Volume 10, Issue 1 - Labor in American Politics

This special issue of The Forum focuses on the changing place of organized labor in American politics. Nick Salvatore begins with a historical overview of factors that led both to labor’s postwar rise and to its decline. In electoral politics, Fred Siegel considers how public-sector unions emerged as a key constituency of the Democratic Party, while Peter Francia documents the ongoing impact of organized labor in election campaigns. In legislative politics, Terry Moe argues that classic veto-points in the American system allow teachers unions to block major educational reform, while Martin West, Michael Henderson , and Paul Peterson see evidence of a classic iron triangle expressed in the widely divergent attitudes about reform between teachers and the public. With respect to social and economic change more generally, Janice Fine and Dan Tichenor chart the labor movement’s shifting position on immigration, while John Ahlquist considers how forces undermining private-sector unionism are inextricably linked to support for public-sector unions. In placing labor within the contemporary legal regime, Chris Rhomberg discusses the disappearance of the strike as a collective bargaining tool, while David Weil examines the erosion of workplace rights. Graham Wilson closes with a comparative perspective on whether the decline of unionism is any more severe in the US than Europe. In remembrance of James Q. Wilson, Shep Melnick provides an overview of a great scholar’s work, while making an argument about the purpose of studying politics. Andrew Rudalevige reviews recent autobiographies by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. And Daniel DiSalvo reviews Terry Moe, Special Interest, about teachers unions and educational reform.

In 1945, American labor unions optimistically expected considerable growth in the coming decades. The New Deal policies continued their influence, and organized labor achieved its highest density rating (35 percent) ever recorded in the United States. By the mid-1950s, however, that figure began to decline, slowly at first and then, after 1970, swiftly. At the close of 2011, it had fallen to 11.8 percent. The cause of this reduction was not simply employer opposition, although that did occur. Rather, the American working class itself underwent a political and sociological sea change, propelled by southern migration of whites and blacks into the industrial North, sharp changes in political attitudes during and after the 1960s, and the economic transformation of the American and global economy that began in the 1970s. Some of these changes were beyond the scope of organized labor’s ability to alter; regarding others, labor proved to be slow, even hesitant, in its response. One consequence was the resurgence of a sharply conservative political vision among American working people that had a powerful impact on national elections and the policy choices followed.

The rising power of public sector unions, long overlooked, came into full view with the bitter clash in Wisconsin. But it has been building since the mid-1990s when government unions took the helm of the AFL-CIO. The ground operations of the public sector unions make them an enormous asset for the Democratic Party. But their insatiable demands create conflicts that are difficult to resolve.

Popular accounts of the labor movement often suggest that unions are in decline. While there have been sharp declines in union membership as a percentage of the workforce, this study presents evidence that organized labor’s influence in the U.S. elections remains significant. Using data from the American National Election Study and the National Election Pool, the results in this study demonstrate: (1) union households, despite drops in union membership as a percentage of the workforce, have remained a sizeable percentage of the U.S electorate, especially in regions outside of the South; (2) unions boost voter turnout, including among those from traditionally underrepresented demographics; and (3) unions continue to produce a strong Democratic vote in presidential and congressional elections, and boost the Democratic vote among middle-income whites – a critical “swing” constituency. In total, these results suggest that the future strength or weakness of the labor movement is likely to have significant implications for upcoming election outcomes, the party coalitions that ultimately form for future Democratic and Republican candidates, and how representative the electorate will be relative to the population in years to come.

Why has the modern era of American education reform been such a disappointment? Why has a nation so dedicated to improving its schools continually pulled up short, year after year, embracing weak reforms unsuited to the challenge and refusing to throw off the shackles of the past? The answer comes down to simple fundamentals that have long been staples of political science: vested interests, checks and balances. The vested interests in this case are the teachers unions, which are by far the most powerful groups in the politics of education. And their power is magnified by the American system of checks and balances—which, quite by design, creates veto points that make it exceedingly difficult for reformers to get major new legislation passed and correspondingly easy for opponents to block. The teachers unions have been masters of the politics of blocking for the past quarter century. Major reform is threatening to their vested interests in the existing system, and they have used their formidable power—leveraged by checks and balances—to repel, weaken, and render ineffective the efforts of reformers to bring real change. This is the basic story of the modern reform era. The rest is detail.

