SALON

Friday, Feb 8, 2013 10:26 PM UTC

For unions, size isn’t everything

Membership has reached its lowest level since 1916, but density in itself doesn’t always translate into power

By

Topics: Jacobin, Labor unions, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, New York,

For unions, size isn't everythingU.S. President Barack Obama (L) shakes hands with union member Charlie Dilbert as he attends an AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic at Coney Island in Cincinnati, September 7, 2009.

For those of us in and around the American labor movement, late January is an anxious time. That’s when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases its annual report on union membership in the United States — always depressing reading. This year’s report was the worst in recent memory. With only 11.3% of American workers in unions, union density in 2012 reached its lowest level since 1916.

Of course, this decline is but one facet of the global fall in labor’s influence, the relative union strongholds of continental Europe and Scandinavia included. But the U.S. is still the fulcrum of the global economy, so a weak American labor movement is especially bad news for the working classes of all nations.

Friends of labor greeted the news with despair, seizing on the figures as the latest portent of the movement’s seemingly terminal crisis. Labor’s enemies greeted the news with barely concealed glee, and for the same reason. Most disturbingly, attacks on public sector bargaining rights in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and elsewhere have begun to erode union membership in the public sector, the movement’s last redoubt in the U.S.

The long-term decline in U.S. union membership is certainly not good news. Workers are better off being union members than not, if for no other reason than union workers enjoy a clear wage advantage ($200 more per week on average) relative to their non-union counterparts. Considering the fact that the bottom 60% of American workers have seen their wages stagnate over the last 30 years, that’s no small matter.

The current balance of class forces is rather lopsidedly in favor of capital, and it seems inevitable that the decline of the labor movement (at least as we have known it) will continue for the foreseeable future. Right-wing activists and their corporate backers have already begun to push for new “right-to-work” legislation in formerly labor-friendly states like Pennsylvania, and barring an unprecedented fightback their success seems all but assured.

While the realities of the situation force us to be pessimistic about the movement’s fortunes, there’s no need for labor activists to fall to an immobilizing sense of despair.  As I digested the implications of the BLS report, I thought back to an illuminating article that appeared in the New York Times in 2009. Titled “In America, Labor Has an Unusually Long Fuse,” it compared the European labor movement’s willingness to engage in militant street protest with the U.S. labor movement’s almost exclusive reliance on electoral and legislative maneuvering to attain its goals.

Two evocative photos accompanied the article. One shows a phalanx of Confédération Générale du Travail workers, on strike and marching through the streets of Marseille. They’re wearing hardhats, wielding flares, and raising their fists to protest the Sarkozy government’s neoliberal economic policy. The other photo depicts a solitary United Auto Workers member sitting in a lawn chair outside of a GM plant in Flint, Michigan. He’s on strike, but none of his fellow workers are anywhere in sight. There’s nothing but concrete and chain link fences stretching endlessly toward the horizon.

Even at its historically low level, union density in the U.S. is still markedly higher than union density in France, where it’s about 8% of the workforce. Even so, French unions have repeatedly demonstrated their ability in recent years to mobilize millions of workers (union and non-union alike) in working class struggles. To be sure, they don’t always win, and there are aspects of the French system of labor relations that would be difficult or impossible to import (and there are others we probably wouldn’t want to if we could). Still, their power remains formidable despite their extremely low levels of density.

Despite our labor movement’s long-term erosion, there are still 14.4 million union members in the U.S. Many unions still command prodigious financial resources and employ a small army of organizers, researchers, lawyers, and other highly skilled staff. So why does US labor all too often amount to less than the sum of its parts?

In the Times article I referenced above, United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard – ostensibly one of the more progressive labor leaders in the US — supplied a now infamous quote that got to the heart of the matter:

I actually believe that Americans believe in their political system more than workers do in other parts of the world,” Mr. Gerard said. He said large labor demonstrations are often warranted in Canada and European countries to pressure parliamentary leaders. Demonstrations are less needed in the United States, he said, because often all that is needed is some expert lobbying in Washington to line up the support of a half-dozen senators.

Gerard’s breathtakingly flippant remarks shed light on a fundamental truth that too many labor leaders and activists lose sight of. Density in itself does not translate into power if members are not actively engaged in building the capacities of their unions or the working class more broadly. What’s the point of organizing new members if unions aren’t going to effectively use the ones they’ve already got?

