tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/labor-day-20077/articlesLabor Day – The Conversation2023-08-24T12:34:25Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2106732023-08-24T12:34:25Z2023-08-24T12:34:25ZWaves of strikes rippling across the US seem big, but the total number of Americans walking off the job remains historically low<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543806/original/file-20230821-29867-j4kcb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C282%2C2946%2C1949&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Striking members of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in New York City in 1958.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/STRIKEWOMENGARMENTWORKERS/c439c0641fe5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo?Query=1950%20strike&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=46&currentItemNo=0&vs=true">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/03/labor-strikes-compare-unions-past/">More than 323,000 workers</a> – including nurses, actors, screenwriters, hotel cleaners and restaurant servers – walked off their jobs <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/us/california-labor-strikes.html">during the first eight months of 2023</a>. Hundreds of thousands of the employees of <a href="https://theconversation.com/ups-and-teamsters-agree-on-new-contract-averting-costly-strike-that-could-have-delayed-deliveries-for-consumers-and-retailers-210431">delivery giant UPS</a> would have gone on strike, too, had they not reached a last-minute agreement. And nearly <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-workers-may-vote-strike-detroit-three-automakers-next-week-2023-08-15/">150,000 autoworkers</a> may go on a strike of historic proportions in mid-September if the United Autoworkers Union and General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – the company that includes Chrysler – don’t agree on a new contract soon.</p>
<p>This crescendo of labor actions follows a relative <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">lull in U.S. strikes</a> and a <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/union-membership">decline in union membership</a> that began in the 1970s. Today’s strikes may seem unprecedented, especially if you’re under 50. While this wave constitutes a significant change following <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">decades of unions’ losing ground</a>, it’s far from unprecedented.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=w6GUu_EAAAAJ">We’re sociologists</a> who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=69FEXj0AAAAJ&hl=en">study the history of U.S. labor movements</a>. In our new book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/union-booms-and-busts-9780197539859?cc=us&lang=en&">Union Booms and Busts</a>,” we explore the reasons for swings in <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf">the share of working Americans in unions</a> between 1900 and 2015. </p>
<p>We see the rising number of strikes today as a sign that the balance of power between workers and employers, which has been tilted toward employers for nearly a half-century, is beginning to shift. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Workers at a rally carrying strike signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Maryam Rouillard puts her fist in the air on Aug. 8, 2023, while taking part in a one-day strike by Los Angeles municipal workers to protest contract negotiations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-a-hearse-on-5th-avenue-with-a-sign-that-reads-new-news-photo/1311461424?adppopup=true">Apu Gomes/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Millions on strike</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">number of U.S. workers who go on strike in a given year</a> varies greatly but generally follows broader trends. After World War II ended, through 1981, between 1 million and 4 million Americans went on strike annually. By 1990, that number had plummeted. In some years, it fell below 100,000.</p>
<p>Workers by that point were clearly on the defensive for several reasons. </p>
<p>One dramatic turning point was the showdown between President Ronald Reagan and the country’s air traffic controllers, which culminated in a 1981 strike by their union – the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2006/08/03/5604656/1981-strike-leaves-legacy-for-american-workers">Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization</a>. Like many public workers, air traffic controllers did not have the right to strike, but they called one anyway because of safety concerns and other reasons. Reagan depicted the union as disloyal and ordered that all of PATCO’s striking members be fired. The government turned to supervisors and military controllers as their replacements and <a href="https://libraries.uta.edu/news-events/blog/1981-patco-strike">decertified the union</a>.</p>
<p>That episode sent a strong message to employers that permanently replacing striking workers in certain situations would be tolerated.</p>
<p>There were also many <a href="https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/labor-relations-striking-balance-budd/M9781260260502.html">court rulings and new laws</a> that favored big business over labor rights. These included the passage of so-called <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/right-to-work-resources">right-to-work laws</a> that provide union representation to nonunion members in union workplaces – without requiring the payment of union dues. Many conservative states, like South Dakota and Mississippi, have these laws on the books, along with states with more liberal voters – such as Wisconsin.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/19/union-membership-drops-to-record-low-in-2022-00078525">union membership plunged</a> from <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R47596.html">34.2% of the labor force in 1945</a> to around 10% in 2010, workers became less likely to go on strike.</p>
<p>Wages kept up with productivity gains when unions were stronger than they are today. Wages increased 91.3% as productivity grew by 96.7% between 1948 and 1973. That changed once union membership began to tumble. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/">Wages stagnated</a> from 1973 to 2013, rising only 9.2% even as productivity grew by 74.4%.</p>
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<h2>Prime conditions</h2>
<p>In general, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001979398203500402">strikes grow more common when economic conditions change</a> in ways that empower workers. That’s especially true with the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-layoffs-labor-47d74791145f0224280ffe908b6e820a">tight labor markets</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-wholesale-federal-reserve-interest-rates-consumers-1838b302c99045749b0597853886d32c">high inflation</a> seen in the U.S. in recent years.</p>
<p>When there are fewer candidates available for every open job and prices are rising, workers become bolder in their demands for higher wages and benefits.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/800649">Political and legal factors</a> can play a role, too. </p>
<p>In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/labor-unions-during-great-depression-and-new-deal/">New Deal enhanced unions’ ability to organize</a>. During World War II, unions agreed to a no-strike pledge – although some workers continued to go on strike.</p>
<p>The number of U.S. <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">workers who went on strike peaked in 1946</a>, a year after the war ended. Conditions were ripe for labor actions at that point for several reasons. The economy was no longer so dedicated to supplying the military, pro-union New Deal legislation was still intact and <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/podcasts/best-my-ability-podcast/season-2-archive/episode-5-strike-wave">wartime strike restrictions</a> were lifted.</p>
<p>In contrast, Reagan’s crushing of the PATCO strike gave employers a green light to permanently replace striking workers in <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes">situations in which doing that was legal</a>.</p>
<p>Likewise, as we describe in our book, employers can take many steps to discourage strikes. But labor organizers can sometimes overcome management’s resistance with creative strategies.</p>
<h2>New economic equations</h2>
<p>Between 1983 and 2022, the share of U.S. <a href="https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet">workers who belonged to unions fell by half, from 20.1%</a> to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/19/majorities-of-adults-see-decline-of-union-membership-as-bad-for-the-u-s-and-working-people=">10.1%</a>. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t reverse that decline, but it did change the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/state-job-vacancies-pay-raises-wage-war-74d1689d573e298be32f3848fcc88f46">balance of power between employers and workers</a> in other ways.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-advancement-feeling-disrespected/">great resignation</a>,” a surge in the number of workers quitting their jobs during the pandemic, now seems to be over, or at least cooling down. The number of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/charts/job-openings-and-labor-turnover/unemp-per-job-opening.htm">unemployed people for every job opening</a> reached 4.9 in April 2020, plummeted to 0.5 in December 2021, and has remained low ever since. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, many workers have become more dissatisfied with their wages. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/25/teachers-strikes-us-low-pay-covid">strikes by teachers</a> that ramped up in 2018 responded to that frustration. <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA">U.S. inflation, which soared to 8% in 2022</a>, has eroded workers’ purchasing power while <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-25/us-corporate-profits-soar-taking-margins-to-widest-since-1950">company profits</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-inequality-is-growing-in-the-us-and-around-the-world-191642">economic inequality</a> have continued to soar. </p>
<p>Technological breakthroughs that leave workers behind are also contributing to today’s strikes, as they did in other periods.</p>
<p>We’ve studied the role technology played in the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/union-booms-and-busts-9780197539859?cc=us&lang=en&">printers’ strikes</a> of the 1890s following the introduction of the linotype machine, which reduced the need for skilled workers, and the <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/dock/1971_strike_history.shtml">longshoremen strike of 1971</a>, which was spurred by a drastic workforce reduction brought about by the <a href="https://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-history/the-history-of-containerization-in-the-shipping-industry/">introduction of shipping containers</a> to transport cargo.</p>
<p>Those are among countless precedents for what’s happening now with <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hollywood-actors-strike-ca3e3eddc910f1e52d618e5e3c394554">actors and screenwriters</a>. Their strikes hinge on the financial implications of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/residuals-hollywood-strike-actors-writers-7c32f386c910a11db4324875d99dc366">streaming in film and television</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-hollywood-actors-and-writers-afraid-of-a-cinema-scholar-explains-how-ai-is-upending-the-movie-and-tv-business-210360">artificial intelligence in the production</a> of movies and shows.</p>
<p>Working conditions, including <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-teamsters-strike-labor-logistics-delivery-a94482dbff7bfb67ad82f607ab127672">health and safety concerns and time off</a>, have also been at the root of many recent strikes.</p>
<p>Health care workers, for example, are going on strike over safe <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nurses-strike-new-jersey-394eb774eea0add0a60c272c5b7819ac">staffing levels</a>. In 2022, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/railroad-paid-sick-time-negotiations-norfolk-southern-70327831f881dcf86a43e05d22a5bdd5">rail workers</a> voted to strike over sick days and time off, they but were blocked from walking off the job by a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/">U.S. Senate vote and President Joe Biden’s signature</a>.</p>
