What Labor Wants-And Needs
Mort, Jo-Ann
As interest groups lobbied the Clinton transition team for cabinet appointments and Clinton groped for "diversity" in his cabinet, one group was noticeably silent—organized labor. Appointing...
...Appointing Robert Reich as labor secretary was a good start, clearly linking labor's fate to the nation's economic future...
...industry...
...The CIO of the next century will look profoundly different from the labor movement of the 1930s and 1940s, but basic issues of democracy and fairness still must be tackled if our economy is going to carry us into this new era...
...Canada has first contract arbitration, which assures that workers' democratic wishes will be met...
...Workplace health and safety laws must be strengthened...
...corporate practice of treating our nation's workers as enemies...
...The fire that left twenty-five workers dead in a Hamlet, North Carolina, chicken-processing plant in 1991 shows the inadequacy of our current patchwork of health and safety laws...
...workers to compete with child labor and low wages in Mexico and the rest of the third world...
...President Clinton needs a revived labor movement to "grow" the economy—and labor must change to adapt to a new economic landscape...
...Contrast this with the U.S...
...People who work full time at the minimum wage should be able to live above the poverty line...
...business pay a 1.5 percent retraining tax, a pledge he and Labor Secretary Robert Reich have put on hold, suggesting that persuasion, rather than legislation, might be the first step...
...Unlike the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiated with Canada and Mexico by former President Bush, the European Social Charter raises the standards for workers in the European Community (EC...
...q 158 • DISSENT...
...For instance, the Social Charter legislates fourteen-week paid maternity leave for workers and includes "social cohesion funds" provided by the richer states like Germany and France for the poorer partners in the EC like Spain and Portugal...
...Rural and urban sweatshops, all too prevalent in the United States, have no place in a competitive economy...
...Unless workers have genuine input into work reorganization, and unless they feel reasonably certain about job security, pensions, and the possibility of retraining, they will be reluctant SPRING • 1993 • 157 Clinton Proposes, We Respond to take the risks that will come with modernizing U.S...
...Two other changes in the labor laws were advocated by candidate Clinton: the outlawing of permanent replacement workers in strikes— commonly known as scabs—and the repeal of 14B, the federal "right-to-work" statute...
...Over 40 percent of them are children of parents who are thirty years old or younger—the new workers who came of age in the Reagan-Bush era, without benefit of unions or high wages...
...the figure goes up to 16 percent when public-sector unions are included...
...Labor-management cooperation can help U.S...
...Clinton must keep his pledge to raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation...
...The German model is worth examining in other ways...
...Contrast a volunteerist approach with the German model and with proposed European Community legislation, which legally entitles workers to lifetime training...
...where, after signing pro-union cards, workers must take part in a long election process with management effectively controlling the terms of the debate...
...According to the latest Children's Defense Fund survey, over thirteen million U.S...
...For specific changes in our labor laws, we can look to Canada, where union membership has risen in similar numbers to the U.S...
...There must also be a national commitment to affordable and safe child care for working parents...
...The most immediate item on the unions' agenda is job creation—high-wage jobs with good benefits...
...These workers also need an apprenticeship program...
...decline...
...children live in poverty...
...Nor do trade laws that force U.S...
...market...
...corporations thrive...
...The General Motors Saturn plant, where GM and the UAW have instituted employee-involvement arrangements, produces one of the fastest-selling cars in the U.S...
...The attempt to raise economic and social standards for all workers in the trading bloc is the exact opposite of the Bush-negotiated treaty...
...Empowering workers and giving them a real investment in the enterprise is part of what makes the German corporations competitive...
...And even when workers gain union recognition, several years and millions of dollars in litigation can be spent before a company finally signs a first contract...
...Approximately 12 percent of the private sector work force is organized...
...Without more liberal labor law, the chances for labor's resurgence are almost nil...
...The CIO helped shape Roosevelt's New Deal...
...Both of these changes would help stop the U.S...
...Labor laws must be updated to give workers a fighting chance to have their own representation...
...Canadian law takes some of the social strife out of union-management relations...
...Clinton campaigned on a pledge to make U.S...
...Considering labor law reform as an afterthought or a reward to faithful allies misses the point—unions are good for productivity...
...These must be family-friendly jobs...
...Early passage of the Family Medical Leave Act was a step in the right direction (though most working men and women can't afford the unpaid parental leave provided for in the act...
...Xerox regained market share after cooperating with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union to achieve a more competitive workplace and stop the practice of contracting out work...
...But, the experience of the last decade should be cause enough not to trust the benevolence or good judgment of American business...
...Even with its current economic problems, Germany still boasts the most unionized, militant, high-wage industrial work force and some of the most progressive labor laws in the world...
...For instance, if over 50 percent of workers in a plant sign union authorization cards, the union is automatically recognized...
...The cornerstone of the German system is "co-determination," whereby workers and shareholders have an equal number of representatives on supervisory boards in large enterprises...
...Organized labor today is about as weak as it was before Roosevelt's New Deal instituted a new era of labor standards, with the Wagner Act and the National Labor Relations Act...
...Twenty workers' councils already exist across national borders in Europe, uniting workers in multinational corporations in cooperative bargaining efforts, even though mandatory legislation is being stalled in the EC...
...As labor economists like Richard Freeman have shown, unions increase productivity in the workplace...
Vol. 40 • April 1993 • No. 2
