|
|
|
I. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
Democracy and Industrial Relations
Paula B. Voos
Rutgers University
Introduction
Political democracy is thriving
in the world. Think about the changes that have occurred in Korea, Poland,
Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Taiwan. Of course, democracy is not an all
or nothing matter. But clearly many nations have moved in a democratic
direction. Democracy in the workplace is also being met with renewed interest.
Even the Academy of Management has devoted a recent meeting to democracy.
At this conference, we have devoted numerous sessions to the relationship
between industrial relations and democracy. Workplace governance, employee
involvement, and corporate governance have been discussed, along with
issues of social capital, and its creation.1 Here I want to highlight
the relationship between labor unions and democracy.
My central thesis is that labor unions make a crucial contribution to
political democracy. Labor unions play a vital role in making the United
States and other nations more democratic than they otherwise would be.
My fear is that today America is drifting in a less and less democratic
direction in part because of the current weakness of the American labor
movement. Unions are essential vehicles of democracy in contemporary societies
and when they are weak democracy suffers.
Democracy may be doing well in the world, but it is not doing so well
in the United States. There has been a marked decline in voting in the
United States, a key form of democratic participation. Today only a little
more than half of the eligible voters go to the polls in Presidential
elections--and in local races perhaps a quarter of eligible voters often
decide who is mayor or whether a bond proposal has passed.2 Income is
correlated with voting, and also with other forms of political participation--from
attending a school board meeting to asking others to vote for a candidate
(Conway 2000).3 Not surprisingly, income is also highly correlated with
making political donations, and political donations have become a more
and more important form of political participation in the United States
(Verba et al. 1995). One consequence of current low voting participation
rates in the United States is an electorate that has a higher than average
income, and a different set of economic interests and concerns, from the
population as a whole--reinforcing a conservative tilt to current electoral
politics (Wattenberg 2002).4 All this matters. It has serious consequences
for economic policy, for social safety nets and public services, and for
the laws that govern the workplace, including labor law itself. Why? Because
when citizens do not vote, politicians do not need to address their concerns.
Let me begin by talking about how labor unions relate to electoral politics.
I will try to be non-partisan, in the tradition of the IRRA, but please
be tolerant of the fact that I'm quite opinionated. Portions of my talk
will surely annoy some of you. I hope that you can still hear my central
message because support for democracy is truly a non-partisan matter.
As Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government except
for all those others that have been tried" (1947).5
Unions and Political Democracy
How do unions relate to electoral politics?
Unions encourage their members, other working people, and their families,
to vote and to participate in politics in a variety of ways. Unions register
voters and fund organizations that register minorities. Unions disseminate
information about the economic positions of candidates. Unions mobilize
members and staff to assist friendly candidates. Local union activity provides
members with political experience and the confidence needed to be effective
political participants. Unions have, in recent years, reinstituted efforts
to get members to run for office.
As a result of all this, union members and their families are more likely
to vote than others (Schur 2003). In the last Presidential election, about
a quarter of all voters came from union households.6 Freeman (2003), based
on his analysis of National Elections Studies data, reports that union
members are more likely to make political donations, to attempt to influence
the vote of others, and to report attending political meetings or rallies.
Political scientists have found there to be a higher voting rate and a
more representative electorate in those states in which there is higher
union membership, other things being equal. Voting has declined more drastically
in those states in which union membership has fallen most sharply since
the mid-seventies (Radcliff and Davis 2000). Internationally, the same
thing is true. Political participation in the form of voting has declined
more significantly in those advanced industrial nations in which there
has been a precipitous decline in union membership than in those nations
in which unions have remained strong (Gray and Caul [2000] consider the
period since 1950; Radcliff and Davis [2000] consider a later period).7
Voting is only one part of the story. Unions also increase democracy by
acting as an organized "interest group" between elections. They represent
the views of working families in the legislature, before public agencies,
and in a variety of interactions with the media intended to spread labor's
perspective to the general public. They help enforce laws benefiting workers
through lawsuits and briefs on issues before the courts.
In the 1950s, industrial relations scholars writing about democracy made
several points that remain valid today.8 Employees have unique concerns,
and their interests are different from those of corporations. The open
expression of the distinct interests of employees through independent
labor organizations is an important foundation of a plural, democratic
society (Kerr 1958). It is precisely for this reason that the United States
promoted legislation in both Germany and Japan after World War II that
provided a legal foundation for an independent labor movement in those
countries as part of the post-war democratization process. Julius Getman
and Ray Marshall (2003) note that the same reasoning should be applied
to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other nations in which democracy needs to be
fostered today. If this reasoning is true for other nations, it is also
valid for the United States.
