By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
"History doesn't repeat itself but it can often rhyme," Mark Twain supposedly said.
It's true even if he didn't say it.
Ninety years ago, our country was on the cusp of its biggest-ever upswing in union organizing. To the surprise of many economists and other experts, unions are on the rise again.
"After years of decline, the American labor movement is experiencing a resurgence, with an increase in popularity of unions and of workers organizing,” Michael Sainato recently wrote in The Guardian.
Employers stubbornly and often violently resisted unionization in the 1930s. Today, “the corporate pushback in America has been fierce, and has come amid allegations of union-busting, and brutal campaigns to try and discourage workers from organizing,” Sainato added.
Unions persisted in the '30s. They're hanging tough today, too, even as labor law mainly tilts toward employers.
The 1935 Wagner Act and other landmark labor legislation immeasurably helped unions of old. The bills triggered a tsunami of workers who signed union cards, notably in largely unorganized heavy industry.
Skeptics had said it was well-nigh impossible to unionize unskilled and semi-skilled factory workers. But unions like the United Auto Workers and the United Steelworkers became some of the country’s largest labor organizations.
Likewise, it was long believed that organizing workers in the food and beverage industry was mission impossible. But those workers are unionizing nationwide and are all over the news.
(Unions are triumphing, and not just in the food and beverage industry. They’re notching victories across the board. Check out "Enacting Tangible Change: Worker Wins.")
"After the first corporate-run Starbucks in the US won its union election in Buffalo in December, about 200 stores have . . . voted to unionize, leading the resurgence of labor union election petition filings,” according to The Guardian story. “These victories have come despite aggressive opposition from Starbucks.”
Meanwhile, in Louisville, a union drive is underway at Heine Brothers' Coffee stores. A vote is expected in about a month, reported WLKY's Drew Gardner.
The pro-union workers want to join NCFO SEIU 32BJ, whose secretary-treasurer, Robert Smith, said Heine Brothers is guilty of “union busting.” Gardner quoted him: "They have fought these workers. They have tried to intimidate these workers. They've tried to survey these workers. They have [with]stood every anti-union tactic that Heine Brothers has put out there.”
Statistics show that union organizing is on the rise across the country. The National Labor Relations Board has reported a 58 percent hike in union election petitions during the first three quarters of this fiscal year—to 1,892 from 1,197, Sainato wrote, adding, “The NLRB is now pushing for increased funding to handle the surge in labor activity. But labor law reform has not been able to get through the US Senate, despite being passed in the House.”
While McConnell and his anti-union Senate Republicans threaten to filibuster any significant labor legislation such as the Democratic House-passed PRO Act, public support for unions is evidently rising. “An August 2021 poll conducted by Gallup found support for labor unions at their highest point in the US since 1965, with 68% support in the US. Labor unions were the only institution for whom Americans’ approval did not decline over the past year, in a June poll on confidence for 16 major US institutions,” Sainato wrote.
Strong public backing is vital for a strong union movement. But what organized labor needs most is more friends in Congress, governors' mansions and statehouses, including the Kentucky Capitol where the GOP enjoys anti-union supermajorities.
"If we get more people [in unions] we can change the narrative at the Capitol," said Jeff Wiggins, Kentucky State AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer. "Right now the narrative is the Chamber of Commerce line. Let's not be bashful about it. They've bought and paid for it over there."
But Wiggins said organized labor "is people. The more people that we can get in unions, the more we can teach them the issues and get them to vote for labor-endorsed candidates."
He gets it that people might be discouraged when they see a 75-25 GOP edge in the House and a 30-8 margin in the Senate. "You've got to start somewhere to take back the House and Senate," said Wiggins, noting that the Democrats had controlled the legislature for decades. "The Republicans had to start somewhere to take over the legislature."