With the disappearance of high-wage manufacturing jobs overseas and the bulk of job growth expected to occur in healthcare and retail jobs, can we expect to see more low-wage workers unionize? Edward J. Hertenstein, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois who studies labor history and collective bargaining, discusses the future of organized labor with News Bureau reporter Phil Ciciora.
How prevalent are unions for low-wage workers?
They're not very prevalent at all. Unionization is still mostly concentrated in a few areas: manufacturing, transportation and the public sector, such as state, federal and county employees.
In the past, labor unions were primarily concerned with high-wage manufacturing jobs. But in a global economy, those jobs are rapidly disappearing. No matter what kind of economic recovery we have, some of our manufacturing jobs will be gone forever. It's been like that every time we have a recession over the past two decades.
The sectors of the economy that have had the largest growth during that time are in low-wage private sector jobs. A lot of those jobs have come about through the privatization of jobs that once were funded by the tax-paying public.
For example, in the 1980s, homes for the mentally disabled were staffed by unionized state employees, and they received a livable wage. But ever since the de-institutionalization movement in the 1970s and 80s, the care for those clients was moved into the community; now that work is for the most part performed by employees of private sector companies whose wage rates are much, much lower than what the state was paying.
With the number of healthcare and fast food workers predicted to rise over the next decade, can we expect to see more workers in those industries unionizing, especially since these types of jobs are no longer considered entry level in our sluggish economy?
I think so, for the simple reason that the wages those jobs pay are simply not high enough to live on. The average restaurant worker makes $270 per week, and the poverty line for a family of four is $424 per week. If they unionized, they could probably get to the poverty line, which would be around $11 per hour.
But it's extremely difficult to unionize a fast food workforce, for a number of reasons.
For every worker for whom this is their full-time job, there are more part-timers or seasonal workers. Or it's seen an entry-level or steppingstone job, especially in college towns where there is a glut of 18- to 24-year-olds. On the one hand, people figure, 'What have I got to lose? I'm making $8.25 an hour. On the other hand, they might think, 'I don't need this hassle, I can get another job across town.' It has a different effect on different people.
There's also a lot of turnover in low-wage jobs. Organizing is a process that takes time. First you have to find people who might be interested. Then you have to train them on how to talk to other people in order to interest them. That process can take quite a while, up until the point where you can get workers to sign authorization cards.
Then you have to go the National Labor Relations board and ask for an election, which could take another six weeks to three months, and after that it could be another six months before it's certified. At minimum, you're looking at two years. A lot of people who started the process won't be there. So you have to sell the process over and over again as each new wave of workers join. It's difficult, to say the least.
The employer can also fight the process by firing people for organizing. It's illegal, but it happens.
Is organizing also complicated by the lack of enthusiasm for organized labor among the public these days?
Some union situations can gather a lot of public support, and some don't. When people see healthcare workers walking out on the job, they interpret that as them abandoning their loved ones. When the autoworkers had their contracts re-negotiated during the government bailouts, not a lot of people supported them. The common sentiment was that they were making too much money already. So they renegotiated and gave up a lot, despite the bonuses and golden parachutes for the executives at the car companies going untouched.
If the workers are well known in the community, people tend to have a higher opinion of them. A good example of this is the UPS strike from 1997. They had a lot of public support because everybody knows their UPS driver. So it's a matter of putting a face on things. But most customers only see faceless workers behind the counter, so workers striking at a fast-food restaurant might not inspire a lot of public support.
Would having more unionization among our workforce help to strengthen our eroding middle class?
Yes, that would have the effect of moving more workers from the working poor to the middle class.
If you try to lift up a lot more workers to even just the poverty line, that alone would strengthen the middle class. The low wageworkers will have more money to spend, and that all gets spent on goods and services. When that happens, the demand for consumer products goes up. That helps American workers; it helps business; it helps stock values; and it increases tax revenue without raising tax rates. It would help everyone except the payday loan companies.