In the Know
Civil Rights and Labor Unions
A Century Foundation report proposes
that the nation's civil rights laws be amended to punish severely employers
who interfere with their employees' right to unionize.
Labor Organizing as a Civil
Right, a new idea brief from the Century
Foundation, argues that the rampant growth in economic inequality in
the United States has come about primarily because the nation's unions
are weak.
The unions are weak, notes the
report, "in large measure because it is relatively easy to fire
workers who attempt to organize a union."
The solution: The report's author
Richard D. Kahlenberg proposes that the right to organize a union in
the workplace be protected under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act.
The change is necessary, he argues,
because the civil rights law is much stronger than existing labor laws.
The current labor law is so weak
and the penalties so insignificant, the report notes, that employers
discharge workplace union organizers almost as a matter of course—and,
too often, the tactic works.
A Cornell University researcher
has found that employees are fired in 32 percent of private sector union
organizing drives. And, most of the time, the firings halt the unionization
drives.
Under current labor laws, employees
found to have been illegally fired for union activity are entitled to
back pay for time lost and reinstatement to their positions.
Under the stronger Civil Rights
Act, an employee illegally discharged for union activity would be eligible
for compensatory and punitive damages, as well as back pay.
The report acknowledges that many
factors contribute to the nation's economic inequality, including structural
changes in the economy that put a greater premium on education.
But the report argues that the
decline in the strength of organized labor has been a major contributor
for two reasons. First, studies show collective bargaining gives workers
a larger slice of the economic pie. Union wages are one-third higher
than non-union wages, even after controlling for variables.
Second, unions serve as a counterweight
to employers in political battles over economic policies like health
care, social security, job preservation and retraining, and other issues.
There may indeed be many reasons
for the decline of labor clout, the authors note, but weak labor laws
are clearly a significant factor.
The full report from the nonprofit,
nonpartisan Century Foundation can be found at: www.ideas2000.org/.
| From The Lectern |
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The rhetoric
of rights can be very powerful, and the 1935 Wagner Act has at
its core "the right to self-organization." Ironically,
business for years has appropriated the slogan "right to
work" to signify state legislation that prevents unions from
requiring the payment of dues from employees who benefit from
union protection but do not wish to be members. Union leaders
are beginning to take back the rhetoric, and in June 1998, the
AFL-CIO sponsored rallies in more than 70 cities to protest illegal
firings, likening the campaign "to a new civil rights movement"
and noting that "the only legally guaranteed right that Americans
are afraid to exercise is the right to form a union." The
next logical step is to write the issue of discrimination against
union organizers into the civil rights laws themselves.
-Richard
D. Kahlenberg, Labor Organizing as a Civil Right, The Century
Foundation August 2000
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