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The American Labor Movement's Struggle to Remain Relevant Chris Cobleigh University of Rhode Island

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The American Labor Movement's Struggle to Remain Relevant Chris Cobleigh University of Rhode Island University of Rhode Island DigitalCommons@URI Seminar Research Paper Series Schmidt Labor Research Center 2004 The American Labor Movement's Struggle to Remain Relevant Chris Cobleigh University of Rhode Island Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/lrc_paper_series Recommended Citation Cobleigh, Chris, "The American Labor Movement's Struggle to Remain Relevant" (2004). Seminar Research Paper Series. Paper 19. http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/lrc_paper_series/19http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/lrc_paper_series/19 This Seminar Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Schmidt Labor Research Center at DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Seminar Research Paper Series by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT’S STRUGGLE TO REMAIN RELEVANT Chris Cobleigh University of Rhode Island “Organized labor. Say those words and your bargaining. Consequently, some workers believe heart sinks.” So begins Thomas Geoghegan’s they stand a better chance of achieving gains in the account of his experience as a labor lawyer in an workplace by means of individual negotiation with era when organized labor is in decline. their employers rather than collective bargaining. Geoghegan portrays labor’s struggle to regain a It is argued that this is because workers have lost prominent place in American society as a noble confidence in the ability of unions to secure cause, one worth fighting for, but sees the window workplace gains and/ or because employers have of opportunity closing. Indeed, he predicts, “One made efforts to accommodate workers’ needs in an day I will wake up and the unions will be gone, effort to avoid unionization. (Yates 1998: 135- completely gone…I look in my open grave and see 137). a future of workmen’s comp. I see old skulls, old The internal causes of labor’s decline are said bones of workers” (Geoghegan 1992: 1). The to relate primarily to its willingness to enter into a state of organized labor in America clearly gives cooperative relationship with capital in the years Geoghegan reason to worry. When his book was following World War II. In an effort to establish published in 1992, the percentage of eligible labor peace during that period, corporate leaders workers represented by unions had dropped agreed to recognize the legitimacy of labor and precipitously from a peak of 32.5 percent in 1953 bargain in good faith over key issues such as to approximately 16 percent. That figure was wages and hours. For its part, labor agreed not to down from 20-25 percent in 1982, and as interfere with management prerogatives, thus Geoghegan surveyed the future, he lamented, giving it relative autonomy in day-to-day business “Maybe it will drop to 12. Once it drops to 10, it operations, and to refrain from striking during the might as well keep dropping to zero” (Geoghegan life of the collective bargaining agreement. This 1992: 1). In the intervening 12 years, the overall so called “corporate agenda” enabled unions to percentage of unionized employees has dropped to achieve substantial gains for their members in 13.5 percent, and in the private sector, the terms of core issues such as wages, hours, and percentage has shrunk to 9 percent. (Wheeler fringe benefits, but it forced them to abandon the 2002: xiii). wider mission which had been the root of their What has caused such a monumental decline? success in the first place. Instead of continuing to There is widespread agreement that the causes push for widespread social reforms that would have been both external and internal. Externally, strengthen the rights of all workers, unions there has been a fundamental shift in the American focused on servicing their own members’ interests. economy from manufacturing to service-based This led them to abandon their efforts to organize jobs. Since labor has heretofore achieved its most new members and created union bureaucracies significant gains by organizing production dedicated to maintaining the status quo. The workers, it appears to be having difficulty leaders of these bureaucracies became politically transitioning to large-scale, service sector powerful and began to distrust those within the organization. Globalization has made capital more labor movement who sought to disrupt the balance mobile, thus allowing employers to transfer high of power established between labor, management, wage American jobs to countries with lower wage and government. Labor was no longer sure it rates and fewer government regulations. The wanted an active rank and file advocating strikes political environment has increasingly favored and other forms of direct action. Whereas capital, so that labor laws originally designed to economic action had been a key component of protect labor against the excesses of capital have labor’s success during the first