN: Paul C. Tash

VICE CHAIRMAN: Andrew P. Corty

PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER: Robert W. Merry

Copyright © 2005 CQ Press, a division of Congres-

sional Quarterly Inc. (CQ). CQ reserves all copyright

and other rights herein, unless previously specified

in writing. No part of this publication may be re-

produced electronically or otherwise, without prior

written permission. Unauthorized reproduction or

transmission of CQ copyrighted material is a violation

of federal law carrying civil fines of up to $100,000.

CQ Researcher (ISSN 1056-2036) is printed on acid-

free paper. Published weekly, except March 25, July

1, July 8, Aug. 5, Aug. 12, Nov. 25, Dec. 23 and Dec.

30, by CQ Press, a division of Congressional Quarter-

ly Inc. Annual subscription rates for institutions start

at $625. For pricing, call 1-800-834-9020, ext. 1906.

To purchase a CQ Researcher report in print or elec-

tronic format (PDF), visit www.cqpress.com or call

866-427-7737. A single report is $10. Bulk purchase

discounts and electronic-rights licensing are also

available. Periodicals postage paid at Washington,

D.C., and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER:

Send address changes to CQ Researcher, 1255 22nd

St., N.W., Suite 400, Washington, DC 20037.

Sept. 2, 2005Volume 15, Number 30

CQResearcher

Sept. 2, 2005 711Available online: www.thecqresearcher.com

Labor Unions’ Future

THE ISSUESA llie Robbins may be

just what organizedlabor needs if unions

are to halt their steep de-cline. Just 22 years old, she’sa recent college graduateand a card-carrying unionmember. Indeed, she’s aunion recruiter. *

As the national organizerof United Students AgainstSweatshops, Robbins ad-dressed the annual AFL-CIOconvention in Chicago inJuly, giving delegates a newvision of unions’ future. “Ihope many more young peo-ple will be involved in alllevels of the labor move-ment,” said Robbins, stand-ing nervously before thou-sands of union membersgathered at the Navy Pier.

Robbins may represent labor’s future,but she was surrounded by stereotypesof unions’ past, including beefy, cigar-smoking men looking for all the worldlike extras from “The Sopranos,” the hitHBO television series about the mob.

“The biggest misconception is thatunions are corrupt and unnecessary,”Robbins contends.” Her organizationprods universities to avoid buying theirT-shirts, coffee mugs and other logomerchandise from overseas sweatshops.

However, she admits, “It’s been abit of a slow road getting unions toopen up to work with younger peo-ple. They haven’t figured out exactlyhow to do it yet.”

But if unions are going to survive,supporters say, they need to figure it out

soon. Labor unions in the 1950s repre-sented about one in three workers, butnow it’s less than one in eight.

Union supporters say all Americans,including non-union workers, havebenefited from organized labor’s ef-forts over the last 50 years. They pointout that union contracts often set thewage scale for non-union workers ina local area, and that labor has beenin the forefront of securing workplacesafety and anti-discrimination measuresthat apply to all workers.

“People take for granted what theirforefathers fought for all these years,”says Linda Dickey, president of Local419 of the Glass, Molders, Pottery,Plastics and Allied Workers, inNewell, W.Va., during a break at theconvention.

But critics argue that unions haveoutlived their purpose, and that in theage of a globalized work force unions’outdated practices and protection of poorperformers encourage employers to shift

jobs overseas where there arefewer union protections.

Others complain that unionstake members’ money to sup-port political causes that manymembers don’t support.“Union members have virtu-ally no say in how theirunions spend their hard-earnedmoney,” said Linda Chavez,president of the Center forEqual Opportunity, a conser-vative think tank, and authorof the 2004 book, Betrayal:How Union Bosses Shake DownTheir Members and CorruptAmerican Politics. 1

The Chicago convention wassupposed to help the unionmovement figure out how toboost declining membership inthe face of hostile business andgovernment actions and menda split within its own ranks.Instead, the AFL-CIO suffereda bitter and dramatic divorce

on the first day of the convention.The group split nearly in half as

seven unions formed a rival labor groupcalled Change to Win. The secedingunions argued that the AFL-CIO hadlost its way and was spending too muchtime and money trying to get Democ-rats elected to national office and notenough time organizing new members.

The post-split AFL-CIO now em-braces 53 unions and 9 million work-ers, while Change to Win boasts threeof the nation’s largest unions, repre-senting 6 million workers in the fast-growing service industries. 2

Andy Stern, president of the ServiceEmployees International Union (SEIU)and a former protégé of AFL-CIO Pres-ident John Sweeney, led the revolt. Hisgroup has organized 900,000 workers inthe past nine years, often using uncon-ventional approaches. For example, in1995 the SEIU blocked bridges leadinginto Washington, D.C., to call attentionto its “Justice for Janitors” campaign.

BY PAMELA M. PRAH

Get

ty I

mag

es/K

athle

en V

oeg

e

New York police officers protest their contract with thecity last year. The labor movement suffered a major blow

in July when dissident unions formed a rival to thevenerable AFL-CIO. Union supporters say all workers

have benefited from organized labor’s efforts to improve wages and working conditions, but criticsargue that unions’ spend too much time politicking

and not enough organizing. Union membership has plummeted in the past 20 years.

* Robbins belongs to the International Feder-ation of Professional and Technical Engineers,which claims a membership of more than75,000 professional, technical and administra-tive workers.



“Our world has changed. Our econ-omy has changed. Employers havechanged, but the AFL-CIO is not will-ing to make fundamental change as well,”Stern said when SEIU and the Team-sters pulled out of the federation, fol-lowed a few days later by the UnitedFood and Commercial Workers.

Change to Win had wanted the AFL-CIO to return to the individual unionshalf the dues money the federationnow collects — about $2 billion overthe next five years — to fund moreorganizing. They also wanted to spend$25 million collected from union-backedcredit-card purchases to launch a cam-paign to organize Wal-Mart, the coun-try’s largest private employer, whichadamantly remains union-free. 3

The dissenting unions also wantedthe 70-year-old Sweeney, who has ledthe AFL-CIO for a decade, to step aside.He refused, calling the union defections

a “grievous insult to all the unions” anda “tragedy for working people.” 4

The split comes at a perilous timefor unions. Deregulation, globaliza-tion, outsourcing and the informationrevolution have dealt a staggering blowto the labor movement.

“We got complacent,” says Ray Hor-ton, a member of the Tri-CountyCouncil of Labor, in Henderson, Ky.“We’ve had it good for so long, andnow we’re getting hit from all sides.We need to regroup, re-strategize.”

Layoffs in steel and other heavily union-ized manufacturing sectors have under-cut Sweeney’s efforts to bolster labor’ssagging membership. The U.S. economyhas grown in recent years largely byshifting many unionized manufacturingjobs to Mexico, India, China and othercountries with lower labor costs.

Unions also have to fight un-scrupulous employers, who hire un-

documented workers on the cheap,says Chicago management attorneyJules Crystal. Immigrants can legallyjoin unions even if they are here il-legally. But many undocumented work-ers worry that by joining a union morepeople will find out that they are hereillegally, and some employers threat-en deportation if immigrants show in-terest in joining a union, he says.

“Neither the union nor the employerwants to be basically a party to a fraudupon the government” by knowinglyhaving illegals as members and em-ployees, he says.

Organized labor, nonetheless, has madeheadway in recruiting immigrants: Thenumber of immigrants in unions increasedto 1.8 million in 2003, from 1.4 millionin 1996, a 29 percent increase. 5

Organized labor also is taking abeating from the Bush administrationand Congress, according to RichardHurd, a professor of industrial andlabor relations at Cornell University.For example, within months of com-ing into office, President Bush repealeda Clinton-era ergonomics rule thatunions had fought for and eliminatedpolicies that gave unions an edge insome federal contracts.

The current administration is “themost anti-union” in the past 100 years,says Hurd. President Bush and theGOP-controlled Congress “are pursu-ing policies that make it extraordinar-ily difficult for unions, and that em-boldens employers to pursue anti-unionstrategies.”

In 2004 unions spent heavily to putDemocratic presidential candidate JohnKerry in the White House in hopeshe would roll back Bush policies. De-mocrats traditionally have favored unioninterests and enjoyed their heavybacking — in money and votes.

“We should be fighting the Bush ad-ministration and corporations, not eachother,” says Rogelio Flores, a nationalvice president of the American Federa-tion of Government Employees, the largestunion representing federal employees.

Teachers and Police Lead in Union Membership

More than a third of the nation’s teachers, librarians, fire fighters and policeman are union members, reflecting the generally high union membership of public-sector workers. By comparison, only about 20 percent of blue-collar professionals in the private sector, such as construction workers and carpenters, belong to unions.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Jan. 27, 2005

Percentage of Workers Who AreUnion Members, by Occupation

Teachers, librarians 37.6%Police, fire fighters 37.2

Construction workers, miners 19.6Electricians, carpenters, mechanics, plumbers 19.4

Truck drivers, moving-van workers 18.8Social workers 17.4

Factory workers 16.3Nurses, health-care technicians 12.6

Office managers, administrative assistants 10.7Managers 4.1

Cooks, waiters 4.1Retail-clerks 3.6

Farmers, fisherman, loggers 3.1


The AFL-CIO says politics and or-ganizing go hand in hand. “Politicalaction is certainly a key to workplacerights and probably the No. 1 thing.If you don’t elect folks who are sym-pathetic to the needs of workers,you’re only going to lose,” says MikeCaputo, a member of the United MineWorkers union and a DemocraticWest Virginia state legislator.

Many observers say unions need towork on their image as well as theirmessage. “There is still the perceptionof people at the top feathering theirnests at the expense of the lowest-paid workers at the bottom,” says Ran-del Johnson, vice president of labor,immigration and employee benefits forthe U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

As unions debate their future, hereare some questions being asked:

Do today’s workers need unions?Unions were created in an era be-

fore employment laws required safeworking conditions, a minimum wage,unemployment benefits or protectionsagainst discrimination. Many of thoselaws were passed in the early 20thcentury after organized labor de-manded them.

Many critics say labor unions todayare dinosaurs from a bygone era thatare more worried about their ownpower than workers’ needs.

But supporters say unions are crit-ical. “Workers need unions today asmuch as they ever have,” says RobertKorstad, a history professor at DukeUniversity who specializes in labor. Mostworkers want full-time jobs with healthcare, retirement and other benefits, hesays, but in today’s economy workerscan often only find part-time workwithout benefits. Others work full timeto collect “poverty wages” that aren’tenough to feed a family, he says.

“Just for financial reasons alone,there are lots of arguments in supportof unions,” Korstad says.

Union workers’ median weekly earn-ings are 28 percent higher than their

non-union counterparts ($781 a weekvs. $612) 6 And while only 16 percentof non-union workers have guaran-teed pensions, 70 percent of unionworkers do, according to the AFL-CIO.Moreover, 86 percent of union work-ers’ employers offer health insurancebenefits, compared with only 59.5 per-cent among non-union workers. 7

Unions also are credited with help-ing to build America’s middle classafter the Great Depression and WorldWar II, prodding employers to paywages high enough so workers couldafford to buy the products that manymade on the assembly lines.

“If you think back to what madeAmerica great 50 years ago, it was be-cause a job at GM, a union job on con-struction or driving a truck was a job[that allowed] you to own a home, raisea family, have a bridge to the middleclass,” said SEIU President Stern. Today,“it takes two, three, four Wal-Mart jobsto raise a family, you don’t get healthcare and a Wal-Mart job is a bridge to

nowhere.” Change to Win unions wantto “bring back the GM economy, wherework is rewarded,” he said. 8

But Chavez, whose nomination asLabor secretary for President Bush wasdefeated largely because of union op-position, sees it very differently. “Theshift away from unionization in theprivate sector is a natural one, as pri-vate companies have competed for thebest workers by offering good wagesand benefits, rendering private-sectorunions unnecessary in most cases,”she writes. 9

However, Johnson of the U.S.Chamber of Commerce says that eventhough today’s workplace laws “pro-tect workers from the roughest edgesof capitalism,” unions are not obsolete.“Is there less of a need for unions thanthere has been in the past? Yes. Butthat doesn’t mean there is no need forunions. If a work force is in the situ-ation in which an employer is truly ex-ploiting them, then the union optionis an important one to have.”

Source: Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Union Participation Has Steadily DroppedUnion membership has decreased by 50 percent over the past 20 years. Labor experts blame a number of factors, including globalization, deregulation, outsourcing and changes in the economy. Critics of unions say their outdated practices, including protection of poor performers, encourage employers to shift jobs overseas. Others complain that unions take members’ money to support political causes that many members don’t support.

Percentage of WorkersWho Were Union Members

10

15

20%

2004200220001998199619941992199019881986


If unions are still vital, why aren’tworkers joining them?

Labor supporters cite a 2005 AFL-CIO poll showing that 54 percent ofnon-union workers would join a unionif they had a choice. 10 But unions con-tend U.S. labor laws are too weak toprotect workers who are too frightenedto organize for fear they will lose theirjobs. The National Labor Relations Act(NLRA) is the main U.S. law meant toprotect workers’ rights to organize, tobargain collectively and to strike. TheRailway Labor Act covers workers inthe railroad and airline industries whilethe Federal Labor Relations Act coversfederal government employees’ orga-nizing and bargaining rights.

