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> Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:20:43 -0800<BR>> To: <BR>> From: flonidier@ucsd.edu<BR>> Subject: A Brief History of Opposition to Public-Sector Unionism<BR>> <BR>> A Brief History of Opposition to Public-Sector Unionism<BR>> <BR>> By Steve Fraser and Joshua B. Freeman<BR>> <BR>> Steve Fraser is a historian, editor at large of New Labor<BR>> Forum, and is working on a book about The Age of<BR>> Acquiescence. Joshua B. Freeman teaches history at the<BR>> City University of New York and is completing a history of<BR>> the United States since World War II for the Penguin<BR>> History of the United States. This article will appear in<BR>> the Fall 2011 issue of New Labor Forum and is being<BR>> published here with the permission of the journal.<BR>> <BR>> 6-08-11<BR>> <BR>> http://hnn.us/articles/139820.html<BR>> <BR>> There is nothing new about opposition to public-sector<BR>> unionism. It has been a feature of American life for over<BR>> one hundred years. But in some ways, the current wave of<BR>> anti-unionism is a departure. Three different eras of<BR>> opposition to public-sector unionism, including the<BR>> current one, have been distinguished by distinct core<BR>> arguments against collective bargaining for public<BR>> employees.<BR>> <BR>> >From the early 1900s through the 1960s, opposition to<BR>> public sector unionism largely rested on the idea that it<BR>> undercut the sovereignty of government. Unions of<BR>> government employees were unusual during this period,<BR>> though non-union associations of government workers, which<BR>> engaged in lobbying, advocacy, and fraternal activities,<BR>> were fairly common. When government workers tried to<BR>> engage in private sector-type unionism, they ran into<BR>> fierce opposition. The 1919 Boston police strike--which<BR>> occurred in the middle of the post-World War I Red Scare<BR>> and an extraordinary year-long series of militant strikes<BR>> in virtually every industry--showed how far public<BR>> employers would go to block public-sector militancy and<BR>> the political gains to be made in doing so. The Boston<BR>> police commissioner did not object when police officers<BR>> joined a local, independent association. But when they<BR>> affiliated their group with the AFL, in effect claiming<BR>> the same rights and status as private-sector workers, he<BR>> suspended nineteen officers, precipitating a walkout.<BR>> Governor Calvin Coolidge, in the name of defending "the<BR>> sovereignty of Massachusetts," fired all the strikers,<BR>> brought in state troops to patrol the city, and recruited<BR>> a new police force from demobilized soldiers. He rode his<BR>> strike-breaking into the 1920 Republican vice presidential<BR>> nomination and ultimately to the White House.<BR>> <BR>> Many liberals shared Coolidge's belief that government<BR>> employees should not be allowed to unionize, or at least<BR>> not engage in private-sector style unionism. In 1937<BR>> President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a letter to the head<BR>> of a federal employees group, proclaimed that:<BR>> <BR>> All Government employees should realize that the process<BR>> of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be<BR>> transplanted into the public service... . The very nature<BR>> and purposes of Government make it impossible for<BR>> administrative officials to represent fully or bind the<BR>> employer ... The employer is the whole people, who speak<BR>> by means of laws enacted by their representatives...<BR>> <BR>> This is the essence of the sovereignty argument against<BR>> public-sector unionism, that collective bargaining<BR>> undercuts the inherent power of the state as a sovereign<BR>> representative of the people, and therefore is<BR>> anti-democratic.<BR>> <BR>> To this day, a few states, clustered in the South,<BR>> completely ban collective bargaining by state and local<BR>> government workers, while others limit it in various ways,<BR>> often resting on the same state sovereignty argument<BR>> Coolidge and Roosevelt made many decades ago. But over<BR>> time, in much of the country, sovereignty objections to<BR>> public-sector unionism diminished. The vast expansion of<BR>> the labor movement in the mid-twentieth century made<BR>> everyone, including political authorities, more accustomed<BR>> to the central presence of unions in American life.