Social Justice Unionism
Social Justice Unionism Paper
Jeremy Stoner
MGT 450-OA
Professor - Dr. Stephen R. Ball
Social Justice Unionism
Organized Labor, or unions, any way you say it people have their own thoughts of what they are, what they represent and what their impact may be. I am no different. Although I really haven’t had any connection or relations with them throughout my working career, I still had my ideals of what they were all about. My perception was that unions helped make it possible for those workers that didn’t want to work any harder than they felt they needed to, accomplish that. I did understand that unions were there to help protect employees, but it seemed that it gave workers allowances to do only the bare minimum and a sense of security to match. These were a few of my thoughts of unions that I had developed from my exposure, mostly through others, and although I know that there are many debates over this subject, I feel that this is an unfair stereotype as there are more hard working union employees than not. As I’m finding out in order to really understand unions, the huge impact that they have, and their importance in the workforces of our industries, you have to take a deep look into what they stand for and where they came from. Their story is one of a rise out of necessity, the times of wealth and the dark times too. It is a story that has put its stamp on our history, and has came from much compromise and contention. After some research, and from my understanding of organized labor, I will attempt to take you on a quick union train ride and hopefully help make some sense of it all. Along the way we will explore this whole labor movement that is being described as social justice unionism.
So where did unions come from? Unions arose, in effect, due to the social and economic influences from the industrial revolution. After the civil war was when unions in the U.S really tried to get started with the development of the Knights of Labor. Surfacing right away as a major force, the Knights of Labor eventually collapsed due to poor organization, ineffective leadership, and opposition by employers and some forces in government. Not long after the demise of the Knights, the AFL, or the American Federation of Labor, was born out of a coalition of sorts from many of the local unions. Led by Samuel Gompers, the AFL was much more withstanding for its time and is still a major player in the union game today, with a few organizational changes which we will see. After World War II and many laws past that both supported unions and gave them regulations under which to operate. Please be aware that unions have been around for a long time in some facet or another throughout the World, this is simply a brief history of how unions came to be in the U.S. Next I would like to describe some of what I believe to be a few of the major wins and some setbacks that unions have had to endure on their way to the weakened state they find themselves in today.
Early unions started as basic craft guilds which were concentrated locally and didn’t cause too many hassles. They kept to their individual crafts, placed restrictions on entry and were able to incorporate and enforce work conditions. As time went on and industries began to grow into substantial workforces they started getting divided into two groups of laborers. There were the more skilled employees and then there were general laborers. Many of the organized labor groups, such as The Knights of Labor, initially lobbied for fair wages for workers partly because of the division of employees and partly due to the expanding workforces in the different crafts. G. William Domhoff wrote about The Knights of Labor in his article The Rise and Fall of Labor Unions in the U.S. that “their credo emphasized citizenship rights, action in support of general social progress, cooperative forms of organization for the society as a whole, and, significantly, the inclusion of workers of all crafts and races in one union for the first time”(2013). These labor unions chose to use education and legislative practices as opposed to concentrating on strikes as a way to combat employers’ resistance to these organized groups. As businesses began to get bigger, and move around more with the advanced railway systems, they began to cut pay and offer less than adequate working conditions. Because of this the workers began to strike often and for a good length of time. This caused companies and local officials to bring in federal troops because of the violence that had erupted. There were many such strikes and ranged from railroads, to the construction industries. Unfortunately, the only changes made on the organizations stand point was less about trying to bargain with the employees and more about spending money to build the military influences to control the employees when outbreaks occur. Years later, the AFL was formed as a different type of labor movement. The American Federation of Labor was in effect exactly that, a federation. It was made up of many separate individual craft unions, 40 to be more accurate, which ranged from carpenters to iron and steel workers to cigar makers. The unions themselves are the ones that handled most of the main activities such as the bargaining and the calling of strikes. The federation would remain dependant on its constituent organizations for financing, and was the main and driving influence in judicial and legislative manners. As organized as they could be, and even with the main focus on social aspects the AFL still found it difficult to keep employers from cutting wages, and operating as they saw fit regardless of the unions’ efforts.