“U.S. labor laws contain weak penal-ties, are riddled with loopholes andare not effectively enforced,” says CarolPier, labor rights and trade researcherat Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group. Workers firedfor organizing often wait for years fortheir cases to be decided by laborboards and courts while employers“pay no price for deliberate delays andfrivolous appeals,” the group said, cit-ing a report that concluded the “deckis stacked against U.S. workers.” 11

Employers also have the upper handin organizing drives because they canforce workers to attend anti-union meet-ings, but at the same time prohibit or-ganizers from even distributing union lit-erature in work areas, wrote AndrewStrom, a staff attorney for SEIU Local32BJ, which represents 75,000 buildingservice workers in New York, New Jer-sey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. 12

Moreover, Strom said, workers whothink they were fired for trying to or-ganize a union — a violation of theNLRA — can’t sue for discriminationlike other workers. Instead, they haveto go to the National Labor RelationsBoard; it can order the employer toreinstate the worker and pay backwages, but there are no fines, penal-ties or punitive damages. The processcan take five years, he says. “No won-

der companies regularly fire workersfor trying to organize,” he wrote. 13

The business community discountsallegations that the NLRA makes it dif-ficult for workers to join unions.“Nowhere in the [U.S.] Constitution[does] it say union organizing has tobe easy,” employment lawyer Crystalsays. Unions want employers to stayimpartial during drives and sign “neu-trality” agreements, which he says area bad idea. “It’s a big decision forworkers; they should hear both sides.”

Pat Cleary, senior vice president forcommunications at the National Asso-ciation of Manufacturers (NAM), agrees.If the unions aren’t blaming the law,he says, they blame President RonaldReagan’s 1981 firing of striking air-traf-fic controllers and what they call the“anti-union” policies of the GOP ad-ministrations of Reagan, George H. W.Bush and now George W. Bush. Butunions’ numbers continued to slideunder President Bill Clinton, a pro-labor Democrat, Cleary points out.The unions, he says, have “blamedeveryone but themselves” for their lag-ging membership numbers.

“The law is the same as in the1950s, when unions were riding high,”says Johnson, of the U.S. Chamber.“Something else is going on here.Maybe there are other reasons, liketheir message needs to be changed.”

Marick Masters, a professor of busi-ness administration at the University ofPittsburgh, says there is an element oftruth in all the reasons unions cite fortheir membership decline, but “the mainpoint is that labor hasn’t come up witha model that appeals to most workers.”

Others say some workers don’t needor want unions and join only becausethey work in states that require workersto pay union fees. (See map, p. 716.)

“Rather than working to preserveand expand their power to orderworkers to ‘pay up or be fired,’ unionsshould try to improve their product inorder to attract workers’ voluntary sup-port,” said Stefan Gleason, vice pres-

ident of the National Right to WorkLegal Defense Foundation, which pro-vides free legal advice to workers whothink their rights have been violatedby “compulsory unionism abuses.” 14

Are unions protecting U.S. workersfrom the effects of globalization?

Today’s global economy movesproducts, technology and jobs at light-ning speed, shifting millions of union-ized jobs to lower-wage countries. 15

Nearly 3 million factory jobs havebeen lost between 2000 and 2003. 16

And even jobs that have not beenshifted overseas are negatively affect-ed by globalization, say union offi-cials, because domestic employers oftenfeel compelled to reduce pay and ben-efits for U.S. workers to compete withoverseas competitors.

“Corporate greed is driving profitshare at the expense of wages, safeworkplaces, conditions and entitlementsfor workers,” Sharan Burrow, presidentof the International Confederation ofFree Trade Unions, told the AFL-CIOconvention this summer. “Without aglobal governance architecture thatprotects the rights of workers and theircommunities, the corporate law of thejungle grows and so does the disloca-tion of jobs and the consequent dividebetween the rich and the poor withinand across countries.”

But others say labor needs to getoff its protectionist bandwagon andjoin the global market. Today unionsthat help U.S. employers remain com-petitive help American workers keeptheir jobs, says Johnson of the U.S.Chamber. “It’s important for unions toapproach workers saying, ‘We knowthere are international competitive pres-sures, but we can find ways to im-prove your situation and still keepyour employer competitive,’ ” he says.

Businesses say labor costs are notthe only reason they move their op-erations, but wages and benefits area big target since they make up about70 percent of costs.



For years, the top priority for mostunions representing the auto, steel,chemical and other manufacturingsectors was to keep union jobs athome. But in today’s globalized labormarket, employers say, unions can-not come to the bargaining tablewith sudden demands and expectthe company to stay in business.

C lea ry o f theNAM says in a chang-ing global market-place unions’ outdat-ed “us vs. them”polarized workplaceno longer works.“Today the trend isaway f rom con-frontation and towardcooperation . . . thecompetition is outsidethe plant, not in it.”

In fact, many em-ployers say if theycannot reduce laborcosts, they cannotsurvive. Several icon-ic American corpo-rations announcedsteep layoffs thissummer, citing glob-al competitive pres-sures. Eastman Kodak is laying off upto 25,000 workers by 2007; Hewlett-Packard will eliminate 14,500 jobs overthe next year and Kleenex-makerKimberly-Clark plans to cut 6,000 jobsby 2008. 17

Unions have steadfastly opposedfree-trade policies with countries thatdo not protect workers’ rights and safe-ty or provide benefits. Without suchprotections written into trade treaties,unions say, U.S. businesses are enticedto send jobs to countries where work-ers often toil for 12 or 15 hours a dayin unsafe conditions without health in-surance or pensions. The 1993 NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA), for example, cost 1 millionU.S. jobs, unions say. 18 Unions alsoopposed the Central American Free

Trade Agreement (CAFTA), whichCongress approved at the same timethe AFL-CIO held its convention. 19

“CAFTA, like NAFTA, will sell outAmericans’ jobs,” said Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice president ofthe AFL-CIO. “Multinational corpora-tions will speed up their race to thebottom when it comes to wages and

workplace protections, driving work-ers further into exploitation.” 20

Korstad of Duke says unions mustbuild international alliances with otherunions and human rights groups inorder to improve working conditionsin the Third World and to give unionsmore leverage. “The labor movementcan’t go it alone.”

Charles Kernaghan, executive di-rector of the National Labor Commit-tee, a New York City-based labor-rights advocacy group, agrees. “You’renot going to negotiate your way outof a global economy. You’re not goingto do it alone with individual unions.It’s not possible.”

Kernaghan’s organization has ex-posed low-wage overseas factoriesproducing goods for Disney, Nike

and Target, and in the late 1990s itput a national spotlight on thesweatshops in Honduras that madeKathy Lee Gifford’s Wal-Mart cloth-ing line.

“There’s been a tremendous turn-around” in U.S. unions’ understandingthat protectionism is not the answer,but fighting overseas sweatshops is cru-

cial, he says. “Unionsnow realize they needto be at the table whenthe global economy isbeing discussed. We cer-tainly can have moreworker-rights standardsattached to trade agree-ments.”

The Steelworkers’union was quick tocatch on to the need forinternational alliances,Kernaghan says. Theunion got its wake-upcall in the 1980s afterPhelps Dodge broke theunion’s copper minestrike in Arizona andpermanently replacedstriking workers. “Wehad our lunch eaten inthe 1980s. We knew we

had to change,” says Marco Trbovich,assistant to the Steelworkers’ presi-dent for communications. After strik-ing union members at Bridgestone-Firestone were also fired and replacedin the 1990s, the union launched aseries of “strategic alliances with so-phisticated militant and reasonably re-sourced unions” worldwide, says Ger-ald Fernandez, assistant to theSteelworkers’ president for interna-tional affairs.

The Steelworkers forged ties withcounterparts in Australia, the CzechRepublic, Germany, Mexico andTurkey. This past June, for example,some 10,000 unionized workers inMexico, Peru and the United Statesprotested in support of the Steel-workers’ strike against Asarco,

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumkaand Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson put up a united

front at the federation’s July 24 Unity rally. The next day, the Teamsters and Service Employees International unions broke

from the federation, rejecting Sweeney’s offer to change policies.A

FL-C

IO


owner of several Arizona coppermines.

“Cross-border solidarity is the onlyway to deal with global companies,”Fernandez says.

Both the AFL-CIO and the Changeto Win coalition vow to unite workersacross borders, and a primary target isWal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer,with 1.2 million U.S. workers.

“Wal-Martization is a global phe-nomenon, and a global approach isrequired,” Change to Win’s Web siteexplains. The AFL-CIO kicked off a“Wake Up Wal-Mart” campaign thatcalls for massive effort by organizedlabor “to help Wal-Mart workers wina voice at work and ensure that Wal-Mart’s business model does not spreadto other countries.”

“We are not against unions,” thecompany said. “They may be rightfor some companies but there is sim-ply no need for a third party to comebetween our associates and their man-agers.” 21 The company eliminated

the butcher shop at a Texas store in2000 after local workers voted tounionize, and it closed a store inQuebec, Canada, this year rather thannegotiate with workers who voted fora union. 22

A major union concern is Wal-Mart’s health plan. Its high deductiblesand other requirements have forcedsome employees to rely on Medicaidas a safety net. In Florida, for exam-ple, Wal-Mart has some 12,300 em-ployees and family members enrolledin Medicaid — more than any com-pany in the state. 23 The company alsois facing the country’s largest gender-discrimination case, affecting some 1.6million female workers.

“When Wal-Mart executives calcu-late that by underpaying employeesand providing inadequate health carethey can sell a cheaper product, thatforces competitors to make the sametough calculations — or go out ofbusiness,” said AFL-CIO PresidentSweeney. 24

Should unions change their focus?The unions that deserted the AFL-

CIO in July said it had spent too muchon politics and not enough to organizenew members. But the federation saysboth are equally important.

Other unionists, however, say neitherthe AFL-CIO nor the dissenting unionsquite get it. They say labor needs a newmessage and a new role in today’s high-tech, transient world of work, wherejumping from one employer to anoth-er is commonplace and where interna-tional borders are no obstacle to em-ployers seeking lower wages.

The seven unions in the new Changeto Win coalition say organizing is theirtop priority. Representing 6 million work-ers, the seven — the Carpenters, Labor-ers, Service Employees, Teamsters, Unit-ed Farm Workers, United Food andCommercial Workers and a mergedunion of hotel and garment workersknown as UNITE-HERE — are targetingsome 35 million service jobs that cannotbe outsourced, such as construction, hos-pitality and child and health care.

Rather than organize workers by oneplant or work site at a time, the coali-tion plans to try organizing an entirecompany at once, the way industrialunions organized the auto and steel in-dustries in the 1930s. SEIU, the coali-tion’s lead union, used the strategy inLos Angeles and Washington, D.C., toorganize janitors across several employers.

The coalition says its political cloutwill grow as its membership grows.“We must have more members in orderto change the political climate that isundermining workers’ rights in this coun-try,” Teamsters President James P. Hoffasaid when the 1.4 million-member unionleft the AFL-CIO in July. 25

However, Change to Win will notbe an ATM money machine for De-mocrats running for election, unlikethe AFL-CIO, coalition leaders say.Nearly 90 percent of labor’s $61 mil-lion in contributions in the 2004 elec-tions went to Democrats, according tothe Center for Responsive Politics. 26


Source: National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund

“Right to work” states

Non-“Right to work” states

‘Right to Work’ Laws Enacted in 22 StatesTwenty-two states had “right to work” laws in 2004 giving employees the right to join or not join a workplace union. In the remaining states, employees must pay union fees at unionized job sites even if they don’t join the union. Unions oppose “right to work” laws because they lower union participation.

N.Y.

OhioNeb.

Texas

Va.

Minn.

Iowa

Mo.

Calif.

Nev.

Ore.

Colo.

Wash.

Idaho

Mont.

Utah

Ariz. N.M.

Wyo.

N.D.

S.D.

Alaska

Okla. Ark.

La.

Ill.

Miss.

Tenn.

Ga.

Hawaii

Conn.

Mass.

R.I.

Maine

Vt.

W.Va. N.J.

Del.Md.

Ala.

Fla.

Wis.

Mich.

Ind.Pa.

N.C.

S.C.

N.H.

Kan.Ky.

D.C.


“Over the last several years, we’vegotten more and more focused onpolitics and particularly on Democra-tic politics,” SEIU’s Stern has said. “AndI don’t think that will grow our labormovement stronger.”

The AFL-CIO, on the other hand,says labor needs a united front tofight anti-worker companies and poli-cies, and Sweeney said the federa-tion would focus“on the greedy cor-porations and theright-wing electedofficials who are try-ing to tear our coun-try apart.” 27

Sweeney a l sosays that despitelagging union mem-bership in recentyears, the federationhad been able tostep up its politicalinfluence since hetook over as presi-dent in 1995. Event hough un i onhouseholds consti-tute only 17 percentof the voting-agepopulation, theyrepresented 24 per-cent of the 2004vote, well above the19 percent of 1992,the AFL-CIO says. 28

But Sweeny admits that althoughthe AFL-CIO aligns itself primarily withDemocrats, 25-30 percent of unionmembers are Republicans. “We have tohold politicians accountable, regardlessof the party,” he said.

However, says Korstad of Duke, thelabor movement must rethink its politi-cal strategy. “What’s the point of givingmoney to candidates that your ownmembers won’t even vote for?”

The percentage of union house-holds that voted for Republican con-gressional candidates has stayed inthe 30-40 percent range since 1952,

and the rates are even higher forGOP presidential candidates. 29 Some45 percent of union households, forexample, voted in 1980 for Repub-lican presidential candidate RonaldReagan, who historians say success-fully appealed to blue-collar labor-ers’ resentment that their tax dollarswere being squandered on “welfareparasites.” 30

Labor supporters and opponentsagree that unions need to work on theirimage and their message. Unions needa new message other than just saying,“ ‘Employers are bad, and you needunions to protect you,’ ” says Johnsonof the U.S. Chamber. “I don’t think thatsells anymore.”

