Ringo Chiu via AP
Health care workers and supporters march outside Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center during a Labor Day march on Monday, September 4, 2023, in Los Angeles.
The past few weeks have made it hi-def clear how critical government is to both the well-being of workers and their prospects for organizing.
The converse has been clear, of course, for the past 50 years. The failure of the federal government to reform labor law so that workers can’t be fired for trying to unionize has been central to the decline in the share of organized workers from one-third of the private-sector workforce in the mid-20th century to a bare 6 percent today.
This summer, though, semi-demi reforms to labor law have seeped through the cracks of our federal system as a federal agency and a state government have both managed to conform labor law, as best they can, to the spirit and letter of workers’ rights initially encoded in the National Labor Relations Act.
As we’ve reported on extensively at the Prospect, the National Labor Relations Board has issued rulings, upholding the cases brought by its general counsel, that have required employers to recognize their workers’ unions when a demonstrable majority of workers have shown they want to affiliate, and if the employer commits an unfair labor practice in the course of a Board-supervised recognition election. Further cases likely coming before the Board will seek sanctions against employers who refuse to bargain in good faith with their unionized workers, including the Board’s imposition of wage and benefit mandates equal to those at comparable unionized companies. Another case may rule that noncompete clauses that keep workers from seeking other employment also constitute an unfair labor practice for which the Board may prescribe a remedy.
None of these new or possibly-in-the-works rulings actually change labor law in the way that congressional action could, but they do restore some of the penalties employers once had to pay before labor law rules were weakened, and will likely spur more organizing efforts in industries that many unions had written off as unorganizable given the state of the law.
The National Labor Relations Act also preempts states’ ability to enact laws affecting private-sector workers’ right to collective bargaining, but that hasn’t deterred several of the bluest states from tiptoeing up to that line this summer, too. Led by Minnesota, several states have forbidden employers from compelling their employees to attend the anti-union propaganda meetings that companies routinely hold when seeking to kill off organizing efforts. And in just the past week, California has passed laws raising the wages of half a million fast-food workers, extending unemployment insurance to strikers (a move much welcomed by the striking Hollywood guilds), and giving its own legislative staffs collective-bargaining rights. Today, it’s also likely to give major raises to the support staffs at hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes. As well, it has created a fast-food council, where workers will sit opposite employers on a body that can prod state government to address issues of worker safety, the timing of shifts, and the like. It’s not collective bargaining, but it’s close as it can come without running afoul of federal preemption.
In sum, responding to the surging, almost bipartisan support for unions that’s clear from all public polling, and the much higher profile that union support now commands within the Democratic base and the Democratic Party, government agencies and states are moving to fulfill those expectations. Congress remains the laggard; the unrepresentative nature of the Senate remains a huge obstacle. But pro-union governmental initiatives are seeping through the cracks.
