Question: Do unions still matter?
Paul Krugman: They’re not very important in America, but they should be. The fact that unions have been pushed into a marginal position is a political act. Unions remain very important in other advanced countries, and not just ones that are far away and very different from us. Unions are very important in Canada. Unions . . . In the ‘60s, Canada and the U.S. were comparably unionized – about 30 percent of the workforce. Canada is still almost as unionized as it was then. In the United States, the unions have been largely crushed. And “crushed” is the right word because it was hostile, often illegal union busting by employers because the political environment was one in which open season had been declared on union organizers. There’s no reason. People say, “Oh,” you know, “manufacturing faces global competition.” Well that’s true and places some limits on what unions can achieve in manufacturing. But you know why shouldn’t Wal-Mart be unionized? There’s nothing that says we couldn’t have large corporations in the service sector part of a unionized workforce. And I think unions are just important as a counterweight to . . . to other forces in the society. There’s not . . . There are not many ways in which ordinary workers can be effective in bargaining effective politics. Unions is the best way to do that.
Discuss
John Rose on January 16, 2008, 9:18 AM
Labor rights need to be enforced by passing Section 4 of the Employee Free Choice Act. The EFCA passed the House but is stalled in the Senate due to changes to the "card check" method of forming unions.
Employees always need the option to form a union, but only legacy unions exist in America because of labor law abuse and employee intimidation by companies like Wal Mart. New factories built by foreign car makers in the South now are able to compete unfairly against our own American auto makers that have legacy unions by preventing the formation of new unions.
John Rose on January 16, 2008, 2:18 PM
Labor rights need to be enforced by passing Section 4 of the Employee Free Choice Act. The EFCA passed the House but is stalled in the Senate due to changes to the “card check” method of forming unions.
Employees always need the option to form a union, but only legacy unions exist in America because of labor law abuse and employee intimidation by companies like Wal Mart. New factories built by foreign car makers in the South now are able to compete unfairly against our own American auto makers that have legacy unions by preventing the formation of new unions.
Denis Drew on December 18, 2008, 2:56 PM
As much as I thought I was aware of the poor state of unions in the USA I was surprised to read in the last chapter of Thomas Geoghegan’s book, Which Side Are You On, that blocking unionization is a simple, standardized process, performed by hired hands who get away with breaking the law (the core of the blocking process) — automatically.
At any whisper of a certification campaign by employees and management simply fires the leaders (never more than 1, or at most 2, out of 20). Said leaders then automatically file for reinstatement which is automatically granted them — 4 years later! — with back pay which is automatically granted — minus any wages they earned anywhere else! — after which 80% are fired again — for “legal” reasons this time! — within a year.
IOW, there is no effective right to organize labor under US law — only the right to ask for your employer’s permission to organize.
I would argue that the current legally prescribed labor organizing process violates the First Amendment right to assembly.
This is tricky. Commercial speech is protected but less so than political speech (e.g., advertising)? I can see the right to organize for the purpose of wage bargaining as as being recognized as protected commercial assembly (would be a new concept) which is protected even if less so than political assembly.
This gets trickier. The current legally prescribed organizing process does not directly prohibit organizing — but steers all organizing activity into a narrow channel which is impossible to navigate against simple, standardized technique practiced by the opposite commercial interest.
It is not as if labor has any other forum or venue in which to pursue organzing. The law prescribes ONE path and one path only — and it is IMPOSSIBLE to negotiate said path if the opposite interest desires not.
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