In an excellent 2010 essay in New Labor Forum, sociologist Richard Sullivan mounted a devastating critique of the “density bias” that persists in U.S. labor circles. The conventional wisdom among almost all labor activists and intellectuals is that density is the key measure of the movement’s strength. This bias, however, may be preventing us from properly mobilizing the significant resources we still have at our disposal. Even if we de-center the question of density, by any measure American unions still have a mass membership base that few other institutions can match. As Sullivan reminds us, “leaders of any other movement would gleefully treat this magnitude of membership as evidence of its potency rather than lament the fact that it represents only 12 percent (sic) of its potential members.”

As Sullivan argues, it would be somewhat perverse for a social movement to look at its level of membership as the most salient measure of its power and influence. From abolitionism to queer liberation, the most successful movements in U.S. history were driven by a relatively small core of highly committed activists. Labor’s self-conception as a labor market agent leads it to put a very high premium on building and maintaining density. But a social movement measures its strength not by the size of its membership, but its members’ ability to leverage their disruptive capacities and rally popular support for the cause.

Even in countries where union density remains relatively high, labor and the Left have not been able to mount an effective challenge to the neoliberal project. Sullivan points to the United Kingdom, where relatively high density hasn’t saved British workers from the Tory-New Labour onslaught. We can also look to Germany, which far too many liberals and social democrats continue to hold up as a model of enlightened capitalism. German trade union density has declined drastically over the last two decades, but it remains at roughly 20%. Even so, German workers have seen their wages stagnate as the proportion of low-paid, precarious forms of employment continues to expand dramatically.

There are even more illustrative examples closer to home. Consider New York State. Despite a precipitous drop in union membership in 2012, New York still has the highest rate of overall union membership in the country at 23.2%. The membership rate in the public sector is even higher – over 70% of public employees in New York are unionized.

In spite of these Scandinavian levels of union density, Gov. Andrew Cuomo — a good Democrat — managed to win massively concessionary contracts from the state’s two main public sector unions in 2011. He also won implementation of the new Tier 6 pension level, which dramatically reduces retirement benefits for new hires. Tellingly, the unions did next to nothing to mobilize their members or the broader public against these attacks.

The external challenges confronting unions today are massive, and their importance should not be minimized. But they shouldn’t be used as an excuse to avoid asking hard questions about labor’s inability (or perhaps unwillingness) to mobilize its most precious resource – its current members. If only 5% of U.S. unionists were turned into trained, disciplined activists with a class orientation and long-term strategic vision, there would still be about 750,000 of them.

How different would this country look if we had that?

Chris Maisano

More Chris Maisano.

You Might Also Like

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

7 motorist-friendly camping sites

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 9

Sponsored Post

  • White River National Forest via Lower Crystal Lake, Colorado
    For those OK with the mainstream, White River Forest welcomes more than 10 million visitors a year, making it the most-visited recreation forest in the nation. But don’t hate it for being beautiful; it’s got substance, too. The forest boasts 8 wilderness areas, 2,500 miles of trail, 1,900 miles of winding service system roads, and 12 ski resorts (should your snow shredders fit the trunk space). If ice isn’t your thing: take the tire-friendly Flat Tops Trail Scenic Byway — 82 miles connecting the towns of Meeker and Yampa, half of which is unpaved for you road rebels.
    fs.usda.gov/whiteriveryou


    Image credit: Getty

  • Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest via Noontootla Creek, Georgia
    Boasting 10 wildernesses, 430 miles of trail and 1,367 miles of trout-filled stream, this Georgia forest is hailed as a camper’s paradise. Try driving the Ridge and Valley Scenic Byway, which saw Civil War battles fought. If the tall peaks make your engine tremble, opt for the relatively flat Oconee National Forest, which offers smaller hills and an easy trail to the ghost town of Scull Shoals. Scaredy-cats can opt for John’s Mountain Overlook, which leads to twin waterfalls for the sensitive sightseer in you.
    fs.usda.gov/conf