The University of Pittsburgh’s Mas-ters says today’s workers “look at unionsas providing rigid work rules and con-flictual types of relationships that don’thave much appeal to them.” Workers,and young people in particular, “haveno more interest in being represent-

ed by a stodgy bureaucratic organi-zation than they do in going to workfor one. And that’s the problem withlabor’s image.”

Masters suggests unions provide ser-vices for both workers and employ-ers, such as employee training or grouphealth insurance, he says, so individ-ual employers don’t have to carry allthe health-care costs.

Nelson Lichtenstein,a history professor atthe University of Cal-ifornia, has suggestedturning union “hiringhalls” into job centersfor today’s program-mers, consultants andother professionalswho change jobs fre-quently. 31 “The ideaof collective bargain-ing between one unionand one employer isclearly an antique no-tion,” he wrote in his2002 book, State of theUnion: A Century ofAmerican Labor.

Cornell’s Hurd saysworkers are more indi-vidualistic than 50 yearsago, when they wantedun i on p r o t e c t i o n .“Unions need to find away to connect withworkers,” he says, par-

ticularly professional, technical andlow-wage workers. “It may requiresomething totally different from whatunions have offered in the past,”such as continuing education to helptechnical workers stay on top of theirgame.

Moreover, says Korstad of Duke,“The labor movement needs to reallythink about its public relations, howit convinces members of the Americanmiddle class that people working inthe service sector deserve the kinds ofbenefits and opportunities that the Unit-ed States has to offer.”

Georgetown University students protest in February 2005 for living wagesfor the school’s blue-collar workers. Along with students on many othercampuses, unions have lobbied for living-wage ordinances in at least

100 cities since 1994. Georgetown raised its hourly rate to $13.

Geo

rget

ow

n L

ivin

g W

age

Cam

pai

gn


BACKGROUNDBirth of the Movement

W hen the labor movement wasborn in the 1880s, most Ameri-

cans — including children — worked14-hour days, six days a week, often indangerous conditions for little pay. Over-time and sick pay were non-existent.

Machines were just starting to re-place the workers who knitted stock-ings, stitched dresses and cut leatherfor shoes. But the pace was fast andfurious for the new machine opera-tors. Children in cotton mills put in14-hour shifts for seven cents a day,or toiled in coal mines wearing har-nesses that enabled them to dragbuckets or carts of coal. 32

At first, labor’s future appeared tolie with the Knights of Labor, one ofthe first large unions. 33 But the orga-nization of skilled and unskilled work-ers, farmers and small-business men,floundered in the face of competitionfrom the American Federation of Labor,which targeted only skilled workers,such as carpenters and printers.

However, it took several years forthe AFL’s dominance to emerge. In 1881leaders of local craft unions created theFederation of Organized Trade and LaborUnions, which five years later morphedinto the AFL. Samuel Gompers, theleader of a cigar-making union, becameits first president in 1896.

In the 1890s bitter labor strikes oc-curred at Homestead Steel in Pennsyl-vania (1892) and the Pullman railwaycar company in Illinois (1894). Both ledto riots that killed several workers. Inboth cases, the federal and state gov-ernments helped end the strikes by send-ing in thousands of troops.

For a brief time, radical elementsin the labor movement contributed tothe public’s perception that anarchistsor socialists dedicated to the destruc-

tion of the free-enterprise system ranthe unions. For instance, the Interna-tional Workers of the World (IWW),or Wobblies, called on workers to takeover factories, but their movement fiz-zled in the face of severe opposition,particularly after they called for a strikein industries manufacturing war goodsduring World War I.

Meanwhile, hundreds of IWW lead-ers were found guilty of sedition, sweptup along with other dissidents duringan anti-communist “red scare” thatgripped the country in 1919. In somecases, mobs beat, tarred-and-featheredand lynched IWW members. 34

Although unions were regarded withsuspicion, labor’s legislative agendawon support from populists and pro-gressives in the late 19th and early20th centuries.

Protecting Labor

I n the early 1900s, the labor move-ment helped gain passage of state

wage and hour laws, aided by the im-famous Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, whichkilled 146 young women and girlsworking in a New York City garmentfactory. The tragedy led to new facto-ry-inspection laws and improved safe-ty conditions. It also boosted the In-ternational Ladies’ Garment WorkersUnion. A year later, Congress createdthe U.S. Department of Labor.

However, when the Great Depres-sion began in 1929, workers stilllacked federal laws allowing them toform or join a union or establishinga minimum wage or maximum work-week. That changed with the electionof Franklin D. Roosevelt as president.In 1935, FDR proposed the NationalLabor Relations Act, also known asthe Wagner Act for its chief sponsor,Sen. Robert F. Wagner, D-N.Y.

The Wagner Act still guarantees mostprivate-sector workers the right to joinunions and prohibits employers from“unfair labor practices” that discriminate

against workers trying to unionize. It alsorequires employers to bargain in goodfaith with unions. The Railway Labor Actof 1926 provided similar protections forrailroad workers; it was amended in1936 to cover airline workers.

In 1938 the federal Fair Labor Stan-dards Act outlawed child labor andestablished the first minimum wage —25 cents an hour — and a 40-hourworkweek.

But even as the reforms made iteasier for workers to join unions, laborleaders bickered over how best to or-ganize workers. The dispute led to thecreation in 1935 of the Committee forIndustrial Organizations (CIO) withinthe AFL. The dispute centered aroundwhether the labor movement shouldtarget workers with specific crafts ortrades — the AFL’s strategy — or goafter unskilled workers, the strategyadvocated by the CIO.

The AFL said any attempt to orga-nize workers in an entire factory hadto recognize separate “crafts.” So, forexample, workers in a car plant whopainted the cars could join the Paintersunion while workers who made the carscould join the Machinists union. TheCIO, led by firebrand John L. Lewis,wanted all the workers in the plant tobelong to the same union, contendingthat the AFL’s craft classifications wereirrelevant in an economy that by the1930s was becoming dominated by mass-production industries.

The CIO didn’t wait for the AFL’sblessing. It proceeded to organize thesteel, auto, glass and rubber sectors andquickly enlisted more new membersthan the AFL. It broke away from theAFL in 1938, but its acronym now stoodfor Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Mafia Ties

A larmed by a series of strikes in the1940s, business and conservative

leaders pressed Congress in 1947 to pass


Continued on p. 720


ChronologyBefore 1900Workers start to organize intounions as the country industri-alizes and moves westward.

1886Unionization of skilled “trade” work-ers such as printers and cigar mak-ers leads to founding of the Ameri-can Federation of Labor (AFL).

1890sBitter strikes at Homestead Steel(1892) in Pennsylvania and thePullman railway car company inIllinois (1894) lead to riots, killingseveral workers.

•

1900-1940sNew laws provide tools to settleworkplace problems.

1935National Labor Relations Act givesworkers the right to join unionswhile prohibiting employers fromusing “unfair labor practices.”

1938Differences between the “trade”unions of the AFL and industrialunions lead to a formal split in theAFL and creation of the Congressof Industrial Organizations (CIO).

1947Congress passes the Taft-HartleyAct outlawing the practice of hir-ing only union members, knownas “closed shops.”

•

1950s-1970sLinks between unions and orga-nized crime are discovered.George Meany, a fervent anti-

communist, becomes AFL presi-dent in 1952 and heads AFL-CIOuntil 1979.

1955AFL-CIO is created, representingsome 15.5 million workers.

1959Congress passes Landrum-GriffinAct to root out organized crime inlabor unions; unions must file an-nual financial reports showinghow union dues are spent.

1977Congress rejects unions’ bids forstiffer penalties for employers whobreak the law when workers tryto organize and speedier union-representation procedures

•

1980s-1990sUnion membership drops amidincreasing global competition.

1981President Ronald Reagan fires11,000 striking air-traffic controllersand decertifies their union, signalingto private-sector employers thatthey can hire permanent replace-ments during work stoppages.

1984Unions help Walter F. Mondalewin Democratic presidential nomi-nation, but he loses in a landslideto Reagan as union members de-liver votes to the GOP.

November 1993Congress and President Bill Clin-ton override labor’s oppositionand approve the North AmericanFree Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

November 1994Republicans capture both chambersof Congress for the first time since

1954, undercutting organized labor’spolitical agenda.

October 1995John Sweeney, head of the ServiceEmployees International Union, re-places Lane Kirkland as head ofthe AFL-CIO.

March 1996Top AFL-CIO leaders endorsePresident Clinton for re-electionand OK increasing dues to helpbuild a $35 million political fundto target House Republicans.

•

2000s Several unionssplit off from the AFL-CIO to cre-ate the Change to Win coalitionto focus more on organizing.

2001Newly elected President Bush re-peals a Clinton-era ergonomicsrule that unions had sought formore than a decade.

June 2005Dissident AFL-CIO unions formthe Change to Win coalition andthreaten to pull out of the federa-tion, arguing it is not spendingenough time on organizing.

July 2005Two of the AFL-CIO’s largestunions — the Service EmployeesInternational Union and the Team-sters — pull out of the AFL-CIOon the first day of the federation’sconvention in Chicago, followed bythe United Food and CommercialWorkers Union. Four other unionsmake up the coalition: Carpenters,Farm Workers, Laborers andUNITE-HERE. The AFL-CIO and thecoalition both vow to step up or-ganizing and to target non-unioncompanies such as Wal-Mart.


the Taft-Hartley Act limiting unions’ pow-ers. Enacted over the veto of PresidentHarry S Truman, the law, still in effecttoday, outlawed closed shops, or work-places that hired only union members.

The law also allowed states to pass“right to work” laws, which give em-

ployees the right to decide not to joina union. The measure also required amandatory cooling-off period in any strikedeemed by a president to constitute a“national emergency.”

The 1950s kicked off a period ofrelative labor peace, as the countrybasked in a robust postwar economy.

A twist of fate in 1952 found both theAFL and CIO needing new leaders whenthe presidents of both groups died with-in two weeks of one another. The newleaders — AFL’s George Meany andCIO’s Walter Reuther — agreed to burythe hatchet. In 1954 the two federa-tions signed a “no-raiding” pact and re-


Continued from p. 718

Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo, Vincent “Chin” Gigante andAnthony “Gaspipe” Casso are just some of the mobsterswho have been involved with organized labor.

Scarfo, serving a 69-year prison sentence for racketeering, ex-tortion and murder, ran the Hotel and Restaurant Employeesunion in the late 1980s. Genovese crime boss Gigante — whohad allegedly infiltrated the International Longshoreman’s Asso-ciation — was later convicted of racketeering. And Casso —former underboss of the Luchese crime family and now serv-ing a life sentence after admitting to 36 murders — was ac-cused in 2001 of taking money to influence several construc-tion unions, including a local of the Laborers’ International Unionof North America. 1

Several major U.S. Senate investigations beginning in the 1950shave documented organized crime’s involvement with unions.Live telecasts of 1950-51 hearings of a special Senate panel chairedby Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.) were credited with increasingthe public’s awareness of organized crime and the breadth of itsstranglehold on unions and their pension funds. In a book abouthis committee’s work, Kefauver wrote, the Mafia “is no fairy tale”and is engaged in “almost every conceivable type of criminal vi-olence, including murder . . . smuggling . . . kidnapping andlabor racketeering.” 2

Another probe, conducted in 1957-58 by the Senate SelectCommittee on Improper Activities in the Labor or ManagementField, found “systemic” racketeering in both the InternationalBrotherhood of Teamsters and the Hotel Employees and Restau-rant Employees (HERE) union. 3 The federal government tookover both unions in the late 1980s and early ’90s — the mostdrastic step it could take — to weed out mob influence.

In 1959 Congress passed the Landrum-Griffin Act, which re-quires that unions file annual financial reports showing howunion dues are spent. Congress then passed the Racketeer In-fluenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 — the so-called RICO act — which allowed the Justice Department togo after unions with mob ties.

In 1986, the President’s Commission on Organized Crime re-ported that the Laborers’ International Union was dominated byorganized crime. 4 In the early 1980s, former Gambino familyboss Paul Castellano was overheard saying, “Our job is to runthe unions,” according to the FBI, which had planted bugs inCastellano’s house in 1983. 5 Castellano was shot and killed in

front of a steakhouse on New York’s East Side in 1985 on theorders of future Gambino crime boss John Gotti.

According to federal authorities, union and mob bosses oftenteam up to demand kickbacks from union members in returnfor prime job assignments. Crime families also have been knownto demand money from contractors in exchange for “laborpeace.” And contractors on union projects sometimes must paysalaries for “ghost” employees — crime family members whoeither don’t show up or show up but do not work.

Prosecutors say union corruption in New York City inflatesthe already high cost of building union projects in Manhattanby $200 million to $500 million a year, an amount prosecutorssardonically call the “mob tax.” 6

By 2004, the Labor Department’s inspector general had 359pending labor racketeering investigations, of which more thana third involved organized crime. 7 Internal affairs of the “bigfour” unions — Teamsters, HERE, Laborers’ and InternationalLongshoreman’s Association — still make up a significant por-tion of the Labor Department’s racketeering investigations, thedepartment said.

Union pension funds are a tempting target for labor rack-eteers. Union officials with mob ties have been found divert-ing union pension funds for their own personal use or in-vesting the money in mob-tied businesses. Money from theTeamsters pension fund, for example, reportedly financed 85percent of the casino hotels that appeared on the Las VegasStrip in the late 1970s. 8

Three major unions with longtime corruption problems arestill trying to rid their unions of corruption:

International Brotherhood of Teamsters — To many ob-servers, the Teamsters is the poster boy for mob-run unions.The federal government deems the union so corrupt that it tookover the union in 1989 and continues to oversee its operation.

