US unions clawless housecats to EU's labor tiger

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Published time: October 15, 2010 21:45
Edited time: October 16, 2010 18:29

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EU, Economy, Europe, Politics, USA

In many parts of the world, organized labor is a force to be reckoned with in the streets and at the polls. Yet in the US, union leaders spend more time campaigning for candidates than defending workers’ rights.

The president of the American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) embraced US President Barack Obama as they celebrated Labor Day together, a scene unimaginable for the majority of union leaders and members in Europe.

The proximity of major US labor unions to the Democratic Party has co-opted many of them into ineffectiveness.

"At the national level, they are hand and glove with the Democratic Party, and it makes it hard for them to push for the demands that we want," said Jon Liss, the director of Tenants and Workers United. "By and large, they have adopted a fairly uncritical relationship. They more or less will turn out the votes, give major donations but aren’t able to demand things they want."

"If we want something different than what’s been going on for the last 30 years, you have to push in a different direction rather than rolling with the dominant party."

Not familiar with many of the guarantees European workers both expect and demand, Americans are content to work longer weeks, more hours per year and without guaranteed paid time off and they rarely take to the streets to demand more labor rights.

So what will it take to get American workers in the streets? That remains to be seen.

Watch the full interview with Bill Fletcher

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Bill Fletcher, the chairman of the board of directors for the International Labor Rights Forum said that over the last 40 years the way in which the economy worked has changed, the understanding of how business and labor worked from 1945 on is no more.

“The stagnation in the economy began moving against workers and taking back things that had been won over years of struggle, benefits, vacations, pay, etc,” said Fletcher.

The US is not mobilizing en masse like Europe because the movements in the US and Europe are made up of very different traditions. Unions in Europe are more active and prepared to always fight for their rights, whereas in the US leaders believed achievements in past were permanent and things would not change, explained Fletcher.

He described a conversation between himself and a wealthy relative who told Fletcher that when he takes over a new company with a union, he always destroys it.

Fletcher’s response; “Maybe what needs to happen is we, that is union people, need to move against people like you and set an example by taking you down.”

He explained the biggest crisis with unions in America today is the inability to organize workers because labor laws make it easy to fire or penalize workers for unionizing.

The Democratic Party and labor unions have a close relationship in the US. Fletcher argued that unions should be detached from the politicians, but be involved in policy to represent their workers. At times, union leaders are too busy campaigning and not fighting for their workers.

Comments (3)

Ken R M 24.02.2011 01:36

If you want to equalize the USA union workers with European union workers then expect a dramatic downturn in USA productivity. I don't see the Europeans leading in productivity, research, nor consumption. Just remember, in this economy, there are many that will gladly trade places with the union workers...even with what Walker in Wisconsin is proposing.

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MEJanssen 16.10.2010 14:07

This is part of the reason why people are so anti-immigrant now. At least the H-1B immigrants have documentation, but they are used even when there are skilled workers available here in USA (or so I've heard from IT people who found themselves replaced by H-1B workers). The undocumented workers are used as part of an anti-union scam by the big employers. They are victims just as much as the documented workers and are used as scabs to weaken unions and disregard labor laws. Nobody is going to demand equal pay or access to the Fair Labor laws if "the man" says shut up or you will be deported. And documented workers are told to shut up or they will be replaced with undocumented workers at half the cost. It is no surprise that the government has done little to stop the import and exploitation of undocumented workers - it keeps the scam going and has actually lowered labor costs in the US for the big employers. Even better, talk radio and other propaganda outlets keep the workers fighting each other instead of banding together against the exploiters. US unions will always be weak as a result.

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Harrison 16.10.2010 02:31

Several good statistics, such as the failure of US workers to participate in the increase of productivity (more in the last 40 years than in the years from 1950 (used in the article), and also the lack of vacation and personal leave the rest of wealthy nations provide their workers. A good point that could have been made is that the lack of worker participation in the profits from greater productivity started in the 1970s when elections moved from almost free public appearances to negative "attack" ads on tv, at great cost, which the workers did not or could not compete in, so both parties abandoned labor and went after those with big money. As Sen. Bob Dole said, there are no lobbyists on Capitol Hill for poor people, and it is the lobbyists that buy the elections. In fact in 2000 a major supporter of pending legislation which would increase the H-1B quota, Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), said, "This is not a popular bill with the public. It's popular with the CEOs . . . This is a very important issue for the high-tech executives who give the money." Davis re-elected twice after that, and neither opponent even mentioned his reference to what looks like bribery, nor did they deny they would do the same thing. A good article on a subject that US media do not address.

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