How Common is Union Busting?

— By Bradford Plumer | Wed December 7, 2005 1:15 PM PST

Via Nathan Newman, an organization called American Rights at Work has just released a new report showing how widespread union-busting is among American employers. Some of the findings:

30% of employers fire pro-union workers.

49% of employers threaten to close a worksite when workers try to form a union.

51% of employers coerce workers into opposing unions with bribery or favoritism.

82% of employers hire unionbusting consultants to fight organizing drives.

91% of employers force employees to attend one-on-one anti-union meetings with supervisors.

As Nathan says, a majority of American workers would likely join a union if given the option. Most aren't given the option. ARW argues that major changes to labor law are needed to change this—including establishing "card checks" as a process for union organization, whereby a workplace would be unionized if a majority of workers simply signed a card, plus much tougher penalties for any employer that violated labor laws. But there's also something of a catch-22 here: Effective pro-labor legislation will be very difficult to pass in Congress without a strong labor movement agitating for it, but it's hard for the labor movement to become strong so long as the law is biased against unions.

So what to do, what to do? One of my favorite "out of the box" labor proposal comes from Joel Rogers and Richard Freeman, who have argued that "open-source unionism" is the way forward:

[Right now,] workers typically become union members only when unions gain majority support at a particular workplace. This makes the union the exclusive representative of those workers for purposes of collective bargaining. Getting to majority status… is a struggle. The law barely punishes employers who violate it, and the success of the union drive is typically determined by the level of employer resistance. Unions usually abandon workers who are unsuccessful in their fight to achieve majority status, and they are uninterested in workers who have no plausible near-term chance of such success.

Under open-source unionism, by contrast, unions would welcome members even before they achieved majority status, and stick with them as they fought for it--maybe for a very long time. These "pre-majority" workers would presumably pay reduced dues in the absence of the benefits of collective bargaining, but would otherwise be normal union members. They would gain some of the bread-and-butter benefits of traditional unionism--advice and support on their legal rights, bargaining over wages and working conditions if feasible, protection of pension holdings, political representation, career guidance, access to training and so on.

And even in minority positions, they might gain a collective contract for union members, or grow to the point of being able to force a wall-to-wall agreement for all workers in the unit. … Joining the labor movement would be something you did for a long time, not just an organizational relationship you entered into with a third party upon taking some particular job, to expire when that job expired or changed.

I don't really know what the upsides and downsides of this proposal are—it looks like all upside to me, but it's certainly worth debating, rather than waiting around hoping that pro-labor Democrats will ever regain power and fiddle with the law.

"Open-Source-Unionism" sounds a lot like the system we have in Germany. To me, it's _is_ all upside. But then, I'm a union member.

Let me try to describe our system.

Unions here are organised along trades, not individual "shops". Thus, metal-workers organise in one union, chemical workers in another and so on. Members pay 1% of their income as dues. In return, unions provide members with lawyers for employment and social security related cases - which I find quite sensible, given that the union can afford keeping lawyers that are specialised, while self-employed lawyers can't specialise as much. Unions also lately bargain for things like cheaper hotel or car rentals, cheaper insurances etc, but that's really not their core work, only an additional benefit.

Every union can - and will - collectively bargain if the employers are organised as well or are simply large enough. This is called a "Tarifvertrag" and usually valid for all of Germany and a _minimum_ of what organised workers get. Individual companies can, of course, bargain for better deals, but not for worse ones. While most companies extend the benefits of a Tarifvertrag to non-unionised workers as well, these workers don't have a guarantee for the benefits. Only union members can sue the company for the benefits.

Individual companies elect a "Betriebsrat" (worker's council) if three or more workers want one. This is independant of union membership. Perhaps that is closest to what you would consider a "union" in your article? A Betriebsrat can and will bargain collectively as well, but all agreements are valid only for the individual company and don't affect others. If a member of a Betriebsrat is a union member as well, she'll get the support of her union, of course. The main difference between a member of a Betriebsrat who is a union member and one who is not is that the former has a constant supply of seminars and legal support. Both have the same rights and legal protection.

Work done for the Betriebsrat is by law considered "normal" work and an employer has to make room (literally and figuratively) for such work or face stiff penalties. A member of a Betriebsrat has extended protection from being fired, because they're _meant_ to make themselves uncomfortable for the employer on behalf of their co-workers.

An employer will not learn if an employee is organised, even asking for union membership is illegal and legal precedence has been established that a worker may lie if the question is asked. Preventing workers from organising (either as Betriebsrat or in a union) carries a punishment of two years in prison.

Personally I have always told my employers that I'm a union member. It scares them at first, but later they realise that it only means that I know my rights as well as theirs. Once that happens, they aren't afraid to "talk shop" with me: we can talk about contract clauses openly, for example.

The main downside for workers is that collective bargaining is like a statistical average: an individual worker may be able to secure a better bargain if there is no collective bargaining. But most workers here are aware of their social responsibility and that they're "all in the same boat" and that they can still attempt individual bargains on top of the collective one.

If you want more information, please visit the DGB, which is a "union's union":
http://www.dgb.de/sprachen/englisch/kontakte.htm