The legendary Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters from1957-71, was convicted of attempted bribery of a grand jurorin 1967 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 1971, howev-er, President Richard M. Nixon commuted his sentence to timeserved on the condition he not participate in union activitiesfor 10 years.

Hoffa disappeared in 1975, never to be found, after leavingfor a lunch with men linked to the Mafia. His son, James P.Hoffa, a labor lawyer, is now president of the 1.3-million-member

Married to the Mob?


unified the following year. The newAFL-CIO represented some 15.5 millionworkers, its all-time high.

In 1950-51, televised Senate hearingschaired by Sen. Estes D. Kefauver, D-Tenn., exposed the darker, organized-crime side to some unions. Then in1957, McClellan committee investigators,

led by Chief Counsel Robert F. Kennedy,discovered that the Mafia had infiltrat-ed the Teamsters union.

Over the next two decades, the U.S.economy shifted from union mining,manufacturing and transportation jobsto non-union service and retail jobs.In the 1970s, the Northeast and Mid-

west — the epicenters of unionized,industrial jobs — were devastated byincreased competition from Asian pro-ducers of steel, ships and automobiles.

Yet organizing was not a high pri-ority for AFL-CIO President Meany,who remained steadfastly committed tothe increasingly divisive Vietnam War.

union. He took over as president in1998 after federal investigators dis-covered that union funds were beingdiverted to support President RonCarey’s 1996 re-election. Carey neverserved jail time, but some of his as-sociates did. Last year, former fed-eral prosecutor Edwin Stier, whomthe Teamsters hired to clean up theunion, resigned, saying Hoffa —who has vowed to get rid of feder-al oversight of the Teamsters — wasretreating from his anti-corruptionpledges. 9

Laborers’ International Union— The federal government also keepsclose tabs on the 800,000-memberLaborers’ union, which represents con-struction, maintenance and food ser-vice workers, but the union isn’t intrusteeship. In 1995, the Justice De-partment decided not to pursue formal criminal charges but re-tained the right to file a racketeering suit if the union didn’t cleanup its act. In 2000 the union reached an agreement with the Jus-tice Department after promising to retain “anti-corruption” reformsthrough 2006. 10 The union has removed at least 226 corrupt of-ficials, including 125 who were linked to organized crime. 11 Pres-ident Arthur A Coia Jr., a fund raiser for the Democratic Partyand a visitor to the White House during Clinton’s presidency,pleaded guilty in 2000 to a felony tax-evasion charge and wasbanned for life from holding any positions of power within theunion. However, he was allowed to collect his $250,000 salaryas “general president emeritus.” 12 Terrence O’Sullivan, a top aideto Coia, took over as president in 2000.

HERE-UNITE — The 2004 merger of the hotel workers unionand the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employeescreated HERE-UNITE, which represents nearly 450,000 hotel, casi-no and garment workers. In the 1930s, organized crime was linkedto HERE locals in New York City and in the 1970s to locals inFlorida. 13 In 1991, the Justice Department took control of HERE’sLocal 54 in Atlantic City, N.J., which represented hotel and casi-no workers and reportedly had ties to organized crime figures in

Philadelphia. 14 In 1995, the Justice De-partment asked the courts to take overthe entire HERE union, maintaining thatthe union was run by organized crime. 15

It was the first time the government re-sorted to such drastic action since it tookover the Teamsters in 1989. The feder-al government oversaw the union until2000, when the Justice Department de-termined the organization had largelypurged its ties with organized crime. 16

1 George McEvoy, “Mob Influence Checked inSome Years Ago,” Palm Beach Post, Aug. 30,1995, p 1A; Carl Horowitz, “Union Corruptionin America: Still a Growth Industry,” Nation-al Institute for Labor Relations Research, p.36; and U.S. Department of Labor press re-lease: “Scalamandre Brothers Plead Guilty toMob Payoffs in Exchange for Labor Peace,”Oct. 31, 2001.2 Estes Kefauver, Crime in America (1952).3 FBI Investigative Programs, Organized Crime,

available at www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/orgcrime/ lcn/laborrack.htm.4 President’s Commission on Organized Crime, Report to the President andthe Attorney General, “The Edge: Organized Crime, Business and LaborUnions,” U.S. Government Printing Office, March 1986.5 FBI Investigative Programs, op. cit.6 Steven Malanga, “How To Run the Mob Out of Gotham,” City Journal,winter 2001.7 Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Labor, “The Evolution ofOrganized Crime and Labor Racketeering Corruption,” November 2004.8 “Heroes of Law Enforcement: Peter Wacks, Retired FBI Special Agent,”Illinois Police & Sheriff’s News, available at www.ipsn.org/wacks.htm, up-dated Aug. 9, 2005.9 Steven Greenhouse, “Citing Pullback, Antigraft Team Quits Teamsters,” TheNew York Times, April 30, 2004, p. A1.10 Press release, U.S. Department of Justice, “Justice Department AnnouncesNew Agreement Continuing Laborers Union Reforms Until 2006,” Jan. 20, 2000.11 Carl Horowitz, “Union Corruption in America: Still A Growth Industry,”National Institute for Labor Research, 2004, p. 17.12 Mike Stanton, “Coia enters guilty plea to felony fraud charge,” The Prov-idence [Rhode Island] Journal, Feb. 1, 2000, p. B1.13 McEvoy, op. cit.14 Press release, “Casino Workers’ Union Officers to Step Down,” April 12, 1991,released by PR News Wire; Horowitz, op. cit.15 McEvoy, op. cit.16 Steven Greenhouse, “U.S. Agrees to End Oversight of Hotel-RestaurantUnion,” The New York Times, Dec. 3, 2000. Section 1, p. 47.

Former Teamsters union President James R.Hoffa testifies in 1957 before the Senate

Rackets Committee. He disappeared in 1975,presumably killed by former Mafia associates.

Get

ty I

mag

es/A

l M

uto


It was not uncommonto see unionized work-ers wearing hard hatsand waving Americanflags beating up anti-war demonstrators. 35

During the 1970s, theAFL-CIO enjoyed a mixedlegislative record. Con-gress enacted worker-pro-tection measures in theOccupational Safety andHealth Act and approvedminimum standards forworkers’ pension plansunder the Employee Re-tirement Income Securi-ty Act in 1974.

When Democra tJimmy Carter won thepresidency in 1976,labor hoped it had a bet-ter chance to stiffenpenalties against em-ployers who blockunion organizing effortsand to speed up the NLRBunion-representation pro-cedures. But vehementbusiness-community op-position killed the effort in 1977.

Busting Unions

T he legislative defeat was a har-binger of what was to come dur-

ing the Reagan and Bush adminis-trations in the 1980s and early ’90s.Reagan, a former head of the ScreenActors Guild, won the presidency in1980 and again four years later, inpart, by winning over conservativeunion voters. Yet he set an anti-uniontone for his presidency in 1981 whenhe fired striking air-traffic controllers— government employees represent-ed by the Professional Air TrafficControllers’ Organization (PATCO) —and decertified the union. Reagansaid the strike was illegal.

To labor’s horror, most Americansendorsed Reagan’s take-charge handlingof the strike. In the coming years, Rea-gan and other Republicans increasing-ly cast organized labor as a selfish spe-cial interest unconcerned about ordinarycitizens’ needs. 36

Reagan’s actions signaled to em-ployers in the private sector that it wasOK to hire permanent replacements dur-ing work stoppages — as Reagan haddone. Over the next few years, sever-al major companies, including Grey-hound, Phelps Dodge and Eastern Air-lines, followed suit.

Moreover, in the first full year afterPATCO, the number of major strikes fellfrom several hundred a year to less than100 and has continued to fall ever since.The federal government in 2004 record-ed only 17 major strikes or lockouts in-volving at least 1,000 workers. 37

In the 1984 presidentialelection, unions played a bigrole in winning the Demo-cratic presidential nomina-tion for Walter F. Mondale,only to see their candidatelose in a landslide, as manyunion members — dubbed“Reagan Democrats” — de-livered votes to the GOP.

Organized labor hopedthat Democrat Bill Clin-ton’s election as presidentin 1992 would change itspolitical fortunes. In 1993,Clinton pushed throughthe labor-backed Familyand Medical Leave Act, asuccess for labor. But thatsame year, the Democrati-cally controlled Congressapproved the North Amer-ican Free Trade Act despitelabor’s concerns it wouldcost U.S. jobs — and thusunion members.

Labor’s political hopeswere dashed, however, in1994, when Republicans cap-tured control of both cham-

bers of Congress — for the first timesince 1954. Since FDR, unions have tiedtheir fate to that of the Democrats, al-though there have been exceptions. TheTeamsters, for instance, endorsed Rea-gan for president and have reached outto Republicans and business on issuessuch as drilling in the Arctic NationalWildlife Refuge in Alaska. 38

AFL-CIO activists demanded achange, charging that Lane Kirkland— who had replaced Meany in 1979— wasn’t doing enough to help U.S.workers. SEIU head Sweeney oustedKirkland in 1995.

Sweeney came in promising to or-ganize more workers and boost unions’influence. 39 He aggressively confront-ed business, rallied workers and joinedforces with students and community ac-tivists. In 1996, the AFL-CIO launched“Union Summer” to train student ac-


Vincent “Chin” Gigante, former boss of the powerful Genovesecrime family in New York, was convicted of labor racketeering

in 1997 and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Federal prosecutorssay some unions still have ties to organized crime.

Get

ty I

mag

es/B

ob S

trong


tivists in organizing picket lines andholding demonstrations. Then in 2000,the group unveiled “Seminary Summer”to involve religious leaders in work-place issues. The groups fanned out tocampuses and cities to protest overseassweatshops and promote “fair trade”policies that incorporate labor protec-tions in trade treaties.

Unions also have lobbied for so-called living-wage ordinances in near-ly 100 cities since 1994. The laws re-quire companies that receive tax breaksor contracts from cities to pay work-ers more than the federal minimumwage. 40 In 2003 the AFL-CIO creat-ed a community affiliate called Work-ing America, through which non-union workers can get involved inlabor issues. By July 2005 the grouphad 1 million members and hoped tohave 2 million by 2006. Unions havealso invested pension funds in cor-porations as leverage to curb execu-tive pay and to promote global laborcodes of conduct. In 2004, unions sub-mitted fully 43 percent of all “corpo-rate governance” proposals, many ofwhich target pay for top CEOs. 41

Politically, labor stirred up Republi-cans in 1996 with a plan to spend $35million to defeat House Republicans.But the plan failed, only to be followedby the controversial 2000 presidentialelection, when labor’s candidate, AlGore, had the popular votes but lostthe election to Republican Bush. 42

Within months of coming into of-fice, Bush:

• Rescinded a Clinton-era er-gonomics rule on repetitive work-place injuries, which unions hadworked on for a decade;

• Required employers to post noticesinforming workers of their right toavoid unionization and union duesused for political activities;

• Revoked Clinton’s policy encour-aging federal contractors to payunion wages; and

• Dissolved the National PartnershipCouncil, which Clinton used to try

to improve relations betweenunions and federal agencies. 43

Bush also targeted the unions’ strong-hold: government-employee unions. Afterthe Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks onNew York and the Pentagon, Bush in-sisted that the new Department of Home-land Security operate outside civil-ser-vice rules — a move that “unilaterallycanceled the collective bargaining rightsof 170,000 workers,” unions said. 44

Then in 2003, the president unveiledplans to make it easier for private com-panies to compete for 850,000 feder-al jobs. 45

Moreover, Clinton-era pro-labor reg-ulatory rulings were reversed by Bushappointees to the National Labor Rela-tions Board (NLRB). Bush’s NLRB alsohas issued rulings that unions say threat-en new recruiting tactics. The board alsoruled that graduate assistants, who oftenteach college courses, are students —not employees — and therefore cannotjoin a union. 46 The ruling was a blowto the United Auto Workers, which hadbegun organizing at Columbia, Brownand other top universities. 47

Finally, AFL-CIO activists said theyhad had enough. Under Sweeney’swatch, they complained, union num-bers had continued to slide, and labor-backed presidential candidates had losttwice. It was time for change.

CURRENTSITUATION

Change to Win

T en years after Sweeney becameAFL-CIO leader, seven unions

complained that the federation’s fail-ure to boost union membership wascosting labor clout at the bargainingtable and in Congress.

“We’re not trying to divide the labormovement, we’re trying to rebuild it,”the SEIU’s Stern said in July. “Whenyou’re going down a road and it’sheaded in the wrong direction . . . yougot to get off the road and walk in anew direction.” 48

But the 70-year-old Sweeney re-fused to step down. “That’s been theissue from the beginning,” said SheetMetal Workers International PresidentMichael Sullivan at the convention. 49

“It’s not about organizing; we’re all in-terested in organizing.”

The convention was supposed tocelebrate the 50th anniversary of themerger of the AFL and the CIO, butafter the SEIU and Teamsters pulledout, the United Food and CommercialWorkers followed suit.

The Carpenters union, which had quitthe AFL-CIO in March 2001, also hasjoined Change to Win. “The AFL-CIOcontinues to operate under the rules andprocedures of an era that passed yearsago, while the industries that employour members change from day to day,”Carpenters President Douglas McCarronsaid in pulling out. 50

Besides asking Sweeney to returnsome $2 billion in dues money overthe next five years, the dissenting unionsalso wanted the federation to earmark$25 million in yearly profits from a union-backed credit card program to organizeWal-Mart. Instead, the AFL-CIO decidedto devote $22 million to organizing.

Cornell’s Hurd is among the labor ob-servers who see the recent defections ashistoric. “The last time we saw a majorsplit in the national labor movement wasin the mid-1930s,” Hurd says, when JohnL. Lewis left the AFL to form the CIO.