As time goes on organized labor unions struggled with power, and the feeling that they were in good standing with the government and businesses. When times were good bargaining was less difficult, and when times were bad there was striking and violence. Around the time that World War I began is when unions wound up having the upper hand, but not all unions felt strongly about the reason why. “The government made it extremely dangerous for workers to oppose it”, the war that is, “and many socialists, who actively fought against the war, were persecuted and prosecuted by the government” (Yates 2009). The war put a big demand on industries and when the labor union started making strides for better bargaining arrangements despite their no strike clauses that were basically forced upon them. During times of war the government forced the hand of businesses and contributed to an effective upswing in organized labor. WWII was no different aside from unions seemingly genuinely being in support of the war this time. Unfortunately for organized labor during this era it seemed that it was only during wartime that they were able to sustain good relationships with employers. Although it was seemingly working out ok during the war “a staff-controlled grievance procedure with arbitration as the final step used to resolve disputes became all but universal, and almost all collective bargaining agreements came to contain “no strike” agreements in which workers gave up the right to strike to settle workplace disagreements”(Yates 2009). And as goes the uphill battle that unions would have to deal with for years to come.
One of the bigger concerns of economists these days is that the middle class is suffering and there is a worry among many that it may not be much longer. What does class have to do with it you may ask. And, how could a “class” that millions of people are a part of go away? Well, for one, most, if not all labor movements throughout history have been class based, good or bad. Class plays a large part when we talk about social justice as it relates to a responsibility of organized labor. There are just as many ideas and opinions about the topic of class as there are economists that would care to comment on the subject. One that made sense to me was a statement made by Dorothy Sue Cobble in her article titled Kissing the Old Class Politics Goodbye when she said “labor movements also organized around “identity” before the mid-twentieth century (as well as after, it could be argued). Indeed, worker group solidarity in the US was not built solely or even mainly on “class identity.” Rather, at different times and in different places, workers formed strong collective bonds based on overlapping solidarities of gender, ethnicity, race, trade, occupation, industry, place, profession, and class as well as other political identities”(p55). So what is it that may be the answer to our current dilemma? We need a new, innovative solution that has to start with labor unions. Thomas Geoghegan states in his book Only One Thing Can Save Us that “Old labor is not capable of creating the kind of new labor movement we need: what we need is not to raise wages but to give people more rights to determine the way we work” (p.39). This premise is unanimous among many people and organizations around. What is more difficult to agree on, however, is what we do to achieve that end result.
One example, which received plenty of media coverage, was that of the Chicago teachers strike. In an article by Brian Walsh titled Battling Business-As-Usual Unionism where he chronicles the Chicago Teachers Strike of September 2012 where the main support for the teachers came from the employees themselves. Walsh gives his take on where labor needs to go when he said that “Union insurgencies—against not only the employers, but often against the workers’ own union leaderships—are both a key part of the labor movement’s history and crucial to its revitalization” (2013). He also notes the social aspect of the strike when he observed that “Teachers’ salaries and benefits played only a small part in CTU’s decision to strike. Rather, the conflict was over two opposing views of education” (2013). Summarizing this ideal is in Peter Brogans essay Education Deform and Social Justice Unionism when he states that “one of the most powerful lessons is the necessity of unions, and social movements more generally, for creating spaces of mass collective action that can be militant and confrontational on the one hand, and family friendly, creative, and fun on the other”(2015).
What exactly is this social justice unionism that is being talked so much about? According to the article Unionizing Low Paid Workers by Jack Barbash “there are three characteristics that would describe social justice unionism: the first is that the price of labor reflects the longer run costs of human maintenance for the employee and his or her dependants; the second is that the price of labor and the conditions of the sale are related not only to the immediate advantage of the bargaining group, but to the economy and the society; and the third is that a sense of power is conferred upon a heretofore powerless group”(1975). This is an opinion that he has in comparing social justice unionism to so-called business unionism. We find another concept in Peter Fairbrother and Edward Webster’s article Social Movement Unionism: Questions and possibilities when they quote Waterman as he urges “that a new global social unionism is emerging as a part of a global justice and solidarity movement because of the informatization that has been integral to globalization”(2008). This ideal shares that the next new movement in labor may need to happen on a global scale. Whatever personal views we may have of what needs to change, one thing that remains a must in almost all theories, is that organized labor has to incorporate a major social aspect in order for it to gain the kind of support from employers, employees and the kind of power that can only come from bi partisan support.
