A Tale of Two Futures for American Labor: Upsurge or Systemic Dismantlement?
The big United Autoworkers organizing win at Volkswagen in Tennessee is inspiring, but the right wing has a systemic plan to destroy labor if Trump takes power in November
Last week, Michael Podhorzer wrote a good piece in the Atlantic on “The Paradox of the American Labor Movement” outlining how labor is both at a historic high in terms of support, while still facing deep challenges. Podhorzer observes that:
Two in three Americans support unions, and 59 percent say they would be in favor of unionizing their own workplace. And Joe Biden supports organized labor more vocally than any other president in recent memory. You could look at all this and say that the U.S. labor movement is stronger than it has been in decades.
Nonetheless, because of severe legal challenges and fierce corporate opposition, “In 2023, according to an estimate by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, 60 million working people in this country wanted a union but couldn’t get one.” And even as we see big victories by the United Autoworkers and others, “the strategic effort to dilute worker power continues apace: Red-statechildren, and lawyers for Amazon, Starbucks, SpaceX, and Trader Joe’s have recently challenged the constitutionality of the NLRB.”
Despite this, the positive momentum and visionary thinking on the labor side has not stopped with simply getting unions, protecting jobs, and pushing for higher wages. Things like a 32-hour week are now on the agenda of organized labor both here in San Diego and nationwide.
As I wrote recently in the San Diego Union-Tribune, my own union, the American Federation of Teachers, Local 1931, is pushing for a 32-hour week for classified workers at the San Diego Community College District because:
The issue occupies a key nexus where the bread-and-butter concerns of workers meet the larger goals of social justice. Giving workers more free time liberates them to really own their lives as they move beyond the struggle to pay the bills and make rent, and start to work to live rather than merely living to work.
Nationwide, others in labor are having the same conversation, with unions like the UAW leading the way:
Around the world, [UAW President Shawn] Fain said, workers are waking up to the fact that capitalist priorities are not serving the rest of us, and the shorter workweek can be a demand that the organization of work serve workers’ interests for a change: “It’s not just a UAW issue, it’s not just a union issue, it’s a working class issue. That’s why I think our campaign resonated globally. You have the concentration of wealth going into the hands of fewer and fewer people, and something’s got to give.”
One way things could break was shown by the huge UAW win at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where a multiracial group of workers triumphed in an organizing drive in the deep south, defying the legacy of decades of racist divide and conquer tactics that have hamstrung the American labor movement there since the failure of the CIO’s Operation Dixie in the Post-World War II era. As The Cause observed of this accomplishment, “[I]t’s historic for the UAW. But it’s also a victory for those workers’ neighbors, because we know unions improve the life of all workers. And it’s fundamentally a victory for the people, for democracy, for the hope that the malignant forces that seek to divide us for massive profits will not win again.”
Aware of this very fact, the American right has taken a long-game approach, with groups like the American Legislative Council (ALEC) providing a systemic roadmap for state legislators to bust unions.
For ALEC, this is nothing new as In These Times reported:
The first edition of ALEC’s labor policy handbook, which was published in 2019, came on the heels of the Supreme Court’s momentous 2018 Janus ruling, which radically upended the lives of American workers by maintaining that public sector employees do not have to pay union dues as a condition of employment.
The second edition, published this year, adds three model bills to expand the scope of ALEC’s key anti-labor policies. In addition to its evergreen model “right-to-work” and union-busting bills, the updated edition includes bills that target independent contractors and occupational licensing. Two of these address interstate occupation licenses, with one setting up a process for reviewing all current and proposed occupational licenses.
Indeed, rather than simply doing a victory lap after winning the Janus decision at the Supreme Court to help them limit the power of public workers, the folks at ALEC are looking to transform the entire American workplace in favor of the corporate sector, “The new model bills included in the second edition focus on promulgating precarious employment through independent contracting laws and occupational licensing reforms.”
At the national level, building on the efforts of ALEC, the Heritage Foundation is engaged in Project 2025 that aims to transform the entire American political landscape by starving the beast of American government and regulatory agencies that might cut pollution, address climate change, enforce civil rights, or protect consumers.
And, underneath Trump’s bogus billionaire populism, lies the same old anti-worker agenda the right has held to tightly for decades. Thus in their 900-page “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” MAGA appears unmasked.
In These Times again notes that:
Despite the trumpeting of Republicans as the party of the working class, the Mandate agenda does little to address their economic interests. No mention of raising the minimum wage or bolstering union organizing. The Mandate suggests that states should get five-year waivers from labor laws to prove workers would fare just as well without unions. The risible theory for lifting wages is to limit benefits, putting a lid on the amount corporations can offer tax-free. Companies will be free to designate employees as independent contractors, with no benefits or rights whatsoever. The priority on Medicare is not lowering costs or extending benefits but making private plans—Medicare Advantage—the “default choice” for new retirees.
So whatever problems one might have with the Democratic Party, it’s centrally important not to take our eyes off the ball. Progressives inside and outside the labor movement need to win what, like it or not, is yet another existential battle for the existence of not just the labor movement as an effective vehicle for change for working people but the existence of an inclusive American democracy not totally dominated by billionaires and corporations for generations to come.
Jumping-Off Place Launch Celebration: Labor, Literature, and Film at the Digital Gym
For those interested in learning more about the struggles faced by American Workers in the days before the New Deal, mark your calendars for Sunday, May 5th at 4:00 PM at the Digital Gym at 1100 Market Street in downtown San Diego for a mixer with the editors of The Jumping-Off Place and the director of American Socialist: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs. The film charts the historic story of Eugene Victor Debs, an American Socialist leader and union organizer during the Progressive era, 1900 to 1920, who ran for US President on the Socialist Party ticket (SPA) five times, even once while he was in prison for speaking out against the US involvement in World War I.
Before the film we will have a mixer with Doug Porter, Kelly Mayhew, and me along with director, Yale Strom. There will be a very brief reading from my novel Drift that addresses the San Diego Free Speech Fight of 1912, and we will provide free books by Mel Freilicher, Robert Hine, and myself, all dealing with labor in the progressive era.
The event is co-sponsored by The Jumping-Off Place, the UCSD Labor Center, and the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council. Satomi Rash-Zeigler, the Executive Director of the Labor Center and Brigette Browning, the Secretary-Treasurer of the Labor Council, will also be making brief remarks.
The books and the film will be free for the first 20 attendees.