The disagreement today is the same:How best to organize workers in theeconomy’s growth sectors. In the 1930s,the CIO wanted to organize workers inthe emerging, mass-producing steel, autoand rubber industries. The Change to Wincoalition wants to organize workers ingrowing industries such as construction,child and health care and hospitality.



“The CIO did not organize one Fordplant; they organized Ford,” Stern saidin July. “The only way to rebuild thislabor movement is . . . to organize allof a company at one time, not one plant,one shop, one work site at a time.” 51

The Change to Win unions also hadargued for a “one-union per industry”approach that would curb the com-petition among unions for the sameworkers. Health-care workers, for ex-ample, are divided into more than 30unions. The dissenting unions arguebigger unions would have more lever-age at the bargaining table. Sweeneyagrees but says the unions themselvesmust decide to consolidate.

Anti-Union Climate

W ashington’s attitude towardunions today is starkly differ-

ent from the 1930s, says the Univer-sity of Pittsburgh’s Masters. Unions weregrowing then, not declining, he pointsout, and a wave of legislation gaveworkers the right to organize. “Today,any sort of pro-worker legislation isfar off the radar screen on CapitolHill,” Masters says.

Indeed, Cornell’s Hurd calls the Bushadministration one of the most anti-union in history. Besides rolling backpolicies important to unions, he says,

the administration and Congress are try-ing to block an organizing strategy unionshave used in recent years to recruit upto 550,000 new members. 52

The new approach, called “card-checkrecognition,” allows unions to bypass theNLRB. Essentially, workers convince em-ployers to voluntarily accept a union ifenough workers sign cards saying theywant a union. Unions want to avoid theNLRB because the formal process is timeconsuming and because the board hasbecome a “deathtrap” for union organiz-ers, rather than the impartial referee forunion and management disagreements itwas supposed to be, according to Andy

Continued on p. 726

On campuses across the country, student activists haveteamed up with unions and nonprofit groups to produniversities to pay “fair” wages to their low-level work-

ers and to shun firms that treat overseas workers inhumanely.They also are encouraging university workers to join unions.But whether the activists themselves will join unions after grad-uation remains uncertain.

• At Georgetown University, for example, 22 students wenton a hunger strike in March, demanding that the univer-sity pay its workers a “living wage” of $15/hour, comparedto the $6.60 some custodial and dining hall workers earned.The university now pays a minimum of $13 per hour. 1

• Students from Duke, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Florida State, Michigan State and other schoolssupported the AFL-CIO’s Farm Labor Organizing Com-mittee’s efforts to win better pay and conditions for 8,000migrant cucumber pickers at the Mt. Olive Pickle Co. inNorth Carolina. The contract that resulted provides for aunion hiring hall in Mexico for recruiting workers, amongother benefits. 2

• Student activists also encouraged 191 colleges and uni-versities to join the Washington-based Fair Labor Associ-ation (FLA), created in 1999 after a White House initia-tive on sweatshops launched by President Bill Clinton.Schools affiliated with FLA promise to promote “fair anddecent conditions in the production of goods bearing theirlogo” and to disclose factory locations where licensedproducts are manufactured.

• Students joined in boycotting Taco Bell restaurants on 21campuses over allegations the company bought tomatoesfrom suppliers who paid substandard wages to farmworkers.The Coalition of Immokalee Workers ended the boycott in

March after Taco Bell agreed to work with the coalition toimprove pickers’ working conditions. 4

The question remains, however, whether campus labor ac-tivism will convert young people into union members afterthey graduate and enter the work force. Only 4.7 percent ofworkers ages 16 to 25 were union members in 2004. 5

“Recruiting young people is key to the future of the labormovement,” says Mike Caputo, a member of the United MineWorkers and a Democratic lawmaker in the West Virginia legis-lature. “The key is bringing young people into the labor move-ment and constantly reminding them why they have what theyhave and what they stand to lose if they don’t get involved,”which he says includes dignity on the job, workplace safety,wages and benefits.

Allie Robbins, national organizer of the United StudentsAgainst Sweatshops, says unions haven’t done enough to attractyoung people but are beginning to with programs such as paidinternships that some unions offer and the AFL-CIO’s “UnionSummer,” which hires student interns to work with unions.

“A lot of people don’t understand what a union does, orwhy they would need a union in the workplace,” she says.

1 Dan DiMaggio, “Student-Labor Activism Spreading,” Justice, No. 43, May-June 2005, the newspaper of Socialist Alternative.2 Press release, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, “Precedent Setting Agree-ment Reached, Mt. Olive Pickle Boycott Over,” Sept, 16, 2004, and StevenGreenhouse, “Growers’ Group Signs First Union Contract for Guest Workers,”The New York Times, Sept. 17, 2004, p. A16.3 Evelyn Nieves, “Florida Tomato Pickers Still Reap `Harvest of Shame’; BoycottHelps Raise Awareness of Plight,” The Washington Post, Feb. 28, 2005, p. A3.4 Press statement, “Comments by Coalition of Immokalee Workers Co-Director Lucas Benitez at Press Conference Announcing Settlement of theCIW’s Taco Bell Boycott,” March 8, 2005.5 Press release, “Union Members in 2004,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,Table 1, Jan. 27, 2005.

Student Activists Fight for Workers’ Rights

no


At Issue:Will the split in the AFL-CIO revive the labor movement?Yes

yesROBERT REICHFORMER SECRETARY OF LABORPROFESSOR OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC POLICY,BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY

WRITTEN FOR THE CQ RESEARCHER, AUGUST 2005

f orty years ago, over a third of the American work forcebelonged to a labor union. Today, it’s fewer than 8 per-cent of private-sector workers. What happened?

First came global competition. Then technology, which au-tomated lots of jobs. Mega-retailers like Wal-Mart forced thou-sands of suppliers to become even leaner and meaner. Mean-while, privatization and deregulation allowed lots of newentrants into government services.

Wages and benefits typically account for 70 percent of acompany’s total costs. So as companies have scrambled to cutcosts, they’ve done everything possible to cut the wages andbenefits — and numbers — of their employees. One method,of course, has been to fight unions.

Industrial workers have been hardest hit. Deficit-ridden federaland state governments also have cut costs by trimming payrollsand outsourcing to the private sector. Not surprisingly, workerswant to hold on to what they have left. Unions that representthem constitute the core of the AFL-CIO. While they’re interestedin gaining new members, they see their primary mission as pre-serving the good jobs and relatively high incomes of their mem-bers in the face of these fierce headwinds.

Their future depends largely on what happens in Washing-ton. They’re using what’s left of their political muscle to fighttrade agreements, oppose privatization and deregulation, joinwith their companies to get government contracts and pre-serve their members’ health and pension benefits.

Contrast them with the other blue-collar workers who inhabitthe local service economy. Their jobs can’t be outsourced, andmost won’t be automated. In fact, these jobs keep growing.Their problem is low wages and few benefits. Most of thesejobs have never been unionized. If they were, these workersmight have more bargaining clout with their employers.

By and large, the unions who look out for these workers arethe ones now leaving or threatening to leave the AFL-CIO. Theysee their mission less as preserving good jobs in danger of disap-pearing and more as boosting the prospects of people trapped inlousy ones. They’re less interested in gaining political clout be-cause the fate of their members is not closely tied to votes takenin Washington. Their future depends instead on how many otherlocal service workers become union members, and how quickly.That’s why organizing is of such central importance to them.

Given the evolution of the American economy, it’s just pos-sible that the split in the AFL-CIO will mark a rebirth — or atleast the rejuvenation — of organized labor.No

RICHARD W. HURDPROFESSOR OF LABOR STUDIESCORNELL UNIVERSITY

WRITTEN FOR THE CQ RESEARCHER, AUGUST 2005

t he fissure in the AFL-CIO has little to do with the keychallenges facing the labor movement. Prior to secession,the unions in the Change to Win coalition promoted an

aggressive restructuring plan and a streamlined, central federation.They argued that by concentrating resources in 15 or so nationalunions in core industries, and by committing substantial resourcesto organizing, labor could simultaneously increase bargainingleverage and reverse the slide in membership.

It is hard to imagine how a divided labor movement couldstimulate growth. Instead of consolidating and uniting behindan organizing priority, the split actually achieves the opposite.Now it appears that there will be two federations with differentfoci, and it would not be surprising to see direct competitionfor members, especially in growth industries like health care.

In order to re-establish a powerful presence in the privateeconomy, unions will need to adapt to globalization and thechanging workplace. Twenty-first century labor markets do notmatch the experience of organizations long associated with jobsecurity, seniority and the protection of domestic production.There is little practical incentive for workers to embrace orga-nizations whose culture and strategic perspective are captiveto an historical framework that is no longer operational.

There are three key challenges:• If unions hope to recruit successfully in the low-wage

service sector, they must transform internally to buildsocial-movement zeal that embraces the culture of ser-vice workers — predominately women, African-Ameri-cans and immigrants from Latin America and Asia.

• Unions must simultaneously connect with the expandingprofessional and technical work force. These workers’identity is occupational, and they are most likely to bedrawn to new forms of representation that operate be-yond the framework of traditional collective bargaining.

• Globalization presents what is probably the greatest para-dox for unions accustomed to operating almost exclu-sively within the confines of the United States. The new,corporate world order mandates global labor alliancesthat go well beyond contemporary practice.

The split in the AFL-CIO detracts attention from challengesthat will ultimately determine labor’s future. As the feudingcontinues, unions lose precious time, and the chances for re-vival diminish. Hope now rests with grass-roots activists andstrong leaders of individual national unions, who must riseabove the internecine squabbling and show that a new formof unionism can emerge from the ashes of the old.



Levin, director of the AFL-CIO’s Voice at Work or-ganizing campaign.

Arguing the techniqueallows union organizersto intimidate workers intosigning the cards, busi-ness wants Congress tooutlaw card-check andPresident Bush to appointnew NLRB memberswho oppose the policy.

Meanwhile, the LaborDepartment also has in-creased its scrutiny ofunion finances. In 2003it updated regulations re-quiring unions to showhow they spend theirmoney. The AFL-CIOcalled the proposal a“huge tangle of redtape” that would costunions $1 billion a yearto comply. 53 The newregulations went into ef-fect this year.

While the Labor De-partment is spendingmore time inspectingunions’ books, laborsays the Bush adminis-tration is giving em-ployers a pass when itcomes to enforcingwage and hour and safety laws. Atcurrent staffing and inspection levels,for example, it would take the U.S.Occupational Safety and Health Ad-ministration (OSHA) 108 years to in-spect each workplace under its juris-diction just once, the AFL-CIO said ina 2005 report, “Death on the Job.” 54

In addition to the ergonomics rule,unions also say the Labor Departmentrolled back other important workplacerules, including new regulations in 2004that unions say “robbed” 6 millionworkers of the right for overtime pay.

And while the Labor Departmentsays it was not involved, unions fault

the Bush administration’s Immigrationand Customs Enforcement (ICE) agencyfor using the pretext of an OSHAmeeting and free coffee and dough-nuts to lure about 50 immigrant con-struction workers in North Carolina toa location where they were hand-cuffed and taken into custody for al-legedly using false documents. 55

“Instead of scaring workers into si-lence by these types of immigration en-forcement actions, the Bush adminis-tration should be focusing on craftingreal solutions to our broken immigra-tion system,” AFL-CIO Executive VicePresident Chavez-Thompson said.

The mechanics’ strikeagainst Northwest AirlinesCorp. that began on Aug. 20this year shows how laborunions have lost the strike asa threat against management.When the mechanics walkedoff the job, the airline alreadyhad temporary workers linedup to replace the strikers,which is legal. While the air-line and union offer differentreports of the strike’s effect,the airline is still running.

“If a corporation can elim-inate an entire work forceand bring in replacementworkers, it has ramificationsfor every other unionizedcompany,” said Steve Mac-Farlane, a spokesman for theAircraft Mechanics FraternalAssociation (AMFA). 56

Although Northwest isseeking more than $100million in concessions, AMFAsays the issue isn’t moneybut job security. 57

AMFA is not a member ofthe AFL-CIO or the Changeto Win coalition and is get-ting little support from thelabor community. The lack ofunion solidarity is due inlarge part to AMFA’s reputa-tion for recruiting other work-

ers from other unions to join AMFA, whatother unions call raiding or poaching.

To some, the Northwest strike also il-lustrates organized labor’s fragmentation.“The AMFA strike has all the issues thatshould excite the labor movement intomass demonstrations,” Gary Chaison, aprofessor of industrial relations at ClarkUniversity in Worcester, Mass., told Na-tional Public Radio. “It [the strike] has out-sourcing of union jobs, it has employerpressure to reduce wages and it has theuse of striker replacements. The labormovement is so in disarray and confusedabout its priorities right now, it reallydoesn’t know how to react to this.” 58

Continued from p. 724

Striking Northwest Airlines mechanics picket at O’HareInternational Airport in August 2005. When the mechanics

struck, the airline already had temporary workers lined up toreplace the strikers. The mechanics’ union is not a member of

the AFL-CIO or the Change to Win coalition and is getting little support from the labor community.

Get

ty I

mag

es/T

im B

oyl

e


Legal Action

A bright spot for labor came in Au-gust when a district court in Wash-

ington, D.C., prevented the adminis-tration from implementing portions ofits new personnel rules for the De-partment of Homeland Security, whichscrapped certain collective-bargainingprotections. 59

“This is a truly astronomical win,”said Mark Roth, general counsel forthe American Federation of Govern-ment Employees. 60 The ruling couldprevent the administration from mak-ing similar changes for civilian work-ers at the Defense Department.