<p>Time and again, when the conditions have been right, U.S. workers have gone on strike and won. Sometimes more strikes have followed, in waves that can transform workers’ lives. But it’s too early to know how big this wave will become.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Judith Stepan-Norris received funding from the National Science Foundation and the University of California.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasmine Kerrissey previously received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for data collection.</span></em></p>Many of the reasons for strikes now – low compensation, technological change, job insecurity and safety concerns – mirror the motives that workers had for walking off the job in decades past.Judith Stepan-Norris, Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of California, IrvineJasmine Kerrissey, Associate Professor of Sociology; Director of the Labor Center, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2096712023-08-14T12:24:30Z2023-08-14T12:24:30ZUnderpaid and overlooked, migrant labor provides backbone of Maryland Eastern Shore’s local economy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542223/original/file-20230810-21-m3fgd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=858%2C125%2C4701%2C2742&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A migrant worker picks crabs in Hoopers Island, Maryland.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/migrant-worker-eleazar-rubio-picks-crabs-at-old-saltys-news-photo/1020689092?adppopup=true">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every summer, people flock to Maryland to eat blue crabs. Named for their brilliant sapphire-colored claws, blue crab is one of <a href="https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/symbols/crab.html">the most iconic species</a> in the Chesapeake Bay. The scientific name for blue crabs, <em>Callinectes sapidus</em>, means “beautiful savory swimmer.” </p>
<p>In restaurants and at home, diners pile steamed and seasoned blue crabs in the middle of a table covered in paper. Then, using small mallets, knives, bare hands and fingers, they break open the hard shells and extract the juicy meat from inside. </p>
<p>It is a messy experience, especially with <a href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to/packages/food-network-essentials/what-is-old-bay-seasoning">Old Bay seasoning</a> and beer known locally as <a href="https://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/items/show/421">Natty Bohs</a>, one that is quintessentially Maryland.</p>
<p>Though many people know firsthand how difficult it is to pick and clean crab meat, they often don’t realize how crab is processed when it is sold in stores already picked and cleaned. Most people also may not know that crab picking is a livelihood for many, mainly poor, women.</p>
<p>For generations, <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/food-drink/bs-fo-crisfield-crab-pickers-20220516-ndghx7pz5jdqhpiya3ip4mca6i-story.html">African American women</a> from Maryland’s rural, maritime communities labored for crab houses on the Eastern Shore. </p>
<p>Today, fewer than 10 crab houses are left on the Shore. The workforce consists of mainly female migrant workers from Mexico who do the grueling job of picking crab for eight to nine hours a day, from late spring to early fall. They make on average of US$2.50 to $4.00 for every pound of crabmeat they pick. </p>
<p>That pay is roughly one-tenth to one-twelfth of the wholesale price of one pound – or about a half of a kilogram – of the seafood they pick, which is $35 to $44. In comparison, the Maryland minimum wage is $13.25 an hour, while the federal minimum wage is $7.25.</p>
<h2>Rise of immigration in rural America</h2>
<p>Over <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/essential-role-immigrants-us-food-supply-chain">2.1 million</a> migrants and immigrants work in jobs growing and processing food in the United States, playing an essential role in feeding Americans. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/thurkas.cfm">anthropologist and global health researcher</a>, my work has shown that they are part of an increasing trend in rural America. Since 1990, immigrants have been moving to small towns and rural regions at unprecedented rates, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/">accounting for 37%</a> of the overall rural population growth from 2000-2018.</p>
<p>Some rural counties, like Stewart County in Georgia and Franklin County in Alabama, have experienced growth rates of over <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/interactives/hispanic-population-by-county/">1,000% in their foreign-born population</a>, which have boosted their local economies and mitigated rural population decline.</p>
<p>Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore, for instance, has experienced a rapid rise in immigration since 2000. From 2010 to 2019, migration was the primary source of population growth, with the foreign-born population <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469674179/landscapes-of-care/">increasing by 90%</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man dumps out a basket full of crabs onto a table where two women are standing with small carving knives." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542227/original/file-20230810-27-v8s6eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A migrant worker dumps out a bushel of crabs to be picked and cleaned by two other migrant workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/migrant-worker-francisco-nava-dumps-out-a-bushel-of-crabs-news-photo/1020689210?adppopup=true">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Many immigrants come to this region to find work in agriculture, poultry and seafood processing. Some come directly from Mexico, Central America and Haiti.</p>
<p>Typically, farmworkers have temporary visas and arrive in late spring and early summer and stay through the growing season. Migrant Mexican women who work in crab processing also follow the same seasonal employment pattern. Others, like those working in poultry processing plants, have settled here more permanently, either as undocumented or permanent residents.</p>
<h2>At risk of exploitation and injury</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/migrant-health">Immigrant workers</a> in rural regions work dangerous jobs and are exposed to pollution, deplorable living conditions and limited safety training.</p>
<p>Additionally, immigrant workers are among the lowest paid and <a href="https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/fact-sheet/health-coverage-and-care-of-immigrants/">lack access</a> to health information, preventive care and medical treatment. Dry skin, cuts, scrapes, rashes, chronic pain and broken bones are common among immigrants who work in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8072536/">agriculture</a>, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/poultry-processing-workers-incur-a-high-rate-of-nonfatal-workplace-injuries-and-illnesses.htm">poultry</a> and <a href="https://cdmigrante.org/breaking-the-shell/">seafood processing</a>.</p>
<p>These workers also suffer from numerous <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469674179/landscapes-of-care/">invisible injuries</a> such as discrimination, verbal harassment and physical exploitation.</p>
<h2>Challenges to rural health</h2>
<p>Despite the daily risk of harm, migrant workers in rural regions have <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/migrantfarmworkers/index.html">limited access to health care</a> and rely on mobile clinics, local health departments and community health centers. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A lump of crab meat is on top of a fish filet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542231/original/file-20230810-23-l1yzyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A hearty portion of crabmeat is served atop a fillet of rockfish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hearty-portion-of-crab-imperial-is-served-atop-a-fillet-of-news-photo/1141676503?adppopup=true">Edwin Remsberg/VW PICS/UIG via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But these <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10217862/">facilities are not equipped</a> to handle specialty care or emergencies. Nor are many of them easily accessible due to location or hours of operation. In addition, many workers cannot afford to miss work or are afraid to tell their supervisors that they need care. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.aha.org/system/files/2019-02/rural-report-2019.pdf">avoid health providers</a> altogether because they are not treated well or feel misunderstood.</p>
<h2>Essential but undervalued</h2>
<p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, the notion of “essential” workers became part of the nation’s vocabulary as a way to describe people required to continue in-person work under lockdown conditions. They included food industry workers. </p>
<p>The pandemic <a href="https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/what-has-been-the-impact-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-immigrants-an-update-on-recent-evidence-65cfc31c/">exposed the disproportionate numbers</a> of immigrant workers in the agriculture, poultry and seafood industries in rural America. </p>
<p>It also revealed how policies enacted during the pandemic to protect public health and essential workers did little to prevent people from working in dangerous workplace conditions without adequate safeguards.</p>
<p>Unable to self-quarantine at home, many <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8888537/">food production workers</a> got sick or even died as a result of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/19/1047223165/immigrants-push-for-better-working-conditions-that-were-made-worse-by-the-pandem">working in crowded conditions</a> without personal protective equipment and adequate ventilation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="As the sun sets in the background, a young man on a boat pulls in a net from the water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542226/original/file-20230810-17-q4hlc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young waterman pulls in a crab trap as the Sun sets behind him in Dundalk, Md.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/young-waterman-pulls-in-crab-trap-as-the-sun-rises-behind-news-photo/1141676388?adppopup=true">Edwin Remsberg/VW PICS/UIG via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In many ways, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/17/chicken-factory-tyson-arkansas-food-workers-coronavirus">COVID-19 pandemic</a> demonstrated <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ruralhealth/about.html">the long-standing crisis</a> of health care for immigrants in rural America. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/">despite evidence</a> that close to 2.5 million foreign-born people live and work in rural America, very little information exists on these people’s health. </p>
<p>This inattention by lawmakers is harmful and dangerous because it leaves health care providers and social workers with little understanding of immigrant experiences in small towns and sparsely populated rural communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thurka Sangaramoorthy receives funding from The National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>With more than 2 million migrant workers finding food processing jobs in rural America, their struggle to find adequate health care remains elusive.Thurka Sangaramoorthy, Professor of Anthropology, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2100372023-08-07T12:41:03Z2023-08-07T12:41:03ZUS autoworkers may wage a historic strike against Detroit’s 3 biggest automakers − with wages at EV battery plants a key roadblock to agreement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538558/original/file-20230720-19-obsn7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C139%2C2236%2C1850&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UAW President Shawn Fain speaks with General Motors workers on July 12, 2023, in Detroit.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain-speaks-with-and-news-photo/1528218013?adppopup=true">Bill Pugliano/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Auto Workers union, which represents nearly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/business/stellantis-samsung-battery-plant-uaw/index.html">150,000 employees of companies that manufacture U.S.-made vehicles</a>, has been engaged since July 2023 in the labor negotiations it undergoes every four years with the three main unionized automakers.</p>
<p>By late August, it still wasn’t clear that the UAW would agree to a new contract with <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bigthree.asp">Ford, General Motors and Stellantis</a> – the automaker that manufactures Chrysler and 13 other vehicle brands – <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-will-open-contract-talks-with-detroit-three-automakers-2023-07-10/">by their impending deadline</a>. The <a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-workers-union-wage-increase-jobs-bank-b8370b11bd692191d9ee3080001ef358">contracts expire at 11:59 p.m. Sept. 14</a>.</p>
<p>The union’s leaders skipped the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/07/13/uaw-detroit-three-handshake-tradition-shawn-fain/70407842007/">traditional handshake ceremonies</a> it usually holds with these automakers, which are often called the Big Three or Detroit Three. The union instead held grassroots photo-ops: UAW leaders greeted rank-and-file members at one Ford, one GM and one Stellantis factory. On Aug. 25, the UAW announced that <a href="https://uaw.org/97-uaws-big-three-members-vote-yes-authorize-strike/">97% of its members had authorized a strike</a> “if the Big Three refuse to reach a fair deal.” It’s a major milestone.</p>