So at the end of it all I still hold tight to a small part of how I felt at the beginning regarding unions, and I do mean small. Unions are a spectacular power to be held in high regard, especially if they are rooted with social justice at their core. We have come a long way in worker rights, wages and work place conditions. These were the main points of protection in the beginning, and these cannot be forgotten, however, unions must follow in the footsteps of the teachers and take some lessons from nurses as they go forward. Governments must realize the energy that labor has the potential to create in our workforce. They must work side by side with organized labor to increase the country’s economic state. Companies and organizations need to hop on board and if at the least stop taking a stand against unions and bargain so that workers can have fair wages, good work conditions, an adequate benefits package, and hopefully a little more of a voice in company matters. Employers may see that their workers perform better, feel accomplished, empowered and proud of their work. If social justice unionism could become the next big labor movement we would see our economy become more stable, comfortable, and secure. Union representation in this form may be the single most important aspect of saving our middle class and all that comes with it. Our children’s future may just depend on this or something very similar to save them from the uncertainty and instability that we have witnessed happening for many years……and have not been able to reverse.
REFERENCES
Barbash, J. (1976). "Social justice" unionism. Monthly Labor Review (Pre-1986), 99(000001), 62. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/227936121?accountid=28644
Brogen, P. (2016). Education deform and social justice unionism. Available ProQuest Business Collection. Document ID: 1789066006
Cobble, D. S. (2005). Kissing the old class politics goodbye. International Labor and Working Class History, 67, 54-63. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/223584205?accountid=28644
Domhoff, G. William. (2013). Power in America. The Rise and Fall of Labor Unions in the U.S. Retrieved from University of California at Santa Cruz, Department of Sociology website: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/history_of_labor_unions.html
Fairbrother, P., & Webster, E. (2008). Social movement unionism: Questions and possibilities. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 20(4), 309-313. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10672-008-9091-1
Geoghegan, T. (2014). Only one thing can save us: why America needs a new kind of labor movement. New York: The New Press.
Walsh, B. (2013, May). Battling business-as-usual unionism. Dollars & Sense, , 17-22. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1365236320?accountid=28644
Yates, Michael D. 2009. Why Unions Matter. New York: Monthly Review Press
Jeremy Stoner
MGT 450-OA
Professor - Dr. Stephen R. Ball
Social Justice Unionism
Organized Labor, or unions, any way you say it people have their own thoughts of what they are, what they represent and what their impact may be. I am no different. Although I really haven’t had any connection or relations with them throughout my working career, I still had my ideals of what they were all about. My perception was that unions helped make it possible for those workers that didn’t want to work any harder than they felt they needed to, accomplish that. I did understand that unions were there to help protect employees, but it seemed that it gave workers allowances to do only the bare minimum and a sense of security to match. These were a few of my thoughts of unions that I had developed from my exposure, mostly through others, and although I know that there are many debates over this subject, I feel that this is an unfair stereotype as there are more hard working union employees than not. As I’m finding out in order to really understand unions, the huge impact that they have, and their importance in the workforces of our industries, you have to take a deep look into what they stand for and where they came from. Their story is one of a rise out of necessity, the times of wealth and the dark times too. It is a story that has put its stamp on our history, and has came from much compromise and contention. After some research, and from my understanding of organized labor, I will attempt to take you on a quick union train ride and hopefully help make some sense of it all. Along the way we will explore this whole labor movement that is being described as social justice unionism.
So where did unions come from? Unions arose, in effect, due to the social and economic influences from the industrial revolution. After the civil war was when unions in the U.S really tried to get started with the development of the Knights of Labor. Surfacing right away as a major force, the Knights of Labor eventually collapsed due to poor organization, ineffective leadership, and opposition by employers and some forces in government. Not long after the demise of the Knights, the AFL, or the American Federation of Labor, was born out of a coalition of sorts from many of the local unions. Led by Samuel Gompers, the AFL was much more withstanding for its time and is still a major player in the union game today, with a few organizational changes which we will see. After World War II and many laws past that both supported unions and gave them regulations under which to operate. Please be aware that unions have been around for a long time in some facet or another throughout the World, this is simply a brief history of how unions came to be in the U.S. Next I would like to describe some of what I believe to be a few of the major wins and some setbacks that unions have had to endure on their way to the weakened state they find themselves in today.
