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More on unions and card check
August 28, 2008
An article of faith for almost all the Democrats at the Denver convention is that the country’s much-diminished trade-union movement needs to be revived. Membership has fallen to less than 10 percent of the private-sector workforce. This decline is a main reason, it is argued, for stagnating middle-class wages. Public policy, say the Democrats, can help.
The rallying-point is the proposed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a measure co-sponsored by Barack Obama and already passed by the house of representatives. Mr Obama promises to sign it into law as president, if the senate moves it forward and it reaches his desk. Politically and on its merits, however, this is an ill-advised piece of legislation.
EFCA’s most sought-after provision is a “card-check” rule that would oblige employers to recognise a union and bargain with it if half the workforce signed cards saying that they were in favour. Labour law varies from state to state but the current procedure usually requires a secret ballot, which protects workers from intimidation. John McCain has opposed the change and advocates a Secret Ballot Protection Act instead.
The unions have a point when they complain of intimidation by employers. EFCA would stiffen penalties for firms that bully union sympathisers, which is both desirable and good politics. But the card-check initiative is what the party is emphasising, and otherwise pro-union voters are bound to have mixed feelings about it.
A secret ballot protects workers who want union recognition as well as those who do not. That is why opposing it arouses suspicion. Membership has fallen at least partly because workers themselves doubt that unions best serve their interests, and with reason. Opposition to secret ballots does not reassure them. It is a self-serving demand, and plays badly with the centrists the Democrats need to bring in. It is bad politics, therefore, as well as bad law.
A broader question is whether weak unions are part of what ails the middle-income workforce. Their decline probably explains some of the wage slowdown—although the most striking aspect of the country’s growing inequality is the astonishing growth in the very highest incomes, an unrelated issue. The right kind of unionism can raise wages and advance workers’ interests while improving a company’s competitiveness. The wrong kind, as the UK knows only too well, can cripple industries and indeed whole economies.
The secret of success, arguably, is a culture of accommodation and non-confrontation. Unions can make it easier for firms to work in closer partnership with their employees, to their mutual advantage. But if the relationship is framed as nothing but a contest over rents—a zero-sum game, with no holds barred—the drawbacks seem likely to predominate. What may concern centrist voters is that Democrats are apt to press the unions’ case in precisely this spirit of confrontation. Anti-business sentiment is a dominant note at the convention. EFCA’s most enthusiastic advocates would like nothing better than to grind the faces of the bosses. You do not have to be a boss to be wary of that.
[This article appeared in the FT yesterday. The last paragraph was cut for space except for its first sentence, which on its own is either mystifying or absurd, according to taste–as emails to me have pointed out. So, with apologies if you have seen the edited piece already, I thought I would post what I filed.]
Another good reason not to vote for Obama. The geniuses at the Democratic Party have found a way around globalisation. There solution is — unionisation. Of course it will stabilise the downward pressure on wages — to the benefit of all the insiders who will still be working after the massive failure of industry which it will instigate.
Clive, have you noticed that on each and almost every policy position you oppose the views endorsed by Obama, yet you are unwilling to extend that opposition to the candidate himself!
Posted by: RCS | August 28th, 2008 at 4:42 pm | Report this commentRCS: Yes, I have indeed noticed this. Actually, it’s not “almost every policy position”, but I do disagree with Obama about a lot. On the other hand, I disagree with John McCain and the Republicans about a great deal too. I’ll have more to say about that next week. If I had a vote, I’m still not sure which way I would cast it. My sentiments are pro-Obama, I cannot deny: His intellect and his lack of phony certitude appeal to me, and I think it would be good for the country to elect a black president. But the case is by no means open and shut, in my view, and I’m still listening to the candidates and thinking…an Obama-like indecisive stance, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Posted by: Clive Crook | August 28th, 2008 at 4:56 pm | Report this commentAt least, Mr. Crook, those of us who have been following your independent, fair and unbiased columns can be confident that any indecisiveness or change of mind you may have concerning any candidate or issue will be based on the merits as you see them, not on expediency, as has been the case all too often with both candidates, but especially with John McCain, who has shown so far that he has no principles at all, except for supporting a bigger and even more aggressive military, and, more recently, the most reactionary of judges.