<p>I’m a labor scholar who has studied the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&q=marick+masters&btnG">history of UAW collective bargaining with the Detroit Three</a>. Given that the UAW is <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">making major demands</a> at a time of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/03/strikes-2023-summer-unions/">rising union assertiveness and ambition</a>, I believe it’s reasonable to wonder whether U.S. automakers will be the next industry to face a strike.</p>
<p>In 2023, there have been <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/emmys-postponed-due-writer-actor-strikes-rcna96803">strikes by screenwriters, actors</a>, <a href="https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/us-healthcare-workers-walk-off-the-job-7-strikes-in-2023.html">health care workers</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/taylor-swift-los-angeles-hotel-strike-ff26bbef8cbf37c82469a446ff29f919">hotel staff</a>, as well as vigorous organizing by workers for <a href="https://labornotes.org/2023/07/reform-caucus-rises-sues-elections-amazon-labor-union">warehouse and delivery services</a> at <a href="https://labornotes.org/2023/07/amazon-teamsters-rolling-pickets-hit-facilities-nationwide">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ups-and-teamsters-agree-on-new-contract-averting-costly-strike-that-could-have-delayed-deliveries-for-consumers-and-retailers-210431">UPS</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/business/fedex-pilots-union-vote/index.html">FedEx</a>.</p>
<h2>Strike could stall Detroit GM, Ford and Stellantis</h2>
<p>All three automakers with expiring contracts have amassed nearly <a href="https://uaw.org/new-uaw-video-highlights-big-3s-massive-profits-makes-clear-can-easily-afford-unions-contract-demands/">US$250 billion in reported profits</a> in their North American operations over the past decade.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://uaw.org/new-uaw-video-highlights-big-3s-massive-profits-makes-clear-can-easily-afford-unions-contract-demands/">UAW leaders have pledged</a> to garner what they see as their members’ fair share of those profits through higher wages and stronger job security.</p>
<p>The UAW’s newly elected president, Shawn Fain, frequently denounces corporate greed and has proclaimed the union’s willingness to go on strike. In the past, the union has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/automobiles/auto-strikes-history.html">held strikes against one automaker at a time</a>, most recently in <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/25/20930350/gm-workers-vote-end-strike">2019 against GM</a>. </p>
<p>That could change this time.</p>
<p>“The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-president-says-union-prepared-strike-detroit-three-2023-07-11/">Big Three is our strike target</a>,” Fain has said. “And whether or not there’s a strike, it’s up to Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.” </p>
<p>The UAW has said it has <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2023/06/21/bank-of-america-analysts-expect-uaw-strike-during-auto-talks-this-year/70343417007/">more than $825 million</a> in its strike fund to <a href="https://uaw.org/strike-faq-2/">help workers make do</a> without pay should they walk off the job. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man carries a 'UAW on strike' picket sign, enveloped in an American flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Autoworker Ray Dota picketed outside the shuttered General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, on Sept. 23, 2019, during the most recent UAW strike.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ray-dota-of-austintown-oh-pickets-outside-the-shuttered-news-photo/1178903811?adppopup=true">Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fain’s leadership</h2>
<p>Fain has declared that the union will no longer maintain the somewhat cozy relationship with the Big Three that <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">led to major concessions</a> in the past.</p>
<p>Many of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167902956/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain">union’s other new leaders also</a> are affiliated with the UAW’s <a href="https://uawd.org/about/">Unite All Workers for Democracy</a> caucus, which launched a successful campaign to require the direct election of the union’s top officials in 2022, with runoff elections held in 2023. They want to prevent a recurrence of a massive scandal that resulted in the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-uaw-official-sentenced-57-months-prison-embezzling-over-2-million-union-funds">federal prosecution</a> of more than a dozen <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-international-uaw-president-gary-jones-sentenced-prison-embezzling-union-funds">UAW leaders from 2017 to 2022</a>.</p>
<p>Two former UAW international presidents were sentenced to time in prison after being convicted of embezzling union funds. The new slate of leaders <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167902956/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain">assumed control of the UAW under court supervision</a> in March 2023.</p>
<h2>Seeking equal pay for EV workers</h2>
<p>As part of their bolder strategy, the <a href="https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/gm-samsung-sdi-build-3b-ev-battery-plant-us">UAW’s new leaders have criticized the joint ventures</a> between the three automakers and foreign-based electric battery producers.</p>
<p>They want to see Ford, GM and Stellantis paying UAW-level wages and benefits at all joint-venture operated plants in the U.S. making batteries for their EVs. Today, workers at the joint-venture factories earn far less than their <a href="https://electrek.co/2023/06/23/car-wars-ford-gm-stellantis-gain-most-us-ev-market-share/">counterparts who produce vehicles that run on fossil fuels</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://electrek.co/2022/12/09/gms-ultium-battery-plant-votes-overwhelmingly-to-unionize-with-uaw/">UAW has succeeded in organizing one of these joint ventures</a>, Ultium Cells in Lordstown, Ohio. But pay for workers at the former General Motors plant, which is now a joint EV battery venture between GM and LG Energy, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/auto-union-harshly-criticizes-us-ford-joint-venture-battery-loan-2023-06-23/">starts at just $16.50 per hour</a>. In 2019, the year that GM ended car assembly at that factory, workers <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/28/auto-workers-union-and-sanders-blast-gm-for-wages-at-us-battery-plant.html">earned $32 per hour</a>. </p>
<p>The UAW has several other objectives, which <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">Fain first announced in a Facebook live meeting</a> on Aug. 1, 2023.</p>
<p>They include greater job security <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-seeks-double-digit-pay-hikes-detroit-three-contract-talks-2023-08-01/">and steep wage increases</a> for UAW-represented workers covered by the union’s contracts with GM, Ford and Stellantis.</p>
<p>Among other things, it also seeks to end the two-tier wage system negotiated in 2007, under which new hires make much less than veteran workers, and the restoration of cost-of-living allowances, which the UAW also conceded in 2007 to help the companies stay afloat during the Great Recession.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc12.com/news/business/uaw-president-lays-out-list-of-demands-for-big-three-automakers/article_3e76b288-3130-11ee-861e-2365c42aa592.html">Other UAW goals include</a> resuming company-paid retiree health care benefits, adding more paid time off and limiting the use of temporary employees. Fain also says he wants <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_4x-seTCvc&ab_channel=CBSNews">workweeks scaled down to 32 hours, from its current 40</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1686494700331728906"}"></div></p>
<h2>Smaller ranks</h2>
<p>Union membership in the auto manufacturing industry has <a href="https://www.unionstats.com">shrunk from nearly 60% in 1983 to under 16% in 2022</a>. Nonunion competitors with U.S. locations include foreign companies such as Toyota, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen, as well as domestic-based EV rivals Tesla and Rivian.</p>
<p>In 1970, GM employed more than 400,000 workers. In 2001, the Big Three combined employed 408,000. Today, a total of only 146,000 people work for those companies – <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/uaw-show-list-economic-demands-automakers-week-seek-101925455">57,000 at Ford, 46,000 at GM and 43,OOO at Stellantis</a>. </p>
<p>The Big Three’s share of the U.S. automotive market has <a href="https://www.autonews.com/article/20090601/OEM/306019739/detroit-3-domestic-brands-u-s-market-share-history">declined to about 40% from more than 90%</a> in <a href="https://datacenter.autonews.com/data-center/market-reports">the mid-1960s</a>.</p>
<p>But the UAW’s negotiations also directly affect the economic livelihood of the millions who work for the Big Three’s suppliers and in communities dependent on the <a href="https://www.autosinnovate.org/posts/press-release/new-data-on-economic-impact">$1 trillion the auto industry contributes to the U.S. economy</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, many union and nonunion employers monitor the wages and benefits of UAW-represented workforces as they set compensation for their own employees. When union members get raises and better benefits, many employers of nonunion autoworkers mirror those changes – <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-and-well-being/">raising pay too</a>. </p>
<p>The shift to electric vehicles poses several related challenges to the UAW.</p>
<p>First, it requires less labor than producing vehicles that burn fossil fuels, which means <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-ev-transition-explained-2658797703">EV manufacturing generates fewer jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Second, autoworkers employed at joint-venture EV-battery factories have to be organized by the UAW on a case-by-case basis. That can prove especially difficult at plants located in such states as Kentucky, Tennessee or Georgia – where unions have <a href="https://www.unionstats.com/">lower membership rates</a>.</p>
<p>Third, <a href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-tsla-median-earnings-81-percent-us-average">nonunion electric vehicle companies like Tesla</a> and <a href="https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2022-12-16/why-the-uaw-is-so-hungry-for-a-unionization-win-at-rivian">Rivian generally pay their production workers less</a> than the Detroit Three.</p>
<h2>What the automakers say</h2>
<p>Ford, GM and Stellantis have noted that they have invested heavily in U.S.-based factories to <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/06/29/ford-jim-farley-uaw-contract-bargaining/70361242007">preserve UAW-represented jobs</a>. Also, the Big Three point out that they have shared their North American profits in sizable annual payments to their workers.</p>
<p>In 2022, for example, the Detroit Three combined made profit-sharing payments that averaged <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2023/02/02/ford-uaw-hourly-workers-2022-profit-sharing/69865970007/">$36,686 per worker</a>. In addition, the companies pay higher wages and provide more benefits to U.S. autoworkers than foreign automakers, such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/14/business/uaw-contract-talks.html">Toyota and Honda, or domestic EV producers</a>.</p>
<p>Ford CEO Jim Farley and <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/07/12/gm-reuss-uaw-contract-talks-detroit-automakers/70401953007/">GM President Mark Ruess have published op-eds</a> in the Detroit Free Press praising their workers and expressing their commitments to do right by them.</p>
<p>“We share common goals” with the UAW, <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/06/29/ford-jim-farley-uaw-contract-bargaining/70361242007/">Farley wrote in late June</a>. Both sides want to reach “a new deal that allows us to stay ahead of the changing industry landscape, protecting good-paying jobs in the U.S.”</p>
<p>But both executives have emphasized their need to be competitive.</p>
<p>After seeing the UAW’s demands, GM criticized their “breadth and scope” and said they “would threaten our ability to do what’s right for the long-term benefit of the team.” The <a href="https://www.gmnegotiations2023.com/public/us/en/negotiations/home/negotiation-updates.html">automaker also reiterated</a> its openness to what it called a “fair agreement” and to raise wages.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A very modern-looking concept-car truck beneath the Ram automotive brand name." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stellantis’ Ram 1500 Revolution battery-electric concept pickup truck was on display in January 2023 at a trade show in Las Vegas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/stellantis-ram-1500-revolution-battery-electric-concept-news-photo/1454496551?adppopup=true">Ethan Miller/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What may happen during a UAW strike</h2>
