The Future We Need

Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century

Erica Smiley, Sarita Gupta

• Publisher: ILR Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781501764837
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Labour & Industrial Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In The Future We Need, Erica Smiley and Sarita Gupta bring a novel perspective to building worker power and what labor organizing could look like in the future, suggesting ways to evolve collective bargaining to match the needs of modern people—not only changing their wages and working conditions, but being able to govern over more aspects of their lives.

Weaving together stories of real working people, Smiley and Gupta position the struggle to build collective bargaining power as a central element in the effort to build a healthy democracy and explore both existing levers of power and new ones we must build for workers to have the ability to negotiate in today and tomorrow's contexts. The Future We Need illustrates the necessity of centralizing the fight against white supremacy and gender discrimination, while offering paths forward to harness the power of collective bargaining in every area for a new era.

Part 1 HOW DID WE GET HERE?

The first attempt of a democracy which includes the previously disenfranchised poor is to redistribute wealth and income, and this is exactly what the black South attempted. The theory is that the wealth and the current income of the wealthy ruling class does not belong to them entirely, but is the product of the work and striving of the great millions; and that, therefore, these millions ought to have a voice in its more equitable distribution; and if this is true in modern countries, like France and England and Germany, how much more true was it in the South after the war where the poorest class represented the most extreme case of theft of labor that the world can conceive; namely, chattel slavery?

—W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America

1 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

A Powerful but Neglected Tool

In 1968, sanitation workers in the city of Memphis, Tennessee, participated in one of the most historic strikes in our nation’s history. These individuals, overwhelmingly Black, were paid poorly—between $1.60 and $1.90 per hour, with unpaid overtime often required. They were also treated with disrespect. They were given no uniforms, had no access to restrooms, and had no grievance procedure to address their legitimate complaints. In 1963, thirty-three workers were fired simply for attending a union meeting.

No wonder their primary rallying cry, the slogan they displayed on placards as they marched picket lines, was simply “I Am a Man.” Theirs was a struggle for human dignity, which they realized was deeply intertwined with the ability to control their own destiny and to fight for fair treatment. And to gain that ability, they needed the power to organize a labor union—a right that, for those workers at that time, was not fully protected under the law. Neither the economic system under which the Memphis sanitation workers labored nor the political system that defined their rights recognized them as full and equal human beings—and that’s what drove them to take desperate, dangerous steps to change their fortunes. Not just labor activists, they were freedom fighters in every sense of the term.

The 1968 strike was sparked when two sanitation workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death by a defective garbage compactor. After an angry meeting at a Memphis labor hall, 1,375 workers refused to go to work on Monday, February 12. As garbage piled up in the streets, the city government hired strikebreakers, almost all of them white.

The sanitation workers endured months of violence. Police squads used mace, tear gas, and clubs on peaceful marchers, and police shot and killed sixteen-year-old demonstrator Larry Payne. The violence culminated in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr on April 4 while he was visiting Memphis in support of the striking workers.

The leaders of national labor groups were initially reluctant to support the strikers. Peter J. Ciampa, director of field operations for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), was quoted as saying, “Good God Almighty, I need a strike in Memphis like I need another hole in the head!”¹ But over time the determination of the workers forced labor leaders to change their tune. Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), donated $50,000 to support the workers’ cause, and AFSCME provided organizing support.

Finally, on April 18, the city of Memphis yielded. It agreed to recognize the workers as members of AFSCME and offered wage increases and other concessions.

Today, workers all over the United States are following in the footsteps of the Memphis freedom fighters. Like their historic forebears, workers labor in circumstances that are grossly unfair, from inadequate pay and arbitrary schedules to dangerous working conditions. And like the Memphis workers, today’s workers are taking serious personal risks in challenging the system that oppresses them because their right to organize in defense of their interests is still not fully protected. Many groups—in industries from meatpacking to farming, hospital work to domestic employment, fast food restaurants to grocery stores, transportation to delivery services—are not yet recognized as labor unions. Yet these organizations behave like unions, taking input from their members, making tough decisions about organizing strategies and tactics, and standing as one against those who seek to keep them divided and weak. And sometimes they win—not every battle, but in growing numbers.

The single most-important tool for claiming the human rights that the Memphis sanitation workers fought for, and that workers of today are demanding, is the ability to engage in collective bargaining.

You have undoubtedly heard of collective bargaining in the context of labor relations. The form of collective bargaining that most Americans are familiar with is what we call worksite-based collective bargaining. It’s the process whereby a group of employees bands together to form a unit with the combined power to negotiate on equal terms with their employer. Employees from the Memphis workers in the 1960s to workers of today employed by Walmart, McDonald’s, Amazon, a chain of nursing homes, or a local school district have all sought the right to engage in this form of collective bargaining.

In this book we will show that worksite-based collective bargaining, while critical, is not the only important form of collective bargaining. The workplace is far from the only arena in which people can benefit from banding together to assert and claim their rights. Collective bargaining is a powerful practice that people can use to transform the ways in which neighborhoods, cities, school and health-care systems, government agencies, and even multinational corporations behave. In later chapters we will explain how this can happen and offer examples that illustrate how groups of people around the country are putting this concept to work.

But because most people primarily associate collective bargaining with workplaces and with the efforts of labor unions to improve the lot of employees, we will begin our exploration of the topic by looking closely at how worksite-based collective bargaining works. In the next few pages you will learn some facts that may surprise you because the antilabor bias that permeates too many corners of our educational system and the mass media has given millions of people a badly flawed impression of how labor relations actually work in the United States. Understanding the realities of collective bargaining is an essential foundation to considering how this powerful tool can be used to improve the lives of people from every walk of life.

