Baldwin, Panel Agree: Unions are a Solution
Rep. Tammy Baldwin joined South Central Federation of Labor President Jim Cavanaugh and others for a roundtable discussion, February 18, about the economic crisis and the promise that union’s hold for a better life, if only workers could freely choose to join a union.
“Higher rates of unionization would be a giant step toward moving us out of this economic recession,” said Cavanaugh, “and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would be a giant step toward higher rates of unionization.”
The Roundtable coincided with release of a new report from Center for American Progress, “Unions are Good for Wisconsin’s Economy.” According to the report, if 5 percent more of Wisconsin workers unionized, $503,000,000 more would be pumped into Wisconsin’s economy annually.
A cosponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, Rep. Baldwin said a strong culture of employer resistance makes it nearly impossible for workers to organize successfully. “The current National Labor Relations Board election process is not working for Americans today,” she said.
“If Wisconsin’s workers were rewarded for 100 percent of their increases in labor productivity between 1980 and 2008 – as they were during the middle part of the 20th century – average wages would be $27.83 per hour – 52 percent higher than the average real wage in 2008,” said Joel Roger, director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the UW-Madison.
Union workers are also 28 percent more likely to have employer-provided health insurance, and 54 percent more likely to have employer-provided pensions, compared to nonunion workers. With retirement savings disappearing, employers cutting benefits and no real safety net any longer, “unions are workers’ best bet,” said Rogers.
“Unionization provides more stability not just for individual workers but for the labor market overall, so that it’s not just a race to the bottom to lower the standards for pay and benefits,” said Rabbi Renee Bauer, director of the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin. “If workers are paid more, they’ll be able to spend more in the economy. Having a union is the best way to bring those wages up.”
Fear Factor in Nonunion Shops
“It’s not very easy to form a union,” said Ryan Wolff, who went to work in a nonunion shop right after high school. “I asked a coworker who’d been there a long time, ‘Why don’t we have a union?’ He told me to keep quiet and not talk about it. He said he’d like to have a union too, but people get fired for that.”
Now an assembly worker at Sub-Zero Freezer and a member of Sheet Metal Workers Local 565, Wolff says life is much better in a union shop. “If something is wrong there is always someone to go to who can help deal with issues like safety, or family medical leave. Just getting to the right source of information gives you much greater security,” said Wolff
Having a similar experience, Wolff’s coworker, Dan Kortte, said that in a nonunion shop workers are less likely to create waves or speak out if something is wrong, “because the next thing you know, you’re out the door. The union gives you support and backs you up.”
In his old job, Kortte had to deal with production line speedups and ten hour days. “If you didn’t have carpal tunnel surgery after working there for five or more years, you were the rare exception. And there’s a lot to be said for knowing, especially in hard times, what kind of raise you’ll be getting for the next three years – that speaks volumes.”
Union Supporters Targeted
Firing workers engaged in trying to form a union is widespread, said Baldwin: “In 2005 there were 30,000 workers who received back pay as a result of being fired or discriminated against for trying to form a union. There are probably countless other cases that were harder to prove.” Many of those cases represent workers who were fired years before they finally received that small measure of justice.
“There’s no real penalty,” said Rogers, “You can basically fire anybody, any time you want. All you have to do is pay the worker back pay, minus any wages they earned otherwise. That’s just the cost of doing business – much less than the cost of allowing workers to organize, have a real voice on the job, and a union contract.”
Economic Stimulus
To get out of the recession “we need to reverse policies that got us in this recession in the first place,” said Rogers. “Trickle down simply has not worked.”
The minimum wage, if corrected for inflation and productivity, would be about $12-13 an hour today, Rogers said. “One way to insure that workers get their fair share is to have them at the table. If you’re not at the table, you’re sure to be on the menu, and workers have been on the menu for the last 30 years.”
From Fear to Free Choice
Under the Employee Free Choice Act: workers can win union representation through a majority sign-up process (or through a union election at workers’ discretion); real penalties can be imposed on employers who fire workers during the organizing process; and, if workers and management cannot agree on a first contract, a mediation and arbitration process would be used to reach an agreement.
“This is the first amendment to the National Labor Relations Act in its seventy year history that is pro worker,” said SCFL president Jim Cavanaugh.
“It’s the best antipoverty program in the country. It’s an American institution that does a lot of good. If you have a high rate of unionization you have a strong middle class,” Roger concluded.
Local 565’s Ryan took it one step further: “The more shops that are union, the more other plants will have to increase wages and benefits to keep their workers.”