DOCSLIB.ORG

SEIU: Too Big to Fail, Too

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
SEIU: Too Big to Fail, Too SEIU: Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Succeed. With their recent endorsement of Hillary Clinton in the democratic primary prompts an analysis of the labor union titan and its ability to foster collective action in its ranks, and even more dire, its ability to represent the will of its members. Last week the executive board of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) surprised literally no one by approving their endorsement of Hillary Clinton in the democratic primary election. Despite Clinton’s opposition to both a $15 dollar minimum wage and further healthcare reform efforts – two of the SEIU’s most publicized and heavily funded goals – offering support for Clinton reaffirms their mission of electing a democratic president, by any means necessary. Furthermore, SEIU’s support follows hearsay that the National Education Association, the country’s largest union, will be endorsing Hillary Clinton. These two unions alone represent almost two-thirds of the United States’ organized workers, and with that kind of backing Clinton will have a large debt to repay to the labor movement. Such a move is not unprecedented. The SEIU spent almost $27 million in 2008 on advertising and other election expenditures to elect Barack Obama, which gave then SEIU president Andy Stern extraordinary access to the white house, including an appointment on Obama’s National Committee on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in 2010. Over the course of the past two decades, the SEIU has undoubtedly cemented itself as a monolithic force for labor organization in the United States. Since 1996, the SEIU has managed to add over 1 million new members to its ranks; an absolutely staggering number considering how unionized labor has floundered since the 1980s. As of 2014, the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions was a lowly 11.1 percent, down from 20.1 percent in 1983, the last year for which comparable union membership statistics were available (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). Using SEIU’s vast ranks to back a moderate democratic candidate could be vital in the upcoming election, especially considering the right-leaning Supreme Court has already shown its hand in regards to dismantling existing workplace representation practices. But whether or not this increased representation means a stronger, more active union is debatable. This bolstering of SEIU’s membership is due in no small part to Andy Stern who served as the international president of the union from 1996 to 2010. Under Stern’s leadership, the SEIU entered a new age of structure where expansion was paramount – by any means necessary. Without union growth, Stern purported in 2008, union gains are “a higher compensation island in a growing nonunion sea.” Stern’s emphasis on quantity over quality has undoubtedly increased unionization across the U.S., but this approach is not without its caveats. SEIU’s expansionist agenda has garnered him an immense amount of criticism, from both outside and inside the SEIU. As one anonymous senior union official put it, “Andy Stern [leaves SEIU] pretty much without a friend in the labor movement.” Perhaps the greatest example of SEIU’s expansionism-gone-awry was Stern’s usurpation of the Oakland, California-based United Healthcare Workers West (UHW-West) in 2009. Stern appointed himself as the trustee of the SEIU affiliate after the union expressed discontent over the SEIU’s desire to reallocate over 65,000 of the union’s workers to another, state-wide SEIU affiliate. The UHW, which represented about 150,000 healthcare workers, was weary of their national management’s willingness to break up the union’s rank-in-file without consulting the members or allowing them to vote on the matter; Stern responded by dismissing 70 of the union’s executives, including then UHW-West president Sal Rosselli. Within two months 90,000 UHW- West workers had signed decertification to leave the SEIU. Stern was also known to throw unionization efforts under the bus in order to cut backroom deals to finance SEIU expansion elsewhere. One such agreement saw Stern disavow SEIU support for over 10,000 security guards in Philadelphia. The guards, employed by security firm AlliedBarton, were promised support by Stern in 2006 until he met with the owner of AlliedBarton, multi-billionaire Ron Perelman. Mysteriously, after their meeting, Stern pulled the plug on SEIU’s unionization efforts. The Philadelphia security guards inevitably won their right to be independently unionized, but the battle was hard fought; their union, Philadelphia Officers and Workers Rising, was not recognized until 2009. Stern’s inclination to rub elbows with the anti-union pantheons has raised more than a few eyebrows. The deals that Stern cut with some companies, including retail giant Wal-Mart, were often reached in secret and their details were never revealed to SEIU’s members. The SEIU, under Stern’s tutelage, has also been criticized for their reliance on “card check” union systems, in which a company will recognize the formation of an SEIU-affiliated union if a majority of employees sign waivers stating their membership, and more importantly, agree that they won’t interfere with the company’s profit-making. Though this method is a quick and easy way to bolster union density, it is often criticized for not fostering collective, committed union members in the same way a union that has won its recognition through the National Labor