‘Future of Unions’ conference speakers push sectoral bargaining
WASHINGTON—-What was supposed to be an intellectual weekend conference on the future of the U.S. union movement turned into a conference on the future of collective bargaining, and specifically the promotion of sectoral bargaining, instead.
The Feb. 8-9 confab in D.C., hosted by the Albert Shanker Institute – a think-tank the Teachers (AFT) set up – and the Century Foundation saw a wide range of speakers, both from the U.S. and abroad try to tackle the issue of how U.S. unions could reverse their long downward slide in the private sector.
That slide has taken U.S. private-sector union density to 6.4 percent, according to the latest federal figures – and set unions’ right-wing foes, their corporate class cronies and their political puppets free to go after public-sector unions now.
So far, despite some small losses, they haven’t succeeded, leaders of the four top public sector unions – AFT President Randi Weingarten, AFSCME President Lee Saunders, Service Employees President Mary Kay Henry and National Education Association Vice President Becky Pringle – said in a separate panel.
That’s despite a hostile U.S. Supreme Court which, in last year’s Janus decision by the court’s 5-man GOP-named majority, made every public worker in the U.S. eventually a potential “free rider,” eligible to use union services and gains without paying one red cent for them. But that’s another story.
That left speakers wrestling with the question of revitalizing and expanding private-sector union density. While the conference was not designed to come to a conclusion, but instead to float and discuss ideas, said Leo Casey of the Shanker Institute, sectoral bargaining came to the fore.
But it isn’t the only way private-sector unions could expand, many speakers, including Weingarten, Communications Workers President Chris Shelton, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., argued that “bargaining for the community” – by putting community causes at the head of the workers’ demands – leads to more worker power.
They specifically cited the successful strikes which governments’ actions, and inactions, forced on teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, and Los Angeles. There, the teachers mobilized parents and students in united fronts by emphasizing raising the funding and quality of the schools for everyone’s kids, ahead of pay and pensions. They also tied those into quality, too, arguing that if teachers are better-paid, they stay in their jobs, or don’t have to take second jobs to survive.
Weingarten argued private-sector unions could learn from those successful teachers’ strikes. CONTINUE READING: ‘Future of Unions’ conference speakers push sectoral bargaining – People's World