The right of workers to organize into unions is a cornerstone of modern democracy. In the United States the fight for this basic right has been a central thread of class and democratic struggles for well over a hundred years. It has also been a constant struggle.
Today the movement to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (S. 1925 and HR. 3619) is the latest and most critical fight in this long conflict between labor and capital.
The Act itself is a very modest proposition. It does three basic things. First it says that when a majority of workers in a workplace sign cards saying they want to form a union, the company or employer must recognize their union. Secondly, since employers often resort to stalling tactics in negotiating a first union contract (in some cases months and even years of stalling), the Act mandates binding arbitration to reach a first contract if one is not negotiated in a timely way. And lastly the legislation increases the penalties for companies and employers who use illegal tactics to stop workers from organizing.
(illustration by John Kim)
Many people are probably amazed that when a majority sign union cards they don’t already automatically get their union. After all wasn’t this most simple and basic of rights won in the labor upsurge of the 1930s, when the CIO transformed the labor movement and organized millions in the basic manufacturing industries into industrial unions?
The answer is yes. In 1935 Congress passed, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Wagner Act. In essence the Wagner Act established workers rights to organize unions, bargain collectively and engage in "concerted activity." And it protected those rights against unfair labor practices and company tactics to interfere with or limit the use of those rights.
Then, in the late 1940s and in the 1950s, the McCarthy red scare attacks heralded a wide corporate offensive against labor. In 1947 a Republican-dominated Congress, steeped in anti-Communist hysteria, with a sharp anti-labor bent, passed the Taft-Hartley Act to weaken the Wagner Act. Taft-Hartley began an attack on labor rights that continues to this day.
At its heart, Taft-Hartley was to do away with union recognition based on a majority signing union cards. It established the right of companies to call for National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) supervised elections instead. This allowed legal company interference in the democratic process of establishing a union. It gave the company time and a mechanism to use intimidation and scare tactics to discourage union votes. Instead of workers self-organizing and taking the democratic decision to form a union, now the company was allowed to be a part of that decision making process. Now the employer could effectively use the NLRB process of supervised elections to help determine when the vote is taken and under what circumstances favorable to the company. And it started a whole industry of anti-labor lawyer consultants and organizations ready to intervene for the employers.
Further modification to the Wagner Act in the 1950s chipped away more and gave the employers even greater latitude. For example limiting union shop agreements in 1951 and heavily curtailing union solidarity in 1959 by banning (secondary) union boycotts of non-union goods and services and limiting picketing in strikes.
Today, labor is once again in upsurge mode. Not since the CIO days has labor been more mobilized and more militant in its electoral efforts. Under the "Beat Bush" banner, labor, in alliance with African American, Latino and women, is at the heart of a powerful all-people’s movement. Central to this labor upsurge is the question of organizing the unorganized and how best to increase the size, influence and political clout of labor. At the very center of its electoral work to defeat Bush, the AFL-CIO has placed the question of the Employee Free Choice Act.
In a recent speech to the Service Employee’s International Union Convention, John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said there were three main obstacles to progress for labor – one is improving the racial, national and gender diversity of the leadership of labor at all levels, two is passing the Employee Free Choice Act, and three is defeating George W. Bush.
In addition to the critical importance of organizing to all of labor’s program and efforts, the Employee Free Choice Act provides a stark contrast in the battle for the White House. John Kerry and John Edwards are both original sponsors of the legislation and have pledged to give it high priority in their administration. (The bill now has 33 sponsors in the Senate and 106 in the House.) Meanwhile the Bush administration is taking steps to outlaw card check as a method of union organizing. (Current law allows a card check if the employer doesn’t ask for an NLRB election instead.)
While by no means a complete solution to labor rights, the Employee Free Choice Act has the potential, similar to the Wagner Act, as a turning point in labor’s upsurge.
--Scott Marshall is a vice chair of the Communist Party USA and the chair of the Party's labor commission.