Organized labor says governors andbusinesses are taking their cues fromWashington and going after unions. Re-publican Govs. Mitch Daniels of Indi-ana and Matt Blunt of Missouri bothused executive orders to wipe out thecollective-bargaining rights of some 50,000state workers shortly after taking officein 2005. 61 They followed the lead ofRepublican governors in California,Kentucky, Maryland and Massachusetts.Federal labor laws protect the collective-bargaining rights of private-sector em-ployees, but it’s up to the individualstates to pass laws providing protectionfor state and local public employees.Twenty-five states have such laws onthe books. The governors who rescindedpublic-sector bargaining did so by ex-ecutive order, not by repealing any laws.

Gerald McEntee, president of theAmerican Federation of State, County andMunicipal Employees (AFSMCE), saidthese actions “are a coordinated assaultby right-wing forces on a part of theunion movement that is growing.” Gov-ernment workers are the nation’s mostunionized. Less than 8 percent of privateworkers are organized, compared with36 percent of government workers. 62

In California, Republican Gov. ArnoldSchwarzenegger is pursuing what laborcalls an anti-union agenda, backing aballot initiative this November to pro-

hibit public unions from collecting duesfor political purposes without first ob-taining the workers’ written permission.He also has rankled nurses’ unions bytrying to block new rules that wouldrequire hospitals to have more nurses.But a court intervened, and the ruleswent into effect. 63

Schwarzenegger was thwarted in an-other anti-union effort. He was forced todrop a controversial bid to revamp thepension plan for state workers that wouldhave forced state employees to use a401(k)-style benefit rather than the cur-rent system, which pays set benefits.

“The governor’s not only attackedteachers but he’s attacked the entirecore of California,” said Barbara Kerr,president of the California TeachersAssociation. “He’s attacked firefighters,he’s attacked police officers, teachersand state workers. We are the peoplethat make this state run.” 64

OUTLOOKRecruiting Push

E mployers expect a burst of orga-nizing activity in the coming months

as the two rival labor groups vie for thesame workers to join their ranks. But thepicture is less clear on Capitol Hill andin statehouses, where politicians and lob-byists are still trying to figure out whatthe labor split means for them.

Harvard University economist JamesMedoff called the breakup “good newsfor the corporations and political con-servatives. A divided labor movementis a weaker labor movement, and em-ployers know this very well.” 65

Masters of the University of Pittsburghdoesn’t agree. “This notion that laborhas to be united in the form of all stand-ing behind the AFL-CIO in lockstep isjust nonsense.” But Masters says labordesperately needs to quickly score major

organizing successes. A breakthrough atWal-Mart or Comcast “would go a longway in justifying the need for the splitthat has taken place,” he says.

Labor has already been using somenon-traditional tactics to attack anti-labor practices at firms like Wal-Mart.Among other things, unions have ini-tiated “corporate campaigns” that at-tack a company’s labor practicesthrough negative ads, consumer boy-cotts and legal action, such as law-suits against the company for allegedlybreaking wage and safety laws. Busi-nesses can expect more of those tac-tics from unions, says Charles S. Biren-baum, a San Francisco labor attorney.

Activist unions also are vowing to stepup efforts to organize and bargain glob-ally. In August, SEIU joined forces withunions representing service workers acrossthe globe to help organize cleaners inthe Netherlands and security officers em-ployed by multinationals in India, Ger-many, South Africa and Poland. 66

“It’s much easier to change the be-havior of a company that’s unionizedat an 80 percent level globally than itis when it’s unionized at 10 percent,”said SEIU President Stern. 67

“We need a global strategy to holdglobal employers accountable to the pub-lic they serve and to their employees,”said Philip Jennings, general secretary ofthe Swiss-based Union Network Inter-national (UNI), a global coalition of 900national unions representing service work-ers. Among other things, UNI wants toend what it calls “union busting” in Britainand the United States by T-Mobile, asubsidiary of Deutsche Telecom. 68

However, back at home, unions arealready fighting over workers, includ-ing some who are unionized, and theinfighting could get worse. Stern of SEIU,who leads Change to Win, haspromised not to poach other unions’members, but some expect a free-for-all.“When [Stern] says he is not going toraid other unions, he is lying,” AFSCMEmember Mike Fox said at the conven-tion. Fox charged that SEIU is trying to



steal 10,000 home-care providers inRiverside County, Calif., whom AFSCMErepresents.

Business groups are not convincedthe renewed attention on organizing willtranslate into more union members. “Justputting more organizing troops on theground isn’t going to change the equa-tion,” Johnson of the U.S. Chamber says.

Politically, the rift could affect whichcandidate and policy get labor’s sup-port. “I think it’s a disaster for De-mocrats,” said Steve Elmendorf, a se-nior adviser to Sen. John Kerry duringthe 2004 campaign. 69

Democrats, whom unions of bothcamps complain have taken their votesand political donations for granted,may have to work harder to winlabor’s support. Sweeney vowed tomake Democrats who voted againstlabor in the recent CAFTA trade leg-islation pay the consequences for their“sell-out votes.” The Change to Wincoalition promises to hold Democratsaccountable for their vote but alsoplans to reach out to Republicans.

“We absolutely believe the AFL-CIOhas become too much in the backpocket of Democrats,” said coalitionChairwoman Anna Burger. 70

The AFL-CIO, which used to be theone organization that spoke for all oforganized labor, now has competitionwhen it goes to Capitol Hill and state-houses to lobby its causes. Johnsonsays the split is advantageous to thebusiness community and will hurt or-ganized labor’s political agenda, butonly in the short term. “Although theyare divided, they will get their housetogether,” he predicts.

Notes

1 Linda Chavez, “A tough year for the AFL-CIO,” July 20, 2005, available at www.lin-dachavez.org.2 Fact sheets from AFL-CIO at www.afl-cio.org/aboutus/faq/ and Change to Win,www.changetowin.org, August 2005.3 For background, see Brian Hansen, “Big-Box Stores,” CQ Researcher, Sept. 10, 2004,pp. 733-756.4 Keynote address of AFL-CIO President JohnSweeney, AFL-CIO convention, July 25, 2005at www.afl-cio.org/mediacenter/prsptm/sp07252005a.cfm.5 Migration Policy Institute, “Immigrant UnionMembers, Numbers and Trends,” May 2004.6 Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Median week-ly earnings of full-time wage and salary work-ers, annual averages 1983-2004.”7 AFL-CIO Fact Sheet, “The Union Differ-ence.”8 “All Things Considered,” National PublicRadio, July 25, 2005.9 Linda Chavez and Daniel Gray, Betrayal:How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Mem-bers and Corrupt American Politics (2005),p. 16.10 Peter D. Hart Research Associates, “ThePublic View of Unions,” February 2005.11 Statement, “Deck is stacked against U.S.workers,” Human Rights Watch, Aug. 31, 2000.12 Andrew Strom, “How the United States’stacked labor laws make it nearly impossi-ble for workers to gain union representa-tion,” Dollars & Sense Magazine, No. 249,September/October 2003.13 Ibid.14 Press release, National Right to Work LegalDefense Foundation, July 25, 2005.15 For background, see Mary H. Cooper, “Ex-porting Jobs,” CQ Researcher, Feb. 20, 2004,pp. 149-172.16 Ibid, p. 152.

17 Company news releases: “Kodak Acceler-ates Digital Transformation Strategy,” July 20,2005; “HP Unveils Targeted Program to Stream-line Company, Reduce Costs, Drive GreaterCustomer Focus,” July 19, 2005, available atwww.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2005/050719a.html; and “Kimberly Clark Announces Sec-ond Quarter Results And Initiatives to FurtherImprove Competitive Position,” July 22, 2005.18 For background, see Mary H. Cooper, “Re-thinking NAFTA,” CQ Researcher, June 7, 1996,pp. 481-504.19 Robert E. Scott and David Ratner, “NATFA’sCautionary Tale,” Economic Policy Institute,Issue Brief 214, July 20, 2005.20 Linda Chavez-Thompson, “To boost work-ers, turn down CAFTA,” San Antonio Express-News, May 15, 2005.21 Wal-mart statement, www.walmartfacts.com/keytopics/unions.aspx.22 Doug Struck, “Wal-Mart Leaves Bitter Chill,”The Washington Post, April 14, 2005, p. E1.23 Sydney P. Freedberg and Connie Hum-burg, “Lured employers now tax Medicaid,”St. Petersburg Times, March 25, 2005.24 John Sweeney, “Wal-Mart leads way inlowering standards for employees,” DetroitFree Press, Feb. 25, 2005.25 “Statement of James P. Hoffa on the Team-sters’ Disaffiliation from the AFL-CIO,” July25, 2005.26 “Business-Labor Ideology Split in PACand Individual Donations to Candidatesand Parties,” Center for Responsive Poli-tics, based on data released by the FEC,March 28, 2005.27 Remarks by John J. Sweeney, president ofthe AFL-CIO, Building and Construction TradesDepartment Convention, Boston, Aug. 9, 2005.28 Fact Sheet, “AFL-CIO Political ProgramGives Working Families A Voice,” July 2005.29 “National Election Survey,” University ofMichigan’s Center for Political Studies.30 Foster Rhea Dulles and Melvyn Dubofsky,Labor in America: A History (Fifth ed.), 2004,p. 392.31 Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union: ACentury of American Labor (2002).32 For background, see Charles S. Clark,“Child Labor and Sweatshops,” CQ Researcher,Aug. 16, 1996, pp. 721-744.33 Dulles & Dubofsky, op. cit., p. 120.34 Ibid, p. 213.35 Ibid.36 Ibid, p. 392.37 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Major WorkStoppages in 2004,” April 8, 2005. Major strikes

About the AuthorPamela M. Prah is a veteran reporter who recently joinedCQ Researcher after several years reporting in Washingtonfor Stateline.org, Kiplinger’s Washington Letter and theBureau of National Affairs. She holds a master’s degree ingovernment from Johns Hopkins University and a journalismdegree from Ohio University.


peaked in 1952 at 470, according to federaldata that go back to 1947.38 John Cochran and Rebecca Adams, “FreshFrom a Set of Hill Victories, Can Labor Keepthe Momentum?” CQ Weekly, Sept. 1, 2001.39 For background, see Kenneth Jost, “LaborMovement’s Future” CQ Researcher, June 28,1996, pp. 553-576.40 For background, see Jane Tanner, “LivingWage Movement,” CQ Researcher, Sept. 27,2002, pp. 769-792.41 AFL-CIO Fact Sheet, “What’s Wrong WithExecutive Pay — And What Union FundsAre Doing About It,” 2005; www.afl-cio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/retirement-security/index.cfm.42 For background, see Kenneth Jost andGregory L. Giroux, “Electoral College,” CQResearcher, Dec. 8, 2000, pp. 977-1008.43 Rebecca Adams, “GOP-Business AllianceYields Swift Reversal of Ergonomics Rule,”CQ Weekly, March 10, 2001.44 AFL-CIO, “BushWatch,” May 2003.45 Office of Management and Budget, Revisionto Office of Management and Budget CircularNo. A-76, “Performance of Commercial Activi-ties,” May 29, 2003. Available at www.white-house.gov/omb/fedreg/rev_a76_052903.html.46 National Labor Relations Board decision,Brown University and International Union,United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricul-tural Implement Workers of America, UAW,AFL-CIO, Case No. I-RC-21368, July 13, 2004.47 Jennifer John and Mike Rosenbaum, “Grad-uate Student Workers Need More Than Pres-tige,” United Auto Workers, Solidarity, Janu-ary/February 2002.48 Steven Greenhouse, “Two Large UnionsSay They Are Leaving the AFL-CIO,” The NewYork Times, July 25, 2005.49 Michael Bologna, “AFL-CIO’s Sweeney An-gered by Defection of Dissident Unions asConvention Kicks Off,” BNA Daily Labor Re-port, July 26, 2005.50 “Carpenters union pulls out of AFL-CIO,” North-west Labor Press, April 6, 2001, www.nwlabor-press.org/2001/4-6-01Carpenters.html.51 “Future of the US labor movement,” “Talk ofthe Nation,” National Public Radio, July 19, 2005.52 Peter Szekely, “Labor Board Ruling Threat-ens Union Recruiting,” Reuters, June 10, 2004.53 Statement by AFL-CIO President John J.Sweeney on New Regulations for Union Re-porting, Dec. 23, 2002.54 For background, see David Hatch, “WorkerSafety,” The CQ Researcher, May 21, 2004, pp.

445-468.55 For background, see Peter Katel, “IllegalImmigration,” The CQ Researcher, May 6, 2005,pp. 393-420.56 Keith L. Alexander, “Northwest Says It’sPrepared for Strike; Airline Taking ToughStance With Mechanics,” The Washington Post,Aug. 19, 2005, p. D1.57 Statement, Aircraft Mechanics FraternalAssociation, Aug. 24, 2005.58 National Public Radio, “All Things Consid-ered,” Aug. 23, 2005.59 National Treasury Employees Union v.Michael Chertoff, Department of HomelandSecurity, Civil Action No. 05-201 (RMC), U.S.District Court for the District of Columbia.60 American Federation of Government Em-ployees, press release, “Labor unions wincase against agency’s proposed regulations,”Aug. 14, 2005.61 Kathleen Hunter, “GOP governors trimstate employees’ bargaining clout,” State-line.org., Feb. 25, 2005.62 Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Union Mem-bers in 2004,” Jan. 27, 2005.