<p>Halting production for even one big automaker during a strike would directly harm thousands of workers and cost the company money in terms of lost sales and production. Strikers would lose out on wages that would only be partially offset by the union’s <a href="https://uaw.org/strike-faq-2/">striker benefits of $500 per week</a>. </p>
<p>And any strike could further disrupt supply chains that have not fully recovered from the shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters that have sharply <a href="https://www.cargroup.org/auto-supply-chain-update/">curtailed vehicle production</a> since 2020.</p>
<p>Financial losses can be immense for automotive companies when their workers walk off the job. The 40-day <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2020/07/01/uaw-strike-fund-benefits-scandal/5353128002/">strike in 2019 cost GM a reported $3.6 billion</a>. </p>
<p>A weekslong strike would also jeopardize the UAW’s struggle to rebuild its image <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2020/07/01/uaw-strike-fund-benefits-scandal/5353128002/">following a string of corruption scandals</a>. </p>
<p>I believe that it’s up to both the corporate and labor leaders involved to avoid what could turn out to be a costly miscalculation.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on Aug. 25, 2023, to report the strike vote.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As Director of Labor@Wayne at Wayne State University, Marick Masters received funding from the joint training centers operated by the UAW with Ford, GM, and Fiat Chrysler. Representatives of these organizations served on the external advisory board of <a href="mailto:Labor@Wayne">Labor@Wayne</a>. All money was channeled through Wayne State University for educational purposes.</span></em></p>A strike would shake up the auto industry, even though both the union’s ranks and the share of the US automotive market controlled by GM, Ford and Stellantis have been shrinking for decades.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1897602022-09-05T12:23:11Z2022-09-05T12:23:11ZAmerica’s next big labor battle could be Minor League Baseball<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482605/original/file-20220903-20-euu876.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=186%2C7%2C2172%2C1342&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Minor league players often endure lengthy bus trips.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/players-for-long-beachs-new-minor-league-baseball-team-the-news-photo/569176245?adppopup=true">Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the Major League Baseball Players Association <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/29/sports/baseball/mlbpa-minor-league-union.html">sent union authorization cards</a> to approximately 5,000 minor league players in an attempt to unionize them, I was both surprised and not surprised at all. </p>
<p>If any industry is crying out for unionization, it’s this one. Minor league baseball players <a href="https://www.insidehook.com/article/sports/frontlines-battle-better-working-conditions-minor-league-baseball">are subject to some</a> of the poorest wages and most dreadful working conditions in America. Most of them toil for years before being washed out of the game <a href="https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-chances-of-a-drafted-baseball-player-making-the-major-leagues-a-quantitative-study/">without ever having reached</a> the promised land of the big leagues. </p>
<p>On the other hand, as someone <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p080975">who has written about baseball’s labor history</a>, I’ve noticed how nobody seemed to care all that much about minor leaguers until relatively recently. </p>
<p>Which begs the question: Why now? </p>
<p>Unionization, once a powerful weapon in the arsenal of the nation’s workforce, <a href="https://theconversation.com/america-is-in-the-middle-of-a-labor-mobilization-moment-with-self-organizers-at-starbucks-amazon-trader-joes-and-chipotle-behind-the-union-drive-189826">looks to be making a comeback</a> – at least marginally, after decades of declining membership and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/24/amazon-apple-google-union-busting/">strong-arm tactics</a> by management to defang it.</p>
<p>If unions can work their way into the strip mall coffee shop, why not Minor League Baseball? </p>
<h2>Big leaguers get their due</h2>
<p>It was hard enough to get major league players to work collectively on behalf of one another. </p>
<p><a href="https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/marvin-miller/">Marvin Miller</a>, a former labor negotiator for the United Steel Workers of America, became the executive director of the <a href="https://www.mlbplayers.com/">Major League Baseball Players Association</a> in 1966. He soon realized that he faced a monumental task in encouraging big league, brand-name players to stand up for themselves against management. </p>
<p>By 1968 he was able to negotiate the first collective bargaining agreement for MLB players. <a href="https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/miller-marvin">Two years later</a>, he succeeded in not only raising the minimum major league salary 25% to US$10,000, but also securing for his players arbitration rights. <a href="https://baseballhall.org/discover/short-stops/free-agency-still-fuels-baseball">By 1976</a>, players with more than six years of service had won the right to become free agents and negotiate with any team of their choice. <a href="https://scholarworks.uni.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1120&context=mtie">Salaries skyrocketed</a>.</p>
<p>As the MLBPA scored victory after victory on the labor front, life for the minor leaguers remained as it had been, and the chasm between being a big leaguer and a minor leaguer grew more pronounced as the decades passed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man with mustache speaks in front of microphones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482604/original/file-20220903-34667-pnlr93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482604/original/file-20220903-34667-pnlr93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482604/original/file-20220903-34667-pnlr93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482604/original/file-20220903-34667-pnlr93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482604/original/file-20220903-34667-pnlr93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482604/original/file-20220903-34667-pnlr93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482604/original/file-20220903-34667-pnlr93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former MLBPA executive director Marvin Miller was able to score huge victories for big league ballplayers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/executive-director-marvin-miller-of-the-major-league-news-photo/90346172?adppopup=true">Focus on Sport/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over time, the grueling life of a minor leaguer became the stuff of legend, <a href="https://www.milb.com/news/beyond-bull-durham-10-movies-about-the-minors-313223890">explored in films</a> like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094812/">Bull Durham</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0990413/">Sugar</a>.” Travel often remained as it always had been: by bus. Trips could last for days; it wasn’t considered cruel and unusual punishment to include clubs residing in <a href="https://www.milb.com/news/get-to-know-the-minor-league-teams-in-the-double-a-northeast">Maine, Virginia and Ohio</a> in the same league.</p>
<p>Players are only paid during the roughly five-and-a-half month season. According to <a href="https://www.advocatesforminorleaguers.com/">Advocates for Minor Leaguers</a> – which was subsumed by the MLBPA as part of the union organization push – until 2021, the minimum minor league salary came out to around $4,800, which amounted to about one-third of <a href="https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines/prior-hhs-poverty-guidelines-federal-register-references/2021-poverty-guidelines">the national poverty level of $12,880</a> for a single-person household. Meanwhile, the median minor league salary hovered around the national poverty level. On top of all this, players were responsible for securing and paying for their own housing.</p>
<h2>A weak attempt to appease</h2>
<p>In 2021, <a href="https://news.sportslogos.net/2021/02/15/a-breakdown-of-minor-league-baseballs-total-realignment-for-2021/baseball/">MLB began restructuring the minor leagues</a>, realigning and contracting them such that 43 out of 163 minor league clubs <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2020/12/09/mlb-announces-minor-league-affiliate-invites-some-teams-miss-cut/3805929001/">were eliminated</a>.</p>
<p>After this reorganization, MLB <a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28702734/mlb-raising-minimum-salary-minor-leaguers-2021">finally upgraded minor league pay, at least somewhat</a>, <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/03/30/baseball-players-press-lawmakers-for-minor-league-labor-standards">increasing</a> the Single-A minimum salary from $290 to $500 per week and the Triple-A minimum salary from $502 to $700 per week over the course of the season. MLB also assumed responsibility for most player housing.</p>
<p>This improved things, but only incrementally. Most minor leaguers still toil for substandard wages under conditions that seem unfathomable given <a href="https://dodgerblue.com/average-mlb-team-payrolls-declined-despite-increasing-revenue/2021/12/29/">the gravy train</a> that is pretty much everything else Major League Baseball touches.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Baseball player slides into home plate to avoid a tag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482607/original/file-20220903-30403-3ahajh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482607/original/file-20220903-30403-3ahajh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482607/original/file-20220903-30403-3ahajh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482607/original/file-20220903-30403-3ahajh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482607/original/file-20220903-30403-3ahajh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482607/original/file-20220903-30403-3ahajh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482607/original/file-20220903-30403-3ahajh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some players in Single-A earn only $500 per week.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/catcher-alex-lavisky-of-the-lake-county-captains-prepares-news-photo/143087859?adppopup=true">David Dermer/Diamond Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To be sure, not all minor leaguers suffer under these circumstances. Early-round draft picks have the luxury of dipping into their <a href="https://www.nbcsports.com/washington/nationals/mlb-draft-2022-explaining-signing-bonuses-slot-value-and-more">substantial signing bonus money</a> to supplement their minor league incomes. But all minor league players remain subject to a litany of further indignities at the hands of their employers: Clubhouses – where players can spend up to 12 hours a day – <a href="https://www.foxsports.com/stories/mlb/ben-verlander-minor-league-baseball-player-not-so-glamorous-life-behind-the-scenes">can be dingy shacks with dirt floors</a>. Off days are few and far between – <a href="https://www.mlbdailydish.com/2018/10/10/17919590/talking-about-the-grind-of-life-as-a-minor-league-baseball-player-with-minorleaguegrinders">sometimes as few as a single day per month</a> – and players are often made to feel disposable. </p>
<p>“Minor-league players need to be looked at as investments, not pawns,” one minor leaguer confided to a reporter for <a href="https://theathletic.com/2750280/2021/08/05/cockroaches-car-camping-poverty-wages-why-are-minor-leaguers-living-in-squalor/">The Athletic</a> in 2021. </p>
<p>“They act like we aren’t a part of the organization,” added another.</p>
<h2>The winds of change</h2>
<p>Suddenly, however, there’s been movement on the minor league front. </p>
<p>If nobody else saw this coming, MLB likely did. Why else did the league finally make incremental changes in 2021? </p>
<p>I doubt the MLB did this out of the goodness of their hearts. I believe they did it because, like Bob Dylan, they didn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing. </p>
<p>In July, MLB settled <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/sports/baseball/mlb-lawsuit-pay.html">a $185 million class-action lawsuit</a> over minor league pay, <a href="https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/07/20/rob-manfred-minor-league-wages-all-star-game">agreeing to permit clubs</a> to compensate these players for their work during spring training.</p>
<p>Formerly, clubs were prohibited from doing so. Now they’re free to compensate their players for this time – if they so choose. </p>
<p>The MLBPA could sense the shifting winds as well. </p>
