The decline of unions

[mollymae]

Percentage of unionized private sectors employees in the 1950s: 35
Percentage in 2007: 7.5

(it won't let me post the link to where I found this statistic--if you have other information then please correct me)

Why has the amount of unionized workers declined so much in the past 50 years? And what could we do to encourage more labor unions?

[blake 3:17]

There have been very vicious attacks on union rights for the past 30 or 35 years now. The single best resource for union stuff in the US is http://www.labornotes.org/

Both leaderships and memberships have done some interesting things in the last few years to try to increase union density -- some of these measures are OK, others have been really effed up, most especially those that forfeit the right to strike.

[Dimentio]

There is a decrease in many European nations as well, even in nations where union membership has been very common (70-90%). I think it has something to do with the shrinking of the industrial sector and the expansion of the service sector.

[Red Commissar]

There are a number of factors at play here.

-Like Dimentio mentioned, there has been a shift from labor oriented jobs to the service sector
-And as Blake pointed out, Unions have been besieged by governments, and this increased as globalization sped up.

There are some other points I would like to say as well,

-The leadership of some major unions have sold out to corporations and the state. As such the members of a union might become disgruntled with the lack of progress or benefits while continuing to pay out union dues.
-In the United States (I'm not sure if it's the case elsewhere), public perception of unions is unfavorable. Most people I talk to seem to regard members of a union as "lazy", holding out for more money, and during economic troubles "not being grateful for having a job".
-Divided allegiances of union members have made them less effective.

As for what to do, it's hard to say. We are moving more and more to service industries and typically people employed in those have far less of a desire to unionize. They typically have notions of "hard work pays off" and all compete for limited advancements rather than work together.

I would say that unions need to start getting up to the plate and not be afraid of direct actions or big strikes, even if public opinion is engineered to go against them. Unions seem to be doing this in Europe, but it's not the case here in the United States.

[syndicat]

To a large extent, the high union density (35%) in 1955 was an effect of the massive working class rebellion of 1933-47. After World War 2 the CIO bureaucracy was able to finally consolidate its position and impose a kind of topdown service union model, and also push out the revolutionaries. In the '30s there had been thousands of rank and file revolutionaries in the workplaces who played a catalytic role in the organizing and actions.

Change in the mix of jobs has included declining number of jobs in manufacturing and mining. But this doesn't explain failure to organize in emergent jobs areas such as retail, health care and other services.

The paid union hierarchy is very narrowly focused on minimizing risks to "their" organizations, maintaining a "partnership" arrangement with management, and keeping the union narrowly focused on only demands related to the job, not larger social questions or a worker's whole life.

This kind of union was very ill-prepared to deal with the very aggressive employer offensive that got underway in late '70s and especially after Reagan's destruction of Air Traffic Controllers union in 1980. They had no particular orientation to member mass action and mobilization and broadening of connections and solidarity in struggle. Doing this would tend to empower the rank and file, not the bureaucrats. When the employers no longer see any use for union bureaucrat "partners" they don't know what to do.

A different kind of unionism is needed to deal effectively with this new era. This would have to be based on worker self-activity and collective organization in the workplace, and worker to worker links, including across borders.

[blake 3:17]

This kind of union was very ill-prepared to deal with the very aggressive employer offensive that got underway in late '70s and especially after Reagan's destruction of Air Traffic Controllers union in 1980.

I just looked it up online and hadn't realized that the Air Traffic Controllers had been pro-Republican. Obviously Reagan wasn't depending on union support. They made a pact with the devil and lost.

[syndicat]

I just looked it up online and hadn't realized that the Air Traffic Controllers had been pro-Republican. Obviously Reagan wasn't depending on union support. They made a pact with the devil and lost.

Okay, so the Teamsters often supports Republicans. Does this mean you support breaking Teamster strikes?

[Red Commissar]

Okay, so the Teamsters often supports Republicans. Does this mean you support breaking Teamster strikes?

The way I read it, it seems he was pointing out on how reliant they were on thinking Reagan wouldn't intervene.

[blake 3:17]

To a large extent, the high union density (35%) in 1955 was an effect of the massive working class rebellion of 1933-47. After World War 2 the CIO bureaucracy was able to finally consolidate its position and impose a kind of topdown service union model, and also push out the revolutionaries. In the '30s there had been thousands of rank and file revolutionaries in the workplaces who played a catalytic role in the organizing and actions.

Absolutely. There was also a strong sense from the American and English working classes that they were owed something BIG from their support of the war efforts.

There are some interesting side issues to this -- at once an expansion of the welfare state and a relinquishing of political rights. On this board Jacob Richter has written some interesting stuff on mass strikes and political struggle. I don't always agree with JR, but there does appear to be some truth that mass strikes only occasionally spill over to a more political class struggle. Sometimes the strikes get bigger when the political routes are narrowed off.


Change in the mix of jobs has included declining number of jobs in manufacturing and mining. But this doesn't explain failure to organize in emergent jobs areas such as retail, health care and other services.


SEIU and similar unions have pushed for unionization in these sectors. This has been their main agenda and has been somewhat successful. I'm not really sure where this leads. Without a strong political framework, these drives can amount to a whole lot of nothing. Without taking a stand for broader social and political rights, simply getting a collective agreement can amount to a hill of beans.

[blake 3:17]

Quote:
Originally Posted by blake 3:17 http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1695880#post1695880)
I just looked it up online and hadn't realized that the Air Traffic Controllers had been pro-Republican. Obviously Reagan wasn't depending on union support. They made a pact with the devil and lost.
Okay, so the Teamsters often supports Republicans. Does this mean you support breaking Teamster strikes?