Relations Board; card-check workers typically have less information about the role of their union than NLRB recognized groups. The SEIU that Stern leaves in his wake, under the direction of his confidante Mary Kay Henry who took the reins as SEIU president in 2010, thrives on this corporate-friendly, “everyone wins” mentality. They are concerned not with mobilizing its existing members so much as ingesting and restructuring as much of the United States’ existing labor unions as a bargaining chip to flex the organization’s political muscle, even at the expense of its own employees. With all of this considered, it comes as no surprise that SEIU would disavow its rank-in-file in pursuit of political influence. Foregoing a more progressive, liberal candidate reifies SEIU’s decades of commitment to regressing towards the mean. But with union membership dwindling and workplace representation on the chopping block, the labor movement cannot afford to be piecemeal with its demands. Of greater concern is whether the decision to support Clinton accurately represents the will of the rank-in-file. According to a SEIU source more than 72 percent of SEIU members polled were Clinton supporters, however in the union’s typical fashion the decision was reached without any input from union members and SEIU has not supplied the raw data to support this claim. Why so many SEIU members would support a candidate whose views are in opposition to their union’s modus operandi deserves to raise some eyebrows. Take, for example, recent discord within the NEA in response to their declaration of support for Clinton; local NEA chapters are lambasting union execs for reaching the decision so early and stifling the opportunity for local chapters to reach a consensus amongst themselves. Given SEIU’s tendency to ignore the will of its local chapters, it would not be surprising if this same dissention were present in the organization. That the backing of a more progressive candidate would mean throwing the election also remains to be seen. Take the recent case of the UK’s labour party election; Britain’s largest union, Unite, pledged its support for outspoken socialist Jeremy Corbyn, a candidate who many had deemed unelectable and was standing at fourth place in the polls when Unite pledged their support. With the union’s backing, Corbyn managed to win the election and now sits as the Leader of the Labour Party. On the domestic front, some sizeable unions have already pledged their support for Bernie Sanders; National Nurses United is one such example. The union, which consists of over 180,000 members, pledged their support fairly early in the primary, and the Postal Workers Union, 200,000 members strong, pledged their support just a week ago. It remains to be seen that the United States’ labor movement needs to “play it safe” on such crucial issues such as minimum wage increases and single-payer healthcare; the fact that the SEIU is so willing to disavow their most notable campaigns illustrates a blatant disregard for the needs of their rank-in-file. Coupled with a history of shady business tactics by the SEIU’s highest ranking members, one can’t help but question if simply being out of touch is the sole motivator behind the union’s move to endorse Clinton. If SEIU wants labor to thrive in 2016 they will need a reorganizational genesis. If a vast organization like SEIU were to declare support for a more progressive candidate it would send a powerful reminder to mainstream politicians that the backing of the labor movement is much harder won than it has been made to seem. Reinvigorating local chapter input in the SEIU is integral to reversing decades of organized labor’s declawing and bucking the organization’s track record for selling out the very people it claims to serve. .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Understanding the Split in the US Labour Movement
    Business union vs. business union? Understanding the split in the US labour movement Ian Greer In summer 2005, the trade union movement formalised its split into two rival confederations. The split was precipitated by the 2001 disaffiliation of the carpenters’ union, the Republican electoral victory of 2004, and the decline in union membership. Seven unions, accounting for forty per cent of the membership of the AFL-CIO formed Change to Win as a response to that federation’s ineffectiveness. This article concludes that the split may lead to new techniques for campaigning, but that it will not affect the fortunes or the social vision of the trade union movement. The November 2004 re-election of George W. Bush brought the morale of the progressive camp in the US to a new low. Not only was Bush to remain president, but his level of support within the electorate had actually increased. Staff at several so-called ‘organising unions’ had issued proposals to reform the labour movement the previous year; and with the defeat of John Kerry, reform-minded union leaders now demanded the resignation of top leaders of the AFL-CIO [American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations]. When they failed to win majority support for their plan at the June 2005 convention, seven national unions, representing six million workers or forty per cent of AFL- CIO affiliated union members, formed a new group, ‘Change to Win’, which held its founding convention in September 2005. What does this split mean for the future of us unions? In this paper, I will argue that the new federation may create a more efficient organising apparatus, but that it will not push the unions’ political programmes beyond business unionism.