<BR>> <BR>> Starting in the late 1950s, a set of ideas and laws<BR>> emerged which created in the public sector a variation of<BR>> unionism that granted workers different and usually<BR>> reduced rights compared to private employees. In most of<BR>> the country, when public sector workers won the right to<BR>> unionize, they did so under rules and systems designed, in<BR>> part, to address the sovereignty issue. In 1959,<BR>> Wisconsin--with its long history of progressive labor<BR>> legislation and a recent increase in Democratic<BR>> power--passed the first state law granting the right to<BR>> public-sector collective bargaining after a campaign by<BR>> the American Federation of State, County and Municipal<BR>> Employees. The law exempted public safety workers--the<BR>> Boston police strike cast a long shadow--and forbad<BR>> government employees from striking. In New York City,<BR>> which pioneered municipal unionism, public employee<BR>> strikes were illegal, too, though they nonetheless<BR>> occurred. The federal government, which allowed<BR>> collective bargaining beginning in 1962, likewise banned<BR>> strikes. Some government employers also forbid collective<BR>> bargaining over public policy, again addressing the<BR>> sovereignty issue. In New York City, for example, after a<BR>> 1965 strike when social workers demanded and won improved<BR>> benefits for their clients, the city government<BR>> specifically forbad bargaining over the level of services<BR>> city agencies delivered, diminishing the possibilities for<BR>> alliances between service providers and service users.<BR>> <BR>> Such arrangements lessened concern over public-sector<BR>> unionism. When in 1970 postal workers engaged in the<BR>> largest public employee strike in U.S. history, Richard<BR>> Nixon called out the National Guard but also allowed<BR>> Secretary of Labor George Schultz to engage in collective<BR>> bargaining to end the walkout. Reflecting the new<BR>> consensus on public-sector unionism (at least outside of<BR>> the South), and the still formidable power of the labor<BR>> movement, Congress endorsed most of the agreement Schultz<BR>> and the unions worked out and allowed future bargaining,<BR>> but legislators also denied postal workers the right to<BR>> strike or have a union shop.<BR>> <BR>> The next wave of opposition to public-sector unionism,<BR>> just a few years later, saw new arguments deployed. In<BR>> the mid-1970s, a deep recession left many states and<BR>> cities in fiscal difficulty, with New York City capturing<BR>> national attention as it hovered on the edge of<BR>> bankruptcy. (Cleveland actually did default on its debt.)<BR>> But even at the height of the fiscal crisis, political<BR>> conservatives, like Secretary of Treasury William Simon,<BR>> and bankers, like First National City Bank's Walter<BR>> Wriston, who fiercely opposed municipal unions, by and<BR>> large did not call for a withdrawal of their bargaining<BR>> rights or question their basic legitimacy. Rather, they<BR>> opposed what those unions had concretely achieved through<BR>> bargaining and militant action. Their core argument was<BR>> that public-sector unions had won wages and benefits<BR>> beyond what government entities could afford.<BR>> Accordingly, they demanded that the New York City<BR>> government wrest wage and benefits concessions from the<BR>> unions, which it did, but without threatening their very<BR>> existence.<BR>> <BR>> For some fiscal crisis-era opponents of the public-sector<BR>> unions, the argument was not simply about budgets. Simon<BR>> and many other conservatives detested what they saw as the<BR>> growth of an extravagant social welfare state, exemplified<BR>> by New York City. They targeted what in their view were<BR>> excessivemunicipal employee pay rates and benefits as part<BR>> of the broad problem of an overly-generous social wage.<BR>> For conservative critics of government unionism, high<BR>> municipal pay rates and pensions were of a piece with free<BR>> tuition at the City University of New York, cheap mass<BR>> transit, and rent control, all of which, except for the<BR>> last, they managed to chip away. Many private employers<BR>> wanted to weaken public-sector unions, too, or at least<BR>> roll back their contracts, because the benefits (though<BR>> not the pay) their companies offered paled in comparison.<BR>> They did not want an ample benchmark of employee benefits<BR>> set by the state. The fight over public-sector unionism<BR>> was thus part of a broader class struggle, an attack on<BR>> the working class by ruling elites in the face of global<BR>> economic stagnation.<BR>> <BR>> In New York, municipal unions made preserving collective<BR>> bargaining a central goal. Their ability to do so--they<BR>> actually strengthened their institutional rights when they<BR>> got the state legislature to agree to the agency shop<BR>> (requiring workers who decline to join the union<BR>> representing them to a pay a fee in lieu of dues)--was a<BR>> measure of their power, but also of the diminished<BR>> importance of the sovereignty argument questioning the<BR>> very legitimacy of public-sector unionism. The most high<BR>> profile attack on public-employee unionists since the<BR>> Boston police strike, Ronald Reagan's firing of the PATCO<BR>> strikers in 1981, had more impact in the private sector,<BR>> emboldening employers to break strikes and attack unions,<BR>> than in the public sector, where unions continued to grow.<BR>> <BR>> Which brings us to the third, current wave of opposition<BR>> to public-sector unionism. What we are seeing now is the<BR>> recapitulation and revival of all the old arguments<BR>> against public-sector unionism, and then some new ones.