<p>After decades of silence, people with influence were at last beginning to take note of what was going on down on the farm. Reporters started digging, and former players started speaking up, <a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2062307-an-inside-look-into-the-harsh-conditions-of-minor-league-baseball">publishing thoughtful and incisive pieces</a> detailing not only <a href="https://www.foxsports.com/stories/mlb/ben-verlander-minor-league-baseball-player-not-so-glamorous-life-behind-the-scenes">MLB’s back-of-the-hand treatment</a> of minor league players, but also how the MLBPA <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/6/5/17251534/mlb-draft-minor-league-baseball-union-phpa">often ignored</a> or sold out their minor league counterparts in labor negotiations.</p>
<p>And then, of course, there have been the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/27/us-union-boom-starbucks-amazon">high-profile unionization efforts</a> at places such as Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, Chipotle and Trader Joe’s, which signaled that something was clearly afoot beyond the bushes.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx">a recent Gallup poll</a>, Americans’ support for unions is not merely ticking upwards – it’s at a 57-year high. </p>
<h2>The real work begins</h2>
<p>The unionization effort is far from a done deal; the MLBPA merely distributed union authorization cards. Now it’s up to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/mlb-sports-minor-league-baseball-spencer-jones-6c02bdb34e1f221fc21b3e230eeddf78">a critical mass of minor league players</a> to vote in favor of unionization. </p>
<p>How many of these highly vulnerable minor leaguers are going to be willing to risk angering the people who hold their precarious futures in their hands? How many of them are going to be willing to put their lifelong dreams on the line for a union card? How many are confident enough that their skills are such that they won’t be released in retaliation for organizing?</p>
<p>All I know for sure is that minor league baseball today finds itself in a place it has never been before: on the precipice of real, profound change. </p>
<p>Depending on how things turn out, perhaps one day the reality of being a professional ballplayer might actually resemble the fantasy so many young ballplayers have clung to for generations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189760/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mitchell Nathanson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If any industry is crying out for unionization, it’s this one.Mitchell Nathanson, Professor of Law, Villanova School of LawLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1898262022-09-02T12:18:33Z2022-09-02T12:18:33ZAmerica is in the middle of a labor mobilization moment – with self-organizers at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s and Chipotle behind the union drive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482372/original/file-20220901-27-7ytxub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3988%2C2365&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A revised movement on the backs of young workers?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/union-leaders-gather-in-front-of-the-ldj-5-amazon-warehouse-news-photo/1241255197?adppopup=true">Calla Kessler for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Labor Day 2022 comes smack bang in the middle of what is increasingly looking like a pivotal year in the history of American unions.</p>
<p>The summer has seen a steady stream of workforce mobilizations. Employees at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/28/trader-joes-union-employees-massachusetts">Trader Joe’s locations in Massachusetts</a> <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2022/08/15/trader-joes-unions-could-signal-the-future-of-grocery-store-organizing-food-writer-says">and Minneapolis</a> both voted to unionize. Meanwhile, restaurant chain Chipotle saw the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/25/chipotle-union-victory-fastfood-michigan/">first of its stores unionize</a>, following a vote by workers at an outlet in Lansing, Michigan.</p>
<p>It comes on the back of a wave of successful efforts to mobilize at Starbucks and Amazon. The growth of unionized stores at Starbucks in particular has been stunning. Since baristas <a href="https://apnews.com/article/starbucks-union-vote-buffalo-c7dc3c2ec8b838e9f4ed641f54fc9035">in Buffalo, New York, became the first at the chain to unionize</a> in December 2021, colleagues at a further 234 outlets have followed suit in recent months.</p>
<p>Likewise, the success of an independent <a href="https://www.amazonlaborunion.org/">Amazon Labor Union</a> – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/01/chris-smalls-amazon-union/">formed in 2020 by Chris Smalls</a>, an <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/02/1090353185/amazon-union-chris-smalls-organizer-staten-island">Amazon worker fired</a> for protesting what he saw as inadequate COVID-19 safety precautions – in forming the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23005336/amazon-union-new-york-warehouse">first plant of the retail giant to have a unionized workforce</a> has inspired others to do likewise.</p>
<p>It comes as polling shows that public support of unions is at its <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosmarkets&stream=business">highest since 1965</a>, with the backing of 71% of Americans. Something is definitely happening in the labor movement in 2022.</p>
<h2>A different kind of organizing</h2>
<p>As a <a href="https://cob.sfsu.edu/directory/john-logan">scholar of the labor movement</a> who has observed union drives for two decades, what I find almost as striking as the victories is the unconventional nature of the organizing campaigns. </p>
<p>Workers at Amazon and Trader Joe’s are setting up independent unions, whereas at Starbucks and Chipotle, employees are teaming up with established unions. But that difference apart, the dynamics at play are remarkably similar: The campaigns are being led by <a href="https://prospect.org/labor/generational-worker-revolt-hits-its-stride-amazon-union/">determined young workers</a>. For the most part, it is bottom-up unionizing, rather than being driven by official, seasoned union representatives.</p>
<p>Inspired by pro-union sentiment in political movements, such as <a href="https://berniesanders.com/issues/workplace-democracy/">Bernie Sanders’ presidential bids</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/10/black-lives-matter-labor-unions-factory-workers-unite">Black Lives Matter</a> and the <a href="https://labor.dsausa.org/">Democratic Socialists of America</a>, individuals are spearheading the efforts for workplace reform rather than professional union organizers. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find many experienced organizers among the recent successful campaigns. </p>
<p>Instead, the campaigns have involved a significant degree of “self-organization” – that is, workers “talking union” to each other in the warehouse and coffee shops and reaching out to colleagues in other shops in the same city and across the nation. <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801457227/building-more-effective-unions/#bookTabs=1">This marks a sea change</a> from the way the labor movement has traditionally operated, which has tended to be more centralized and led by seasoned union officials. </p>
<h2>A labor revival</h2>
<p>Perhaps more important than the victories at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s and Chipotle themselves is their potential for creating a sense of optimism and enthusiasm around union organizing, especially among younger workers. </p>
<p>The elections follow <a href="https://psmag.com/economics/what-caused-the-decline-of-unions-in-america">years of union decline in the U.S.</a>, both in terms of membership and influence.</p>
<p>Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, these recent labor wins would probably have seemed unimaginable. Powerful, wealthy <a href="https://www.engadget.com/amazon-spent-43-million-on-anti-union-consultants-in-2021-alone-082051777.html">corporations like Amazon</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/23/starbucks-aggressive-anti-union-effort-new-york-stores-organize">and Starbucks</a> appeared invincible then, at least in the context of <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/">National Labor Relations Board</a> rules, which are stacked heavily <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/unprecedented-the-trump-nlrbs-attack-on-workers-rights/">against pro-union workers</a>. Under NLRB rules, employers can – and do – force workers, on the threat of dismissal, to attend <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/23/starbucks-aggressive-anti-union-effort-new-york-stores-organize">anti-union sessions</a>, often led by <a href="https://www.engadget.com/amazon-spent-43-million-on-anti-union-consultants-in-2021-alone-082051777.html">highly paid external consultants</a>.</p>
<p>Starbucks <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-15/starbucks-retaliated-against-pro-union-staff-nlrb-alleges">has said it has been</a> “consistent in denying any claims of anti-union activity. They are categorically false.” But the NLRB has alleged that the coffee chain <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/nlrb-region-15-wins-injunction-requiring-starbucks-to-rehire-seven">has fired and coerced workers</a>, placed union supporters <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/06/starbucks-accused-of-more-than-200-labor-violations-in-nlrb-complaint.html">under surveillance and retaliated</a> against them.</p>
<p>The NLRB has also <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/labor-board-files-complaint-against-starbucks-for-withholding-raises-from-unionized-stores">filed a complaint against Starbucks</a> for unlawfully withholding wage and benefit increases from pro-union workers, and currently has almost 300 open unfair labor practices charges lodged against Starbucks management. Amazon, which in the past <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/01/amazon-seeks-intelligence-analyst-to-track-labor-organizing-threats.html">has advertised for analysts to monitor “labor organizing threats</a>,” has said it <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/24/how-amazon-prevents-unions-by-surveilling-employee-activism.html">respects workers’ rights to join or not join unions</a>.</p>
<p>The significance of the recent victories is not primarily about the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/01/1089318684/amazon-labor-union-staten-island-election-bessemer-alabama-warehouse-workers">8,000 new union members</a> at Amazon or a gradual flow of new union members at Starbucks. It is about instilling in workers the belief that if pro-union workers can win at Amazon and Starbucks, they can win anywhere.</p>
<p>Historic precedents show that labor mobilization can be infectious.</p>
<p>In 1936 and 1937, workers at the Flint plant of General Motors <a href="https://www.history.com/news/flint-sit-down-strike-general-motors-uaw">brought the powerful automaker to its knees</a> in a sit-down strike that <a href="https://labornotes.org/2009/07/once-started-sit-downs-spread-wildfire">quickly inspired similar action</a> elsewhere. In the reported words of a Chicago doctor, when explaining a subsequent sit-down strike by wet nurses in the city: “It’s just one of those funny things. They want to strike because everyone else is doing it.”</p>
<h2>Seizing the moment</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/17/1046850192/the-pandemic-could-be-leading-to-a-golden-age-for-unions">pandemic has created an opportunity for unions</a>.</p>
<p>After working on the front lines for over two years, many essential workers such as those at Amazon and Trader Joe’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/26/starbuck-employees-intense-work-customer-abuse-understaffing">believe they have not been adequately rewarded</a> for their service during the pandemic and have not been treated with respect by their employers. </p>
<p>This appears to have helped spur <a href="https://prospect.org/labor/generational-worker-revolt-hits-its-stride-amazon-union/">the popularity</a> of smaller, workplace-specific unions.</p>
<p>The homegrown nature of these campaigns deprives chains of employing a decades-old trope at the heart of corporate anti-union campaigns: that a <a href="https://one.starbucks.com/">union is an external “third party</a>” that doesn’t understand or care about the concerns of employees and is more interested in collecting dues.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A pro-union poster is seen on a lamp pole says 'union busting is disgusting' over a Starbucks logo." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455938/original/file-20220403-23-b2ptyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455938/original/file-20220403-23-b2ptyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455938/original/file-20220403-23-b2ptyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455938/original/file-20220403-23-b2ptyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455938/original/file-20220403-23-b2ptyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455938/original/file-20220403-23-b2ptyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455938/original/file-20220403-23-b2ptyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Attempts to disparage outside unionizers are blunted when drives are led by company workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pro-union-poster-is-seen-on-a-lamp-pole-outside-starbucks-news-photo/1239452047?adppopup=true">Toby Scott/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But those arguments mostly ring hollow <a href="https://labornotes.org/2022/04/amazon-workers-staten-island-clinch-historic-victory?fbclid=IwAR1pwcYb45xVPpvkuWV0JmkHb_1jwEwkUIwF56-aJFsT2B9O_AahdQj8Kdk">when the people doing the unionizing</a> are colleagues they work alongside day in and day out.</p>
