Article | Fall 2007
The Changing Climate for Union Organizing at the Turn of the Millennium
by Dorian Warren (Political Science)
What is the current state of union organizing in the United States? What are the political and economic implications of declining union density on the one hand, and potential union revitalization on the other? A project on the Changing Climate for Union Organizing at the Turn of the Millennium that I am co-directing with Kate Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University takes up these questions. Once considered a countervailing power in the American political system and economy, organized labor has been on the decline as levels of economic and political inequality in the United States have increased dramatically over the past several decades. The percentage of workers in labor unions is now 12 percent, down from a postwar high of 35 percent, while the overall levels of poverty and economic inequality in the United States are now the highest in the Western world. The decline of organized labor is directly linked to the rise in economic inequality over the last forty years. Indeed, scholars estimate that the decline in union power, coupled with the decline in the real value of the minimum wage, explains one-third of the dramatic growth in wage inequality since the early 1970s.
This significant decline in union density, especially among workers of color, has been overlooked in most discussions of poverty in communities of color. For instance, the heavier job losses among black workers are due to the continued hemorrhaging of heavily unionized manufacturing jobs, the de-unionization and downgrading of building, food, and home care services, and the adverse effects of privatization of the public sector. These are occupations where many black workers had been concentrated since the Second World War. In 2004 alone, over 400,000 manufacturing jobs left the United States, 39 percent of which were unionized and disproportionately located in the Midwest and Southeast regions. Replacing this massive disappearance of good union jobs have been low-wage, non-union jobs in the service sector, creating the two-dimensional crisis of work in African American and many other low-income communities: unemployment and bad jobs.
Social scientists have shown that in advanced industrialized and post-industrial countries, including the United States, higher union density reduces economic, racial, and gender inequalities directly through labor market intervention and indirectly through the political system through support for redistributive social policies. In terms of direct labor market intervention, organized labor significantly alters many conditions of inequality for both union and non-union workers. For instance, union membership raises median weekly earnings and reduces race- and gender-based income gaps. Union workers are also much more likely to receive health care and pension benefits than workers who are not members of a labor union. Unionization as a potential anti-poverty strategy is particularly important in a context of the continuing upsurge in the numbers of American workers living in poverty (the "working poor") and those without health insurance.
The rise in economic inequality in the United States over the last several decades has been reinforced by significant political inequalities. Indeed, as described by a recent American Political Science Association report, class bias continues to exist in American politics, whether through civic participation, government responsiveness, public policy outcomes, or even public opinion. In this light, the resurgence of the U.S. labor movement has implications for the health of American democracy and politics as unions help to alter class, race, and gender-based inequalities in political voice. Specifically, organized labor has significant effects on elections, serving as a primary "mobilizing institution" in American politics and civil society, according to Rosenstone and Hansen. Labor unions as mobilizing institutions increase the participation of members and nonmembers (especially immigrants), effectively decreasing class bias in the electorate and population at large.
The future of the U.S. labor movement, and especially the ability of low-income communities of color to consider unionization as one of several anti-poverty programs available, hinges on unions' ability to organize workers of all races, and especially workers of color, immigrants, and women. The majority of existing union members, and for at least the last two decades, the majority of new workers organized, are women and workers of color. Recent successful organizing campaigns include the 49,000 home child care providers who won recognition in Illinois and the 5,300 mostly immigrant janitors who won recognition in Houston, both through Service Employees Internatioanl Union (SEIU) in 2005; 40,000 child care providers organized by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) in Michigan in 2006; and earlier this year, the 4,000 mostly African American male security officers organized by SEIU in Los Angeles. The overwhelming majority of these new union members are workers of color, primarily women of color. Significant organizing successes such as these have the potential to raise millions of workers-especially workers of color-out of poverty, while also encouraging them to be more active political participants in the American political system.
My study seeks to examine systematically the national state of union organizing in the 21st century. The project builds on and expands our existing large-scale research on union organizing campaigns. Bronfenbrenner and I will examine the extent and nature of employer and union behavior in union organizing and first-contract campaigns; the changing characteristics of the companies, industries, bargaining units, and unions where organizing, collective bargaining, and political activity are concentrated; and the determinants and effects of employer characteristics and tactics, union characteristics and tactics, bargaining unit demographics, sector of the economy, and political and legal context on union recognition election and first-contract outcomes. It will involve a survey of a random sample of over 1,800 union organizing campaigns. The sample will include union election campaigns in the private sector from 1999-2003 under the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Railway Labor Act. In addition, we will also compile the first comprehensive database of all non-NLRB "card check" and recognition election campaigns that took place in the private sector from 1999 to the present, including workers in the agricultural sector, entertainment industry, and the building trades, sectors of the economy that have been almost entirely ignored by previous organizing research. Finally, the database will include state and local union recognition elections in seven states with collective bargaining laws (Illinois, New Jersey, Florida, New York, Washington, Minnesota, and California) and two states (Texas and Arizona) without collective bargaining laws. It will pay special attention to the industries, unions, and strategies where workers of color predominate.