Do teachers and the public disagree on education reform? We use data from a nationally representative survey conducted in 2011 to identify the extent of the differences between the opinion of teachers and the general public on a wide range of education policies. The overall cleavage between teachers and the general public is wider than the cleavages between other relevant groups, including that between Democrats and Republicans. At least with respect to patterns of opinion on education reform, school politics is largely a conflict between producers within the system and consumers outside it – a classic iron triangle theme.

In American labor’s response to immigration over time, one can observe “a movement wrestling” between restrictionist and solidaristic positions. A crucial transformation of American labor’s response to immigration occurred from the 1930s to the 1960s which is attributed to four factors: changes in the structure and composition of the labor market, shifts in immigration flows, shifts in the attitudes of the labor movement toward immigrants, and the changing disposition of the American state toward unions. In this article we look at the policy choices and dilemmas that have faced the American labor movement since the 1940’s, putting forth a conceptual framework for understanding labor’s shifting positions over time and identifying critical moments in American political development. Having laid this foundation, we move on to a consideration of labor’s most recent positions concerning contemporary policy debates.

I argue that the extension of collective bargaining rights and formation of public sector labor unions requires the prior existence of these rights among significant sections of the private sector economy. The secular decline in private sector unionization will undermine the political bases of support for public sector unions. I demonstrate that public sector unionism emerged where private sector unions were initially strong. Declining private sector unionism has led to a marked decrease in support for public sector unions. The diminution of their allies in the private sector and the prospect of extended periods of austerity at the state and local level have put public sector unions in a precarious position that Republican governors and legislatures are taking full advantage of. The prospects for renewal in the labor movement are dim.

Discussions of the current state of American labor have overlooked the fact that the strike, a principal form of union and working class power, has virtually disappeared from American life. The rise of an anti-union institutional legal regime has undermined the right to strike and effectively reversed the structure of incentives for collective bargaining envisioned under the National Labor Relations Act. The dynamics of the current regime are illustrated by one of the largest and longest strikes of recent decades, the 1995 Detroit Newspapers strike. The consequences go beyond unionized labor and constitute a de-democratization of workplace governance in the United States.

The “broken windows” perspective suggests that the erosion of order in a neighborhood leads to elevated fear, retreat from the street, and consequently an environment where more serious crime takes root. I apply the broken windows idea to the workplace. Increasing violations of basic standards in many low-wage workplaces is perceived by workers as the breakdown of laws, making them reluctant to exercise voice in any way, in turn resulting in further erosion of conditions. Efforts to increase union representation are challenging at best under these circumstances. I provide evidence of the decline of complaints by workers over the last decade under the Fair Labor Standards Act as consistent with this story. I then argue that public policy makers and worker advocates should rethink their approach in light of broken windows, focusing on ways to improve collective exercise of basic workplace rights.

American unions have been stronger and more politically active than a simple “exceptionalist” perspective would suggest. However, the combination of economic trends evident in other advanced democracies combined with an unsympathetic legal environment has made the decline of private sector unions in the US particularly severe. The growth of unions in the public sector compensates only partially for this decline and creates additional problems for the cause of organized labor in general.

James Q. Wilson produced a remarkably varied, influential, and profound body of scholarly work on American politics. The first part of this tribute provides an overview of his contribution to our understanding of city politics, crime and policing, voluntary organizations, bureaucracy, and the development of those character traits upon which democratic government depends. The second part of the essay describes key features of Wilson’s approach to studying politics, features notably and lamentably absent from most political science today.