The American labor movement is a victim of its own success. Organized labor performed valuable past service for American workers as well as the Democratic Party. Unfortunately in a "what have you done for me lately" world, there is little that labor can now offer either and it is increasingly difficult to envision future circumstances for reversing its sagging political and economic fortunes.
Emerging in response to the evolution of large industrial enterprise in the first half of the 20th century, organizing offered workers the opportunity to achieve both improvements in pay, benefits, and work rules from employers and legislative support from government. By the 1950s, over a third of private sector workers were unionized. And organized labor became a major patron and legislative beneficiary of the nearly 50 years of uninterrupted Democratic congressional majorities culminating in 1980.
Ironically labor's success in obtaining social legislation obviated much of the rationale for private sector unionization. Federal and state law now guarantee American workers most of the protections initially sought by the labor movement.
Further, as global markets for goods and services proliferated, labor's success achieving world leading pay and benefits for American industrial workers made the cost of those workers uncompetitive. Most manufacturing is now done at lower costs abroad or by non-union Americans working at market rates. The unionized share of private sector American employment has fallen nearly 80% and is projected to continue declining.
During the past several decades to offset losses in the private sector labor successfully parlayed political patronage to achieve a high level of public sector membership. This led to extraordinary wage and benefit increases for federal, state, and local workers such that government employee pay and benefits are now significantly higher than those available to the general public. A public backlash is in process.
While the laws of economics may be temporarily suspended, they cannot be repealed. Governments at all levels are now running operating deficits, and the provisions to pay for public employee benefits are massively underfunded. Quite simply, politicians made unsustainable financial commitments to public sector unions. Ultimately public sector workers will experience the same financial and in some cases judicial restructuring that has occurred in the private sector and unions will lose their leverage here as well.
Equally damaging for labor is its loss of preeminence within the Democratic Party. The Party now subordinates the interests of "workers" to its newly acquired patrons in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the promoters of "green" technologies. Labor's current wish list is largely antithetical to the values and interests of most individual American voters and therefore of dubious value for this new Democratic coalition.
Labor's top legislative priority, The Employee Free Choice Act, for example, would strip American workers of the protection of the secret ballot, one of the historic touchstones of the American political system. Further, in the event of impasse between labor and management, the government would intervene and impose contracts binding on both. Aside from questionable constitutionality, passage of this legislation would be political suicide. Past Democrat support has only been conditional upon the prospect of opposition by either a Republican presidential veto or congressional filibuster. When Democrats under Barack Obama re-gained the presidency with a filibuster proof majority in congress, they conveniently slow walked the legislation until the majority was again lost.
President Obama's transformation from anti NAFTA candidate to free trader president demonstrates that support for labor's second priority, trade restrictions, is also purely rhetorical. Most policy makers recognize that trade protectionism would wreak havoc on American foreign policy and impose unacceptable costs on the American consumer. Ultimately, despite its rhetoric, the Democratic Party will not walk this plank either.
As for labor's third priority, immigration restriction, this conflicts with Democratic Party interest in solidifying its emerging Latino base and serving the high tech man power needs of its supporters in Silicon Valley. Viewed cynically, the Obama administration's high profile pre-emption of bondholder rights in favor of the interests of the UAW during the auto industry restructurings was little more than the dispensation of table scraps to a constituency that has lost its place of honor at the Democratic table.
Much has changed since labor fought heroic and often bloody battles to secure individual worker rights in the industrial heartland.
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