Global Summit: Employer Resistance Drives Down Union Membership in U.S., Around World

by James Parks, Dec 11, 2007

John Lindner and Kelly Beringer testify before a congressional forum on the crisis in organizing.

The United States has the lowest level of union membership and collective bargaining of any industrial nation—and now the oppressive culture that deters workers from freely forming unions here is being exported around the world. 

A study released today by John Logan, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, points out that anti-worker governments are the main cause of the decline in union membership in several countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, but that in the United States there is the added factor of  “aggressive and often-illegal employer opposition.”

The intensity of employer opposition and government hostility to collective bargaining in the United States is unique among developed nations.   

This “repressive character of U.S. labor law, which allows free rein to anti-union employers,” not only hurts workers in the United States and in other nations, Logan said today.

There is growing evidence that consultants, employer groups and multinational corporations are exporting U.S.-originated anti-union strategies to other developed countries such as the United Kingdom and Ireland and to transforming countries such as China. Strengthening the right to organize and bargain collectively through the Employee Free Choice Act would benefit not only American workers, but also workers in other nations.

Logan spoke at a Capitol Hill press conference and congressional forum in conjunction with the AFL-CIO-hosted global organizing summit, a two-day meeting in Silver Spring, Md., in which top union leaders discussed strategies for coordinating action.

Sharan Burrow, president of the International Trade Union Confederation, said the delegates came to “prioritize and organize against the oppression afflicted on working people.” (See video.)

Logan’s report, Unions Facing Hard Times: The Global Crisis in Union Collective Bargaining, shows that Sweden has the highest rate of union membership with 80 percent, while the United States trails at the bottom with 12 percent. Click here to download a copy of the report (PDF).

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney backed up Logan’s conclusions, saying:

Workers want to form unions.  More than half of all workers in the United States—60 million—would join a union today, if only they had the opportunity. But too few ever get the chance. Corporations are sinking to new lows in the United States, thwarting workers’ freedom to form unions at every turn, and our nation’s labor laws are helpless to stop them. The U.S. is exporting this lawless corporate culture, creating a domino effect that’s toppling workers’ rights worldwide. 

Today’s congressional forum on collective bargaining was the first of its kind. Two sessions—one on the collective bargaining crisis in the United States and one on the global crisis—were led by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), respectively. Other members of Congress who attended included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Reps. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), Phillip Hare (D-Ill.) and John Sarbanes (D-Md.).

Kelly Beringer, a nurse at Resurrection Health Care in Chicago, told the forum how the Catholic-owned hospital chain has systematically fought workers’ efforts to form a union, which led to 14 unfair labor practice settlements in four years. Management settled each charge by having to post a notice promising not to commit the same offense again. Sometimes, the notice was not posted until a year after the violation. She says labor laws must be changed. 

In real terms, there are no consequences for violating the National Labor Relations Act. Everyday in the United States, companies like Resurrection simply violate the law. To them, it’s worth having to post a few notices if you squash an organizing drive.

All we ask is for a fair process under which we can decide—free of fear and intimidation and democratically—whether to form a union.

For John Lindner, a seven-year field technician for Verizon in New York City, the issue is one of economic security and freedom. Verizon has launched a long-running vicious campaign to prevent its workers from joining a union.

We want to form a union because we want what everybody else who works hard for a living wants—decent wages, good health benefits and retirement security. 

I have served several tours of duty in both Afghanistan and Iraq. My country called me to serve, telling me I had to fight to protect freedom here in the United States. Imagine the irony of returning home and finding that my freedom to join a union is being denied.

Victor Baez, general secretary of ORIT, the Latin American arm of the International Trade Union Confederation, said what happens to U.S. workers and their unions has consequences in Latin America. When U.S. workers’ rights are weakened, unions’ political strength is weakened and that can lead to faulty trade agreements that do not include workers’ rights: 

When U.S. workers lose power to bargain, workers are exploited in Latin America. The passage of the Employee Free Choice Act would benefit workers in the U.S. and it is absolutely essential to the restoration of workers’ rights in this hemisphere.

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