    [Show full text]
  • Andy Stern's Plans for the Future of Big Labor
    The Ultimate Payoff: Andy Stern’s Plans for the Future of Big Labor By Ivan Osorio Summary: The December issue of Labor took a campaign to ‘rebrand’ the union. He Watch looked at the growing influence of used financial incentives to get all the local the 2.1-million member Service Employees branches of the union to begin using the SEIU International Union (SEIU) and its savvy name, its new logo and, of course, its new president, Andrew Stern. This article ex- color”— purple. amines Stern’s controversial attempts to restructure organized labor in the image of California Scheming SEIU, the conflicts this has provoked with Stern has encountered persistent resistance to other union leaders, and Stern’s newest or- his centralizing efforts. The most notorious ganizing initiatives. episode concerns one SEIU local in Califor- nia. A bitter and protracted struggle over the n 1973 Andrew Stern, a 23 year-old local’s fate has seriously embarrassed SEIU’s graduate of the University of Pennsyl- to the AFL-CIO leadership following Sen. national leadership, especially because it vania, became a social worker at the John Kerry’s presidential election defeat I in November 2004. Naturally, this would involved a forced merger with a local deeply Pennsylvania state welfare department. The enmeshed in corruption. department’s social-service workers had just require many union chiefs to relinquish their been unionized, and the bright and energetic fiefdoms, so Stern’s proposal encountered In August 2008, the Los Angeles Times Stern rose quickly in the ranks of SEIU Local considerable resistance within the AFL-CIO.
    [Show full text]
  • SEIU Derives the Majority of Its General
    - -- \\ Stefan Gleason, i Complainant, and MUR No. Service Employees International Union, P’4 P4 Respondent. PJ rJ h COMPLAINT Stefan Gleason is the Vice-president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation, Inc. (“Foundation”). The Foundation provides free legal aid to employees who suffer an abuse of compulsory unionism.. An abuse, .. of compulsory unionism includes the mis-expenditure of the dues and fees of .; ‘1 employees who are required to join or financially support a labor union as a condition of employment.. 2.. Service Employees International Union (“SEIU”)is .a,labor organization as defined in 2 U.S.C.§.441b(b)(l). SEIU derives the majority of its general treasury funds from employees who work under collective bargaining , ;I I I agreements which compel them to join or financially support SEIU as a 1‘ I condition of employment. 1 3. The President ofSEIU, Andrew Stern, in a July 28, 2004, interview entitled “A Gleason Complaint,page 1. Union Chief’s Bold New Tack,” published in Business Week Online . : .. ‘ , (http ://uk .biz. yahoo. con1/040728/244/ezlli .html), admitted that SEIU ‘intended to become the “biggest contributor”.I , to America Coming Together (“ACT”). .. Stern is one of ACT’S founders. This article states that “65 million” dollars will be spent by SEIU on political matters, with some of it contributed to ACT. The article also admits that a source of these political contributions is3he ’ .. .. regular dues-paying members” of SEIU. This article is attached as Exhibit A. .. .. 4. On November 1 , 2004,‘ SEIU issued a press release entitled “Anatomy of an Election Strategy: The Facts on SEIU’s Role in Bringing Home a Victory for I America’s Working Families.” This press release is posted on the official SEIU web site at: h~://\Fllww.seiu.orrr/media/Dress.cfm?201 and is attached as Exhibit B.