half of the been gradually amended to impede the right of twentieth century, such ideas were suddenly seen workers to organize and engage in collective © Chris Cobleigh, 2004 Cobleigh – Labor Movement Struggle 2 as too radical and potentially harmful to the gains alternative would be complete employer labor had won for its members. dominance. Which of these views is correct? For nearly a quarter century following World Have unions in America become obsolete? Have War II, the compromise between labor and they lost their ability to represent workers’ management produced positive economic results. interests in a meaningful way in the current The higher wages gained by workers produced a political and economic environment? What, if burgeoning middle class, and the resulting anything, can they do to return workers’ rights to increase in economic consumption lead to a the forefront of the American political and social corresponding increase in production. When the agenda? These questions are the focus of this post-war economic boom ended (as a result of paper. overproduction and increasing global In determining whether organized labor is competition), capital began to look for a way to capable of adequately representing workers’ offset falling profits. It attempted to cut the wages interests, it will first be useful to try to define and benefits it had freely given workers as part of those interests, both from labor’s perspective and the so called “labor-management accord” and from the perspective of workers themselves. In a initiated campaigns to impede new unionization 1994 report entitled, “The New American efforts and destroy existing unions. Having Workplace: A Labor Perspective”, the Executive developed cumbersome bureaucracies fully Council of the AFL-CIO presented its view of committed to “service unionism”, labor was ill- workers’ priorities and the role of organized labor equipped to respond to capital’s retreat from the in facilitating those priorities: accord. Its ineffectiveness in opposing capital’s “The moment has come for unions to insist anti-union campaigns eventually lead workers to upon the right of workers to anticipate in shaping believe they might be better off negotiating with the work system under which they labor and to their employers individually. Thus, it is suggested participate in the decisions that affect their that the shift in labor’s internal organization from working lives. Unions have an equally important being an engine for social change to being an anti- role to play in assuring that workplace change democratic bureaucracy has been a key factor in plants strong roots. Unions provide a check on its decline (Yates: p.135-143). managers and owners who waver in their In light of these developments, there has been commitment to the new work order or who seek to widespread debate concerning the future of revert to old ways” (AFL-CIO 1994: 14). organized labor in America. Like Geoghegan, Clearly, then, the AFL-CIO argues that many are resigned to labor’s extinction. Labor workers want a greater voice in determining the scholars have begun to ascribe to the theory long terms and conditions of their employment. It espoused by the business community that the rise further asserts that unions have a vital role to play of organized labor was a necessary response to the in checking or limiting capital’s ability to excesses of the industrial age, that it was highly maximize profit at the expense of workers. In a successful in establishing basic workplace rights recent interview, AFL-CIO president John and raising the standard of living for millions of Sweeney provided a more detailed explanation of working class Americans, but that it has become labor’s goals for the future, identifying several key obsolete in an era where individualism and a areas of concern and laying out strategies to deal global economy rule the day. Others assert that with them. Concerning the effect of globalization labor has historically experienced periods of on American workers, Sweeney explained: decline but has always been able to revive itself “The essence of our fight is to promote the when economic conditions force workers to Declaration of Fundamental Principles on consider the merits of collective action. The optimists argue that as long as the employer- Rights at Work, the International Labor employee relationship exists, employees will be Organization standards that include the rights compelled to keep their employers in check to collective bargaining, not to be through some form of collective action; they will discriminated against in employment, to reject never abandon unionism entirely because the child labor, and to refuse forced labor. Our Schmidt Labor Research Center Seminar Research Series 3 aim is not to impose our standards on other phenomena of job relocation and outsourcing. countries, but to make sure that human beings Given labor’s seemingly limited objectives, it may are treated as having rights, and have the be reasonable to assume that at least some of opportunity to join unions if they desire to” Sweeney’s goals are attainable in the near future.
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