Note: the following post was written for Open Source Politics, a new group blog project.
Nathan Newman also has some good Labor Day-themed posts this week.
A new study released last week by United for a Fair Economy, detailing once again how generously America’s corporate leaders pay themselves, set off another round of hand wringing about excessive executive compensation.
Typically this worrying about the growing size of CEOs' paychecks is followed by speculation about when and how economic gravity will take effect and finally reign in excessive pay for the elite of corporate America.
A few pundits here and there might call for higher taxes on the super-wealthy. Others suggest that simple shame could eventually bring CEOs’ pay back into same galaxy as their employees.
But it’s rare to hear anyone talk about the most practical solution: giving working people the power to hold the chieftains of American corporations accountable.
After all, American workers have done it before. A hundred years ago, Americans also worried about the gap between extreme wealth and anxious work. Back then, they called it the “Labor Question.”
While various political reforms ushered in by the Progressive movement set some limits on Gilded Age excess, it wasn’t until huge numbers of American workers joined together in unions that they were able to slowly but decisively push their employers to reward work fairly.
It’s not a coincidence that when working people and their unions were strongest—from the mid-1930s up until the late 1960s—real wages for regular families rose steadily and the gap between working families and the very wealthy narrowed.
Nor is a coincidence that the explosion of executive compensation, along with the corresponding rise in wealth inequality, took place after a new generation of corporate leaders renewed business’ resistance to the union movement. Corporations’ resistance has been remarkably successful. As we mark this year’s Labor Day, jobs in the U.S. private sector are more than 90 percent non-union.
On paper, most American workers still have the right to form a union. According to the law, businesses are obligated not to discriminate against or threaten employees who want to form a union.
In reality, the rules for forming unions are blatantly slanted in favor of employers.
For example, a secret ballot election is supposed to give workers a fair choice about forming a union.
However, during the crucial weeks leading up to the vote, managers have unlimited access to the voters. It’s perfectly legal for companies to require every employee to attend meetings where they are pressured to vote against forming a union.
To apply that pressure, an entire category of management consultants who specialize in producing sophisticated anti-union videos and campaign literature are ready to supply their services.
On the other hand, prounion workers can’t hold meetings at the workplace to give their point of view. To get their message out, union organizers are limited mostly to trying to catch employees at home or on the phone after work.
Now that telemarketers are modern pariahs, it’s not exactly easy for prounion employees to call a co-worker from another department at home to talk about the union—especially when that co-worker has been warned by her supervisor not to talk to the “union people.”
Nor does the law effectively deter employers from discriminating against pro-union workers. Enforcement of the law moves in slow motion and penalties are insignificant. It’s not uncommon for employers to fire prounion workers for suspiciously trivial reasons before an election.
Imagine if we ran our political elections under the same rules that labor law imposes on working people who want to organize unions. Incumbent candidates would be entitled to unlimited free television advertising during prime time. Incumbents would also have the power to change citizens' work schedules or fire them from their jobs. Meanwhile, challenging candidates would be limited to campaigning door-to-door during Saturday afternoons when everyone is out running errands.
Nobody would claim with a straight face that an election held under those rules was fair, yet that’s the process American workers are expected to use to form unions.
There are obvious solutions. Ultimately, we need to reform labor law to restore workers’ right to form unions without unfair interference and pressure from their employers.
But with resolutely pro-corporate leaders in control of White House and Congress, it’s unlikely that the law will change in the near future.
Even so, unions are already raising the issue of labor law reform to make politicians understand that strengthening employees’ right to form a union is just a serious a priority for union families as is making global trade more fair.
Some candidates seem to be listening. Al Gore talked about reforming labor law when he ran for president, and this year Howard Dean is raising the issue in detail.
Some unions are exploring new ways to organize without having to go through the unfair election process.
Starting in 1998, for example, hospital employees at Catholic Healthcare West—a major hospital system in California—launched an innovative campaign to form a union.
CHW executives demanded that employees file for elections under the existing law, knowing full well that this process makes it easy for managers to pressure employees to vote against organizing a union.
Instead, CHW employees worked with union health care workers from the Service Employees International Union and reached out to progressive Catholics, elected officials, and community allies.
Together, they put pressure on Catholic Healthcare West to agree to a fair election process where management would pledge not to attempt to pressure or intimidate employees who favored joining the union.
In 2000, Catholic Healthcare West agreed to the fair election process. Since then, more than 9,000 CHW hospital workers have joined the union.
Earlier this year employees at Tenet Healthcare, another major hospital system, won a similar agreement and they are now joining the union at a similar pace.
The United Auto Workers have also negotiated some new contracts that require employers not to interfere when nonunion employees decide to unite with their union counterparts.
The Communications Workers of America won an agreement from the companies that founded Cingular Wireless that allows workers in that new industry to organize into the union without retaliation.
Key unions are committed to breaking down the obstacles that prevent working people from organizing.
Every progressive can help break down those obstacles.
Today, few people care if an employer fights to stop employees from forming a union, even if an employer breaks the law in the process.
Cynics, along with many free market ideologues, would argue that consumers only care about getting goods and services at a cheap price. But the public does care about many issues not necessarily related to price.
Imagine, for example, if a company responded to a group of African-American employees who came forward with clear evidence of racial discrimination by ridiculing their claims and then requiring all employees to watch videos expounding crackpot theories of white racial superiority like those found, say, in The Bell Curve.
A storm of protest and condemnation would justly rain down on any business that so obviously ignored its obligation to treat workers of different races fairly.
While racism and sexism still certainly persist in our culture, we’ve progressed to the point that most companies are at least reluctant to overtly discriminate against women and people of color.
It’s a different story when workers try to form a union. Corporations realize that they can force workers to attend anti-union campaign meetings, issue threats to eliminate jobs, and fire prounion employees with little fear that the consuming public will notice or care.
Progressives need to bend our culture to recognizing that we’re all in this together. It should not be acceptable for corporations to stand in the way when working people decide to join together to gain a meaningful voice in our future.
We’re sill a long way off from making that change. Even some smart progressive people honestly don’t understand how difficult it is for working people to form unions.
All of us can do our part to help restore a culture of solidarity in America. Here’s one thing you can do.
Industrial laundry workers who work for Cintas, a gigantic laundry service corporation based in Cincinnati, have launched a campaign to form a union with UNITE.
Thousands of other commercial laundry workers have united in that union, but Cintas—the Wal-Mart of the commercial laundry industry—has made it clear that it intends to fight hard to stop its workers from uniting in the union.
Few people in the public do business directly with Cintas, so we can’t realistically take our business elsewhere.
But a lot of us do business with Cintas’ customers, including businesses like Starbucks.
You can really celebrate Labor Day this year by sending a message to Starbucks executives to urge them to change suppliers.
In 2002, Cintas’ CEO earned $573,000 in salary and $1.3 million in stock options. Most of Cintas’ frontline employees don’t make much more than the minimum wage and struggle to afford health care.
We’ll all be better off when Cintas workers know they have a fair chance to join together to fight for a more decent future for their families.
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