No no no. You got me wrong. What I meant was that Reagan was willing to enact enormous state power against a union which had supported him. When Thatcher went after the miners, it was clear she was against her enemies. Reagan went after his friends.


USian politics are sooo far to the right I get totally mixed up by them.

[syndicat]

oh okay. Air Traffic Controllers are in sort of a bureaucratic class position, sort of like a union of prison guards or supervisors. So they tended to gravitate to conservative politicians. but Reagan was an ideologue, less amenable to the usual back-scratching clientelist US politics. the Republican party since the '70s has become increasingly a disciplined hard-right proto-fascist political party.

another reason for the decline of unionism is the way the labor bureaucracy tie themselves to the Democratic Party. they sow illusions in the Dems among workers. by asking people to look to voting and politicians they are encouraging passivity. the Dems are in fact a capitalist political party. despite all the millions the unions spent to elect Obama and a Democrat congress the working class has simply been disappointed by politicians who actually in the pocket of Wall Street and big capital.

so another basic requirement for rebuilding unionism is also rebuilding a revolutionary left that is present within workplaces, as the catalyst of organizing and class resistance.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

(it won't let me post the link to where I found this statistic--if you have other information then please correct me)

Why has the amount of unionized workers declined so much in the past 50 years? And what could we do to encourage more labor unions?

The underlying conditions on which national based union struggles were rooted no longer exist:


At the most fundamental level, reformist politics -- the programs of the social democratic parties and the trade unions -- consisted of the application of political pressure to capital via the national state. This pressure secured concessions financed, in the last analysis, from the surplus value extracted by capital within the confines of that state. That is, reformist politics based itself on the relative immobility of productive capital. It sought to use the power of the national state to impose a tax on capital. Those conditions have now ended. And it is not merely a question of capital moving offshore to cheap labour countries. Capital can now move from one region of a country to another, or from one nation to another, according to the cost advantages of each area.

The globalisation of financial capital means that each section of capital, even if its individual operations are confined within a given national market, is under pressure to return a rate of profit in line with international standards. Those companies which do not do so, will find that globally mobile shareholders' funds will shift out of their stocks -- thereby lowering their price on the market and raising the cost of new capital -- or that credit rating agencies will lower their rating, lifting the interest rate at which they can borrow. In other words, the existence of transnational money and capital markets is, in some ways, an even more decisive factor in the erosion of the national ties of capital, and the consequent collapse of reformist politics, than globalised production.

[Die Neue Zeit]

There are some interesting side issues to this -- at once an expansion of the welfare state and a relinquishing of political rights. On this board Jacob Richter has written some interesting stuff on mass strikes and political struggle. I don't always agree with JR, but there does appear to be some truth that mass strikes only occasionally spill over to a more political class struggle. Sometimes the strikes get bigger when the political routes are narrowed off.

In my opinion, Rosa Luxemburg was infected with the same kind of left economism that plagued Sorel and his general strike mythos.

If you want girl power, go for Clara Zetkin instead. :)

[syndicat]

At the most fundamental level, reformist politics -- the programs of the social democratic parties and the trade unions -- consisted of the application of political pressure to capital via the national state. This pressure secured concessions financed, in the last analysis, from the surplus value extracted by capital within the confines of that state. That is, reformist politics based itself on the relative immobility of productive capital. It sought to use the power of the national state to impose a tax on capital. Those conditions have now ended. And it is not merely a question of capital moving offshore to cheap labour countries. Capital can now move from one region of a country to another, or from one nation to another, according to the cost advantages of each area.

The globalisation of financial capital means that each section of capital, even if its individual operations are confined within a given national market, is under pressure to return a rate of profit in line with international standards. Those companies which do not do so, will find that globally mobile shareholders' funds will shift out of their stocks -- thereby lowering their price on the market and raising the cost of new capital -- or that credit rating agencies will lower their rating, lifting the interest rate at which they can borrow. In other words, the existence of transnational money and capital markets is, in some ways, an even more decisive factor in the erosion of the national ties of capital, and the consequent collapse of reformist politics, than globalised production.

there are problems with this analysis. capital has always moved from region to region. in the '20s the textile industry relocated from New England to the south to exploit greater absence of unionism and greater difficulty of organizing them, due to racism.

another problem with it is that there are many forms of work that cannot be relocated. some things can be. manufacturing can be, agriculture can be to some extent. but even here certain kinds of manufacturing remain in the USA, such as aircraft and semiconductors due to the high levels of expertise involved. but a huge proportion of labor is "landlocked" -- transportation, health care, education, child care, retail, public utilities, construction.

capital has always been under pressure to maintain levels of profit to continue to compete with other capitals. the main difference of the neoliberal era is the greater ease of financial and speculative capital moving around. but it's not clear how this effects unionism.

[mollymae]

I have another question. Do you guys think it's realistic to assume that strong unions could ever counterbalance the power of capitalists in a capitalist system with little regulation? Or do you think more changes would have to be made?

[blake 3:17]

I have another question. Do you guys think it's realistic to assume that strong unions could ever counterbalance the power of capitalists in a capitalist system with little regulation? Or do you think more changes would have to be made?


No. An equilibrium is not possible, unless you were to look at the most specific instances and locations.

Challenging both the national states, the multinational corporations and the world trade and political bodies is what we need.