Report urges union push as membership slips
Unions address income inequality, but need boost, proposed ban on right-to-work laws
Workers protest outside a Walmart in Elwood. (Shutterstock)
By Ted Cox
A new report says unions are uniquely positioned to take on income inequality, but need a fair playing field in the workplace — a position borne out by the latest U.S. labor statistics finding that membership declined last year.
The report released Thursday, “Clean Slate for Worker Power: Building a Just Economy and Democracy,” is from the Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program and draws on input from more than 70 scholars, union leaders, economists, and activists. Stating outright that income inequality “has been recognized as a threat — perhaps the primary threat — to the viability of American democracy,” it suggests an overhaul of U.S. labor laws to give unions a fair shake in the workplace.
The news comes as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released an annual report this week finding that union membership dropped to 10.3 percent last year, down from 10.5 percent in 2018. It detected a great divide between public-sector workers like police, firefighters, and teachers, where union membership nationally is over a third, 33.6 percent, and workers in the private sector, where union membership is just 6.2 percent. Illinois placed third in the nation in the number of union workers, at 800,000, behind only California and New York State.
Membership was down in spite of the report’s findings that union workers are paid more: “Non-union workers had median weekly earnings that were 81 percent of earnings for workers who were union members ($892 versus $1,095).”
The Harvard Law School report states overtly: “A large part of the explanation for our current crisis of economic inequality is the decline of the labor movement. Unions redistribute wealth — from capital to labor, from rich to poor — and without unions we have lacked for a check on economic concentration.”
It recommends a complete overhaul in U.S. labor law, beginning with protections for “workplace monitors” elected locally to educate fellow workers on their rights. It also suggests dramatically altering those rights, so that unions could be formed with minority membership of as little as 10 percent to create a collective-bargaining unit.
Unions currently have to win a majority vote to be created in a workplace, and they face considerable obstacles from employers trying to deter membership. The report demands that “workers should be able to organize without interference from their employers,” and it suggests giving union organizers access to workplaces and email systems “upon showing of 25 percent support,” while moving to “greatly increase employer penalties for intervening in organizing campaigns, including making punitive damages available,” and also proposing to “ban employers from requiring workers to listen to anti-union speeches.”
“Democracy at work should be a right, not a fight,” the report states. “For too long, securing power and voice at work has required workers to fight herculean battles against nearly impossible odds.”
“We firmly believe that we’re past the point of tinkering around the edges, that to really fix the problems in our economy and political system we need a fundamental rethinking of labor law,” Sharon Block, executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program, told The Guardian.
The report also recommends giving unions up to 40 percent membership on corporate boards, and allowing them to address wider issues — such as a company’s pollution policy — in collective bargaining.
The report’s authors would also like to see rules invoked that would call for any employer to show just cause in a firing — serving to protect organizers — and generally “make it easier to unionize.” They would also like a ban on replacement workers in a strike.
In Illinois this week, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 came out in support of a constitutional amendment banning right-to-work laws. Former Gov. Bruce Rauner attempted to impose so-called right-to-work laws — which greatly deter union membership — but was rebuffed by the General Assembly. He did, however, help deal unions a major defeat in the U.S. Supreme Court with the Janus decision ending fair-share fees.
According to Crain’s Chicago Business reporter Greg Hinz, the union wants the General Assembly to pass a ban on right-to-work laws and send it to voters for a referendum to change the state constitution in November, piggybacking with the fair-tax referendum proposed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Rich Miller of Capitol Fax added: “As Greg notes, it could help drive turnout, which might help the governor’s graduated income tax proposal.”
The latest U.S. labor statistics on unions were fairly dire, as that report pointed out: “In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and there were 17.7 million union workers.” That compared with a national 10.3 percent union rate and 14.6 million union workers last year.
Union workers in the private sector actually outnumbered union members in the public sector, 7.5 million workers to 7.1 million, but the overall decline in union membership came in the private sector, where the unionization rate slipped to 6.2 percent, down 0.2 percentage points from 2018. The rate among public-sector workers remained level.