<p>It has the effect of nullifying that central argument of anti-union campaigns despite the <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/unlawful-employer-opposition-to-union-election-campaigns/">many millions of dollars</a> that companies often pumped into them.</p>
<h2>An unfavorable legal landscape</h2>
<p>This “self-organization” is consistent with what was envisioned by the authors of the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are/our-history/1935-passage-of-the-wagner-act">1935 Wagner Act</a>, the statute that provides the foundation of today’s union representation procedures. </p>
<p>The National Labor Relations Board’s first chair, J. Warren Madden, understood that self-organization could be fatally undermined if corporations were allowed to engage in anti-union pressure tactics: </p>
<p>“Upon this fundamental principle – that an employer shall keep his hands off the self-organization of employees – the entire structure of the act rests,” <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1631&context=sulr">he wrote</a>.“ Any compromise or weakening of that principle strikes at the root of the law.” </p>
<p>Over the past half century, anti-union corporations and their consultants and law firms – assisted by <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-labor-nlrb/unions-brace-for-big-changes-under-republican-led-u-s-labor-board-idUSKBN1HI328">Republican-controlled NLRBs</a> and right-wing judges – have <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-greenhouse-janus-supreme-court-20180627-story.html">undermined that process</a> of worker self-organization by enabling union elections to become employer-dominated.</p>
<p>But for the long-term decline in union membership to be reversed, I believe pro-union workers will need stronger protections. Labor law reform is essential if the <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/0019793918806250">almost 50% of nonunion American workers</a> who say they want union representation are to have any chance of getting it. </p>
<h2>Dispelling fear, futility and apathy</h2>
<p>Lack of popular interest <a href="https://www.filesforprogress.org/memos/worker-power.pdf">has long been an obstacle</a> to labor law reform. </p>
<p>Meaningful labor law reform is unlikely to happen unless people are engaged with the issues, understand them and believe they have a stake in the outcome.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://theconversation.com/union-battles-at-amazon-and-starbucks-are-hot-news-which-can-only-be-good-for-the-labor-movement-172932">media interest in the campaigns at Starbucks and Amazon</a> suggests the American public may finally be paying attention.</p>
<p>It isn’t known where this latest labor movement – or moment – will lead. It could evaporate or it may just spark a wave of organizing across the low-wage service sector, stimulating a national debate over workers’ rights in the process. </p>
<p>The biggest weapons that anti-union corporations have in suppressing labor momentum are the fear of retaliation and a sense that unionization is futile. The recent successes show unionizing no longer seems so frightening or so futile. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/amazon-starbucks-and-the-sparking-of-a-new-american-union-movement-180293">an article originally published</a> on April 4, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189826/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Logan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Public support for unions is at a near 60-year high. Meanwhile, self-organizers at major American chains are spearheading a new movement to mobilize.John Logan, Professor and Director of Labor and Employment Studies, San Francisco State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1893412022-08-30T12:17:59Z2022-08-30T12:17:59ZAmazon, Starbucks worker wins recall earlier period of union success – when Central American migrants also expanded US labor movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480911/original/file-20220824-10117-pwpqn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=214%2C223%2C6281%2C4041&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of a union representing workers who clean New York City offices march in 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/UnionRally/aa4c7fffe7b54fffa5b90f35134d6013/photo?Query=justice%20for%20janitors&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tech workers, warehouse employees and baristas <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/recent-us-union-wins-amazon-starbucks-more-2022-04-01/">have notched many victories in recent months</a> at major U.S. companies long deemed long shots for unions, including Apple, Amazon and Starbucks. </p>
<p>To me, these recent union wins recall another pivotal period in the U.S. labor movement several decades ago. But that one was led by migrants from Central America.</p>
<p>I’ve been researching human rights and immigration from Central America since the 1980s. In today’s <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/11/26/president-trump-migrant-caravan-criminals/2112846002/">polarized debates</a> over immigration, the substantial contributions that Central American immigrants have made to U.S. society over the past 30 years rarely come up. One contribution in particular is how Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants helped expand the U.S. labor movement in the 1980s, organizing far-reaching workers’ rights campaigns in immigrant-dominated industries that mainstream unions had thought to be untouchable.</p>
<h2>Migrants and unions</h2>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/central-americans-and-asylum-policy-reagan-era">1 million</a> Salvadorans and Guatemalans came to the United States from 1981 to 1990, fleeing army massacres, political persecution and civil war. </p>
<p>Since the 1980s, I have <a href="https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/ua-professor-s-trial-testimony-highlights-importance-of-public-scholarship">researched, taught and written about</a> this wave of migrants. Back then, President Ronald Reagan warned apocryphally that Central America was a threat to the United States, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/28/world/president-reagan-s-address-on-central-america-to-joint-session-of-congress.html">telling Congress</a> in 1983 that “El Salvador is nearer to Texas than Texas is to Massachusetts.”</p>
<p>Just 2% of Salvadorans and Guatemalans who applied <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-12-20/news/mn-9376_1_asylum-cases">received asylum in the 1980s</a> – so few that a 1990 class-action lawsuit alleging discrimination compelled the U.S. government to reopen tens of thousands of cases. In recent years, about <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/united-states-america/fact-sheet-us-immigration-and-central-american-asylum-seekers">10% to 25%</a> of their asylum petitions were granted.</p>
<p>Then, as now, many undocumented immigrants in the U.S. worked in agriculture or service industries, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-care-about-undocumented-immigrants-for-one-thing-theyve-become-vital-to-key-sectors-of-the-us-economy-98790">often under exploitative conditions</a>. Unionization barely touched these sectors in the 1980s.</p>
<p>More broadly, the bargaining power of labor unions was suffering under Reagan, whose <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-07/trump-is-no-reagan-when-it-comes-to-union-busting">presidency</a> started with his <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2008/08/reagan-fires-11-000-striking-air-traffic-controllers-aug-5-1981-012292">firing of 11,0000 striking air traffic controllers</a>. Downsizing and outsourcing at American companies in the 1980s also <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/618-an-injury-to-all">eroded union membership</a> and pushed wages down. </p>
<p>Many Guatemalans and Salvadorans were veteran community organizers. They had faced down government terror to participate in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-El-Salvador-Strife-Second/dp/0813300711">unions</a>, peasant leagues, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cry-People-Struggle-Catholic-Conflict/dp/0140060472">Catholic social justice campaigns</a> or <a href="https://unmpress.com/books/every-indio-who-falls/9780826348654">Indigenous rights</a> initiatives – all currents in 1980s revolutionary Central America. </p>
<p>Drawing on these experiences, many Central American immigrants began to organize in their U.S. workplaces, demanding higher wages and safer conditions. </p>
<h2>Salvadorans led Justice for Janitors to victory</h2>
<p>Salvadoran immigrants in California were pivotal in <a href="https://talkpoverty.org/2015/06/16/justice-for-janitors">Justice for Janitors</a>, a <a href="https://www.seiu.org/about#campaigns">pioneering</a> low-paid workers’ movement that inspired today’s <a href="https://fightfor15.org">US$15 minimum wage campaign</a>. </p>
<p>Justice for Janitors began in Los Angeles in 1990. It aimed to reverse the wage drops that janitors suffered over the past decade. </p>
<p>Rather than do battle with the small subcontractors that hired cleaning crews for big office buildings, Justice for Janitors targeted the corporations that owned those buildings. Led by experienced Salvadoran unionists – some of whom had <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1996-03-03/news/ls-42727_1_yanira-merino/2">fled death squad violence</a> back home – the movement used nonviolent civil disobedience and strikes to expose exploitative labor practices. </p>
<p>Speaking out could be dangerous. Police once clubbed participants at a <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/25-years-later-lessons-from-the-organizers-of-justice-for-janitors/">peaceful march</a> through Los Angeles’ Century City neighborhood on June 15, 1990. Undocumented workers feared deportation. </p>
<p>But it worked. Janitors in Los Angeles won a <a href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/justice-for-janitors-seiu-raise-america/">22% raise</a> after their 1990 citywide strike, <a href="https://www.labor.ucla.edu/what-we-do/research-tools/campaigns-and-research/justice-for-janitors/">showing</a> mainstream labor unions that even the city’s most marginalized workers – undocumented Central Americans, many of them women – had real organizing power. </p>
<p>Over the next decade, some <a href="http://socialjusticehistory.org/projects/justiceforjanitors/items/index/page/2">100,000 janitors nationwide joined the campaign</a>, under the banner of the <a href="http://www.seiu.org/justice-for-janitors">Service Employees Industrial Union</a>. The movement negotiated contracts that increased wages and health benefits for janitors across the U.S. </p>
<h2>Guatemalans defended Florida farmworkers</h2>
<p>Hundreds of thousands of people fled Guatemala during the early 1980s, escaping a <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403964472">genocidal army campaign</a> against Indigenous communities that left entire regions of its highlands charred and empty.</p>
<p>Roughly 20,000 of these Guatemalan refugees, many of whom spoke <a href="https://mayanlanguageimmigrationlawinfo.wordpress.com/languages/">Mayan languages</a>, landed in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Maya-Exile-Guatemalans-Allan-Burns/dp/1566390362">Florida</a> in 1982, finding work in sweltering tomato farms and citrus groves. </p>
<p>Up to 90% of the fresh tomatoes in U.S. supermarkets <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/business/in-florida-tomato-fields-a-penny-buys-progress.html">come from Florida</a>. </p>
<p>Working conditions in the state’s tomato fields were dismal in the 1980s. Migrants <a href="https://www.pbs.org/now/society/ciw.html">earned just 40 cents</a> per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes picked. Some were <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/world/ciw-fair-food-program-freedom-project/index.html">forced by armed guards to work against their will</a>, as a 1997 <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/1997/November97/482cr.htm.html">court case about the use of slave labor in Florida’s tomato fields</a> exposed. </p>
<p>In 1993, Guatemalan immigrants joined with Florida’s Haitian and Mexican farmworkers to form the <a href="https://ciw-online.org/">Coalition of Immokalee Workers</a>, a community worker alliance that began in the basement of a local church in Immokalee, Florida. It <a href="https://legacy-etd.library.emory.edu/view/record/pid/emory:cr197">used strategies</a> common to Latin American protest movements, including street theater and socially conscious radio broadcasts, to unite Florida’s agricultural workers.</p>