    [Show full text]
  • NO SHORTCUTS Z Ii Iii
    i NO SHORTCUTS z ii iii NO SHORTCUTS z ORGANIZING FOR POWER IN THE NEW GILDED AGE . Jane F McAlevey 1 iv 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978– 0– 19– 062471– 2 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America v vi vii Contents z Acknowledgments ix List of Figures xiii List of Tables xv 1. Introduction 1 2. The Power to Win is in the Community, Not the Boardroom 27 3. Nursing Home Unions: Class Snuggle vs.
    [Show full text]
  • Andy Stern - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia Andy Stern from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
    6/7/13 Andy Stern - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Andy Stern From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Andrew L. "Andy" Stern (born November 22, 1950), is the former president[7][8] of the 2.2 million-member Service Andy Stern Employees International Union (SEIU), the fastest-growing union in the Americas. SEIU is the second largest union in the United States and Canada after the National Education Association.[9][10] Stern was elected in 1996 to succeed John Sweeney. He is currently a Senior Fellow at Columbia University.[11] Stern is intent upon influencing federal legislation that helps revitalize the labor movement through universal health care, expanding union ranks via the Employee Free Choice Act,[12] stronger regulations on business, profit sharing for employees, higher taxes, and efforts consistent with the improvement of the lives of Born Andrew L. Stern [citation needed] workers. November 22, 1950 West Orange, New Jersey For his talent at recruiting new members, Stern has been described as the "most important labor boss in America".[13] Nationality United States Stern is unapologetic about targeting private equity firms, Education B.A., 1971 shaming business leaders, and competing to build SEIU's Alma mater University of Pennsylvania membership: “We like to say: We use the power of persuasion first. If it doesn't work, we try the persuasion of Title International President, SEIU [14] power”. The share of workers belonging to a union in Term 1996–2010 2008 showed the largest annual growth rate since the first Predecessor Richard Cordtz report in 1983.[15] Growth in SEIU in 2008—88,926 members[16]--accounted for nearly 21 percent of the national Successor Mary Kay Henry union membership growth.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Donna Leinwand
    NATIONAL PRESS CLUB LUNCHEON WITH RICHARD TRUMKA SUBJECT: DOMESTIC LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVES AND LABOR ISSUES MODERATOR: DONNA LEINWAND, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL PRESS CLUB LOCATION: NATIONAL PRESS CLUB BALLROOM, WASHINGTON, D.C. TIME: 12:30 P.M. EDT DATE: MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 2010 (C) COPYRIGHT 2008, NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, 529 14TH STREET, WASHINGTON, DC - 20045, USA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ANY REPRODUCTION, REDISTRIBUTION OR RETRANSMISSION IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION, REDISTRIBUTION OR RETRANSMISSION CONSTITUTES A MISAPPROPRIATION UNDER APPLICABLE UNFAIR COMPETITION LAW, AND THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB. RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PURSUE ALL REMEDIES AVAILABLE TO IT IN RESPECT TO SUCH MISAPPROPRIATION. FOR INFORMATION ON BECOMING A MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, PLEASE CALL 202-662-7505. DONNA LEINWAND: (Sounds gavel.) Good afternoon. Welcome to the National Press Club for our speakers luncheon. My name is Donna Leinwand. I'm President of the National Press Club and a reporter for USA Today. We’re the world’s leading professional organization for journalists, and we are committed to a future of journalism by providing informative programming and journalism education, and fostering a free press worldwide. For more information about the National Press Club, please visit our website at www.press.org. On behalf of our 3,500 members worldwide, I'd like to welcome our speaker and our guests in the audience today. I'd also like to welcome those of you who are watching us on C-SPAN. We're looking forward to today’s speech, and afterwards I’ll ask as many questions from the audience as time permits. Please hold your applause during the speech so that we have time for as many questions as possible.
