XI. UNION EXCLUSION IN THE UNITED STATES, UNITED KINGDOM, AND WESTERN EUROPE

DISCUSSION

SHELDON FRIEDMAN
AFL-CIO

      These papers trace a disturbing pattern. That workers' freedom to unionize is widely suppressed in the United States by U.S.-based employers comes as no surprise to anyone remotely familiar with our industrial relations scene. Suppression of the freedom to unionize, however, does not stop there. It is also routinely practiced, as we learn from Tony Royle, by U.S.-based and other multinational corporations in the fast-growing fast food industry in their non-U.S. operations. It is also often practiced, as we are reminded by John Logan, by foreign-based corporations doing business in the U.S. It is even being practiced, as we learn from Tony Dundon and Gregor Gall, by a large and growing number of employers in the UK.

      It is noteworthy, though, that the scale and intensity of employer suppression of unionization remain far greater in the United States. Comparing UK figures presented by Gregor Gall with NLRB statistics for the United States and adjusting for the difference in population between the two countries, it appears that illegal discharges in retaliation for union activity are about 50 times more prevalent in the United States than in the UK.

      This is, without doubt, a useful collection of papers on a vital but understudied topic. The authors are, in a sense, too modest, since they spend little time explaining the importance of their topic. So these comments will do that for them. In so doing, three points will be made:

• The freedom of workers to unionize is, and should be, a fundamental human right.

• The employer behavior described in these papers has a major impact in suppressing this fundamental human right.

• The consequences of suppressing workers' freedom are severe, not only for the workers directly affected, but for society as a whole.

      In closing, a few thoughts about what might be done to counter employer suppression of the freedom to unionize will be presented.

      Probably most members of the general public, and even most members of the IR profession, view union organizing campaigns mainly as struggles over competing economic interests between workers who want higher wages and employers who want to keep profits high. Viewed in this way, the employer behavior and the behavior of their hired gun consultants described in these papers, while unsavory, reflects little more than employers getting their best hold to defend their economic interests.

      But what if more than economic interests are at stake? What if workers' freedom to unionize is a fundamental human right? Then we are looking at a horse of an entirely different color. Suppressing a person's freedom to unionize would then be as immoral as discriminating against a person on account of their religious beliefs or skin color. The entire industry of anti-union consultants and lawyers cataloged so well by John Logan would then exist for the purpose of suppressing human rights; a more questionable basis for an industry is hard to imagine.

      Well, it turns out that there is abundant support for the proposition that freedom to unionize indeed is a human right. The UN's 1947 Universal Declaration of Human Rights says so, the 1998 ILO Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work says so, and much else in between says so. If the freedom to unionize is a fundamental human right, then it supersedes the mere economic interest of employers in protecting their profits, and suppression of that freedom by employers or their agents is a violation of human rights.

      Why should freedom to unionize enjoy human rights status? Stated far too briefly, human beings have an inherent right to associate, to band together in pursuit of legitimate shared aims. In the workplace, this means workers must be free to form organizations that they control--unions--for the purpose of jointly determining with employers the terms and conditions of employment. The alternative, allowing employers to set unilaterally all terms and conditions of employment, is an unacceptable affront to human dignity inconsistent with the norms of a democratic society.

      Not only is freedom to unionize a fundamental human right, as it should be, but the employer behavior documented by Logan, Royle, Dundon, and Gall is unfortunately highly effective in suppressing it. There is, of course, an extensive literature on reasons for the long-term decline in unionization, especially in the United States, and this is not the time or place to review it. Changes in the economy, notably the shrinkage of manufacturing, have played an important role. Doubtless too the labor movement, alas, has made plenty of mistakes. But at the end of the day, the evidence that millions of non-union workers want and need unions is overwhelming, as is the evidence that a principal reason--perhaps the principal reason--they don't have those unions is employer interference, often orchestrated by hired consultants, wielding the array of tactics that John Logan described so well.

      The results of allowing employers a virtually free hand in suppressing workers' freedom to unionize have been little short of devastating, not only for the workers directly affected but, it can be argued, for American society and quality of life overall. Direct consequences include the suppression of wages and benefits and the silencing of workers' voices in the workplace and on the job. This harms all workers, but especially those who face the most difficulties in the labor market--women, minorities, immigrants, workers with less than a college education, and low-wage workers of all kinds. Little wonder, then, that the last three decades of declining unionization coincided with rising inequality in the distribution of income and wealth to levels not seen since the 1920s.

      Civil society has also been affected, as recent political science research suggests that there is a strong link between declining unionization and the long-term secular decline in the proportion of American adults who register to vote, and who vote. What about the strength of society's safety net? Is it conceivable that if union density in the United States had remained at or near 1950s levels, the Social Security system would be under unprecedented political attack, the unemployment insurance and welfare systems would be in tatters, or 42 million Americans would lack medical insurance? The previous observations just scratch the surface of the heavy price that virtually unfettered employer suppression of the freedom to unionize has forced society to pay.

      So, what is to be done? The AFL-CIO has responded with the Voice@Work campaign; it is a little surprising that John Logan's otherwise admirably comprehensive paper didn't mention it. The purpose of V@W is to help workers win the freedom to choose a union. The long-term goal must be nothing less than a cultural shift so complete that employer suppression of workers' freedom to unionize becomes as socially unacceptable and morally repugnant as forcing African Americans to drink from separate water fountains or ride in the back of the bus--trappings of Jim Crow racism, repulsive today, that were the social norm enforced by law in a number of states just 40 years ago.

      Such a change in culture will require a major change in U.S. labor laws, but it will need much more than that--it will require a social movement to be built around, and to struggle for, the freedom to unionize. Instead of suffering in virtual silence while employers and their consultants use every trick in the book to suppress freedom to unionize, the labor movement must mobilize community and public support to publicize these wholesale violations of human rights and to teach employers that such behavior is no longer acceptable. When this happens, workers can win the freedom to unionize, even in the current repressive climate.

      The role of scholars in bringing about this kind of social change is considerable, and the papers presented in this session are an important contribution.