<p>After five years of work stoppages, hunger strikes and marches, Florida’s tomato pickers won wage increases of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/now/society/ciw.html">up to 25%</a>. A multiyear nationwide boycott of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18187-2005Mar8.html">Taco Bell</a> convinced the fast-food chain in 2005 to increase the earnings of the farmworkers who supply its ingredients. Other fast-food giants followed suit. </p>
<p>In 2015, the Immokalee coalition launched the <a href="http://www.fairfoodprogram.org/">Fair Food Program</a>, an industrywide agreement with Florida tomato growers to promote strict health and safety standards and allow outside monitors to oversee working conditions. That same year, President Barack Obama gave the Coalition of Immokalee Workers the <a href="https://ciw-online.org/slavery/">Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts</a> in Combating Modern Day Slavery. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="a farmworker on the ground passes a bucket of tomatoes to a worker in a truck full of tomatoes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481639/original/file-20220829-8654-b44wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Farmworkers with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, one of the United States’ most successful agricultural labor unions, collect tomatoes in Naples, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ImmigrationFlosridaAgriculturalWorkers/ab05c294590d44ca8f949ec97019ebf0/photo?Query=Immokalee%20farmworker&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=49&currentItemNo=39">AP Photo/Wilfredo Leef</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Guatemalans organized North Carolina poultry plants</h2>
<p>As Guatemalan migrants <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Faces-Places-Geography-Immigration/dp/0871545683">spread across the South</a> during the late 1980s, recruited by labor contractors in other states, they soon became a powerful organizing force in North Carolina, too. </p>
<p>Case Farms, a poultry company that supplies KFC, Taco Bell, Boar’s Head and the federal school lunch program, was a <a href="https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/region5/08132015-0">notoriously dangerous</a> place to work. Safety regulations were routinely ignored to increase output, and workers suffered serious injuries – including losing limbs to cutting machines.</p>
<p>In 1990, the Guatemalan immigrants at Case Farms’ plant in Morganton, North Carolina, organized a union drive.</p>
<p>As labor historian Leon Fink describes in his book “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807854471/the-maya-of-morganton/">The Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the Nuevo New South</a>,” Guatemalan poultry workers drew on prior organizing experiences back home – including coffee plantation strikes and Mayan pride movements – to organize workers. </p>
<p>After <a href="https://sohp.org/research/past-projects/listening-for-a-change/new-immigrants-and-labor/">five years</a> of walkouts, marches and hunger strikes, the Case Farm workers voted in 1995 to join the Laborers’ International Union of North America. The company refused to negotiate, however, and the union pulled out of contract talks after six years. </p>
<p>In 2017, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio challenged Case Farms to <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-demands-answers-from-case-farms">explain its alleged violations of U.S. law</a>, after a New York Times and ProPublica investigation exposed ongoing abusive labor practices there. </p>
<p>These unionization stories show Central American migrants in a new light – not as criminals or victims, but as people who have helped make the U.S. a safer place for workers.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-central-american-migrants-helped-revive-the-us-labor-movement-109398">article originally published</a> on Jan. 18, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Oglesby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Often overlooked in the immigration debate are the contributions of migrants, such as how they helped organize workers in the 1990s.Elizabeth Oglesby, Associate Professor of Latin American Studies and Geography, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1884422022-08-22T17:36:56Z2022-08-22T17:36:56Z5 unsung films that dramatize America’s rich labor history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480123/original/file-20220819-3561-cpqei8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C613%2C471&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'The Salt of the Earth,' made during the height of the post-World War II Red Scare, was blacklisted.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047443/mediaviewer/rm2354993408?ref_=ttmi_mi_all_sf_38">IMDB</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/354455/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx">Unions are more popular now than at any time since 1965</a>, and the U.S. is in the midst of a new upsurge of union organizing. Is a Hollywood drama about angry Starbucks baristas or frustrated Amazon warehouse workers far behind?</p>
<p>Hollywood studios and independent producers have long depicted the collective efforts of working people to improve their lives and gain a voice in their workplaces and the larger society.</p>
<p>Some of the most well-known labor movies champion the struggle of the everyday worker: “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027977/">Modern Times</a>,” released in 1936, stars Charlie Chaplin going crazy due to his job on an assembly line. It features the famous image of Chaplin caught in the gears of factory machinery. “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032551/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Grapes of Wrath</a>,” a 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel, tells the story of sharecropper Tom Joad’s radicalization after his family and other migrant workers experience destitute conditions in California’s growing fields and overcrowded migrant camps. </p>
<p>1979’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079638/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Norma Rae</a>,” is based on the life of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/us/15sutton.html">Crystal Lee Sutton</a>, who worked in a J.P. Stevens mill in North Carolina. The textile worker and single mom inspires her fellow workers to overcome their racial animus and work together to vote in a union. “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212826/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Bread and Roses</a>,” a 2000 film about low-wage janitors in Los Angeles, is based on the Service Employees International Union’s “<a href="https://www.labor.ucla.edu/what-we-do/research-tools/campaigns-and-research/justice-for-janitors/">Justice for Janitors</a> movement.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZdvEGPt4s0Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In an iconic scene from ‘Modern Times,’ Charlie Chaplin gets caught in the gears of factory machinery.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There’s also an anti-labor strain of Hollywood history, particularly during <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691153964/the-second-red-scare-and-the-unmaking-of-the-new-deal-left">the post-World War II Red Scare</a>, when studios purged left-wing writers, directors and actors through <a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/hollywoods-red-scare-spread-stigma-association">an industrywide blacklist</a>. Red Scare-era releases such as 1952’s "Big Jim McLain” and the 1954 film “On the Waterfront” often depicted unions as corrupt or infiltrated by communist subversives.</p>
<p>When I teach labor history, I’ve used films to supplement books and articles. I’ve found that students more easily grasp the human dimensions of workers’ lives and struggles when they are depicted on the screen. </p>
<p>Here are five unsung labor movies, all based on real-life events, that, in my view, deserve more attention. </p>
<h2>1. ‘<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078008/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_6">Northern Lights</a>’ (1978)</h2>
<p>This is a fictionalized account of a fascinating but little-known political movement: <a href="https://www.history.nd.gov/ndhistory/npl.html">the Non-Partisan League</a>, which organized farmers in the upper Midwest in the early 1900s. </p>
<p>During this period, Midwestern farmers worked long hours to harvest grain that they were then forced to sell for low prices to elevators, while paying high prices to the big railroad companies and banks. Economic insecurity was a part of life, and foreclosures were routine. </p>
<p>The film follows Ray Sorenson, a young farmer influenced by socialist ideas who leaves his North Dakota farm to become a Non-Partisan League organizer. In his beat-up Model T, he travels the back roads, talking to farmers in their fields or around the potbellied stoves of country stores. He eventually persuades skeptical farmers that electing NPL candidates could get the government to create cooperative grain elevators, state-chartered banks with farmers as stockholders, and limits on the prices that railroads can charge farmers to haul their wheat. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NGMMmD7ty5c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Northern Lights’ is based on an early-20th-century farmer-led political uprising in the Midwest.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1916, the Non-Partisan League did, in fact, elect farmer <a href="https://www.history.nd.gov/exhibits/governors/governors12.html">Lynn Frazier</a> as governor of North Dakota with 79% of the vote. Two years later, the NPL won control of both houses of the state legislature and created the North Dakota Mill, still the only state-owned flour mill, and the <a href="https://ilsr.org/rule/bank-of-north-dakota-2/">The Bank of North Dakota</a>, which remains the nation’s only government-owned general-service bank.</p>
<h2>2. ‘<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033533/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Devil and Miss Jones</a>’ (1941)</h2>
<p>In this screwball comedy with a pro-union twist, Charles Coburn plays John P. Merrick, a fictional New York City department store owner.</p>
<p>After his employees hang him in effigy, the tycoon goes undercover to ferret out the agitators of a union drive led by a store clerk in the shoe department and a union organizer. </p>
<p>As he learns more about their lives, Merrick grows sympathetic to his workers – and even falls in love with one of his employees – none of whom know his true identity. As the workers prepare to go on strike, and even picket his house, Merrick reveals that he owns the store and agrees to their demands over pay and hours – and even marries the employee he’s fallen for. </p>
<p>The film was likely inspired by <a href="http://msr-archives.rutgers.edu/archives/Issue%2016/essays/Opler.htm">the 1937 sit-down strikes</a> by employees of New York City’s department stores. </p>
<h2>3. 'Salt of the Earth’ (1954)</h2>
<p>Decades ahead of its time, this story of New Mexico mine workers deals with issues of racism, sexism and class.</p>
<p>After a mine accident, the Mexican-American workers decide to strike. They demand better safety standards and equal treatment, since white miners are allowed to work in pairs, while Mexican ones are forced to work alone. The strikers expect the women to stay at home, cook and take care of the children. But when the company gets an injunction to end the men’s protest, the women step up and maintain the picket lines, earning greater respect from the men.</p>
<p>Made at the height of the Red Scare, the film’s writer, producer and director <a href="https://www.highonfilms.com/salt-of-the-earth-1954-essay/">had been blacklisted</a> for their leftist sympathies, so the film was sponsored by the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, not a Hollywood studio. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002095/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Will Geer</a>, a blacklisted actor who later portrayed Grandpa Walton on the TV drama “The Waltons,” played the repressive sheriff. Mexican actress Rosaura Revueltas played the leader of the wives. The other characters were portrayed by real miners and their wives who participated in the strike against <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/empire-zinc-strike/">the Empire Zinc Company</a>, which served as the inspiration for the film. </p>
<p>The film itself was blacklisted, and no major theater chain would show it.</p>
<h2>4. ‘<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280377/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">10,000 Black Men Named George</a>’ (2002)</h2>