What are the purposes of union political activity? The media sometimes
denigrate unions as a "special interest" group--that is, as a group that
promotes the interests of their members over the general public interest.
Unions do sometimes act as special interest groups. For example, the Steelworkers
lobby for policies benefiting the American steel industry.
What is notable about the public policies advocated by American unions,
however, is how often they reflect the interests of a broad swath of Americans.
In fact, the economic and public policies that benefit union members typically
coincide with the policies that benefit wide sections of society. These
are public policies that promote full employment, rising wage and living
standards, social insurance for those who cannot work, access to good
quality health insurance, excellent public education, safe streets and
workplaces, full equality for all citizens, and so forth. A current example
would be the considerable effort unions have made to protect overtime
pay.
Unions, Workplace Democracy, and Political Democracy
What about the workplace itself?
Unions also play an important role in enhancing industrial democracy in
those workplaces where they represent employees. A web of complex rules
governs all workplaces--but only in unionized workplaces do employees
have an effective way to change workplace governance through periodic
negotiation (Dunlop 1958). Unions, as long as they are internally democratic,
are vehicles of representative democracy in the workplace for this reason
alone.
Unions also contribute to workplace democracy by increasing individual
liberty on the job.9 In union workplaces, employees cannot be disciplined
or discharged for speaking their mind or for talking to other employees
about common workplace concerns-- whereas in some nonunion workplaces,
individuals can be discharged for doing something as minor as comparing
their paycheck with that of a coworker. Union workers are simply freer
as individuals to speak up on the job.
Freeman and Medoff (1979) have talked about the two faces of unionism,
with the political, or "voice" face of labor organization standing in
contrast to the economic or "monopoly" face. Some have oversimplified
this idea until it appears to be something like the good and the bad side
of labor organization--unions are good when they voice the concerns of
members and enhance democracy in the workplace and bad when they raise
employee compensation, because the latter disadvantages consumers and
business organizations. This argument concludes that public policy should
encourage the exercise of voice in the workplace while it simultaneously
limits unions' economic power. That argument is a flawed understanding
of the concept of two faces. The two faces of unionism are really two
sides of the same coin: they are inseparable.
Why? Because effective voice requires power. In contemporary market-based
societies, working people are largely a dominated group. Only by empowering
themselves through united, common activity in a labor organization can
working people effect change--either in the workplace or in the society
as a whole. Power is not given by the powerful--it must be created by
the initially powerless through a successful challenge to existing situations
of subordination. And once power is created through collective action,
employees will use it to express their own needs and interests, including
their own economic interests.
Members want unions to raise wages, raise benefits, enhance leisure, ensure
income security--and all the other actions that some decry as unions exercising
a "monopoly." In fact, inequality of income and wealth has been growing
in the United States over the past thirty years; these trends are due
to declining labor organization as well as to other factors. Today, working
families are not receiving a fair share of the fruits of their labor--it
is mistaken to decry their legitimate economic demand for more equity.
A balanced distribution of income is important for effective political
democracy. Societies in which there are enormous disparities of income
and wealth are societies with great social distinctions between families.
These are unequal societies full of powerless, politically-unrepresented
people. Social distinctions between people are muted in societies with
a relatively greater income equality. Social mobility is more possible
in these societies, and political democracy is more likely to flourish.
Thus, the labor movement, through its successful efforts to raise wages
and benefits for its members, contributes to democracy in the wider society.
It is the major institutional counterforce to widening economic and social
inequality. Unions raise the earnings of the lowest paid members in the
establishments where they represent workers (Mishel 2003). In the wider
society, unions champion minimum wages, overtime pay, universal health
care coverage, a strengthened social security system, and other programs
that reduce socioeconomic inequality. The economic and political aspects
of unionism are two sides of the same coin.
The bottom line is that it is a good thing that unions raise their members
wages--the problem is not that there is too much "monopoly unionism" in
the United States today, but that there is far too little, especially
among the low wage retail and service workforce.
Policy Implications
What are the policy implications of all this?
