The Transformative Role Of Reforms: EFCA As A Case Study

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) has been a political organizing issue for labor and our allies for some time now--almost 9 years, in fact. It has attracted widespread support from the union rank-and-file and became a litmus test for candidates seeking union support in the last elections. Midway through the campaign for EFCA many credible people in the labor movement began to raise doubts about how effective EFCA might be if passed while others cited current examples of where it might be used effectively to win union representation elections. After the smoke cleared after the November elections unions realized, or finally announced, that the votes were not there to win passage of EFCA as quickly as we had hoped. Some leading unions began a ramped-up mobilization for EFCA before disappointment and demobilization could set in. To some extent these positive efforts have been overshadowed by bad economic news and union in-fighting, but the labor story of 2009 is still all about mobilization, EFCA and the Solis appointment.

One of the strengths of EFCA is that it does not carry with it the baggage of union-backed labor law reform pushed unsuccessfully in the 1970s and early 1980s. Another is that it is obviously the fruit of much discussion about union organizing done at the local level over a protracted period of time. EFCA takes a holistic approach to the difficulties inherent in holding union representation elections in the US. It is not the far-reaching systemic reform we on the left might have hoped for, but it has motivated large numbers of people to go into action, it has forced politicians to either declare for or against a broader labor-backed political agenda and it has helped to raise some basic questions among workers about capitalism. No one could have foreseen this last year.

Alec MacGillis, writing in the Washington Post today, said:

The Employee Free Choice Act seemed destined to be a relatively narrow clash between unions and employers. But amid the economic downturn, it is turning into a debate over fundamental questions of American capitalism.

After years of girding for this fight, labor supporters and business groups are scrambling after the bill's reintroduction last week to adapt their long-established arguments to suit the crisis. For those opposed to the bill, which would make it easier to form unions, the new message was that it would be a disaster for businesses reeling from the recession.

MacGillis presents the capitalist argument in these terms:

The bill's opponents go on to say that expanding union membership via "card check" would reverse a natural trend when business can least afford it. "It's very clear that things have changed from the 1940s, '50s and '60s, and we need to change, as well," said Pennsylvania building contractor Jerry Gorski, the national chairman of the Associated Builders and Contractors. "Just to go back to the old ways and say unions get a certain amount of pay is not a help to our society."

Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist with the consulting firm LECG who produced a study predicting job losses if the bill passes, said in a conference call organized by employers that increased productivity had not resulted in larger wage gains in recent decades because the growth was mostly the result of technology. "If the productivity of labor went up, then the wages of labor would go up," she said.

The official labor response is sadly weak:

Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO's chief lobbyist, scoffed at this logic. "So, the [business community] no longer believes in the unique power of the American workforce?" he asked. The opponents' shift from emphasizing the bill's alleged undemocratic nature to its job-killing potential, he added, also undermined one of business's long-standing rhetorical stances: that it is not opposed to unions per se but only to corrupt and coercive unions.

"The mask has come off, and now it's clear that the Chamber of Commerce is against unions. Now they're saying they just don't want to see unions grow and have access to collective bargaining," he said. "There are a lot of members of Congress who are not necessarily supporters [of the bill] but recognize there is a problem to be fixed, and the Chamber is going to lose them because of this attitude. The majority of members are not anti-union."

Answering the capitalist arguments are relatively easy. Workers form unions and resist capital, consciously and unconsciously, as a natural response to the inevitable deteriorating economic and political conditions. The "unseen hand" of capitalism is very easily seen in most workplaces most of the time. Even within a capitalist society, however, it is logical to expect that a rising tide of wages, benefits, time off and healthcare for workers helps everyone in society do better and that unions in most capitalist societies are the mechanism for making this happen. Moreover, most available data will show that unionization in the trades in cities causes at least slight upward bumps in employment for most groups, if only because it forces employers to rationalize production and compete in new markets. The same should logically be true in other industries and professions and in most rural areas most of the time. The problem is not that unions don't fit well into the capitalist framework, as the argument above would have it, but that they may fit too comfortably into that framework over time.

Responding to the weak defensive posture taken by those in labor's bureaucracy is more difficult.

American industry gave up on American workers long ago. In fact, there is little or nothing "unique" about American workers in terms of labor power, production and consumption. Our per centage of unionized workers in really quite low for an industrialized country and the absence here of a mass workers' party means that we are exceptionally unprepared for coping through capitalist crises. Union growth in the US would have to reach spectacular heights that no one in labor expects soon in order for us to be a credible threat to profits overall. Without a workers' party we are left to bargain workplace by workplace or industry by industry, giving us only a limited number of weapons in our small arsenal. Pattern bargaining died in the 1980s and is unlikely to be resurrected to look and feel as it did in the past. Much of the anticipated growth by unions in key economic sectors in a post-EFCA system will probably come from national agreements which give workers minimal raises and benefits to begin with so any big hit on profits will be delayed. The majority of Congress may not be anti-union now, but they have yet to be tested by a mass movement engaged in a half-hidden class struggle.

Opposition from the Chamber of Commerce and other business interests is nothing new; why anyone would be shocked by this is in itself shocking. The Chamber of Commerce will not lose the support of political interests because of its opposition to EFCA. In fact, just the opposite seems quite possible: as class antagonisms grow, sides will harden. The full anti-human and anti-labor side of monopoly capital may well become apparent over the next decade.

Much of this has been sparked by a relatively innocuous and cautious bit of legislation designed to build union density under especially trying times. The upsurge which has developed around EFCA and the fight for the best terms and conditions possible for workers under the new administration has taken everyone by surprise: if it testifies to the nature of spontaneous class struggle, it also testifies to the need for the kind of open-ended reform work that can lead to greater things.