Biden Thinks He Can Take Unions Back to the Future

Biden thinks he can take unions

For generations, organized labor has been on the decline — especially in the private sector. But the new president is determined to reverse that trend.

or the better part of the past century, organized labor has witnessed tremendous growth in the government sector while experiencing record lows among private-sector workers. There are a variety of well-documented reasons for the shift, on the one side stemming from the natural limitations of the relationship between unions and employers in the private sector and, on the other, from the near-limitless promise of growth by union-aligned government officials.

Yet in recent years, the promises organized labor found so attractive in the government sector have begun to slowly disappear.

Perhaps most importantly, the U.S.

By BEN STRAKA Policy Analyst

Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME extended “right-to-work” (RTW) protections to public employees nationwide, meaning state and local governments can no longer require their workers to pay union dues or fees as a In fact, the last condition of employment. Although most unions — at times, with the help of state legislatures — responded to the Janus decision by developing a series of workarounds that have made it more difficult for public employees to end their financial support, such efforts have been

only partially effective at slowing the decline in government unions’ overall revenue.

Further, a series of additional legal challenges appear poised to make it back to the high court, where they could potentially end the unions’ ability to sidestep Janus once and for all. Without the once-guaranteed influx of cash from workers who could be forced to pay whether they wanted to or not, it may be dawning on the labor movement that government unions are no longer the fount of wealth they used to be.

The question appears to be, then, can private-sector unions rise again to take their place?

Union leaders are determined to find out.

On the campaign trail, President Joe Biden now famously promised to be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen” — and he wasn’t just talking about government unions. At least not directly, since there’s very little that can be done about publicsector labor law at the federal level — and even less that can be done legislatively at any level to affect the RTW protections recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in Janus. But for the first time in generations, private-sector unions are a different story. Or at least the Left believes they are.

Regulated almost entirely by federal law and unaffected by Janus, there’s plenty Biden can do — and has already done — to fulfill his promise to organized labor.

Most notably, under the Biden administration, Democrats in Congress have introduced the “Protecting the Right to Organize”(PRO) Act, a sweeping piece of legislation designed to rewrite the rulebook on union organizing in favor of Big Labor and at the expense of private-sector workers and their employers.

Most egregiously, the PRO Act would impose a nationwide ban on RTW protections for private-sector employees. Currently, a majority of U.S. states — 27, to be exact — have enacted these longstanding laws, which were authorized by the federal Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, and which, like Janus for public employees, prevent private-sector workers from being forced to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs.

If union leaders can no longer force public employees to pay, they must reason, then why not their privatesector counterparts?

Needless to say, private-sector workers who’ve enjoyed RTW protections for years probably won’t be thrilled about suddenly having union dues forcibly deducted from their paychecks once more.

But from Big Labor’s perspective, it’s a chance to reshape the basket in which they might put all their eggs.

Far from the only radical change sought by unions under the Biden administration, the PRO Act’s potential repeal of RTW is accompanied by a host of other provisions that, in no uncertain terms, signal that the labor movement’s renewed focus is squarely set on reversing its decades-long decline in private-sector membership.

In other words, private is back in, baby.

Or so they hope. In reality, the question of whether private-sector unions can ever return to their former prominence requires a closer examination of the factors that contributed to their decline in the first place, along with a look at what made the government workforce so ripe for growth in their stead.

Finally, it requires a determination as to whether any of these factors have changed — and if so, in which direction.

Labor leaders often like to tout that unions are responsible for many things American workers take for granted today, like the eight-hour workday, 40-hour workweek, “fair” wages, the abolishment of child labor and safer workplaces.

And it’s true unions deserve some recognition for hastening those reforms.

But by the same token, many of the problems unions were created to combat are now codified into law and strictly regulated by hundreds of federal and state agencies. To their credit, most of the ills unions originally set out to cure simply no longer plague American workplaces.

In theory, that’s not necessarily a problem for union leaders, who never seem bothered with idea of pushing for more.

But they’ve always faced certain practical limitations in the private sector.

For example, unions can only ask private-sector employers for so much before running the risk of putting them out of business. If union negotiators bargain a business into the ground, who does that help?

Obviously nobody — including the union’s members. Although there are certainly some exceptions, this natural limitation has generally forced private-sector unions to keep their demands within reason.

Thus, over time, with fewer real battles to fight and less of substance to push for, union leaders turned their sights to a realm where none of the pesky limitations of free competition exist.

Beginning in the mid-1950s, union membership in the private sector began to decline steadily and was replaced by the rapid growth of government unions. There were economic and regulatory changes that contributed to the shift, to be sure, but most importantly, in the public sector, nothing except political will stood in the way of labor’s unchecked growth.

Despite their diminished presence among private-sector workers, unions grew exponentially more powerful in states where they could successfully help the very officials they “bargain” with get elected.

With taxpayers footing the bill, there was (and still is) virtually no limit to collective bargaining demands. After all, the government doesn’t go out of business — it just goes into debt.

Consequently, government unions have grown right alongside the size of government over the past several decades.

For union leaders, it was the perfect arrangement. Until Janus.

If nothing else, organized labor’s sudden renewed interest in the private sector — and the PRO Act in particular — following Janus reveals just how much its continued survival hinges on the ability to force workers to pay dues whether they want to or not.

Ironically, that simple realization may also answer the million-dollar question about whether private-sector unions can mount the comeback Big Labor hopes they can.

There’s a reason the movement

chalks up most of its failures to conspiratorial “attacks on the working class” by shadowy billionaire elites. Like a high school has-been whose date left him on prom night, organized labor dosn’t seem to want to face the harsh reality that, in many cases, modern workers simply don’t want to be organized.

They want to be free, and want the flexibility to decide their own destiny.

Whether industry has changed to accommodate those preferences — or more likely, vice versa — the result is the same. Private-sector employees find unions less attractive than they once did.

The tech boom. The emergence of the gig economy. Remote work. All of these innovations are largely incompatible with the traditional union model (which is why, for instance, the PRO Act also contains provisions targeting the gig economy and seeking to classify independent contractors as employees who can be unionized).

Americans are also now far less likely to stay in one job for their whole career than they once were — leading today’s employers to offer increasingly appealing incentives for them to stay.

The recent saga of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union’s failed attempt to unionize an Amazon fulfillment center in Alabama provides a timely example. In the most high-profile privatesector union election in recent memory, workers earlier this year voted down the union in a landslide, by more than a 2-to-1 margin. The RWDSU may be committed to crying foul until the end of time, but workers who were interviewed expressed very clear, legitimate reasons for not wanting the union to come between themselves and their employer.

“Amazon is the only job I know where they pay your health insurance from Day 1,” one couple told The New York Times. They added that the union “failed to convince them how it could improve their working conditions,” as the company “already provides good benefits, relatively high pay that starts at $15 an hour and opportunities to advance.”

If that sounds familiar, recall what was discussed earlier. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the factors that drove unions towards obsolescence in the private sector in the first place. No real ills for unions to cure, and a limit to what they can promise.

The exact opposite of government.

So, can organized labor make a comeback in the private sector?

Only time will tell, but the prospects don’t look especially bright. Like the high school has-been of decades past, it may have peaked in the 1950s. It just doesn’t know it yet.

And you know what? Eventually it may face reality. But until then, you can bet it will stay at the party for as long as possible — whether anybody wants it there or not.