Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo
UPS Teamsters and workers hold a rally in downtown Los Angeles, July 19, 2023, as a national strike deadline nears.
This Labor Day is a moment to celebrate the resurgence of trade unionism. The labor movement is more popular today than it has been in generations and is doing more to earn that popularity. But one aspect of trade unionism gets insufficient appreciation: unions as instruments of worker voice and workplace democracy.
In a non-union workplace, most workers below the level of executive and supervisor simply have no voice. If they make suggestions or requests that rub management the wrong way, they are putting their jobs and livelihoods on the line, since they can be fired at will.
There is also zero democracy in a non-union workplace. It’s a totally authoritarian, top-down operation.
Compare this with unions at their best. UPS, in its latest contract, finally agreed to air-condition delivery trucks. That was a demand from sweltering rank-and-file drivers, pressed by a powerful union, the Teamsters, and backed up by the credible threat of a strike—worker voice linked to worker power.
I’ve written about the hotel workers represented by UNITE HERE. Their shop stewards are elected by the rank and file. One of the most successful and admirable demands from hotel workers, which has been written into union contracts, is opportunities for “back of the house” employees, heavily Black, Hispanic, and immigrant, working in kitchen, janitorial, and room-cleaning jobs, to ascend to better-paid “front of the house” jobs such as desk clerk and waiter, which had typically been mostly white.
Thanks to UNITE HERE, unionized hotel workers have predictable schedules, so that they can plan the rest of their lives. But non-union retail and fast-food workers find their schedules are set at the whim of the boss, who can demand that an employee serve as a “clopener,” closing a store at midnight and then coming to open it at 6 a.m.
One of the epitomes of unions representing worker voice is the Association of Flight Attendants. The AFA, whose predecessors date to 1945, is a prime case of women’s consciousness-raising and women’s voice. The AFA fought and defeated one humiliating job condition after another, from weight, height, and age limits to the requirement that stewardesses be unmarried. Every union officer is a working flight attendant.
Unions also represent internal democracy in a second, complementary sense. Their leadership is democratically elected. The UAW and the Teamsters are militant unions today because rank-and-file workers organized to elect reform leadership—Shawn Fain at the UAW and Sean O’Brien at the Teamsters. Attend a union convention and you will see more genuine racial and ethnic diversity than in any other American institution.
And unions represent democratic voice in yet another sense. The same skills that make for effective union organizing—knocking on doors, engaging in sympathetic active listening about people’s frustrations and needs—are key to effective political campaigns. During COVID, when too much political campaigning was done via text, phone, and social media, UNITE HERE workers went door-to-door in many states, most notably the swing states of Nevada and Pennsylvania, and made a real difference.
So by all means, let’s celebrate unions for what they contribute to wages, hours, and working conditions. But at a time when democracy is under assault, let’s also remember unions as a key element of a democratic society.
