Right to Work: Are Unions Still Relevant?

With the union protests in Wisconsin, the teachers’ strike in Chicago, the closing of Hostess, the Right to Work law in Michigan, and other recent events, the discussion about the usefulness and role of unions continues to regain importance in the public sphere. In the U.S., anti-union forces really began to mobilize in the 1980s and have taken advantage of every opportunity to raise questions about the continued relevance of unions. The pro-union voices have typically responded by listing all the things unions accomplished a hundred years ago, thus unintentionally contributing to the perception that unions are a relic of a bygone age, operating within an archaic and simultaneously (paradoxically) overly-bureaucratized structure.

It is interesting to look at how this dynamic played out in the recent debate over Michigan’s Right to Work legislation. On the face of it, and as the bill is publicly presented, the issue revolves around whether union membership should be a choice or a mandate. Thus, it is packaged in the typical liberal discourse of “freedom of choice.” This ensures widespread support.

This “freedom of choice” rhetoric is also used to strengthen strategically propagated (though not entirely false) images of unions robbing paychecks for dues and forcibly promoting their political agendas. Under these circumstances, it seems reasonable that a person may wish to decline participation in a union. And why should any person be forced to join any organization?

Every potential bit of evidence of union coercion is thrown into the spotlight and continually regurgitated to support the ideological goals of the anti-union forces, who have substantial media influence. Employer coercion, in contrast, often lurks beneath the surface and escapes widespread attention. The fact of the matter is that the opposition at stake is not that of union coercion versus freedom, but rather of union coercion versus employer coercion, and unions and employers are not equal forces. It is a well documented fact that employers use every manner of intimidation available to them to discourage union participation. If union participation is not mandated, there is nothing to stop the employer from trying to mandate the opposite, as Walmart, for example, has done. Furthermore, such weakening of unions will by necessity undermine their ability to negotiate. What leverage will unions have when a pool of non-union reserve labor is always available? The ultimate effect of eliminating the mandate, then, is the complete emasculation of unions and the obstruction of their most central function.

This is where the question of their relevance comes in. It is often argued that they really don’t serve any necessary function today. The world of the Industrial Age has long passed, and the concerns of that era are no longer valid. Why is it, then, that U.S. corporations do not hesitate to engender the exact same conditions in other parts of the world, where no opposing force exists to stop them? From Foxconn in China to the Walmart sweatshops in Bangladesh... it is clear that industry still operates according to the exact same principles. I have heard the rebuttal that there are cultural differences in those parts of the world, that they are not as developed or enlightened, and that it is better than sitting in the jungle eating poop. This, of course, is racist. The appeal to “culture” most often is a racial argument. The reality, as I have already explained many times in this blog, is that forces of global capitalism have created underdevelopment and poverty in the Third World. So sweatshops most certainly are not saving them from some supposed savage life. Moreover, industry is not culturally biased. It will build sweatshops wherever it is allowed.

Of course, then the whole issue degenerates into the question of whether workers should willfully work for less than they need to survive or be happy seeing domestic jobs disappear. The very fact that this is an either/or situation proves the inhumanity of capitalism.

So, if one looks at the global organization of production, it is clear that the existence and proper functioning of unions are key to ensuring that workers in particular countries make enough money to feed themselves and their families. In fact, unions have been necessary to the development of capitalism as a whole. The worker unrest that emerged in its earlier stages would have certainly destroyed the entire arrangement if the creation of the welfare state and unions had not placated workers and made them more amenable to being exploited. In some sense the work of unions serves the general conditions that support the functioning of the capitalist system. Not only does it control worker unrest, but higher wages in one business or industry is beneficial to all the other industries in the form of expanded demand. On the other hand, capitalists have always been more concerned about their immediate interests, which union bargaining does frustrate. More than that, the greatest threat posed by the existence of unions (regardless of whether they are functioning effectively or not) is that they organize the working class. Capitalists realize that their system has shaky foundations and have always feared the revolutionary potential of an organized working class. This fear is probably the primary driver for the coordinated propaganda against unions.

If unions have become in any way irrelevant, this is the crucial area where that has occurred. In the past, unions had connections to revolutionary political parties and organizations. They questioned the system and in some cases tried to fight against it. The biggest blow to the power and relevance of unions was, in the decades following the Great Depression, when the Democrats incorporated them into their coalition. Unions no longer promote the type of consciousness that is needed to challenge capitalism. They function as a wing of the Democratic party. They are happy to concern themselves primarily with the haggling over wages and benefits (which I do not mean to disparage) and have ceded any broader transformative role. In that sense, they are supporting the system that oppresses them.