63 California Nurses Association vs.Schwarzenegger (Case No. 04CS01725) www.saccourt.com/courtrooms/trulings/dept16/d16-04cs01725-06.07.05.doc.64 BBC, “Fight looms over Schwarzeneggerplans,” Aug. 10, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4136128.stm.65 Alonso Soto, “Weakened AFL-CIO pledgesto organize workers,” Reuters, July 26, 2005.66 Press release, “Groundbreaking Union Al-liance to Help Raise Standards in Global Ser-vice Industries,” Service Employees Interna-tional Union, Aug. 25, 2005.67 Harold Meyerson, “Workers of the WorldUniting,” op. ed. column, The WashingtonPost, Aug. 27, 2005, p. A17.68 Press release, “UNI global union targetsglobal corporations,” Union Network Inter-national, July 18, 2005.69 “Labor split could hurt Democrats’ Campaigns,”The Seattle Times, July 26, 2005.70 Jeanne Cummings, “Unions Recast TheirPolitical Role,” The Wall Street Journal, July27, 2005, p. A4.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONAFL-CIO, 815 16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20006; (202) 637-5000; www.afl-cio.org.A federation representing 9 million U.S. workers in 53 unions.

Change to Win, c/o Service Employees International Union, 1313 L St., N.W.,Washington, DC 20005; (202) 898-3200; www.changetowin.org. A new coalition ofseven unions representing 6 million workers.

Economic Policy Institute, 1600 L St., N.W., Suite 1200, Washington, DC 20036;(202) 775-8810; www.epi.org. A labor-backed think tank that researches laborconditions, jobs, trade and globalization.

National Association of Manufacturers, 1331 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washing-ton, DC 20004; (202) 637-3000; www.nam.org. An influential lobbying group repre-senting small and large manufacturers.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, 8001 Braddock Road, Suite600, Springfield, VA 22160; (703) 321-8510; www.nrtw.org. A nonprofit providingfree legal aid to workers who feel their rights have been violated by “compulsoryunionism abuses.”

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2 Massachusetts Ave., N.E., Washington, DC 20212;(202) 691-5200; www.bls.gov. A Department of Labor agency providing informationabout wages, work stoppages, collective bargaining and unionization rates.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 1615 H St., N.W., Washington, DC 20062; (202)659-6000; www.uschamber.org. An influential business-lobbying group representing3 million businesses and 2,800 state and local chambers.

FOR MORE INFORMATION


Books

Brody, David, The American Labor Movement, Univer-sity Press of America, Reprint edition, 1985.Essays by various authors look at trade unionism, social-

ism, unions and the black community and other issues thatshaped the U.S. labor movement. Brody is professor emer-itus of history at the University of California at Davis.

Chavez, Linda, and Daniel Gray, Betrayal: How UnionBosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt Ameri-can Politics, Three Rivers Press, 2005.Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a

conservative think tank, recommends that unions be pre-vented from spending members’ dues on politics withouttheir permission.

Dubofsky, Melvyn, and Foster Rhea Dulles, Labor inAmerica: A History [7th edition], Harlan Davidson, 2004.The authors trace U.S. labor history from Colonial times. His-

torian Dulles wrote the first three editions, beginning in 1949and Dubofsky, a professor of history at the State Universityof New York at Binghamton, has updated the book since.

Geoghegan, Thomas, Which Side Are You On? Trying ToBe for Labor When It’s Flat on Its Back, Plume Books, 1992.A labor lawyer employed by Chicago-area local unions con-

cludes that steel-mill closings, leveraged buyouts and ThirdWorld competitive labor have contributed to the decline oforganized labor.

Lichtenstein, Nelson, State of the Union, A Century ofAmerican Labor, Princeton University Press, 2002.A professor of history at the University of California pro-

vides historical analysis of labor since the New Deal. Heconcludes that a larger, more powerful labor movement iscentral to the health of American democracy.

Articles

Benenson, Bob, and John Cochran, “Breakaway Labor:A Fragile Unity,” CQ Weekly, Aug. 1, 2005, pp. 2092-2093.Veteran political writers look at how both hope and doubt

greet the dissident unions that pulled out of the AFL-CIOand how Democrats weigh the impact of the split.

Bernstein, Aaron, “The House of Labor Divides,” BusinessWeek, July 26, 2005.A labor reporter recaps the infighting that led to the his-

toric breakup of the AFL-CIO.

Fields, Gary, et al., “Reinventing the Union,” The WallStreet Journal, July 27, 2005, p. B1.Fields looks at labor’s new strategies in the face of facto-

ry job losses, outsourcing and the growth of domestic ser-vice jobs.

Fine, Janice, “Debating Labor’s Future,” The Nation, Aug.1/8, 2005, pp. 15-22.Fine poses questions about the future of organized labor

to leaders of the AFL-CIO and the newly formed Change toWin coalition, including AFL-CIO President John Sweeneyand Andy Stern, president of the dissident Service Employ-ees International Union.

Greenhouse, Steven, “Democrats Concerned by Prospectsof a Labor Schism,” The New York Times, July 24, 2005,Section 1, p. 19.Greenhouse looks at the impact the labor split may have

on the Democratic Party, which has relied heavily on unionsfor donations and get-out-the-vote drives.

Hirsch, Stacey, “2 once-close labor leaders take divergingpaths,” The Baltimore Sun, July 27, 2005, p. D1.Hirsch looks at the two main labor leaders involved in the

split, John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, and AndyStern, president of the Service Employees International Union,and their relationship.

Paulson, Amanda, “Unions look ahead — and inward too,”The Christian Science Monitor, July 6, 2005, p. 1.Paulson presents a balanced look at the issues facing or-

ganized labor in the 21st century.

Reports and Studies

Masters, Marick, et al., “The Divided House of Labor: AReport on Competing Proposals to Reform the AFL-CIO,”Center on Conflict Resolution and Negotiations, KatzGraduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh,July 14, 2005.The director of the Katz school concludes that the Change

to Win coalition may be a step toward developing a newvision for unions.

Scott, Robert E., and David Ratner, “NAFTA’s CautionaryTale,” Economic Policy Institute, July 20, 2005.Two economists from the left-leaning think tank provide a

state-by-state estimate of jobs lost to Canada and Mexico,concluding that the trade pact cost the United States 1 mil-lion jobs.

Selected Sources

Bibliography


Change to Win Coalition

Greenhouse, Steven, “Five Unions to Create A Coalitionon Growth,” The New York Times, June 13, 2005, p. A12.Dissatisfied with the AFL-CIO’s leadership, five unions

merged to create the Change to Win Coalition.

Stern, Andrew, “New Union Coalition Will Fight forWorkers,” The Miami Herald, Aug. 2, 2005, p. A23.The SEIU’s president explains why he led his union to join

the Change to Win coalition.

Von Bergen, Jane M., “Split Growing in Labor,” ThePhiladelphia Inquirer, June 16, 2005, p. C3.Leaders of five AFL-CIO unions announced the creation of

the Change to Win coalition, with three of the five unionsthreatening to withdrawal from the AFL-CIO.

Politics

Confessore, Nicholas, “Labor Leaders Denounce 2 Con-gressmen for Backing CAFTA,” The New York Times,Aug. 8, 2005, p. B6.Labor leaders are angry with Democratic Reps. Gregory

Meeks and Edolphus Towns for supporting the Central Amer-ican Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

Edsall, Thomas B., “Republicans See Opportunity in LaborRift,” The Washington Post, July 27, 2005, p. A2.Democrats worry the recent AFL-CIO split will boost Re-

publican congressional candidates.

Von Bergen, Jane M., “Labor Resolution Urges Pulloutof Troops in Iraq,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 28,2005, p. A11.AFL-CIO convention participants urged the Bush adminis-

tration to leave Iraq.

Organizing

Chan, Erin, “Asian Workers Flex Their Union Muscles,”Los Angeles Times, Sept. 3, 2002, p. A4.The AFL-CIO’s Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance has

made significant gains in organizing Asian laborers.

oyce, Amy, “Labor Split Centers on Failure to Organize,”The Washington Post, July 27, 2005, p. D1.Many analysts blame labor’s membership problems on an

anti-union legal system, hostile employers and globalization.

Kinzie, Susan, “Students’ Clout Helping Workers — andUnions,” The Washington Post, April 8, 2005, p. B1.College students are proving to be a bright spot in the

fledging labor movement.

AFL-CIO

Edsall, Thomas B., “Dissident Unions Propose AFL-CIO Re-organization,” The Washington Post, May 17, 2005, p. E2.A coalition of dissident unions called for half of the AFL-

CIO’s $120 million annual budget to go to organizing.

Edsall, Thomas B., “Insurrection Is a Big Gamble forLabor,” The Washington Post, July 30, 2005, p. A11.Andrew Stern, president of the SEIU, pulled his 1.8 million

members out of the AFL-CIO and inspired two other largeunions totaling 2.6 million members to also quit the federation.

Grant, Allison, “Labor Groups Want Link, Court BreakawayUnions,” The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer, Aug. 18, 2005, p. C3.Anna Burger, chairwoman of the Change to Win coalition,

rejected AFL-CIO President John Sweeney’s plan to offer“solidarity charters” to breakaway unions.

Greenhouse, Steven, “AFL-CIO Leader Says Split HurtsLabor,” The New York Times, July 29, 2005, p. A14.AFL-CIO President Sweeney accused SEIU President Andrew

Stern of attempting a “power grab” by creating a new labor group.

Peterson, Kyle, “Competition Could Be Good For Unions,”The Houston Chronicle, July 29, 2005, p. 8.Some — but not all — analysts say the splintering of the AFL-

CIO could re-energize organizing efforts and breed fresh ideas.

Von Bergen, Jane M., “Union to Target Comcast Workers,”The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 28, 2004, p. E1.The AFL-CIO will join with the Communication Workers

of America and the International Brotherhood of ElectricalWorkers to organize Comcast workers.

The Next Step:Additional Articles from Current Periodicals

CITING THE CQ RESEARCHER

Sample formats for citing these reports in a bibliography

include the ones listed below. Preferred styles and formats

vary, so please check with your instructor or professor.

MLA STYLEJost, Kenneth. “Rethinking the Death Penalty.” The CQ

Researcher 16 Nov. 2001: 945-68.

APA STYLE

Jost, K. (2001, November 16). Rethinking the death penalty.

The CQ Researcher, 11, 945-968.

CHICAGO STYLE

Jost, Kenneth. “Rethinking the Death Penalty.” CQ Researcher,

November 16, 2001, 945-968.

?Are you writing a paper?

Need backup for a debate?

Want to become an expert on an issue?

For 80 years, students have turned to The CQ Researcher for in-depth reporting on issues in the news. Reportson a full range of political and social issues are now available. Following is a selection of recent reports:

ACCESSThe CQ Researcher is available in print and online. For access,visit your library or www.thecqresearcher.com.

STAY CURRENTTo receive notice of upcoming CQ Researcher reports, orlearn more about CQ Researcher products, subscribe to thefree e-mail newsletters, CQ Researcher Alert! and CQ ResearcherNews: www.cqpress.com/newsletters.

PURCHASETo purchase a CQ Researcher report in print or electronicformat (PDF), visit www.cqpress.com or call 866-427-7737.A single report is $10. Bulk purchase discounts and elec-tronic rights licensing are also available.

SUBSCRIBEA full-service CQ Researcher print subscription—including44 reports a year, monthly index updates, and a boundvolume—is $625 for academic and public libraries, $605for high school libraries, and $750 for media libraries.Add $25 for domestic postage.

The CQ Researcher Online offers a backfile from 1991 and anumber of tools to simplify research. Available in printand online, The CQ Researcher en español is an archive of 66reports on political and social issues of concern to Lati-nos in the U.S. For pricing information, call 800-834-9020,ext. 1906, or e-mail [email protected].

Upcoming ReportsEnding Poverty, 9/9/05

Teen Sex, 9/16/05

Death Penalty, 9/23/05

Domestic Oil and Gas, 9/30/05

Academic Freedom, 10/7/05

Global Jihad, 10/14/05

In-depth Reports on Issues in the News

Civil LibertiesRight to Die, 5/05Immigration Reform, 4/05

Crime/LawMethamphetamine, 7/05Property Rights, 3/05Marijuana Laws, 2/05

EconomyLobbying Boom, 7/05Exporting Jobs, 2/04

EducationEvaluating Head Start, 8/05Intelligent Design, 7/05No Child Left Behind, 5/05Gender and Learning, 5/05

Energy/TransportationSUV Debate, 5/03

EnvironmentEndangered Species Act, 6/05Alternative Energy, 2/05

Health/SafetyDrug Safety, 3/05Marijuana Laws, 2/05Prayer and Healing, 1/05Dietary Supplements, 9/04Worker Safety, 5/04

International AffairsExporting Democracy, 4/05Haiti’s Dilemma, 2/05Middle East Peace, 1/05The U.N. and Global Security, 2/04

Social TrendsCosmetic Surgery, 4/05Celebrity Culture, 3/05Media Bias, 10/04

Terrorism/DefenseDraft Debates, 8/05Re-examining 9/11, 6/04

YouthBullying, 2/05Teen Driving, 1/05

Understanding Constitutional Issues:

SELECTIONS FROM THE CQ RESEARCHER

June 2004 • 8 1/2 x 11 • Approx. 432 pages • Paperback • ISBN 1-56802-885-7 • $39.95

To Order: Call Toll-Free: 866.4CQ.PRESS (427.7737)Fax: 800.380.3810 • Web: www.cqpress.comE-mail: [email protected]

CQ Press, 1255 22nd Street, NW, Suite 400 • Washington, DC 20037

New!

Understanding Constitu- tional Issues focuses on four key themes — gov- ernmental powers and structure, security, liberty, and equality — to help students develop a deeper understanding of the

relation between current events and

constitutional issues and principles. Integrating eighteen CQ

Researcher reports, Understanding Constitutional Issues makes important connections clear, such as those between civil liberties and security; and privacy and liberty.

www.cqresearcher.comUpdated Nov. 22, 2011

PUBLISHED BY CQ PRESS, AN IMPRINT OF SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC. WWW.CQPRESS.COM

For two months plastic sheetsand small tents covered theground, and hundreds of

protest signs hung from the trees.From time to time the crowd chant-ed slogans or sang. A food centerhanded out meals around the clock;clusters of police, some in riot gear,watched from a distance.