    [Show full text]
  • The Whole Shebang
    Cultures of Creativity: Politics, Leadership and Organizational Change in the U.S. Labor Movement By Teresa Christine Sharpe A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Kim Voss, Chair Professor Margaret Weir Professor Christopher Ansell Professor George Strauss Fall 2010 Abstract Cultures of Creativity: Politics, Leadership and Organizational Change in the U.S. Labor Movement By Teresa Christine Sharpe Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology University of California, Berkeley Professor Kim Voss, Chair This dissertation uses case studies of four service-industry labor unions to explore the causes of union revitalization in the United States labor movement. While the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) were able to undergo processes of internal transformation by the late 1990s, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) were not. This project illustrates how successfully revitalized unions were able to foster "cultures of creativity," which inspired new organizing strategies and new understandings about what a union should be. Two factors were particularly important to the generation of these cultures. First, cohorts of social movement outsiders brought new ideas to these unions. Second, revitalized unions had organizational structures that were decentralized enough for experimentation, but centralized enough for coordination, meaning that outsiders had the space to experiment and unions had the infrastructure to learn from, and scale up, those experiments that were successful.
    [Show full text]
  • No Shortcuts: the Case for Organizing
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 5-2015 No Shortcuts: The Case for Organizing Jane Frances McAlevey Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1043 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] i No Shortcuts: The Case for Organizing by Jane F. McAlevey A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2015 ii COPYRIGHT © 2015 JANE F. MCALEVEY All Rights Reserved iii APPROVAL PAGE, NO SHORTCUTS: THE CASE FOR ORGANIZING This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Sociology to satisfy the dissertation requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Approved by: Date Chair of Examining Committee ______________________ _________________________________________ Frances Fox Piven, Professor Date Executive Officer, Sociology ______________________ __________________________________________ Philip Kasinitz, Professor Supervisory Committee Members James Jasper, Professor William Kornblum, Professor Dan Clawson, Professor, UMASS Amherst THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv ABSTRACT Abstract No Shortcuts: The Case for Organizing By Jane McAlevey Advisor: Frances Fox Piven This dissertation will explore how ordinary workers in the new economy create and sustain power from below. In workplace and community movements, individuals acting collectively have been shown to win victories using a variety of different approaches.
    [Show full text]
  • 71St ANNUAL AWARDS LUNCHEON October 8, 2019 Irving Convention Center
    SUMMER 2019 INTER WWW.DFWHC.ORG LOCUTORNEWS FROM THE DFW HOSPITAL COUNCIL 71st ANNUAL AWARDS LUNCHEON October 8, 2019 Irving Convention Center Keynote Speakers BOB WOODWARD CARL BERNSTEIN Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters of The Washington Post discussing the 45th anniversary of Watergate and “All the President’s Men.” Distinguished Health Service Award ANDY STERN AMN Healthcare Services; Medical City Healthcare; Texas Healthcare Trustees; Club Oaks Consulting. PLUS: REMEMBERING THE PAST Young Healthcare Executive of TO SHAPE the Year THE FUTURE Kerney Laday, Sr. Trustee of Page 6 the Year RELIABLE PARTNER +PRACTICAL ADVICE Hall Render is dedicated to advancing the vision of our clients across the country, providing trusted legal counsel for over 50 years. Our team of national health care attorneys knows the industry and how to decipher its many complexities. It’s what we do. When you need practical advice, we’re here to support you. Texans fighting the proliferation of e-cigarettes among youth “Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity clearly targeted teens. Moreover, the menthol flavor has to life.” —Albert Einstein hooked many vapor users. The Centers for Disease Control THE AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION REPORTS that reports that 88.5% of African American smokers ages one in five high school students uses vapor products. 12 and older prefer menthol cigarettes. It’s even more Roughly two-thirds of these teens believe the products attractive when the vaping device is shaped like a USB represent a safe recreation activity with a colorful burst flash drive. Meanwhile, research on electronic cigarettes of candy-like flavoring.