Collective Bargaining: What It Means and How It Works

Traditional worksite-based collective bargaining, at its best, is a system by which working people can exercise collective power and directly confront the owners of capital in a way that reclaims portions of that capital for working people and their communities. This type of collective bargaining has served as a direct mechanism to fight for a fair return on the labor working people invest into building, operating, servicing, or moving something. In this way collective bargaining allows everyday people to “practice democracy”—directly engaging in the decisions and choices that affect their lives.

As a result, worksite-based collective bargaining has provided an essential pathway to economic sustainability for millions of US workers, ensuring they can support themselves and their families and live decent lives with a manageable level of economic risk. In other democracies, the fundamental features of a social safety net such as health care, retirement income, and unemployment benefits are usually paid for through taxes and provided to people directly by the government. That’s generally not the case in the United States. Therefore, for most of the past century, a union contract that embodies the results of the collective bargaining process has been the best tool for US workers to ensure they have access to these basic elements of a decent life.

When people talk about “union power” or “the labor movement” as a force in US society, the most important thing they’re talking about is the power of unions to insist on collective bargaining to protect the rights of workers.

How, exactly, does worksite-based collective bargaining work? We can start our discussion with the kind of definition you might find in a dictionary:

Collective bargaining (noun): the process whereby employees, identified as a bargaining unit, negotiate as a group, often through an elected bargaining committee, with their employer to determine wages, hours, and other permissible conditions of employment, resulting in a written agreement or contract that defines policy either for all employees of that employer or for those specifically represented by the bargaining committee.

Definitions like this raise more questions than answers for many people. What is mandatory for employers to bargain over? Who is counted in the bargaining unit? What is permissible to bargain over? There is an entire industry of lawyers, consultants, and policy advocates dedicated to clarifying questions like this and interpreting the law in ways that meet the needs of their clientele. For its part, the government provides some clarity through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). But even a scan of the NLRB website just raises more questions. For example, what does it mean when the NLRB site advises employers that they have the right to “bargain hard, provided you seek in good faith to reach an agreement”?² Can someone just explain collective bargaining all in one place?

Here’s a basic explanation of what you need to know.³

What is collective bargaining? Collective bargaining is the formal process of negotiation between an employer and a group of employees—often with their union representative—that sets the terms and conditions of work.

Collective bargaining results in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), a legally binding agreement that lays out policies agreed to by management and labor. Because of its role in governing the actions of both management and labor, a CBA is often referred to as “the law of the workplace.” While every CBA is unique to a given labor-management relationship, most include provisions that address pay, scheduling, promotions, discipline, and job standards. CBAs also usually contain a grievance procedure, which provides a process for resolving disputes between management and labor over interpretation of the contract or regarding employee discipline or termination.

When does collective bargaining occur? Employees and employers engage in collective bargaining to negotiate new contracts and renegotiate existing contracts that have expired. For some this occurs annually. For others it occurs on a less frequent basis, depending on what was negotiated and agreed to.

In 2015 alone, an estimated five million men and women took part in the collective bargaining process, which was well above average. In 2021, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) received approximately 19,000 notices of expiring collective bargaining agreements, representing more than 1 million workers.⁴ These are big numbers that show how common collective bargaining is. It’s a proven method for reaching fair agreements between workers and employers, and it is used successfully in many organizations all the time. Yet only 7.4 percent of private-sector employees and 39.2 percent of public-sector employees are covered by a CBA.

Collective bargaining works. Unfortunately, only a small fraction of people are currently enjoying its benefits today compared to its heyday after the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935. As early as 1963, at least one author referred to collective bargaining as “old before its time.”⁵ While some may echo this assessment to say that collective bargaining should be abandoned for other approaches, we think that at its heart it is very much worth keeping and expanding on.

Who can collectively bargain? Passed in 1935, the NLRA—also known as the Wagner Act—grants most private-sector employees the right to organize unions and collectively bargain. The Railway Labor Act (RLA) provides railway and airline employees the right to form unions and engage in collective bargaining. Between the NLRA and RLA, approximately 85 percent of all private-sector employees officially have collective bargaining rights. Some members of the private sector, including employees of very small businesses, agricultural workers, domestic workers, supervisors, and workers classified as independent contractors do not consistently have the right to engage in collective bargaining.

Collective bargaining rights for those in the public sector—that is, employees of federal, state, and local government agencies—are established by a patchwork of laws. Federal law offers many federal employees the right to engage in collective bargaining over a limited set of issues, and state laws determine whether state and local government employees can engage in collective bargaining. As of 2014, three states—North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia—expressly prohibit collective bargaining for all public-sector employees at the state level.⁶ Though in 2021, Virginia allowed municipalities to loosen restrictions.⁷ These laws are considered by many people in other countries to be inhumane. For example, the prohibition of bargaining is viewed by the nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch to be in direct violation of international human rights laws.⁸

What topics can employees bargain over? The NLRA—the law that applies to most private-sector employees—does not include a list of bargaining topics. However, rulings by the courts and policies set by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB; created by the NLRA) determine which subjects are covered. They divide bargaining subjects into three ...

Table of contents

• Foreword by DeMaurice F. Smith
• Introduction
• Part 1: How Did We Get Here?
• Part 2: The Building Blocks of Economic Democracy
• Part 3: The Way We Win
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Bibliography
• Index