Note: This article is reprinted with kind permission from the March 10, 2001 edition of the Oklahoma Observer, published by Troy Enterprises. For more information, or to subscribe, e-mail at ftroy@keytech.com.

Keep Workplace Justice

Right to Work is Wrong

“After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad and the vampire, He had some awful stuff left with which he made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles…… Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared to a scab. For betraying his master he had the character to hang himself –– the scab hasn’’t…… There is nothing lower than a scab.” --Jack London

Has the union become irrelevant, as claimed by rightwing critics? Will Oklahomans vote to drive a stake in labor’’s heart by voting for a so-called right to work day?

If huge disparities in income and wealth create major public health problems and an unsustainable society, then we need a more equitable distribution of available benefits.

That’’s what unions are all about. For every union scandal, there are hundreds of stories on corporate corruption. Do we eliminate business?

Union members earn the best wages in Oklahoma because, as noted by Dr. Lee Maril’s study, Oklahoma businesses pay 20% below average for the same jobs in other states.

Historically, labor unions have played a fabulous role, effectively producing the minimum wage, the eight-hour work day, paid vacations and holidays, health insurance, and retirement funds.

Today when the typical chief executive officer earns in a day what a typical worker earns in a year, we find ourselves——more than ever-0-needing the labor movement to provide pressure toward a fairer distribution of benefits.

The bad news is that since 1979 the percentage of union workers in the United States has declined from 24% to 14%. In Oklahoma, it’s less than 8%.

The good news is that given the choice of joining a union or not, 48% of workers in this country would join.

Due to the export of jobs, outsourcing and automation, existing union jobs are being lost as fast as new members join unions.

The traditional strategy of organizing workers——work place by work place——does bring in new members, but employer opposition still denies most workers union representation.

A case that makes the point is the health care industry in the state of Massachusetts, which currently implies 400,000 workers, 10% of whom are union members.

Unions put a fair amount of financial and human resources into organizing health care workers, and in 1977 organized 819 new members through the union certification process.

At this rate it would take 434 years to organize the industry if the number of employed stayed at 400,000, but the industry is projected to grow another 250,000 in the next 45 years.

You see the problem. Unions have to do something different. In Sweden, for example, unions represent 83% of the work force. Employers are prevented by law from interfering with the formation of unions.

Unlike U.S. workers, Swedish workers have the right to associate and bargain collectively. In Sweden, Japan, France, Germany and most countries with which U.S. corporate managers say we compete, the right to associate and bargain collectively is a basic human right recognized by the United Nations and stated in the Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 under Article 20.

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. This right is explained in the UN’s International Labor Organization’s Convention #87——Freedom of Association and the Right to Organize, which establishes the right of all workers to form and join organizations of their own choosing without prior authorization.

Although 118 countries have ratified Convention #87, the U.S. Senate has steadfastly refused to do so for the past 51 years.

Freedom of speech plus freedoms of assembly equals freedom of association. It works like this:

A group of people wants to form a corporation. They call a meeting (freedom of assembly) and discuss (freedom of speech) their options and decide they want corporate recognition. Then they send a representative to their state capital and file papers. That’s it.

Their corporation is recognized by the rest of the society. No cards are signed; no campaign is waged, no one gets fired and no election occurs. Just recognition. In this country forming a corporation is a protected activity. It is a right.

Getting a corporation to recognize a union is not a right; forming a union is not a protected activity. If it were, 48% of the work force would be union members in a heart beat.

During a union campaign in this country, the company will put up anti-union posters and hold captive-audience meetings——as Hobby Lobby did last year.

But the union can’t put up posters because it doesn’t own the walls. The union can’t bring a representative to the work place to talk to workers in the private sector because the union doesn’t own the building.

I this country we have freedom of speech and assembly on public property. On private property the owners of the property determine who can speak and assemble. Workers surrender their free speech rights to their employers when they enter the work place.

If we want to associate, to organize, to exercise power, we need to change some fundamental relationships in our society.

But first we need to understand how the fundamental relationships that now govern our lives were set. We need to know our own history.

“He came to know……that history was not a page in a book, but something held in memory and in blood.” (Buried Unsung——The Ludlow Massacre)

Imagine a Church without the Bible, a Synagogue without the Torah, a mosque without the Koran or the Iroquois without their story of creation. It is the teachings of the stories from these great books and oral traditions that hold the congregations and tribes of our people together.

The wisdom acquired over the ages is passed down through the stories of the past. These stories guide us into the future——they give us our values, direction and strength. Without them we are rootless, have no direction and live only in the uniformed present.

The same is true for labor. We need a framework to view our history and connect the many stories of our great struggles. We need to learn from our past mistakes and victories. We need to take the best from the past and use it to help build our future. If not, we will forever live in the present and make the same mistakes over and over again.

It is often said in labor circles that we will never increase our numbers until we have better laws. The fact is that for most of our history pro-labor laws have been the exception. Most laws relating to labor have been anti-labor, anti-union laws.

It wasn’’t until 1937 that the National Labor Relations Act was declared constitutional and today that law is of more use to the employer than it is to us. But that is nothing new. The law favored the wealth in the 13 American colonies and still does in the country our people created.

George Washington didn’t become the most powerful and one of the wealthiest men in America in 1776 by surveying house lots. It is true that Washington did do some surveying for the Ohio Company, a company in which he was a major stockholder.

We have heard a lot about Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, but who were these indentured servants and slaves? What was their history?

Roughly half the immigrants to colonial America were indentured servants. At the time of the war of Independence, three out of four persons in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia were or had been indentured servants.

And by this time, roughly 20 percent of the colonial population was in slavery. Slaves from Africa and indentured servants from Europe lived under the same fugitive slave laws, and their children were the property of the masters. These people were property to be bought and sold——property protected by colonial law and later the United States Constitution.

For many in the Unites States the images of the colonial period are dominated by scenes of Thanks-giving, Pocahontas, Captain John Smith and people seeking religious freedom. These images hide a colonial scheme that went like this:

European adventurers “discovered America” and began killing off the indigenous population. They were followed by European speculators who extracted profits from the new land primarily through the labor of African slaves and European indentured servants.

Unions——and only unions——have brought workplace justice to America. No other group has profited directly or indirectly more than minorities and women.

Will Oklahoma turn back?

Editor’s Note: We are indebted to Peter Kellman of Rachel’s Weekly for research.

Copyright ©©2001 The Campaign for Worker Rights. All Rights Reserved.