    Image credit: flickr/chattoconeenf

  • Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness Area via Green Road, Michigan
    The only national forest in Lower Michigan, the Huron-Mainstee spans nearly 1 million acres of public land. Outside the requisite lush habitat for fish and wildlife on display, the Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness Area is among the biggest hooks for visitors: offering beach camping with shores pounded by big, cerulean surf. Splash in some rum and you just might think you were in the Caribbean.
    fs.usda.gov/hmnf


    Image credit: umich.edu

  • Canaan Mountain via Backcountry Canaan Loop Road, West Virginia
    A favorite hailed by outdoorsman and author Johnny Molloy as some of the best high-country car camping sites anywhere in the country, you don’t have to go far to get away. Travel 20 miles west of Dolly Sods (among the busiest in the East) to find the Canaan Backcountry (for more quiet and peace). Those willing to leave the car for a bit and foot it would be remiss to neglect day-hiking the White Rim Rocks, Table Rock Overlook, or the rim at Blackwater River Gorge.
    fs.usda.gov/mnf


    Image credit: Getty

  • Mt. Rogers NRA via Hurricane Creek Road, North Carolina
    Most know it as the highest country they’ll see from North Carolina to New Hampshire. What they may not know? Car campers can get the same grand experience for less hassle. Drop the 50-pound backpacks and take the highway to the high country by stopping anywhere on the twisting (hence the name) Hurricane Road for access to a 15-mile loop that boasts the best of the grassy balds. It’s the road less travelled, and the high one, at that.
    fs.usda.gov/gwj


    Image credit: wikipedia.org

  • Long Key State Park via the Overseas Highway, Florida
    Hiking can get old; sometimes you’d rather paddle. For a weekend getaway of the coastal variety and quieter version of the Florida Keys that’s no less luxe, stick your head in the sand (and ocean, if snorkeling’s your thing) at any of Long Key’s 60 sites. Canoes and kayaks are aplenty, as are the hot showers and electric power source amenities. Think of it as the getaway from the typical getaway.
    floridastateparks.org/longkey/default.cfm


    Image credit: floridastateparks.org

  • Grand Canyon National Park via Crazy Jug Point, Arizona
    You didn’t think we’d neglect one of the world’s most famous national parks, did you? Nor would we dare lead you astray with one of the busiest parts of the park. With the Colorado River still within view of this cliff-edge site, Crazy Jug is a carside camper’s refuge from the troops of tourists. Find easy access to the Bill Hall Trail less than a mile from camp, and descend to get a peek at the volcanic Mt. Trumbull. (Fear not: It’s about as active as your typical lazy Sunday in front of the tube, if not more peaceful.)
    fs.usda.gov/kaibab


    Image credit: flickr/Irish Typepad

  • As the go-to (weekend) getaway car for fiscally conscious field trips with friends, the 2013 MINI Convertible is your campground racer of choice, allowing you and up to three of your co-pilots to take in all the beauty of nature high and low. And with a fuel efficiency that won’t leave you in the latter, you won’t have to worry about being left stranded (or awkwardly asking to go halfsies on gas expenses).


    Image credit: miniusa.com

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 9

Related Videos

Comments

 4 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( settings | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Salon is proud to feature content from Jacobin, a print quarterly that offers radical perspectives on politics and economics. Support Jacobin and buy a four issue subscription for just $19.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Let's Stop Screwing Around and Impeach James Clapper: After lying to Congress about all the different ways the NSA's spying on us, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lies about how he lied. Call the White House at 202 456-1111 and Tell Obama to Get Rid of Clapper
428 points429 points | 19 comments
vote
Let's Stop Screwing Around and Impeach James Clapper: After lying to Congress about all the different ways the NSA's spying on us, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lies about how he lied. Call the White House at 202 456-1111 and Tell Obama to Get Rid of Clapper
311 points312 points | 29 comments
vote
Machiavelli doesn’t belong to the 1 percent | "The Prince" is oft-quoted on Wall Street, but its author was a hero of the working class who despised elites
91 points92 points | 33 comments
vote
Yes, there is a better search engine (1998)
78 points79 points | 22 comments
vote
Let's Stop Screwing Around and Impeach James Clapper: After lying to Congress about all the different ways the NSA's spying on us, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lies about how he lied. Call the White House at 202 456-1111 and Tell Obama to Get Rid of Clapper
78 points79 points | 9 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Joker": Laughing at life's deepest sorrows