One implication is that labor law reform that would make it easy to form
or join a union needs to be a priority for all who value democracy. The
problem is that labor law reform is not likely to be enacted until there
is a significant expansion of democracy in the United States--and low
levels of unionization in parts of the country make that difficult. States
with small populations have disproportionate representation in the United
States Senate, and the labor movement is especially weak in the southern
and mountain states that hold effective veto power over legislation in
that body. Senate rules on ending debate and bringing proposed legislation
to a vote have been particularly important in blocking changes that would
make it easier to organize.10 Labor law reform came close to passing in
the Carter Administration but was defeated by a cloture vote. Even though
a clear majority of fifty-nine senators supported reform, this was just
short of the sixty votes needed to end debate (Dark 1999).11 Informal
vote tallies that promised a similar situation stopped labor law reform
before it got seriously underway during the Clinton Administration in
the early 1990s.12
In order to change this situation, labor needs to recast itself as a truly
national movement--and gain strength in those parts of the nation in which
it is currently weak. The growing importance of Latino and other immigrant
groups in the southern and mountain states--and the efforts that labor
is making to organize these workers both politically and for purposes
of collective bargaining--are particularly hopeful developments. Labor
movements in European countries developed a strong political dimension
precisely because they needed to bring political rights to large portions
of the population; the American labor movement now needs to act as a similar
agent of democratization in the United States. Organizing and political
action cannot be seen as alternatives by labor--they need to go hand in
hand.
Conclusion
Let me conclude by recognizing the difficulties of the current
situation.
Today the United States is in a perverse equilibrium with considerably
less democracy in fact than in the theory espoused in our political ideals.
Democracy is distorted in part because the labor movement is weak and
hence many people do not vote. Democracy is also distorted because of
institutional aspects of our system--from Senate rules to the Electoral
College itself. It is hard for workers to organize under the present law
and hard to change labor law because democracy is distorted.
Nonetheless, I am fundamentally optimistic when I step back and look at
history. Over time, democracy has grown, developed, and become more inclusive
both in the United States and elsewhere. Universal male suffrage was an
achievement of the eighteenth century in the United States, women's suffrage
an achievement of the early twentieth century, and the actual ability
(as opposed to the theoretical right) of African Americans to vote was
expanded significantly in the 1960s. Indeed, the rights of all workers
have expanded dramatically in the United States from the repressive environment
of the nineteenth century.
Americans of all parties subscribe to democratic ideals. The issue of
democracy in our nation needs to be put on the political agenda. Consequently,
it is important that industrial relations scholars continue to produce
research relevant to making both the workplace and society more democratic.
It is equally important that practitioners continue to experiment with
ways to make our democratic ideals real. I hope this conference contributes
to the exchange of ideas that is central to advancing democracy.
Notes
1. See Putnam (2000) for the seminal work on social capital.
2. In the November 2003 elections
for the New Jersey legislature, only 31 percent of registered voters and
26 percent of all eligible voters cast ballots; in that same election in
New York City, 13 percent of the registered voters cast a ballot on whether
or not the city charter should be amended to eliminate political party primaries
(McIntire November 6, 2003). On November 10, 2003, the Associated Press
reported that five states have eliminated presidential primaries because
only about 20 percent of all voters cast ballots in these elections, and
they entail considerable costs for financially-pressed states (Tanner 2003).
See the U.S. Census Bureau, February 2002, for information on who votes
in Presidential elections.
3. About 10 percent of all
Americans report that they gave money to an individual candidate or to a
political party (see data from the National Elections Studies at http://www.umich.edu/~nes/nesguide).
Less than 1 percent of all adults in the United States make political donations
of two hundred dollars or more (the level of donations that need to be itemized
on personal taxes). The Political Action Committees of labor unions broaden
the base of political donations substantially, even though corporate contributions
to candidates totalled approximately twelve times the amount of union donations
in 2002 (AFL-CIO 2003).
4. Verba, Scholzman, and Brady
(1995) demonstrate that this conservative tilt is even greater with regard
to political donations.
5. Amartya Sen (1999) argues
that democracy has intrinsic importance to promoting participation and freedom
in human life, instrumental importance in keeping government responsible
and accountable, and constructive importance in forming values. He points
out, "Political rights, including freedom of expression and discussion,
are not only pivotal in inducing social responses to economic needs, they
are also crucial in the conceptualization of economic needs themselves."
Rodrik (1999) provides evidence regarding the instrumental value of democracy
in responding to economic crisis.
