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Commentary
Street Roots • June 9-15, 2017
Why unions matter
BY MARTIN HART-LANDSBERG
Although not the most important factor,
unions also have some responsibility for their
decline. Union leaders have often been
ewer workers are in unions now than in
reluctant to aggressively organize new sectors;
1983, the earliest year in the Bureau of
encourage new leadership from people of color,
Labor Statistics series on union
membership. In 1983 there were 17.7 million, women, and other marginalized groups;
promote rank and file democracy in decision
20.1 percent of the workforce. In 2016 the
making and organizing; and vigorously defend
number had fallen to 14.6 million or 10.7
the rights of their members to live in healthy
percent of the workforce. While union
communities as well as work in safe
membership rates in Oregon have been above
workplaces.
the U S average, they have also followed the
Taking all this into account, it is no wonder
national trend, falling to 13.5 percent in 2016.
that the share of workers in unions has
This decline in unionization
declined.
is largely the result of a
C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N I S T
F
Martin Hart-
Landsberg is a
professor o f economics
emeritus at Lewis
and Clark College.
Street Smart
Economics is a
periodic series written
by professors emeriti
in economics for
Street Roots.
sustained corporate directed
and, in many ways,
government aided attack on
unions. Its success is one
important reason why corporate profits have
soared and most people have experienced
deteriorating working and living conditions
over the past decades.
Improving our quality of life
will require rebuilding union
strength. And, although rarely
mentioned by the media, things
are starting to happen in
Portland. Over the last few years
new unions were formed and/or
new contracts signed by workers
at our airport, zoo, K-12 public
schools, colleges and universities,
parks and recreation centers,
hotels and restaurants, hospitals,
and office buildings.
The union difference
The decline in union strength matters. Here
are a few examples of what unions still deliver:
According to the Economic Policy Institute,
“the union wage premium -the percentage-
higher wage earned by those covered by a
collective bargaining contract, adjusted for
The attack on unions
Not long after President
Reagan declared the 1981 air
traffic controllers strike illegal
and fired 11,000 air traffic
controllers, corporations began
illegally opposing union
A union march in Detroit, Mich., circa 1940s.
organizing efforts by aggressively
firing union organizers.
According to studies based on
workers’ education, age, and other
NLRB records, the probability of a union
characteristics - is 13.6 percent overall.”
activist being illegally fired during a union
Unionized workers are 28.2 percent more
organizing campaign rose from about 10
likely to be covered by employer-provided
percent in the 1970s to 27 percent over the
health insurance and 53.9 percent more likely
first half of the 1980s. Since then it has
to have employer-provided pensions.
remained around 20 percent. Illegal firings
Working women in unions are paid 94 cents,
occurred in approximately 12 percent of all
on average, for every dollar paid to unionized
union election campaigns in the 1970s and in
working men, compared to non-union working
roughly one out of every three union election
women who receive only 78 cents on the dollar
campaigns over the first half of the 1980s.
for every dollar paid to non-union working men.
They now occur in approximately 25 percent of
This union wage premium is significant for
all union election campaigns.
unionized working women regardless of race
It is a violation of U S labor law for an
and ethnicity.
employer to “interfere with, restrain or coerce”
Looking just at Oregon, the Oregon Center
employees who seek to exercise their right to
for Public Policy found that “union
unionize. However, the law is so weak that
representation boosts the wages of Oregon’s
many employers willingly disregard it and
lowest paid workers by about 21 percent, while
accept the consequences in order to stymie
middle-wage workers enjoy an increase of about
union organizing efforts.
17 percent. Even the highest paid workers
Many companies also try to undermine
benefit from unionizing, with a 6 percent
union organizing campaigns by illegally
increase to their wages.”
threatening to shut down or move operations if
Studies also show that strong unions force
workers vote to unionize. One mid-1990s study
non-union employers to lift up the wages and
found that more than 50 percent of all private
improve the working conditions of their own
employers made such a threat. The
employees for fear of losing them or
acceleration of globalization in the following
encouraging unionization.
decades, thanks to government support, has
More generally, unions provide workers with
made growing numbers of workers fearful of
voice and the means to use their collective
pursuing unionization, even without an explicit
strength to gain job security and say over key
threat by management.
aspects of their conditions of employment,
including scheduling and safety. These gains
are significant in our “employment at will”
economy where, without a union, employers
can fire a worker whenever they want and for
whatever reason, subject to the weak
protections afforded by our labor laws.
Why unions still matter
The corporate pursuit of profit continues to
transform our economy in ways that increase
worker hardship and insecurity. And unions will
have to transform themselves accordingly.
Two widely respected labor economists,
Lawrence F. Katz and Alan B. Krueger,
recently published a study of the growth in the
number of workers with so-called “alternative
work arrangements,” which they “defined as
temporary help agency workers, on-call
workers, contract workers, and independent
contractors or freelancers.” They found that
the percentage of U S workers with such
alternative work arrangements rose
from 10.1 percent of all employed
workers in 2005 to 15.8 percent in
2015. But their most startling finding
was that “all of the net employment
growth in the U .S. economy from
2005 to 2015 appears to have
occurred in alternative work
arrangements.”
Large corporations are driving this
explosion in irregular and precarious
work by applying the same strategy
here in the U S that they have long
used in the third world. They are
increasingly outsourcing to smaller
non-unionized firms the jobs that were
once done by their own in-house
workers. This allows these large
corporations to escape paying many of
those who “work for them” the wages
and benefits offered to their
remaining employees. Instead, their
salaries are paid by smaller firms,
whether they be independent
businesses, temporary work agencies, or
franchise owners, or in more extreme cases
so-called independent contractors. And because
these second-tier smaller businesses operate in
highly competitive markets, with substantially
lower profit margins than the corporations they
service, these outsourced workers now receive
far lower salaries with few if any benefits and
protections.
As the Wall Street Journal describes, “Never
before have American companies tried so hard
to employ so few people. The outsourcing wave
that moved apparel-making jobs to China and
call-center operations to India is now just as
likely to happen inside companies across the
U .S . and in almost every industry.” At most
large firms, 20 percent to 50 percent of the
total workforce is now outsourced. This
includes big and profitable U S companies like
Google, Bank of America, Verizon, Procter &
Gamble and FedEx.
In sum, companies aren’t going to willingly
offer us jobs that pay a living wage, provide
opportunities for skill development, and afford
the security necessary to plan for the future.
We are going to have to fight for them. And the
strength of unions will be critical in that effort.
So, the next time you hear about a unionization
campaign or union organized workplace action-
support it. You will be helping yourself.
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