Early unions started as basic craft guilds which were concentrated locally and didn’t cause too many hassles. They kept to their individual crafts, placed restrictions on entry and were able to incorporate and enforce work conditions. As time went on and industries began to grow into substantial workforces they started getting divided into two groups of laborers. There were the more skilled employees and then there were general laborers. Many of the organized labor groups, such as The Knights of Labor, initially lobbied for fair wages for workers partly because of the division of employees and partly due to the expanding workforces in the different crafts. G. William Domhoff wrote about The Knights of Labor in his article The Rise and Fall of Labor Unions in the U.S. that “their credo emphasized citizenship rights, action in support of general social progress, cooperative forms of organization for the society as a whole, and, significantly, the inclusion of workers of all crafts and races in one union for the first time”(2013). These labor unions chose to use education and legislative practices as opposed to concentrating on strikes as a way to combat employers’ resistance to these organized groups. As businesses began to get bigger, and move around more with the advanced railway systems, they began to cut pay and offer less than adequate working conditions. Because of this the workers began to strike often and for a good length of time. This caused companies and local officials to bring in federal troops because of the violence that had erupted. There were many such strikes and ranged from railroads, to the construction industries. Unfortunately, the only changes made on the organizations stand point was less about trying to bargain with the employees and more about spending money to build the military influences to control the employees when outbreaks occur. Years later, the AFL was formed as a different type of labor movement. The American Federation of Labor was in effect exactly that, a federation. It was made up of many separate individual craft unions, 40 to be more accurate, which ranged from carpenters to iron and steel workers to cigar makers. The unions themselves are the ones that handled most of the main activities such as the bargaining and the calling of strikes. The federation would remain dependant on its constituent organizations for financing, and was the main and driving influence in judicial and legislative manners. As organized as they could be, and even with the main focus on social aspects the AFL still found it difficult to keep employers from cutting wages, and operating as they saw fit regardless of the unions’ efforts.
As time goes on organized labor unions struggled with power, and the feeling that they were in good standing with the government and businesses. When times were good bargaining was less difficult, and when times were bad there was striking and violence. Around the time that World War I began is when unions wound up having the upper hand, but not all unions felt strongly about the reason why. “The government made it extremely dangerous for workers to oppose it”, the war that is, “and many socialists, who actively fought against the war, were persecuted and prosecuted by the government” (Yates 2009). The war put a big demand on industries and when the labor union started making strides for better bargaining arrangements despite their no strike clauses that were basically forced upon them. During times of war the government forced the hand of businesses and contributed to an effective upswing in organized labor. WWII was no different aside from unions seemingly genuinely being in support of the war this time. Unfortunately for organized labor during this era it seemed that it was only during wartime that they were able to sustain good relationships with employers. Although it was seemingly working out ok during the war “a staff-controlled grievance procedure with arbitration as the final step used to resolve disputes became all but universal, and almost all collective bargaining agreements came to contain “no strike” agreements in which workers gave up the right to strike to settle workplace disagreements”(Yates 2009). And as goes the uphill battle that unions would have to deal with for years to come.
One of the bigger concerns of economists these days is that the middle class is suffering and there is a worry among many that it may not be much longer. What does class have to do with it you may ask. And, how could a “class” that millions of people are a part of go away? Well, for one, most, if not all labor movements throughout history have been class based, good or bad. Class plays a large part when we talk about social justice as it relates to a responsibility of organized labor. There are just as many ideas and opinions about the topic of class as there are economists that would care to comment on the subject. One that made sense to me was a statement made by Dorothy Sue Cobble in her article titled Kissing the Old Class Politics Goodbye when she said “labor movements also organized around “identity” before the mid-twentieth century (as well as after, it could be argued). Indeed, worker group solidarity in the US was not built solely or even mainly on “class identity.” Rather, at different times and in different places, workers formed strong collective bonds based on overlapping solidarities of gender, ethnicity, race, trade, occupation, industry, place, profession, and class as well as other political identities”(p55). So what is it that may be the answer to our current dilemma? We need a new, innovative solution that has to start with labor unions. Thomas Geoghegan states in his book Only One Thing Can Save Us that “Old labor is not capable of creating the kind of new labor movement we need: what we need is not to raise wages but to give people more rights to determine the way we work” (p.39). This premise is unanimous among many people and organizations around. What is more difficult to agree on, however, is what we do to achieve that end result.