6. Freeman finds that part
of the difference is due to socioeconomic factors that differentiate union
members.
7. In discussing this phenomenon,
political scientists Benjamin Radcliff and Patricia Davis point out that
not only do labor organizations mobilize their own members to vote by providing
them with information about candidates and key issues in an election, but
also that unions influence the entire political discussion in a way that
makes politics more relevant to working families (2000). Candidates address
issues important to working families, both union and nonunion, because the
candidates are courting the endorsements of unions or because they fear
their active opposition. Our current labor movement plays the important
institutional role of putting members' issues on the table. A more powerful
labor movement could bring more issues to the political agenda that matter
to working families, thereby motivating increased political participation.
8. There has been an explosion
in the number of organizations concerned with race, gender, environmental,
and other issues since the 1960s in the United States, making our politics
more plural than ever before. Still employees need political representation
as employees.
9. Elaine Bernard (1998) has
written eloquently about the relationship between democracy in the workplace
and democracy in the wider society with a focus on the essential rights
of freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and equality
under the law--the very rights that are absent when employees are not organized.
10. The largest states (containing
50 percent of the U.S. population) elect only 18 percent of all U.S. Senators
(Matthews 2001).
11. Reform had already passed
the House with close to a one-hundred vote margin; that vote was a more
accurate reflection of public opinion at the time.
12. At present, labor breathes
easier because the power of less-than-majority voting blocs in the U.S.
Senate allows labor and its allies to challenge changes in the law that
would hurt workers or unions themselves. Nonetheless, in the long run it
is imperative to modify legislative rules to decrease the power of such
voting blocs in the Senate.
References
AFL-CIO. 2003. Issues and Politics. http://www.aflcio.org.
Bernard, Elaine. 1998. "Creating Democratic
Communities in the Workplace." In A New Labor Movement for the New
Century, ed. Gregory Mantsios. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Conway, Margaret. 2000. Political Participation in
the United States, 3rd ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.
Dark, Taylor E. 1999. The Unions and the Democrats:
An Enduring Alliance. Rev. ed. Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press.
Dunlop, John T. 1958. Industrial Relations Systems.
New York: Holt.
Freeman, Richard. 2003. "What Do Unions Do . . . to
Voting?" NBER Working Paper No. 9992, Cambridge, Mass.
Freeman, Richard B., and James L. Medoff. 1979. "The
Two Faces of Unionism." Public Interest, no. 57, pp. 69-93.
Getman, Julius, and F. Ray Marshall. 2003. "Democracy
and Unions Go Together." Los Angeles Times, July 6.
Gray, Mark, and Miki Caul. 2000. "Declining Voter Turnout
in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 1950 to 1997." Comparative Political
Studies, Vol. 33, no. 9, pp. 1091-1122.
Kerr, Clark. 1958. "Unions and Union Leaders of Their
Own Choosing." In The Next Twenty Years in Industrial Relations.
IR Section, MIT.
Matthews, Donald R. 2001. "Does Congress Represent the
American People?" In The State of Democracy in America, ed. William
Crotty. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, pp. 106-13.
McIntire, Mike. 2003. "Only Motivated Voters Ventured
into the Voting Booth." New York Times, Metro Section, November
6.
Mishel, Larry, with Matthew Walters. 2003. "How Unions
Help All Workers." Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper, Washington,
D.C.
Putnam, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse
and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Radcliff, Benjamin, and Patricia Davis. 2000. "Labor
Organization and Electoral Participation in Industrial Democracies." American
Journal of Political Science, Vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 132-41.
Rodrik, Dani. 1999. "The Asian Fiscal Crisis and the
Virtues of Democracy." Challenge, Vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 44-60.
Schur, Lisa. 2003. "Employment and the Creation of an
Active Citizenry." British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol.
41, no. 4, pp. 751-71.
Sen, Amartya. 1999. "Democracy as a Universal Value."
Journal of Democracy, Vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 3-17.
Tanner, Robert. 2003. "States Scrapping Presidential
Primaries: High Cost of Running Election and Low Voter Turnout Spur Decision."
Associated Press, November 10.
U.S. Census Bureau. 2002. "Voting and Registration in
the Election of November 2000." Current Population Report P20-542. Washington
D.C.
Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady.
1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Wattenberg, Martin P. 2002. Where Have All the Voters
Gone? Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
.
|
