Among
the many reasons behind the recent failure
of Amazon warehouse workers
in Bessemer, Alabama, to form a union was their employer’s
intimidation tactics about what a union would mean for workers. The
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) in its response
to the disappointing vote against unionization released a statement
saying, “Amazon interfered with the right of its Bessemer,
Alabama employees to vote in a free and fair election.” RWDSU
Union head Stuart Appelbaum claimed that the retail giant “required
all their employees to attend lecture after lecture, filled with
mistruths and lies, where workers had to listen to the company demand
they oppose the union.”
Although
the National
Labor Relations Act
of 1935 protects the right of workers to collectively organize
without fear of retaliation from employers, most of Amazon’s
tactics were technically
legal.
With a nearly endless source of money to fund its barrage of
misinformation and fearmongering, Amazon will likely manage over and
over again to convince its workers that unions, not management, are
their enemy.
While
several unions represent Amazon’s
European workers,
no group of Amazon workers in the United States has thus far managed
to win the right to unionize, suggesting that there is something
unique
about our approach to labor organizing that stands in the way. And,
in legal challenges, the U.S.
Supreme Court
has often sided with corporations over workers. Given the court’s
current conservative dominance, this is unlikely to change.
Fortunately,
there is a solution. The U.S.
House of Representatives
in early March passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act
of 2021, which, among other things, would make it much harder for
companies like Amazon to misinform their workers. The PRO Act, which
has been introduced several times before, “makes it an unfair
labor practice to require or coerce employees to attend employer
meetings designed to discourage union membership.”
Maurice
Mitchell, national director of the Working
Families Party
and a leader in the Movement for Black Lives, explained to me in an
interview
that “if the PRO Act was law today, it would mean that some of
the union-busting tactics that Amazon is employing around the country
would be illegal.”
The
PRO Act would also upend
the so-called “right-to-work” laws
in many states around the country, including Alabama, that Mitchell
calls “horribly regressive.” One might imagine based on
the name that such laws ensure workers have the right to employment.
If only that were so. Instead, “right-to-work” laws,
deliberately
named to confuse workers,
are part of an aggressive GOP-led push over the past decade to
undermine the financial power of unions by making it illegal for
unions to mandate dues.
The
U.S.
Chamber of Commerce,
which for years has championed “right-to-work”
state laws,
calls the PRO Act “a litany of almost every failed idea from
the past 30 years of labor policy,” as if the Chamber was ever
concerned about the interests of labor. Warning that if passed it
would “undermine worker rights, ensnare employers in unrelated
labor disputes, disrupt the economy, and force individual Americans
to pay union dues regardless of their wishes,” the Chamber
pretends to care about workers rather than corporate profits.
In
the fantasy world of the organization, two forces are vying for
dominance: earnest corporations versus "Big Labor." Such a
narrative invokes an Orwellian vision of benevolent corporations and
the Chamber of Commerce stepping in to gallantly defend vulnerable
workers from tyrannical unions. The only time pro-business
institutions and conservatives ever appear to care about protecting
workers' rights is when workers are on the verge of actually winning
more rights.
One
basic fact throws cold water on the anti-union claims of “Big
Business” and its allies: unionized workers—even though
there are fewer of them thanks to anti-union efforts—make
significantly
more money
than non-union workers.
According
to Mitchell, the PRO Act is, in a nutshell, about “creating a
level playing field for workers to be able to organize their labor.”
He offered a more accurate depiction of our current economic reality:
“Organized capital has captured government, and in many ways
captured our lives. This [PRO Act] allows us to use the only thing
that could counterbalance organized capital: organized labor.”
For
years, U.S. labor organizations have thrown unconditional
support behind the Democratic Party
and had little to show for it as
unionization levels
have fallen precipitously. It is no
coincidence
that as unions shrank, wealth and income inequality rose. In backing
the PRO Act and doing all it can to pass it into law, the Democratic
Party can prove it is truly a friend of organized labor, and by
extension, American workers. AFL-CIO President Richard
Trumka
called the bill "a game-changer," and asserted that "[i]f
you really want to correct inequality in this country—wages and
wealth inequality, opportunity and inequality of power—passing
the PRO Act is absolutely essential to doing that."
After
all, as Mitchell said, the left has “won the debate over
neoliberal capitalist policies,” and even President Biden
openly admitted as much during his recent address
to Congress. "Trickle-down economics has never worked and it's
time to grow the economy from the bottom and the middle out,"
said Biden in a surprising pronouncement.
So
far, there are hopeful signs as all
but one of the House Democrats
voted “yes” on the bill (Texas Representative Henry
Cuellar
voted “no,” citing Republican talking points about
supporting his state’s “right-to-work” law and
claiming without evidence that the PRO Act would destroy thousands of
jobs).
President
Joe Biden, who overtly
expressed support
for the unionizing efforts among Amazon workers in Alabama, also
urged the passage of the PRO Act in his address to Congress. He said
in clear terms, “I’m calling on Congress to pass the
Protect the Right to Organize Act—the PRO Act—and send it
to my desk so we can support the right to unionize.”
Mitchell
explained to me, “We have a limited window for us to create the
type of transformative change that is on the agenda that so many
people voted for,” referring to the two-year period in which
Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress
before the 2022 midterms potentially change the equation. With the
House passage of the PRO Act and the White House signaling it fully
supports the bill, it falls into the purview of one of the most
undemocratic
branches of government—the U.S. Senate—to pass this
critical bill.
So
far 45 Senate Democrats and two independents have signaled
support for the bill. This number surprisingly includes Sen.
Joe Manchin of West Virginia,
who has emerged as an obstacle to other progressive-leaning bills but
who was apparently convinced by the PRO Act. Now, only three
Senate Democrats
remain on the fence: Virginia’s Mark Warner and both of
Arizona’s senators, Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema.
A
large coalition of labor organizations and progressive activist
groups like Mitchell’s Working Families Party is waging a
fierce campaign to urge those three senators to support the PRO Act.
In late April, according to Politico,
“Union leaders told the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm in
a private call Wednesday not to expect them to back lawmakers in
upcoming elections unless they coalesce behind” the bill.
This
is precisely the type of hardball politics that the American left
needs to play in order to push through the relatively modest reforms
in the PRO Act so that American workers can enjoy the same standards
of their non-American counterparts. With the relentless class war
that corporations and wealthy elites have managed to successfully
wage against the nation’s middle and working classes for
decades, there is little left to lose.
This article
was produced by Economy
for All,
a project of the Independent Media
Institute.
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