Working Together: Restoring the Middle Class Means Restoring Bargaining Rights

 Larry Cohen
 CWA President

In democracies around the world — including many developing economies — there is a general understanding that collective bargaining is a public good. Labor laws and policies reflect that fact by protecting workers' organizing rights and promoting collective bargaining.

The role of collective bargaining and unions in promoting social progress once was recognized in the United States, too, as embodied in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. But the spirit as well as the provisions of our labor laws have all but been destroyed by the steady assault of corporations and union-hating politicians. The articles in this special theme issue describe what that has meant to our nation.

The chart on the next page makes a clear point. Countries with a high percentage of workers who have bargaining rights are far ahead of the United States in providing universal health coverage, strong retirement security, paid family and sick leave and other protections that benefit every citizen.

And it isn't just high-income countries that surpass the United States in ensuring decent working and living conditions. Workers in Portugal, Ireland and Korea, for example, receive pensions amounting to a higher portion of pre-retirement earnings than U.S. workers. Even formerly repressive regimes such as South Africa and Brazil have higher percentages of workers with bargaining rights than our country today.

By contrast, the dismal position of the United States in these areas can be attributed to the fact that only 12 million of our workers today have collective bargaining agreements.

Another chart, on page 5, vividly shows the trend in our country. It is a bell curve representing the surge of traditional pension coverage during the period of highest union representation in the United States — nearly 35 percent in the mid-1950s — with coverage plummeting as the percentage of workers with bargaining rights has dropped sharply.

At the bargaining table, organized workers set a standard that elevated all workplaces and created the American middle-class during the post-war period. Besides the growth of pension plans, wage levels grew dramatically, employer-based health care brought coverage to millions of families, jobs were relatively secure.

Today we all recognize the term "middle-class squeeze." Real income has stagnated for years even as we work longer hours. Forty-seven million Americans have no health coverage at all. Outsourcing is stealing good jobs and forcing people to accept lower paying positions. College opportunity is slipping away for many young people. Companies are eliminating traditional pensions.

Can there be any doubt that this is directly linked to the weakening of our unions and our collective bargaining rights?

Beyond wage and benefit standards, workers through their organized power have contributed mightily to the greater good in the political arena, often through alliances with other groups and movements.

As articles in this issue describe, the grassroots energy and ferment of the early union movement paved the way for the 40-hour week and other protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The labor movement was a central force in the American civil rights movement. Such fundamental programs as Medicare, the Minimum Wage, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act wouldn't exist without the clout of unions and rank-and-file activists.

Restoring the American middle class means restoring the bargaining power of American workers. Just as we had a substantial movement of worker activists who won positive change in the 1930s and '40s, we need to build a new movement — a stewards army — to reestablish our bargaining power.

And it is essential that we pass the Employee Free Choice Act to mitigate the tactics employers use to intimidate and frustrate workers in gaining representation and winning first contracts (see page 11).

I'm hopeful that as you read this, the Act will have already been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. That is really just the beginning of the fight, because this administration has pledged to its corporate friends that it will veto the measure.

But House passage will demonstrate that the last election gave us the beginning of a new era in Washington — that the winds are finally turning against the forces of corporate greed and excess and in favor of working families. It will give us the confidence and energy to complete the job of electing leaders in 2008 who will stand up for workers' organizing and bargaining rights.

We're back — we're fighting back!  But as always, this will only move forward with your support and leadership.