President's Perspective
Now more than ever unions matter
Mar 5, 2009 4:43 PM
Only now, after the initial shock at the depth and breadth of the current recession has diminished somewhat, are the reasons becoming clear. Why did the economy come crashing down like a house of cards, and why hasn’t boosting the financial industry and bailing out the banks helped? Economists are beginning to find the root cause in the plight of the American worker. A recent report by the Center for American Progress depicts it this way:
Far less likely to be unionized, today’s workers since the 1980s have seen their wages and benefits grow far more slowly than the economy and their own productivity. As a result, the benefits of the general prosperity that they helped produce did not flow proportionately to them and income gaps widened.
Most, however, were able to continue to spend and pump money into the consumer market because of the easy availability of credit. And the credit market was able to remain so fluid as long as housing prices continued to rise. With the collapse of the housing bubble, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich tells us, “consumers ran out of money.” Their confidence shaken and fearful of losing their jobs and their homes they simply stopped spending. And with 70 percent of the economy dependent on consumer spending, the result was inevitable.
Had 30 percent of American workers been unionized, as they were in the 1950s — or even 23 percent as recently as the 1980s — when unions paved the way to the middle class and protected families with health care and pensions, their wages would be higher and their situation less precarious. Even today, unionized workers earn 11.3 percent more than non-unionized workers with the same characteristics. And had wages grown in tandem with worker productivity, as they did during the mid-20th century, workers would be earning some 40 percent more than they do today.
Just as education is the great social equalizer, the labor movement is the great economic equalizer. Together they are the linchpins for creating opportunity in America.
And, even in a shrinking economy, unionized workers would not be as fearful. Assured of an orderly reduction in force with a fair severance package and callback process, some continuation of benefits and opportunities for union retraining, unionized consumers might not close their pocketbooks as firmly, and the economic downturn might be shorter and shallower.
No wonder three out of five workers today say they would join a union if they could! What they need — and what the American economy needs now — is the Employee Free Choice Act so that more workers can have that opportunity. I will devote a future column to this.
But the benefits of unions accrue not just to their members. They accrue to all workers because they prop up all wages.
And most important, especially for those that represent the people who serve our most vulnerable citizens, unions protect their members’ clients.
And that is what our March 5 rally is really about. Making sure the kids get the education they need and deserve. Making sure the old and frail get the assistance they need and deserve. Making sure the ill get the care they need and deserve. Making sure the poor get the support they need and deserve.
Some wonder why we still rallied once the mayor said the federal stimulus would help avert layoffs. That stimulus package is a lifeline — and worth every bit of advocacy we — and the mayor and governor — did. But its passage is not the final word. As long as student services are in jeopardy, teachers were going to turn out to protest, right beside the health care workers and the social workers and all the rest of our labor and community activist colleagues.
And if it weren’t for the fact that we went to Washington on such short notice and in such numbers and lobbied every single one of our representatives both locally and nationally, you would not have seen a stimulus package like the one the president signed, with education as a top priority. And if we didn’t have this president, one we helped elect, you still would not have seen such a lifeline. And if we didn’t go to Albany, not once but over and over again, New York City schoolchildren would not have received a fair share of those dollars.
Even after most of our own jobs were secure, we wanted to make sure our kids’ education was secure, too.
That’s why we fight against budget cuts and excessive testing and for the conditions teachers need to do a good job, like a well-rounded curriculum, safe schools, high standards, small classes and the community services our kids need.
In the end, that’s why we keep doing the job we do. And it’s why I intend to make sure we always have a strong union behind us. Not just for us, but also for our kids.