<BR>> Budgetary problems have been the occasion for reopening<BR>> the question of public-sector unionism, and the<BR>> justification for seeking to lower pay, benefits, and<BR>> bargaining rights. Some harsh anti-union officials, like<BR>> New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, have been pretty much<BR>> willing to stop at reducing the cost of publicly-employed<BR>> labor. But, as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker<BR>> demonstrated, even when unionists have addressed budgetary<BR>> concerns anti-unionism has continued, suggesting that the<BR>> recession--perhaps together with the drastic decline in the<BR>> power and reputation of the labor movement generally--has<BR>> been an opportunity for, as much as a cause of, the<BR>> revived assault.<BR>> <BR>> In Wisconsin and elsewhere, the sovereignty argument has<BR>> reemerged in several forms. It is often recast as an<BR>> efficiency issue; government leaders need flexibility to<BR>> provide the best and most cost-efficient services as<BR>> possible. Particularly in regard to teachers unions,<BR>> critics have argued that seniority systems and tenure<BR>> impede the workings of meritocracy, which they claim makes<BR>> the private sector more efficient than government. And<BR>> the sovereignty cum democracy argument has now been<BR>> revived as an effort to take on unions as a special<BR>> interest that has hijacked the people's government for its<BR>> own behalf. Some of the proposals for revising state<BR>> public employee bargaining laws specifically ban<BR>> bargaining over public policy issues.<BR>> <BR>> But other arguments and motivations have emerged, too,<BR>> some unspoken. Part of what we are seeing is a partisan<BR>> strategy to defund the Democratic party, which has<BR>> received massive amounts of money from the union movement<BR>> in recent years, especially from public-sector unions<BR>> (which nationally now represent a majority of union<BR>> members). Thus the new push to deny public-sector unions<BR>> bargaining rights is a largely Republican phenomenon. In<BR>> Massachusetts, though, Democrats led an effort to deny<BR>> municipal workers the right to bargain over health care<BR>> benefits, infuriating their union backers.<BR>> <BR>> Finally, there is one more basis for the current push<BR>> against public-sector unions, and that is that they are<BR>> seen as representatives of the state itself, which is now<BR>> cast in almost completely negative terms. Government<BR>> worker power and pay, so the argument goes, should be<BR>> chopped down to size because government should be chopped<BR>> down to size. Government is bad because it impedes<BR>> liberty and sucks resources from its citizenry. This is<BR>> almost the reverse of the old sovereignty argument. The<BR>> problem with government employee unions is not that they<BR>> undermine the power of the state but that they are part of<BR>> it, symbolically and practically. Unions hamper the<BR>> disassembly of the state: lay-offs, agency closures,<BR>> budget cuts, privatization, and the elimination of welfare<BR>> benefits. Therefore, unions have to go.<BR>> <BR>> So today we face layer upon layer of anti-public sector<BR>> union arguments. It is a tough challenge. But, of<BR>> course, the amazing mobilizations that occurred in<BR>> response to anti-union attacks in Wisconsin, Indiana,<BR>> Ohio, and elsewhere make it clear that there is another<BR>> side to this story. Americans, by and large, do not hate<BR>> school teachers, policemen, or the highway crew. Some may<BR>> think government is too big and their taxes are too<BR>> high--though it is not clear that most do--but they do not<BR>> share the broad anti-statism that informs much of the<BR>> current attack on public-sector unions. Some low-paid<BR>> workers no doubt resent paying taxes to finance government<BR>> worker benefits like pensions and health insurance that<BR>> they themselves do not receive. But today's attack on<BR>> public-sector unionism is not a populist revolt but a<BR>> movement from the top down, led and financed by some of<BR>> the wealthiest people and corporations in the country.<BR>> The solidarity displayed in Madison, which extended beyond<BR>> the public-sector unions to the entire union movement and<BR>> to students, activists, and common citizens, suggests<BR>> that-- although the public sector unions and their allies<BR>> confront both a fiscal crisis and a thick layering of<BR>> arguments against them--there are good reasons for hope.<BR>> <BR>> ___________________________________________<BR>> <BR>> Portside aims to provide material of interest to people<BR>> on the left that will help them to interpret the world<BR>> and to change it.<BR>> <BR>> Submit via email: portside@portside.org<BR>> <BR>> Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3<BR>> <BR>> Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq<BR>> <BR>> Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe<BR>> <BR>> Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive<BR>> <BR>> Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate<BR></P> </div></body>
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