Obama, to the contrary, has managed to keep quite a few of his principles, For that reason, if no other, I would humbly suggest that he deserves your straw vote.
Posted by: algasema | August 28th, 2008 at 6:06 pm | Report this commentClive,
If one of your reasons for supporting Barack Obama is that he is (partially) an African-American, I think that, for the benefit of your readers, you should spell that out and elaborate on it. It is an interesting, if contentious, reason.
Posted by: RCS | August 28th, 2008 at 7:26 pm | Report this commentIt is not at all a good reason, RSC. Colin Powell, whose previously stellar reputation vanished after he made his unfortunate WMD speech at the UN right before the Iraq invasion, is an African-American. Condoleezza Rice, who from day one has put loyalty to George Bush ahead of the truth, is an African-American. Clarence Thomas, the most reactionary Justice on the entire Supreme Court, is the same.
It is not AN African-American that counts. It is which one. This is the same standard that applies to Caucasians, Asians or any other candidates, should be the case.
Posted by: algasema | August 28th, 2008 at 10:02 pm | Report this commentSorry, “RCS”, not “RSC”. No offense intended. An algasema, pure and simple.
Posted by: algasema | August 28th, 2008 at 10:04 pm | Report this commentI think it would be better for the country to ignore the color of the President and concentrate on the what he can do as a leader.
If one looks at Sen. Obama’s miserable record in serving the African American community of his district, it is pretty clear that nearly anyone in Washington is more capable of representing black people than Sen. Obama.
Sen. Obama has done his bit quite well for the Chicago Machine, which in previous years would have got him a no-show job at the water department, in the mold of his mentor Emil Jones, and removed him from further harm to his constituents. His unlikely success as a candidate has opened up a whole new level of authority to someone who has been such an ordinary flop politician at the local level.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | August 28th, 2008 at 10:41 pm | Report this commentAmerican unions do, as you say, have a point when they complain of employer intimidation. But stiffer penalties, while desirable, do not meet the main problem, which is the ability of employers to coerce workers at will (without necessarily violating the law) during representation elections. Since this form of intimidation arises from an employer “free speech” right, there is no direct legislative solution, hence the appeal of card check. It doesn’t challenge the employer’s speech rights; it simply takes away his platform–i.e., the election campaign–for exercising rights that are inherently coercive to workers. Compared to this problem, the secret ballot is very small potatoes indeed.
Posted by: David Brody | August 29th, 2008 at 12:19 am | Report this commentAs for your concluding paragraph, initially left out, it would have been best remaining missing, because it confuses the battle to achieve collective bargaining with the subsequent practice of collective bargaining. Unions have no interest in “grind[ing] the faces of the bosses.” It’s as much in their interest as that of the employer that the enterprise prosper and nothing in the historical record to suggest that, if the employer wants a cooperative relationship, he will meet resistance from the union. The problem in America has always been the obsession of employers with “managerial prerogative.”
“nothing in the historical record to suggest that, if the employer wants a cooperative relationship, he will meet resistance from the union” would come as a complete surprise to Caterpillar, who went through an array of strikes, lockouts, pickets, violence etc to get work rules changed on the factory floor to force such outlandish demands as prohibiting drinking on the job.
It took 13 years to get some rules changes (including some more ambitious things like pension reform), which in the historical record was met with complete resistance by the UAW, but has resulted in the most profitable and perhaps successful American manufacturing company currently in operation.
Tell Ford and GM that they will not be met with resistance in making the enterprise prosper.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | August 29th, 2008 at 2:23 am | Report this commentFor someone who has lived in Europe for 6 years and seen the devastation wrought by unions in say, France, strengthening trade unions does not sound like a good idea. But the fact is, American workers enjoy far fewer rights than workers in Europe. So, the unions across the pond need some support. www.winnowed.blogspot.com
Posted by: Vinod Joseph | August 30th, 2008 at 7:20 am | Report this comment“American unions do, as you say, have a point when they complain of employer intimidation.”
And their solution is to abolish the secret ballot? Would they apply this solution to national elections as well? It is hard not to conclude that the unions believe that they can intimidate more effectively than employers.
Posted by: ad | August 31st, 2008 at 6:40 pm | Report this comment