The State of the (U.S.) Unions By John Lund, PhD, Professor* Introduction: The story line is already a familiar one in many countries: despite a significant shift of resources into membership recruitment, union density continues to decline, offset partly by higher density in the public sector. Union density in the United States has continued an overall fifty-year decline, from a high-water mark of nearly 35% in the mid-1950’s to approximately 12% today; what is arresting an even steeper decline is public sector density, but even that too is starting to moderate. Winning the sweepstakes: With an “open shop” environment, Australian unions are in a constant recruitment mode, whereas many US unions are in a “sweepstakes”, “winner-takes-all” mode—a two-step process in which they first of all gain exclusive employer recognition and if successful, negotiate a collective agreement, which contains some form of union security such as union shop (join the union in 30 days as a condition of employment) or agency shop (join the union or pay the equivalent of union dues without actually joining as a condition of employment; these union security provisions are not lawful in twenty-two “right to work” states). Then and only then do the workers covered by that agreement become subscription-paying union members. Once a union security clause is in place, revenues from subscription paying members are pretty much guaranteed, barring a redundancy or plant closure. Gaining employer recognition of the union is a precondition for negotiations; it may be accomplished through voluntary recognition, or, if the employer does not wish to recognize the union, through a secret ballot election administered, in the private sector, by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB); states with public sector collective bargaining laws have similar boards that perform the same function. This rather arduous election process, which at best may take several months, requires the union to obtain signatures on authorization cards or a petition from at least thirty percent (30%) of employees in the proposed bargaining “unit”; this triggers an investigation and in most cases an election, called an “RC” (“Request for Certification”) election. Winning isn’t the only thing: Getting an NLRB-supervised RC election is often a “good news, bad news” story. The good news is that unions are winning more elections than they are losing and their win rate in percentage terms is actually increasing in recent years. The bad news is that there are fewer elections being conducted by the NLRB and these elections are covering fewer and fewer total workers. In order to simply maintain the current levels of union density, it is estimated a net of over 400,000 new union members must be recruited nationwide (that’s over 20% of the entire Australian labor movement!). In a good year, about 200,000 will be in bargaining units where the union has been certified as the winner of an RC election. But not all of these workers will actually become union members. Unlike legendary Green Bay Packers coach Lombardi, “winning is not the only thing”; it’s only the first step. The next step is to convert that win into a collective bargaining agreement. According to the US Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, slightly more than half of these election victories are converted into first contracts. Combining these two probabilities, a greater than fifty percent chance of winning a recognition election and a greater than fifty percent change of negotiating a first contract with some form of union security, a typical American union which begins a private sector organizing campaign has roughly one chance in four of ever collecting subscriptions from a group of workers. While those may be good odds for the average punter, election and contract campaigns are expensive and time consuming. But at present levels, even if those odds were improved significantly, they would not replace the loss in union density fast enough. Voluntary recognition procedures: If there is any hope to turning around declining union density, it so far has come through increased use of voluntary recognition campaign strategies, which do not rely upon elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. Certain building and construction trades, the Service Employees, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union have used voluntary recognition procedures effectively. Effective voluntary recognition campaigns require considerable research on the part of the union to identify those employers who are likely to agree to voluntary recognition procedures, which essentially include a written promise that they will be bound by the results of a “card check” conducted by a neutral third party. Some voluntary recognition agreements (“VRAs”) also include a “neutrality” pledge in which the employer agrees not to run an aggressive anti-union campaign. At the “day of reckoning”, the designated third party receives a list of all bargaining unit employees on the payroll as of the agreed-to cut-off date and a set of authorization cards signed by employees who wish to be represented by the union. If the union receives a majority of support, they are certified by that third party as the representative of employees and bargaining commences. Note here that VRAs only address step one (recognition) of the two-step process; even if the union wins the VRA step, it must still negotiate a first contract. Eaton and Kriesky (2001) however found that VRAs were much more likely to result in union recognition than the NLRB mechanisms and also in obtaining first contracts. That the VRA process can expedite recognition and first contracts is only one of the attractions; timeliness is another. NLRB election results and election campaign conduct, depending upon the election type, can be challenged and tied up for months and years. The UFCW has claimed to have brought in over 200,000 new members in 1997 and 1998 respectively with VRAs, but there are no published data on the number of new members they bring in by virtue of their informal nature. With only anecdotal data, it is difficult to assess the trajectory of voluntary recognition agreements. In the current political climate, it is difficult to imagine how many employers would willingly agree to a VRA. They are much more likely to occur in retail and wholesale trade, in hotel chains and in construction. There are very unlikely to occur in manufacturing. Not many unions have embraced them. To those who closely follow the fortunes of organized labor in the U.S., including union officials themselves, there seems to be a shared notion that only “regime change” can create the favorable legal and regulatory climate to help reverse this long-term decline in union density. Earlier this year, the US House of Representatives passed the Employee Free Choice Act (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.800:), which even though it is scheduled for a vote in the Senate would, if passed, in all likelihood be vetoed by the President, with little likelihood of a veto override. Prevous attempts to change the National Labor Relations Act have, in the past, either met with failure or have served to further restrict the rights of organized labor (witness the 1947 Taft-Hartley or the 1959 amendments; only two favorable changes, to include postal and private hospital workers, have been made since the Act was passed in 1935; there is considerable fear that opening up the law to amendment might actually make matters worse). A New Board? The NLRB is a quasi-judicial body with five members, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, to five year overlapping terms. Currently, its chairman’s term will expire in December 2007 and two other members are serving recess appointments (their appointments haven’t been confirmed by the US Senate). While the timing of this may be dicey, given that a new President won’t take office until mid-January 2009, experience has taught us that new board members can bring about significant policy shifts through both their decisions and their leadership, in areas such as budget and rule-making. But even under best-case scenario, it will still take a significant commitment of resources and energy by unions to begin to turn back a near tectonic movement that began half a century ago. References: Adrienne E. Eaton and Jill Kriesky, “Union Organizing under Neutrality and Card Check Agreements”, Industrial and Labor Relations Review , 55(1), Oct., 2001, 42-59. National Labor Relations Board, Seventieth Annual Report (Fiscal Year ending 30/9/2005), http://www.nlrb.gov/Publications/Publications/annual_reports.aspx. * Professor John Lund, PhD works for the School for Workers, University of Wisconsin-Extension Published on workSite 7 August 2007. worksite home