Labor Pains

The United States Supreme Court is about to decide if unions representing public sector employees have a right to require anyone in their covered work force to pay union dues, regardless whether they are actual members of the union. The unions argue that these non-members, who are actual members of the workforce that benefits from collective bargaining, should pay their fair share for the benefits they receive. The non-member workers respond that supporting the union (and its political agenda) violates their rights to object to these political positions. When courts forced unions to carve out their allocation to political causes leaving only a separate “fair-share fee” to compensate only for collective bargaining, conservatives wanted more. They failed in a Supreme Court effort in 2016: rife with First Amendment issues and conflicting precedents, the 2016 case (Friedrichs v. California) deadlocked when Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died.

The battle resurfaced this year as essentially the same subject matter was accepted for review by the Supreme Court in Janus v American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, now pending with a conservative new justice, Neil Gorsuch, likely to tilt the decision to favor conservatives who oppose unions at every level. As we shall we, conservatives have prioritized defunding public sector unions, effectively forcing them to collapse.

So let’s look at how unions are locked into the American system today. According the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, “The union membership rate—the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions— was unchanged at 10.7 percent in 2017… The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, at 14.8 million in 2017, edged up by 262,000 from 2016. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and there were 17.7 million union workers… The union membership rate of public-sector workers (34.4 percent) continued to be more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers (6.5 percent).”

The numbers seem to suggest a growth in what is already a pretty small percentage of workers covered by union, but if you have kept you eye on the numbers over the years, you are aware that the percentage of covered workers in the private sector continues to dwindle, even as public sector membership remains pretty solid. The fact that unions have all but vaporized from the private sector tells you why matters of minimum wage, occupational safety and accessible healthcare benefits have moved off the collective bargaining table and directly into state, local and federal legislation.

As the February 26^th FastCompany.com describes those traditional workers in the private sector who used to form the bulwark of union members in the modern American workforce: “For the majority of workers in the U.S., the American Dream is unraveling in the face of unstable contract work, rolled-back benefits, and grueling labor conditions… and the attendant widening [income] inequities in the country.” Except for the public sector, most workers have no one to represent their interests anymore. And maybe, conservatives can tank public sector unions even harder. A little history.

The reduction of union protection in the private sector is a product – well over three decades ago – of economic success such that unions were no longer seen as valuable. To attract good employees, most companies provided solid pay and even more solid fringe benefits, particularly in healthcare, vacation pay and retirement benefits. Unions just frittered away. But that was then. Add a recession, globalization and the new big bad boy in town – job-killing automation (enhanced with artificial intelligence), and a very strong GOP-conservative commitment to see that unions not only never come back into relevance in the private sector but are rooted out and minimized in the public sector as well.

The February 25^th New York Times describes the length and breadth of this conservative attack against public sector unions with the goal that these labor organizations be marginalized or eliminated: As the percentage of unionized private-sector workers has collapsed in recent decades, public-sector unions, which have held steady in the mid-30s since the early 1980s, have increasingly become a target.

Conservatives chafe at the unions’ political influence, which they believe not only props up the Democratic Party but also drives up government spending and skews public policy on issues like education…

One of the [deeply anti-union Illinois Policy Institute’s] largest donors is a foundation bankrolled by Richard Uihlein, an Illinois industrialist who has spent millions backing Republican candidates in recent years, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois.

Tax filings show that Mr. Uihlein has also been the chief financial backer in recent years of the Liberty Justice Center, which represents Mark Janus, the Illinois child support specialist who is the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case…

In 2011, Wisconsin rolled back the right of most public unions to bargain over anything other than wages and eliminated the requirement that nonmembers pay fees. The portion of unionized public-sector workers in the state plummeted from half to just over one-quarter within five years.

In seeking to produce similar results nationally, conservative donors have created a symbiosis between groups aiming to overturn Supreme Court precedent favorable to unions and groups that take advantage of those rulings to drain unions of members.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Wisconsin, which had over $800 million in assets in 2016, has funded both kinds of organizations… In a 2014 case brought by a group that had received more than $1 million in contributions from the Bradley Foundation, the Supreme Court ruled that home-care aides and other ‘partial-public employees’ paid through Medicaid could not be forced to pay fair-share fees if they left their unions. Unions say these fees, typically about 80 percent of standard dues, are necessary to compensate them for representing nonmembers in bargaining and grievance proceedings…

During 2015 and 2016, the foundation also substantially increased its contributions, totaling well over $1 million, to groups like the Independence Institute of Colorado and the Freedom Foundation of Washington State. Those groups have used such tools as direct mail, phone calls and door knocking to persuade public-sector workers to give up union membership.

Richard Graber, the chief executive of the Bradley Foundation, said the foundation avoided short-term tactical considerations in its giving. But he acknowledged that the increase was driven partly by the recent Supreme Court developments, which promised to make such opt-out campaigns more compelling for union members. (Some conservative groups are currently raising money for even more ambitious opt-out campaigns to take advantage of a favorable ruling this year.)

In February 2016, the month after the Supreme Court heard the Friedrichs case, Justice Antonin Scalia died, depriving conservatives of a decisive fifth vote to strike down mandatory union fees. That gave the Liberty Justice Center, backed by Mr. Uihlein, a chance to try again.

Few philanthropists have funded a more sweeping assault on labor than Mr. Uihlein, who with his wife, Elizabeth, founded a Wisconsin-based shipping supply company called Uline.

Mr. Uihlein is an ardent conservative who considers many Republican office holders too moderate on fiscal and social issues, according to those who know him.

‘It’s not just politics for him,’ said his friend Leonard A. Leo, the Federalist Society executive vice president, who declined to offer specifics on Mr. Uihlein’s views. ‘I think he is philosophically attuned to conservative ideas,’ added Mr. Leo, whom the Trump White House enlisted to shepherd the Supreme Court nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch, Justice Scalia’s successor.

The Uihleins have spent tens of millions of dollars over the past decade supporting Republican candidates and committees. That includes contributions to super PACs backing the 2016 presidential campaigns of Mr. Walker and Mr. Cruz, and at least $250,000 to help Mr. Walker survive a 2012 recall election. (Mr. Uihlein did not respond to a request for comment.)… The Uihleins appear to be preoccupied with state employee pensions and the unions that negotiate them.

There may be labor excesses that need to be addressed, but simply blowing away unions just might backfire. You might not care about protecting workers, and if that is your vision, you will side with the forces that are trying to collapse the last vestiges of union power in the United States. Remember that when job security disappears, wages and fringe benefits stagnate and decline for increasing numbers of people, there is increasing pressure for government to pick up the slack. Too many folks feel betrayed by the system; they often react in deeply angry and often antisocial behavior. You can pretty much link the opioid epidemic to the deepest pockets of blue collar unemployment and trace the desire to tear apart the most basic institutions of government to these once productive members of society, who prospered in an era when unions had their back.

I’m Peter Dekom, and to those deeply pro-business-at-all-costs advocates, be careful what you wish for…