Sun Jan 18, 2009
The Employee Free Choice Act is not simply about protecting and ensuring workers' rights to organize. Rather, it's about the economy writ large - it is an absolutely essential step into creating a high-wage economy - and as a result, a high level of consumer spending.
It will rebuild the middle class and fix broken labor laws. As Trapper John has written, perhaps the surest way of expanding the middle class - of giving working families a substantial income, a sustainable retirement package, affordable health insurance, and the other trappings of a middle-class life - is to protect and ensure their right to collective bargaining:
Union workers earn significantly more money, enjoy more significantly more retirement security, are significantly more likely to have health insurance, and have significantly safer workplaces than similarly situated non-union workers. It's not close.
And it's not magic -- simply joing a union doesn't in and of itself dramatically improve your quality of life. The reason there's a union advantage in all these areas is because union workers stand together, as an organized unit, to "get what they can take, and keep what they can hold" from their employers. But you don't have the opportunity to create that union advatage, to take what's yours, without unionizing. And it's that union advantage that's the difference between a family being solidly middle class and a family that's fundamentally insecure.
Finally, from a purely cynical point of view, more union workers means more Democrats, at the elected level. The percentage of unionized workers who voted Democratic in the 2006 elections is truly staggering:
High turnout among union members turned a win into a sweep with 74 percent of union voters supporting union-endorsed candidates in the House and 76 percent supporting Democratic candidates in Senate races - - a whopping 50 point margin for working family candidates. Non-union voters supported the Democratic House candidates by a two-point margin. Union households accounted for roughly 1 out of 4 voters.
Given all this, it's no wonder that big business interests like the Chamber of Commerce and an army of anti-union astroturfers are fighting Employee Free Choice just as they did during the election. They have no interest in creating a high-wage economy - stagnant wages mean more profits for shareholders and more extra cash for executives to take home. They've no real interest in revitalizing the middle class, either, as greater wealth inequality is in their own best interest. And they've certainly no interest in aiding the Democratic Party every election day.
As such, they are pouring millions of dollars into defeating the interests of working people throughout the U.S., and while unions and other progressive groups are fighting back (like with the American Rights at Work ad TomP had a recommended diary about), they're doing so without the same budget or scare tactics.
What they are fighting for Employee Free Choice with -- what all of us have at our disposal and should be using -- are the facts. The SEIU has broken down some of the bill's economic benefits:
New research makes a solid case as to why the Employee Free Choice Act would be a "stimulus" that gets our economy back on track. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that if 5 million service workers join unions:
- 5 million workers would get a 22 percent raise on average, or an additional $7,000 a year;
- $34 billion in total new wages would flow into the economy;
- 900,000 jobs would be lifted above the poverty wage for a family of four ($10.22/hr); and
- Between 1.8 million and 3 million dependent children would share in these benefits.
- The economic impact on individuals would be about four times as large as the recent federal minimum wage increase, and allow nearly six times more in new wages to flow into the economy.
Now, given that consumer spending accounts for well over two-thirds of the American economy, it's pretty evident that Employee Free Choice would create a dramatic increase in middle-class spending power, which would provide a substantial economic stimulus -- at no cost to the cash-strapped federal government. Moreover, the re-concentration of wealth in the hands of working Americans would lead to a long-term buoying effect on the health of the economy, and would help smooth out any future
downturns. That's why Congressional Democrats are looking to move the Act in the first wave of legislation after the inauguration.
And that's why it's slightly troubling that in the midst of a discussion of how he supports Employee Free Choice and the role of labor in raising wages, President-elect Obama stated that:
[I]n terms of time table [for passing the Act], if we are losing half a million jobs a month then there are no jobs to unionize. So my focus first is on those key economic priority items that I just mentioned.
As Obama himself realizes,
[W]ages and incomes have flatlined over the last decade. Part of that has to do with forces that are beyond everybody's control: globalization, technology and so forth. Part of it has to do with workers have very little leverage and that larger and larger shares of our productivity go to the top and not to the middle or the bottom. I think unions serve an important role in that.
Of course, as the EPI study shows, he's right. Unionization leads to higher wages, which leads to more stable consumer spending and less debt, which leads to a healthy, prosperous economy. And Employee Free Choice is the quickest way to get there. Obama supports the Act, and he wants real stimulus for working Americans. So it seems that the President-elect just needs a nudge to reconcile his interests, and to recognize that the Act should be one of his "key economic priority items."
This is where it's up to all of us to get the message out, however. A poll (PDF) done by Peter Hart Research for the AFL-CIO found 78% support for legislation making it easier for workers to bargain with their employers, and 73% support for the Employee Free Choice Act once its provisions were described.
But without money to compete on television advertising, anyone who wants to see workers get a fair chance to join unions and bargain for better wages and working conditions needs to spread the word about what the Employee Free Choice Act means for workers and the economy.
We've got the luxury of having a Congress and President-elect who are receptive to the benefits of passing this potentially groundbreaking piece of legislation. It's up to us to ensure that they go the distance in actually doing it.
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