One example, which received plenty of media coverage, was that of the Chicago teachers strike. In an article by Brian Walsh titled Battling Business-As-Usual Unionism where he chronicles the Chicago Teachers Strike of September 2012 where the main support for the teachers came from the employees themselves. Walsh gives his take on where labor needs to go when he said that “Union insurgencies—against not only the employers, but often against the workers’ own union leaderships—are both a key part of the labor movement’s history and crucial to its revitalization” (2013). He also notes the social aspect of the strike when he observed that “Teachers’ salaries and benefits played only a small part in CTU’s decision to strike. Rather, the conflict was over two opposing views of education” (2013). Summarizing this ideal is in Peter Brogans essay Education Deform and Social Justice Unionism when he states that “one of the most powerful lessons is the necessity of unions, and social movements more generally, for creating spaces of mass collective action that can be militant and confrontational on the one hand, and family friendly, creative, and fun on the other”(2015).
What exactly is this social justice unionism that is being talked so much about? According to the article Unionizing Low Paid Workers by Jack Barbash “there are three characteristics that would describe social justice unionism: the first is that the price of labor reflects the longer run costs of human maintenance for the employee and his or her dependants; the second is that the price of labor and the conditions of the sale are related not only to the immediate advantage of the bargaining group, but to the economy and the society; and the third is that a sense of power is conferred upon a heretofore powerless group”(1975). This is an opinion that he has in comparing social justice unionism to so-called business unionism. We find another concept in Peter Fairbrother and Edward Webster’s article Social Movement Unionism: Questions and possibilities when they quote Waterman as he urges “that a new global social unionism is emerging as a part of a global justice and solidarity movement because of the informatization that has been integral to globalization”(2008). This ideal shares that the next new movement in labor may need to happen on a global scale. Whatever personal views we may have of what needs to change, one thing that remains a must in almost all theories, is that organized labor has to incorporate a major social aspect in order for it to gain the kind of support from employers, employees and the kind of power that can only come from bi partisan support.
So at the end of it all I still hold tight to a small part of how I felt at the beginning regarding unions, and I do mean small. Unions are a spectacular power to be held in high regard, especially if they are rooted with social justice at their core. We have come a long way in worker rights, wages and work place conditions. These were the main points of protection in the beginning, and these cannot be forgotten, however, unions must follow in the footsteps of the teachers and take some lessons from nurses as they go forward. Governments must realize the energy that labor has the potential to create in our workforce. They must work side by side with organized labor to increase the country’s economic state. Companies and organizations need to hop on board and if at the least stop taking a stand against unions and bargain so that workers can have fair wages, good work conditions, an adequate benefits package, and hopefully a little more of a voice in company matters. Employers may see that their workers perform better, feel accomplished, empowered and proud of their work. If social justice unionism could become the next big labor movement we would see our economy become more stable, comfortable, and secure. Union representation in this form may be the single most important aspect of saving our middle class and all that comes with it. Our children’s future may just depend on this or something very similar to save them from the uncertainty and instability that we have witnessed happening for many years……and have not been able to reverse.
REFERENCES
Barbash, J. (1976). "Social justice" unionism. Monthly Labor Review (Pre-1986), 99(000001), 62. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/227936121?accountid=28644
Brogen, P. (2016). Education deform and social justice unionism. Available ProQuest Business Collection. Document ID: 1789066006
Cobble, D. S. (2005). Kissing the old class politics goodbye. International Labor and Working Class History, 67, 54-63. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/223584205?accountid=28644
Domhoff, G. William. (2013). Power in America. The Rise and Fall of Labor Unions in the U.S. Retrieved from University of California at Santa Cruz, Department of Sociology website: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/history_of_labor_unions.html
Fairbrother, P., & Webster, E. (2008). Social movement unionism: Questions and possibilities. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 20(4), 309-313. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10672-008-9091-1
Geoghegan, T. (2014). Only one thing can save us: why America needs a new kind of labor movement. New York: The New Press.
Walsh, B. (2013, May). Battling business-as-usual unionism. Dollars & Sense, , 17-22. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1365236320?accountid=28644
Yates, Michael D. 2009. Why Unions Matter. New York: Monthly Review Press