The New Era of Education Reform

By the time that President Bush took office in 2001, the desire to raise achievement for all students (born out of A Nation at Risk) still remained, but with a distinct tendency to avoid any discussion of what students should know in any subject (a result of the history standards controversy). To satisfy both of these conflicting demands, reformers began to concentrate exclusively on skills - primarily reading, and secondarily mathematics.

The demand for higher standards was replaced by the demand for greater accountability, and this was to be understood solely in terms of test scores in reading and mathematics. It was presumed that the performance of districts, schools, and individual teachers could be measured by changes in students' test scores. Of course, this is not the case, for a large number of reasons, many relating to the nature of the tests themselves. The most fundamental underlying assumption was that all students could succeed given the right teachers and schools. Social structural factors, in the end, did not matter. This, of course, is neoliberal ideology. Social structural factors will always have primary causality, and school-related factors can only have marginal mitigating effects.

The accountability movement joined forces with the school choice movement and the resulting love-child was Bush's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Under NCLB, school progress is measured by student performance on state-designed tests in reading and math. Those who fail to meet "Adequate Yearly Progress" face sactions: students may receive vouchers to attend other schools, for instance, or the school may be "restructured" and placed under different (possibly private) management. One may note that states can set the bar for "proficiency" wherever they want, so that the test results are essentially meaningless, and that simply testing certain literacy and numeracy skills is not an adequate measure of quality education. Hence, NCLB encourages states to lower their standards and teacher and schools to narrow their curriculum to focus on basic skills and test-taking strategies.

However, the greatest implication of NCLB lies in the types of sanctions it employs.  NCLB is basically a covert strategy for privatizing the education system.  Consider: 1) the bar set by NCLB is so high that only the highest-achieving schools in the wealthiest and most homogenous locales could ever reach it (and even that is not certain);by 2014 nearly every school will be considered "failing" and 2) the consequences for "failing" involve the use of vouchers and the transfer of public funds to private organizations. The reason why just about every school will be considered "failing" by 2014 is that at that time all schools are supposed to reach 100% proficiency for all measured subgroups (race-based and ability-based). However, one subgroup - English-language learners - are defined precisely by their failure on tests of literacy. Any English-language learner who attains a level of proficiency will pulled out of the English-language learner subgroup.   Likewise for those with "special needs."  NCLB is not measure progress at all!

Obama has largely continued the program established under Bush's presidency.  He has accessorized it with some similarly-minded carrot-wielding programs, like Race to the Top.  In Race to the Top, certain states - the "winners" - receive extra funding for their schools.  And the basis for this vital funding is arbitrary criteria assigned arbitrary weightings, with a little bit of flawed statistical reasoning thrown into the mix, and topped with subjective ratings.  Obama and his appointees to the Department of Education continue to voice their support for school choice, competition, charter schools, and teacher accountability.

Going back to what I claimed are the primary roles served by education in a capitalist society, it is reasonable to ask, how does the project of privatization - essentially eroding the public school system - serve those ends?  First, education continues to be subsidized.  In fact, with programs like Race to the Top, more federal money is being doled out.  True, privatization and choice seem to undermine the assimilative role of education, yet they also stand as affirmations of neoliberal ideology, and work as effective means to increase social stratification.  Furthermore, with its premise that education reform is about schools and teachers, and not about poverty and society, the new school reforms have absorbed the efforts and directed the actions of those who wish to change society, forcing them to do so set within certain bounds that do not disrupt the social hierarchy at all.

But mostly I believe it is about unions.  There has been a concerted anti-union effort throughout the entire WW2 era, and it has kept the United States economically competitive with other industrialized nations, who have stronger unions and/or higher wages.  However, the teachers' unions are now one of the most powerful workers' groups (which says more about that state of unions in general than anything else).  Most privatization schemes, be they vouchers, charter schools, "restructuring," etc. undercut teachers' unions.  Focus on teacher effectiveness (assigning teachers sole responsibility for student achievement when social factors are far more significant), proposals for merit-based pay, attacks on tenure, the claim teachers should be fired more easily, the de-professionalization of teaching and insistence that there should be no requirements for entering the field - all are direct swipes at teachers' unions.

One thing is certain.  The "biggest losers" in the new era of reform, with all of its haphazard tinkering with poor and urban school districts, is the most disadvantaged students in the country.