But it wasn’t Cairo’s Tahrir Square.It was Zuccotti Park in Manhattan’s fi-nancial district, where protesters in theOccupy Wall Street movement begancamping out on Sept. 15 to focus at-tention on what they saw as the fi-nancial sector’s culpability in the glob-al economic crisis. Initially, it was justa few hundred mainly young demon-strators. Their numbers began to grow,however, and two weeks later thegroup got an unexpected boost whenlabor union members turned up inforce to join the demonstration.

On Nov. 14, police cleared the park— forcibly, though not violently. Bythen the alliance of labor and the demon-strators had given “new impetus to theprotest — but more important, theunions came out of the doldrums,” saysPaula Finn, associate director of theCenter for Labor, Community and Pol-

icy Studies at the City University ofNew York (CUNY).

Union leaders had agonized for daysover the implications of joining forceswith the amorphous, free-wheelingthrong in the park. Eventually theunion members decided that “theweakened labor movement can tapinto Occupy Wall Street’s vitality,” ac-cording to The New York Times. 71

A Delicate DanceJanice Fine, a professor of labor

relations at Rutgers University’s Schoolof Management and Labor Relationsin Piscataway, N.J., says, union lead-ers were worried that they might beseen as trying to co-opt the protest.“The unions came on board not totake control, but as support,” shesays. “But the labor movement isquite hierarchical and institutional, soit’s a delicate dance.”

In deciding to get involved theunions were going on the offensiveafter a long period of decline. In 2010,with widespread layoffs and unem-ployment cutting a swath through theU.S. workforce, union membership inthe United States continued its down-ward slide, dropping to 11.9 percent

(14.7 million), down from 12.3 per-cent of the workforce (15.3 millionworkers) in 2009, according to a Bu-reau of Labor Statistics report. That’sless than half what it was at its peakof 28 percent in 1954. 72

Moreover, a summer 2010 GallupPoll showed that for the first time ever,less than half of the U.S. public ap-proved of labor unions — a signifi-cant drop from the nearly 60 percent

Future of Labor UnionsHere are key events, legislation and court rulings since

publication of the CQ Researcher report by Pamela M.

Prah, “Future of Labor Unions,” Sept. 2, 2005.

Nurse Margret Sweeney, center, joined thousands ofunion members who gave a high-profile boost to theOccupy Wall Street protest during a march in LowerManhattan on Oct. 5, 2011. Labor experts say thealliance between labor and the demonstrators has given “new impetus to the protest” against

Wall Street abuses and economic inequality andhelped get the unions “out of the doldrums.”

AP P

hoto

/Cra

ig R

uttle

who approved a year earlier. Expertssay the decline reflected public angerat major economic institutions in gen-eral — business, government andunions — over the economy’s slowrecovery. “For every [percentage] pointthat unemployment increases, the ap-proval rate for labor unions goes down2.6 points,” according to a recent studyby the liberal Center for AmericanProgress think tank. 73

The study also may have signaledpublic dismay over the key role unionsplayed in securing the deeply un-popular government bailouts thathelped General Motors and Chrysleravoid bankruptcy. “In the public’s eyes,unions were collaborating with thesecorporations instead of acting as a‘check’ on the power of big business,”the study noted. 74

Fine points out that private-sectorunions have been having “really toughtimes” for a while, with jobs goingoverseas, new technology cutting intoemployment and hostile court deci-sions. But the recent recession, shesays, has provided an opening for op-

ponents of public-sector unions to pushan agenda. “And fiscal situations wereso extreme that it fell on sympatheticears,” she says.

Public-Union WoesThe public sector is the American labor

movement’s last stronghold: 36.2 per-cent of government workers — rang-ing from teachers and fire fighters tohealth workers and federal employees

— are union members, compared toonly 6.9 percent in the private sector.But labor experts like Fine say the na-tion’s mostly Republican governors andstate legislatures, faced with increasingfinancial problems, are not just slash-ing worker benefits and imposing payfreezes to save money but also are at-tempting to eviscerate union collective-bargaining and arbitration rights.

For instance, labor-rights advocatespoint out, at the same time that Wis-consin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walkerwas cutting back on union benefitsin the name of austerity, he wasproposing significant tax cuts forbusinesses. 75

In February, thousands of public-sector workers occupied the Wiscon-sin state capitol building for weeks toprotest legislation proposed by Walk-er — the self-described Tea Party gov-ernor — that would end all union col-lective bargaining except for limitednegotiations over wages. 76 Despite theprotests, the legislation passed. But inapparent retaliation, organized laborjoined forces with Democrats in acampaign to recall Walker — a movethat would require 540,208 supportingsignatures by January 2012. 77

By October, the battleground hadmoved to Ohio, where Republican Gov.John Kasich planned to push througha law imposing a deadline on collec-tive bargaining and eliminating bind-ing arbitration, pensions and seniority-based promotions. 78 But the legislationwas overwhelmingly struck down byvoters in a November referendum,with unions spearheading a vigorouscampaign to kill it. 79

Turning Tide?The assault on public-sector unions

in America “is the greatest moment ofreckoning for organized labor in thelast quarter-century,” said London’s left-leaning newspaper The Guardian. 80

But some union leaders see develop-ments in Ohio and Wisconsin as a signthat the tide may be turning in favor oforganized labor. Harold Schailberger,president of the International Associa-tion of Firefighters, called it “an ab-solute momentum-shifting victory forthe labor movement.” 81

Finn, at the Center for Labor, Com-munity and Policy Studies, says theanti-public-union offensive is a po-litically motivated attempt to weak-en “the most active union spearheadin supporting Democratic politicians.”With private-sector unions “close todisappearing,” she says, the public-sector unions are the main supportfor Democratic candidates throughcampaign contributions and grass-roots activists. (In 2008, 59 percent

FUTURE OF LABOR UNIONS

Unionized public employees occupied the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison formore than three weeks last March to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to pushthrough a bill restricting collective bargaining for most of the state’s governmentworkers. The measure was adopted, and now unions are trying to recall Walker.

Get

ty I

mag

es/J

ust

in S

ulli

van

of people in union households votedfor Barack Obama, as compared to51 percent of those in non-unionhouseholds.)

Grover Norquist, president of theconservative anti-tax group Americansfor Tax Reform, calls unions one of the“five pillars” of Democratic strength. He

recently wrote that some states face fi-nancial ruin in part because of “gold-plated government employees’ pen-sion plans that most Americans could

Chronology2008July 14 — The AmericanFederation of Teachers, withmore than 70 percent femalemembership, elects women forthe first time to the union’s topthree posts.

September — Collapse of U.S.subprime mortgage market andreal estate boom, among otherfactors, triggers global financialmeltdown.

Dec. 19 — President George W.Bush proposes $17.4 billionbailout for U.S. automobileindustry, with United AutoWorkers’ strong support.

•

2009January — As the new Obamaadministration battles a worseningeconomic crisis, unemploymentrises to 7.2 percent, the highest in15 years.

•

2010March 9 — American Airlinesengages in contentious talks

with pilots, cabin crews andground staff before reaching acompromise. Hard hit by theglobal recession, Continental,United, US Airways andSouthwest also negotiate withtheir respective unions.

December — More workerswere idle for longer periods in2010 than in the previous year,with 45,000 workers losing302,000 days. (In 2009, 13,000workers were out of work for124,000 days.)

•

2011Jan. 21 — U.S. Bureau ofLabor Statistics reports thatunion membership dropped to11.9 percent of the workforce in2010, down from 12.3 percentthe previous year. But 36.2 percent of public-sectorworkers were unionized,compared to only 6.9 percent in the private sector.

Feb. 11 — WisconsinRepublican Gov. Scott Walker’sbudget bill limits collectivebargaining by public-sectorunions and grants authoritiesthe right to terminate anyemployees who participate instrikes or walkouts during a

governor-declared state ofemergency. Firefighter and law-enforcement unions wereexempt from the changes. Publicemployees occupy Wisconsincapitol for weeks, but the billpasses anyway.

March 2 — As other states tryto mimic Wisconsin, a bill in theOhio Senate seeks to endcollective bargaining by publicemployees, including law-enforcement and firefighterunions. After protests, bill isamended to permit unionnegotiations for wages, but notfor benefits.

Nov. 2 — As world leaders metin France at the G20 summit,the U.N. International LaborOrganization reported that 80 million new jobs would beneeded over the next five yearsjust to return to pre-recessionjob levels.

Nov. 8 — Voters in Ohioreferendum reject new statelegislation limiting collective-bargaining rights and benefitsfor public employees. The61-39 percent vote against themeasure is seen as a setback forRepublican Gov. John Kasichand is expected to discourageother states from citing budgetcuts to justify putting pressureon local employees.

only dream of.” Norquist said such statesshould be allowed to declare bank-ruptcy — voiding any union agreements— rather than obtain taxpayer-funded“bailouts” to keep the states afloat. 82

And University of Pennsylvania lawprofessor David Skeel, writing in theconservative Weekly Standard, said,“Letting states file for bankruptcy toshed some of their obligations couldsave American taxpayers a great dealof money.” 83

The reality, says Daniel DiSalvo, anassociate professor of political scienceat CUNY, is that public-sector unions“contribute directly to candidates, runindependent ad campaigns and havebig get-out-the-vote operations. Andthey invest a lot in lobbying. They’remaking themselves the 800-pound go-rilla in large parts of the country.”

David Madland, coauthor of theCenter for American Progress report,argues that “public-sector unions arebeing scapegoated for the economiccrisis,” when the real problem isfalling revenues. And Finn points outthat “in states like Texas, where theunions are very weak, the budgetdeficit is very large.”

Uncertain FutureWhether Ohio and Wisconsin reflect

an upturn in the state of American or-ganized labor remains a question. Evensome union organizers sound skepti-cal. “Right now, the future of the unionsin America seems uncertain,” says thewebsite of Detroit-based Local 22 ofthe United Autoworkers. 84

Finn says unions need to do “anawful lot” in order to recover. “Theyhave to find a way for workers to joinunions more easily, whether it’s through

labor-law reform or some other means,and labor must develop a political voicethat much more clearly reflects not justunion interests.”

In Madland’s view, declining unionclout has been a key cause of the sput-tering economy. “The core reason thatthe economy is not working is the de-cline in the labor unions,” he says. “In-creasing union membership is impor-tant to rebuilding the middle class.”

The Center for American Progressstudy indicates that each additionalpercentage point in union member-ship puts about $153 more per yearin the pockets of middle-class Ameri-cans. Thus, a 10 percent increase (toabout the 1980 level) would mean$1,532 to the typical middle-class house-hold this year. 85

Former President Bill Clinton notedrecently that the country is twice aswealthy as it was a decade ago, but thewealth is concentrated in the hands ofa small sliver of the population. “Amer-ica has become unequal,” he said. 86

— Roland Flamini

Notes

71 Steven Greenhouse and Cara Buckley, “Seek-ing Energy, Unions Join Protests Against WallStreet,” The New York Times, Oct. 5, 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/nyregion/major-unions-join-occupy-wall-street-protest.html?pagewanted=all.72 Timothy C. Kamin, “NLRB policy changesas unions decline,” Wislawjournal.com, Feb. 8,2010, http://wislawjournal.com/2011/02/08/nlrb-policy-changes-as-unions-decline/.73 David Madland and Karla Wise, “Why is thepublic suddenly down on Unions?” Center for

American Progress Action Fund, July 2010, www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2010/07/pdf/union_opinion.pdf.74 Ibid.75 “Gov. Walker’s Pretext,” The New YorkTimes, Feb. 17, 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/opinion/18fri1.html?_r=1.76 Jason Stein, “Largest state unions won’tseek recertification by Thursday deadline,”JSOnline, Sept. 21, 2011, www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/Largest-state-unions-wont-seek-recertification-by-Thursday-deadline.html.77 M. D. Kettle, “Official: Recall in late springat earliest,” THOnline, Nov. 16, 2011, www.thonline.com/news/iowa-illinois-wisconsin/article_fe837f34-3026-5adc-a788-52fc894b0b94.html.78 Ted Mann, “Debate About Public SectorUnions Burns On in Ohio,” The Atlantic Wire,Oct. 16, 2011, www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/10/debate-about-public-sector-unions-burns-ohio/43729/.79 “Ohio vote repeals union limit law,” BBC,Nov. 9, 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15649745.80 Michael Paarlberg, “Organized Labor’s BleakFuture,” The Guardian, March 29, 2011, www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/29/us-unions-ohio.81 “Ohio vote shows unions still a politicalforce,” CBS News, Nov. 9, 2011, www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57321243/ohio-vote-shows-unions-still-a-political-force/.82 Grover Norquist and Patrick Gleason, “LetStates Go Bankrupt,” Politico, Dec. 24, 2010,www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46777.html.83 Ibid.84 “The Future of Unions in America,” UAWLocal 22 website, May 18, 2011, www.uaw22.org/?zone=/unionactive/view_article.cfm&HomeID=156539.85 Madland and Wise, op. cit.86 Glynnis MacNicol, “Bill Clinton Gets BehindOccupy Wall Street . . .,” Business Insider,Oct. 13, 2011, http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-13/entertainment/30274281_1_tea-party-groups-letterman-gay-rights.

FUTURE OF LABOR UNIONS

Update

CQR Labor Unions' Future - Sage Publications

Documents

Transcript of CQR Labor Unions' Future - Sage Publications