DISORGANIZED LABOR – or, why America’s unions can’t – or won’t – organize this country’s workers

 

DISORGANIZED LABOR – or, why America’s unions can’t – or won’t – organize this country’s workers

By Gregory A. Butler

 

America’s labor unions only represent 10% of the workforce. Even in the public  sector, unions only represent 34% of workers – mostly concentrated in federal sector, and in state, county, municipal and tribal governments in blue states

 

In the private sector, unions are all but defunct – 6% overall. Manufacturing, once a union powerhouse over 50% organized is now barely 10% unionized. Construction, once over 80% union, is now barely 10%. Trucking went from 90% to 7%. Warehouses are also largely non union these days.

 

 Longshoremen in sea freight are still mostly union, but port truck drivers are largely non union. The sailors on the ships, if they have a union at all, are second class members of unions based in the countries the ships are registered in, or are often entirely non union (especially in ships registered in tiny Third World countries with nonexistent labor union movements  like the Marshall Islands)

 

Unions have all but disappeared  in mining – once a legendary labor stronghold – and oil and gas are only organized at the refinery stage, with the actual  drilling workforce mostly unorganized

 

The railroads are the last bastion of private sector blue collar unions – even there some railroads and railroad service  contractors are openly non union

 

Agriculture – never more than 2% unionized at best – is today almost entirely non union.

 

The vast retail, service and hospitality sectors are overwhelmingly unorganized – in restaurants unions have all but abandoned those workers unless they work in a casino or are employed by Starbucks

 

As for labor’s future – barely 2% of workers under 30 in any industry are unionized

 

Basically, the American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations (that’s what ‘AFL-CIO’ is an acronym for – they were once two separate rival labor federations) has failed the majority of American workers –

 

The AFL-CIO leadership and their vast staff of professional organizers, staff and attorneys have abandoned us, they will not save us, even if they wanted to (and I suspect they do not)

 

The AFL-CIO’s policy of being politically dominated by the Democratic Party and junior partners of the government, the chamber of commerce and management was always a bad idea and it has led to the collapse of American unions

 

It’s a subset of a broader problem – the lack of political independence of American workers

 

Bad enough our class has always been chronically divided by race – since the first slave ship got here and the first Indian village got massacred – but the lack of any kind of workers party (we don’t even have a pro capitalist labor party like the British, Canadians and Australians do!) has handicapped us and keeps us weak

 

The broader racism of the American society has always been reflected in the labor leadership and has compounded those handicaps

 

Also, the fact that American unions are overfocused on their private health insurance and retirement service brokerage business has always made our unions a playground for racketeers and gangsters – a legacy that continues to this very day and compounds our weakness

 

The present labor movement will probably be able to chug along representing about a third of the public sector workforce, a tiny and shrinking segment of the industrial workforce and a few service workers

 

Their organizing efforts will continue to be concentrated among a handful of  economically marginal but socially prestigious white collar  professionals in big cities (grad students, museum staff, elite journalists etc.) – the few jobs where NLRB style organizing is still possible

 

So… what is to be done?

 

We need to build a new mass working class revolutionary party – this of course involves a total break with the Democrats

 

One of that party’s main tasks will be building a new labor movement among the nation’s private sector workforce – of course, organizing every worker is a priority, but the main focus should be on the workers in the most strategic sectors – manufacturing, construction, trucking, warehousing, agriculture, energy and the truckers and sailors in the sea freight industry.

 

This cannot be done by NLRB methods

 

It has to be done “old school” – worker activists discreetly organizing their coworkers and once strong enough carrying out areawide strikes, with all production shut down until the employers agree to unionize

 

The AFL-CIO cannot and will not do this – so workers need a new labor movement that will

 

Ironically, the rise of a new militant grassroots labor movement is the only thing that will make the AFL-CIO do any kind of organizing – much as the American Federation of Labor was forced to organize by the rise of the Trade Union  Unity League and the Congress of Industrial  Organizations.

 

If we don’t, our future will look a lot like the present in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – a “union  free environment” where workers have no rights a boss is bound  to respect.