New UC President Mark Yudof has found money in the university
system’s budget to continue funding for the University of California’s
Miguel Contreras Labor Program. In September, Governor Schwarzenegger
vetoed all funding for the well-known labor studies program, one of the
country’s premier departments. This center services the entire UC
system, has research programs at Berkeley and UCLA, and employs
approximately forty. Such programs exist in many states, usually as
small research and teaching centers that function as red-headed
stepchildren to the Taj Mahal business programs at most state and
private universities.
The governor and Republican legislators have long targeted the
Contreras labor program for elimination. While Schwarzenegger’s budget
contained an across-the-board cut for the university system, the
program was the only academic program subject to his veto. When asked
about the veto, a governor’s spokesperson said, “There wasn’t anything
about those particular programs. … This was just a matter of what can
we veto versus what can’t we veto.” Even in today’s climate of
political disingenuousness, the statement was shocking.
In response to the veto, four hundred UC academics signed a letter
of protest. Leaders of the program said the veto raised issues of
academic freedom. Yudof agreed, and found funding through the end of
the academic year. The dispute is sure to be revisited next year.
The battle lines are being drawn for the biggest labor versus
business smackdown since the early days of the Clinton administration.
Schwarzenegger was trying to eliminate one of the only institutions in
which public funding supports the rights of labor. But even this
flyspeck of money was too much for Arnold and his business buddies.
While the Contreras center veto was a part of the undercard of this
tussle, consider also the issue of bailouts for the Big 3 automakers.
As home to Fremont’s New United Motor Manufacturing plant, the East Bay
has a major stake in this fight. There is no question that the leaders
and engineers of the auto companies have fouled their own nests with an
arrogant attitude toward customer preference and environment standards.
But when the same business community that supports the $700 billion
bailout for financial institutions vociferously opposes a similar
bailout for the auto companies, there is something else going on. As
the president of the Steelworkers union said recently, they will bail
out the folks who shower before work but not the ones who shower
afterward.
It’s hardly a coincidence that the auto industry happens to be our
country’s symbol of industrial unionism. Nor is it an accident that the
financial industry is much whiter and more upper class than the auto
industry. It is worth remembering that the auto industry was one of the
main engines of the growth of a black middle class. Unfortunately,
opponents of the auto workers have been supported by sloppy reporting
suggesting that the average autoworker makes $70 an hour. In fact,
according to an article in The New Republic, US workers at
unionized auto plants make close to what workers at non-union plants
earn. The difference has to do with preexisting health-care benefits
for retirees. Does our country really want to deprive workers of those
benefits?
The main event in 2009’s battle royale between labor and capital
will be the Employee Free Choice Act, which is sure to come up early
next year in Congress. Randel K. Johnson, a vice president at the US
Chamber of Commerce, has described the coming fight as a “firestorm
bordering on Armageddon.” The Chamber, the National Association of
Manufacturers, and their ilk have made the defeat of any pro-labor
legislation their top priority in Congress.
The Employee Free Choice Act is labor’s attempt to a hack away at
the kudzu vines that have enveloped the rights of employees to
unionize. Over the last 25 years, those opposed to unionization have
done a masterful job of erecting an edifice of regulations that make
effective unionization nearly impossible in areas lacking strong
political support. In a recent case in which I was involved, Bush’s
labor board found that an “invisible picket line” had been maintained
by a union, subjecting it to legal sanctions. Numerous examples of such
creative anti-union regulatory activity exist. Even when workers do
vote for a union, an employer is often able to delay actually having to
meet with the union for five years. And federal rulings have made it
exceedingly easy for employers to fire union adherents and be liable
for scandalously little back pay. The result is workers too scared to
unionize.
Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act claim that it would strip
workers of their democratic rights. This is a delicious argument, since
you can bet that these same employers are not major fans of worker
democracy when it is directed at them. I won’t hold my breath waiting
for such employers to hold secret ballot votes to allow workers to
determine their pay.
Still, the Employee Free Choice Act is more important symbolically
than it is practically. Its passage would be a sign that times have
truly changed in our country. The act would not alter the playing field
dramatically, no matter what the Chamber of Commerce ads claim. After
all, the United States is still home to a robust union-avoidance
industry, which includes many august Bay Area law firms that are
dedicated to helping employers smash unions for a pretty paycheck. The
right to unionize is considered a fundamental human right in all the
international human rights conventions. Yet our country has an industry
dedicated to discouraging the use of those rights.
The current economic crisis makes clear that the old trickle-down
economic system has produced an inequitable low-wage economy incapable
of producing the kind of jobs that can support livable lives. Attention
to education and infrastructure is required for the retooling that we
need. But only an empowered workforce, able to work collectively
without constant fear of discharge or intimidation, can follow through
on this promise. A strong labor movement is the only way that this
dream can be nurtured and protected.