    [Show full text]
  • 180126 New Forms of Worker Voice
    New forms of worker voice in the 21st century Harvard Kennedy School of Government and MIT Sloan School of Management January 2018 Jeremy Avins Megan Larcom Jenny Weissbourd Working Paper Table of Contents Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 4 1. Introduction: Historical Context of Labor Organizing ........................................................................... 8 2. Current Landscape of Worker Voice Efforts .......................................................................................... 15 3. Case: Lobster 207 ........................................................................................................................................ 23 4. Case: OUR Walmart .................................................................................................................................... 35 5. Case: Coworker.org ..................................................................................................................................... 43 6. Conclusion: The Future of Worker Voice ............................................................................................... 54 2 Working Paper Appreciations We would like to extend our sincerest thank you to Professor Tom Kochan for guiding us through this project. He generously extended his network to us and joyfully shared stories and teachings with us every Thursday throughout the Fall 2017 semester. Thank you to the entire
    [Show full text]
  • Spirit of the Radio!
    INTERLOCUTORNEWS FROM THE DFW HOSPITAL COUNCIL FALL 2019 WWW.DFWHC.ORG Spirit of the Radio! DFWHC and KRLD to host weekly radio program “The Human Side of Health Care.” Page 6 RELIABLE PARTNER +PRACTICAL ADVICE The attorneys of Hall Render congratulate today’s honorees. Andy Stern | Distinguished Health Service Award Kyle Armstrong | Young Healthcare Executive of the Year Bob Ferguson | Kerney Laday, Sr. Trustee of the Year Let’s work together to solve this issue JOHN F. KENNEDY ONCE SAID, “Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.” You might be surprised to learn that one in nine children in the U.S. live in Texas, a statistic that is most certainly a blessing. The Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center for Children and Families released a report in October regarding our U.S. children. A key finding was the number of uninsured children has increased by more than 400,000 since 2016, bringing the overall total to more than four million. Sharp increases were noted in six states including Texas. I was shocked to see 50 percent of the nation’s uninsured children reside in Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, Arizona and Ohio, with Texas leading this pack with a tally of 21.5 percent. There are no signs this negative trend will improve. Steve Love Texas leads the nation in uninsured residents with 17.7 percent, or five million President/CEO people. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission reported that in 2016, Texas Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council hospitals delivered a staggering $6.8 billion in uncompensated care.
    [Show full text]
  • Automation and Employment Law Abstract
    CYNTHIA ESTLUND What Should We Do After Work? Automation and Employment Law abstract. Will advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning put vast swaths of the labor force out of work or into fierce competition for the jobs that remain? Or, as in the past, will new jobs absorb workers displaced by automation? These hotly debated questions have profound implications for the fortress of rights and benefits that has been constructed on the foundation of the employment relationship. This Article charts a path for reforming that body of law in the face of justified anxiety and uncertainty about the future impact of automation on jobs. Many of the forces that drive automation—including law-related labor costs—also drive firms’ decisions about “fissuring,” or replacing employees with outside contractors. Fissuring has already transformed the landscape of work and contributed to weaker labor standards and growing in- equality. A sensible response to automation should have in mind this adjacent problem, and vice versa. Unfortunately, the dominant legal responses to fissuring—which aim to extend firms’ legal responsibility for the workers whose labor they rely on—do not meet the distinctive challenge of automation, and even modestly exacerbate it. Automation offers the ultimate exit from the costs and risks associated with human labor. As technology becomes an ever-more-capable and cost- effective substitute for human workers, it enables firms to circumvent prevailing legal strategies for protecting workers and shoring up the fortress of employment. The question is how to protect workers’ rights and entitlements while reducing firms’ incen- tive both to replace employees with contractors and to replace human workers with machines.
    [Show full text]