This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. The following is an excerpt from A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy (Ecco, on sale Jan. 7, 2020).
While I agree with nearly everything in the author’s take on the history of the mid-late 20th c. labor efforts, and the protracted and organized assault from the right and corporate-capital interests on worker’s rights, having yet another voice - especially such a qualified one - that only berates, but doesn’t provide any insight to how we might make headway toward the stated goals of getting “the rich to pay their taxes” and “unions to level the power of corporations”, is frustrating at best. I still remember the vocal anger toward union and labor action back in the 80’s, when our graduate students were organizing and striking for a decent wage and recognition of their work. The dynamic hasn’t changed, and we haven’t yet seen an effective counter-strategy that is changing the conversation.
Any thoughts on making some “real” change - instead of just ranting at the status quo, and shaking our fists at clouds?
Add to that 70 years the 40 years that “Democrats” have been actively hostile to the needs of workers, beginning with Jimmy Carter in the 1970s with deregulation, through the 2010’s, where Barack Obama still hasn’t found his pair of comfortable picket-walking shoes, and up to Joe Biden, who has assured his CEO friends that his election means that “nothing will change” for them…
The cure would have to involve funneling a lot more money to liberal think tanks to counter the right-wing notions that extreme concentration of wealth is respectable and that workers have no rights. You have to make it respectable again among people high and low to question the system. And you would have to replace doctrinaire right-wing judges in federal courts. It’s going to take time and a considerable investment.
What the author left out was the actual struggles that were the impetus of creating a critical mass of people willing to forswear some immediate compensation for the possibility of better pay in the future. And that history is replete with a significant amount of bloodshed and violence.
In other words, the working conditions of those workers was dire enough that they put their life and limb on the line.
So the question becomes what today is of sufficient magnitude for workers, that they will be of like mind to endure what will be an almost equal power arrayed against those efforts to unionize. Maybe it won’t come in the form of Police goon squads, but as the author alludes to, Corporations have much better tools at their disposal.
Therein lies the rub. The economic dynamics are different enough, that I don’t believe you can expect any true grassroots success of union building. Those efforts are going to have to come externally.
That’s why I look at a Tom Steyer and wonder why someone who has his heart and money being used for progressive causes, doesn’t see how helpful that kind of money could be the difference in providing a floor for a resurrection of unions.
Yes let’s have the rich pay their far share in taxes, but that doesn’t bring up the living standards for the rest of workers.
It’s hard to push for change. Most people prefer to go along to get along. As social creatures, we prefer to stick with the herd rather than challenge the status quo. As you noted, people were at risk of dying or being seriously maimed, which pushed them to fight for their rights. Standing on the picket line wasn’t inherently more dangerous or destructive than their current job, so it was easier to take that step.
Today’s workers keep getting hit at the margins, but until dangers of the job become as perilous (or more) as the cost of striking, it’s difficult to build a mass movement. People either need strong backing or to be truly desperate before there will be a strong impetus to rebuild the unions. It’s possible that the corporations have figured out the formula to provide just enough bread and circuses to keep the workers sated, even if generally miserable.