Abstract
To the Editors:
Brother Larry Cohen has made an important contribution to the debate on the future of the U.S. labor movement. (See On the Contrary: “The Time Has Come for Sectoral Bargaining” in this issue). It is a very timely contribution indeed as many recognize that the greatest bulwark against Trumpism and the unraveling of progress is a powerful labor movement. The Supreme Court Janus decision happened on June 27, 2018, and while it was long expected, the shock waves throughout labor and the progressive community were palpable.
Cohen starts off his important piece with a clear pronouncement: “It is now clear that enterprise-based organizing and bargaining in the U.S. has a dim future.” He is right, but this is not a new revelation and in fact the best scale organizing undertaken in this country over the last thirty years has had a sectoral character: Justice for Janitors in building services; Service Employees International Union’s homecare and hospital campaigns; Cohen’s own Communications Workers of America organizing of wireless workers in the phone industry; and the national intermodal port drivers campaign of the Teamsters. The list is longer although the outright successes are nothing approaching the massive sectoral victories of the 1930s in rubber, steel, auto, and electrical. None of these successes historically or in recent times have relied chiefly on state-sanctioned sectoral bargaining.
Cohen looks to examples from around the world where sectoral bargaining is in some cases like South Africa and Germany sanctioned by statute. In other situations in Europe, for example, Italy, the case I am most familiar with, the fact that Italian unions with 30 percent density represent 85 percent of the workforce in bargaining is the product of the postwar antifascist paradigm of large-scale state-owned industries with Fascist unions that were replaced by the Communist-led Confederazione Generale Italiana dei Lavoratori (CGIL) initially and the other two national Federations established by the Christian Democrats and other parliamentary parties. Italian labor law and the 1947 Constitution itself guarantee a strong role for labor and the right to strike, but sectoral bargaining and certification is not state sanctioned and rests on years of past practice and struggle. The point being that each country is different and sectoral bargaining emerges in each situation based on unique historical and political realities. Cohen recognizes that sectoral bargaining cannot be wished into being and must be fought for in our particular social context.
The strongest part of Cohen’s argument is his referencing of the “metro strategies” that have been carried out at the state and local levels to win the Fight for $15 or living wage ordinances. His suggestion that a campaign could be started for a $25 minimum wage for transit workers in the Washington, D.C., area supported by legislative action, community base building, and labor direct action is excellent. This approach could be replicated in other localities and could be used in other sectors. For instance, in every major metro area in the nation there are “Metal Service Centers” that cut, shape, and bend basic steel (often imported) for use in construction and local manufacturing. This is a place-based industry not subject to relocation. Further, many of the construction projects that require fabricated metals are publicly funded and subject to progressive political power and influence on a local level. Why not a multi-union fight for Justice for Metalworkers!
We will have to make our own road to sectoral bargaining by doing and innovating. Foreign inspiration is healthy, but Cohen’s strongest argument is his spotlight on the local and state tools at our disposal to realize these objectives.
In a moment when labor is on its heels reeling from negative Supreme Court decisions and NLRB rulings and the potential for more damage as Trump appointments and policies play out, it may seem contradictory to advance plans for growth and revitalization. But it is in crisis and adversity that new initiatives are often birthed and take root. One touchstone must be to never discount the important role that the existing fifteen million American union workers will play in realizing strategies to organize the non-union ninety million. Any metro sectoral strategy will have to take into account the workers that are unionized. Without their commitment, involvement, and dues money no sectoral strategies can happen. Disregarding them, as many well-meaning organizing programs have done, is a recipe for conservative reaction in our precious remaining labor organizations. The needs and interests of existing members must be seen as a core element of moving organizing in the sectors that they already occupy. For instance in the aforementioned “Metal Service Center” example there is a reservoir of union members who belong either to the Teamsters, International Longshore and Warehouse Union or Steelworkers, and who are presently working for several of these companies. Can we move them to support a sectoral bargaining and organizing strategy?