<p>Andre Braugher stars as <a href="https://aflcio.org/about/history/labor-history-people/asa-philip-randolph">A. Philip Randolph</a>, who organized the <a href="https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/eras/great-depression/brotherhood-of-sleeping-car-porters-win-over-pullman-company/">Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters</a>, the first Black-run union. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2009/05/08/103933268/pullman-porters-creating-a-black-middle-class">Being a porter on a Pullman railroad car</a> was one of the few jobs open to Black men. But wages were low, travel was constant and trains’ white passengers patronized the porters by calling all of them “George,” after <a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/george-m-pullman.htm">George Pullman</a>, the mogul who owned the company. </p>
<p>The company hired thugs to intimidate the porters, but Randolph and his top lieutenants persisted. They began their crusade in 1925 but didn’t get the company to sign a contract with the union until 1937, <a href="http://www.pennfedbmwe.org/Docs/reference/RLA_Simplified.html">thanks to a New Deal law</a> that gave railroad workers the right to unionize. Randolph became American’s leading civil rights organizer during the 1940s and 1950s and orchestrated the 1963 March on Washington. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black men stand on a stage holding an American flag and a union flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480118/original/file-20220819-26-jduttq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters display their banner at a 1955 ceremony celebrating the organization’s 30th anniversary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/fight-or-be-slaves-members-of-the-brotherhood-of-sleeping-news-photo/515296680?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. 'North Country’ (2005)</h2>
<p>Charlize Theron portrays Josey Aimes, a desperate single mom who flees her abusive husband, returns to her hometown in northern Minnesota, moves in with her parents and takes a job at an iron mine. </p>
<p>There, she is constantly groped, insulted and bullied by the male workers. She complains to the company managers, who don’t take her seriously. The male-dominated union claims there’s nothing they can do. Aimes sues the company, which, after a dramatic courtroom scene, is forced to settle with her and other women. </p>
<p>With stellar performances by Theron, Sissy Spacek, Frances McDormand and Woody Harrelson, “North Country” is based on <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/real-women-north-country">a groundbreaking lawsuit</a> brought by women miners at Minnesota’s Eveleth Mines in 1975 that helped make sexual harassment a violation of workers’ rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Dreier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Inspired by real events, the films tackle issues of race, gender and class in ways that will resonate with many of today’s viewers.Peter Dreier, E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, Occidental CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1383652020-09-04T18:18:11Z2020-09-04T18:18:11Z‘From each according to ability; to each according to need’ – tracing the biblical roots of socialism’s enduring slogan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356431/original/file-20200903-16-gi34dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C2316%2C1192&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Marx, Madison or God? Who said it first...or at all?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Bettmann/Corbis/ Lucas Schifres via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“From each according to ability; To each according to need,” is a phrase derived from where?</p>
<p>A) The works of Karl Marx</p>
<p>B) The Bible</p>
<p>C) The Constitution of the United States</p>
<p>If you answered “A,” you are kinda right. But if you answered “B,” you’re not exactly wrong either.</p>
<p>“C,” on the other hand, would get you zero points. But you would not be alone in getting it wrong. In a 1987 survey, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/02/15/constitution-confuses-most-americans/47e6691c-e42b-4276-8adb-ec1b24539954/">nearly half of Americans surveyed</a> believed the phrase “From each according to ability; To each according to need” came from the U.S. Constitution.</p>
<p>The phrase was, in fact, popularized by Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program. But its origins are in France. </p>
<h2>From Paris to Moscow</h2>
<p>It occurs in the 1848 speeches of <a href="https://www.hetwebsite.net/het/profiles/blanc.htm">the socialist politician Louis Blanc</a> and can be traced further back to the cover of the 1845 edition of philosopher Étienne Cabet’s utopian novel <a href="https://www.marxists.org/subject/utopian/cabet/icarus.htm">“Voyage en Icarie”</a>: “First right: To Live – To each according to his needs – First duty: To Work – From each according to his ability.”</p>
<p>But a decade and a half before Cabet, the followers of the French <a href="http://www.hetwebsite.net/het/profiles/saintsimon.htm">political theorist Henri de Saint-Simon</a> coined a similar phrase, “To each according to ability; To each according to works” as an epigraph of their journal L’Organisateur in 1829. </p>
<p>There is a constitution that contains a mix of both phrases, but it isn’t the U.S.’s. Rather it is <a href="https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/1936toc.html">the Constitution of the USSR</a>. Joseph Stalin paired “From each according to ability” with “To each according to work” in <a href="https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons01.html">the 1936 Soviet Constitution</a>.</p>
<h2>Communal living</h2>
<p>So where does the Bible come in? Well, Saint-Simon, Cabet and Blanc – all committed Christians whose social programs were inspired by their faith – borrowed each of these phrases from French Bible translations of the time, and defended them on scriptural grounds. History of economics scholar <a href="https://adrienlutz.wordpress.com/">Adrien Lutz</a> and <a href="https://philosophy.unc.edu/people/luc-bovens/">I</a> <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article/51/2/237/137098/From-Each-according-to-Ability-To-Each-according">traced these phrases</a> back to <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article/51/2/237/137098/From-Each-according-to-Ability-To-Each-according">these French biblical passages</a>.</p>
<p>“To each according to needs” comes from the Book of Acts documenting the practices of early Christian communities in Jerusalem. In the Book of Acts, believers “<a href="https://biblehub.com/acts/2-44.htm">were together and had all things in common</a>” and sold their possessions and distributed the proceeds within the community “<a href="https://biblehub.com/acts/2-45.htm">as any had needs</a>.” </p>
<p>In “Voyage en Icarie,” Cabet tells of a fictional community who practice similar communal living arrangements. He later went to the U.S. and founded a number of “<a href="https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11182&context=annals-of-iowa#:%7E:text=%5ESpecifically%20the%20Icarian%20communities%20were,%2C%20California%2C%201881%2D1886.">Icarian communities</a>” in the second half of the 19th century, that practiced communal ownership of goods and were governed by egalitarian ideals. </p>
<p>“From each according to ability,” is likewise found in the Book of Acts: “<a href="https://biblehub.com/acts/11-29.htm">So the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea</a>.” Cabet and Blanc both construed this phrase as a call for Christian servitude. They believed society to be a cooperative venture in which people of means should contribute more.</p>
<h2>Investing in talent</h2>
<p>“To each according to ability” is in the Gospel of Matthew. In the Parable of the Talents, a master gives his servants different amounts of money – or “talents” – and goes away on a journey: “<a href="https://biblehub.com/matthew/25-15.htm">To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability</a>.” Upon his return, he praises the servants who have invested and increased their allotment but condemns the one who buried the money and simply returned it.</p>
<p>For Saint-Simon, the phrase meant putting jobs and resources in the hands of the most qualified and entrepreneurial people and taking them away from nobility. This would lead to greater productivity, benefiting everyone, and in particular, the most disadvantaged socioeconomic groups in society.</p>
<h2>Wages of virtue</h2>
<p>“To each according to works” occurs at many junctions in the Bible. For example, St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans states: “<a href="https://biblehub.com/romans/2-6.htm">[God] will render to each according to his works: To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.</a>”</p>
<p>The phrase is also found it in First Corinthians: “<a href="https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/3-8.htm">He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.</a>” Whereas St. Paul’s letter makes rewards contingent on one’s achievements as a single individual, in Corinthians it measures the effort that one brings to a collective endeavor.</p>
<p>The same article in the Soviet Constitution that employs this phrase also contains a quote from a Bible passage found in the Second Letter to the Thessalonians: “<a href="https://biblehub.com/2_thessalonians/3-10.htm">If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.</a>”</p>
<p>The message is the same, but the background of this quote is interesting. St. Paul, the Christian apostle, believed that he and his co-workers did have a right to be maintained by the Church – presumably because their ministry was a sufficient contribution to the common good.</p>
<p>But they were facing an incentive problem: There were idle and disruptive elements in the Christian community who were trying to free-ride on the communal living arrangements. For this reason, even though they were doing ministry, St. Paul urges his followers to do manual labor to set a model and distance themselves from the free riders.</p>
<h2>Nothing new</h2>
<p>The sentiments behind these slogans are not confined to the ash heaps of history. Rather, many of the policies from the political left today fit under these simple slogans. </p>
<p>“To each according to need” can be applied to the debate over health care. The aim is to take the provision of health care away from market forces and to make it freely accessible to all who need it. “From each according to ability” is what underlies a concern for the common good and a conception of society as a cooperative venture, with mandatory public service as a matching policy proposal. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>“To each according to ability” is at the core of equal opportunity – an ideal that underlies affirmative action legislation and various policies to increase the accessibility of college. “To each according to work” maps onto the ideal of equal pay for equal work and the push for minimal wage policies, mainly benefiting manual labor jobs. </p>
<p>Two millennia in the making, these phrases illustrate what is said in the book of Ecclesiastes: “<a href="https://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/1-9.htm">There is nothing new under the sun.</a>”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138365/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luc Bovens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At the height of Reaganism, close to half of Americans believed a phrase popularized by Karl Marx actually derived from the US Constitution. It doesn’t, but scholars have traced it to the Bible.Luc Bovens, Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1453602020-09-04T12:32:57Z2020-09-04T12:32:57ZLabor Day celebrates earning a living, but remember what work really means<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356438/original/file-20200903-24-upkiwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4096%2C2710&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Doing a job to help other people can give greater meaning to work.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/kPZwI56RbkY">Photo by Eddie Kopp for Unsplach</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on U.S. employment is dire. Economists estimate that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/07/23/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus#roughly-one-in-five-workers-are-collecting-unemployment-benefits">1 in 5 workers</a> have lost their jobs. As a result, many people are finding it difficult to keep a roof overhead and put food on the table. Yet there can be more to work, and Labor Day provides an opportunity to see how through the writings of a woman who thought especially deeply about it, Simone Weil.</p>
<p>Weil looked at work as more than an exchange of money for labor. She argued that people need to work not only for income but also for the experience of labor itself. From her perspective, money does not solve the core problems of joblessness. Instead, work provides vital opportunities to live more fully by helping others. </p>
<h2>Weil’s life and work</h2>
<p>Simone <a href="http://www.skylightpaths.com/page/product/978-1-893361-34-8">Weil was born</a> in Paris in 1909 and died of tuberculosis when she was just 34. The Nobel laureate novelist Albert Camus called her “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=T7Q5d8EGKX8C&q=only+great+spirit#v=snippet&q=only%20great%20spirit&f=false">the only great spirit of our time</a>.” Weil’s father was a well-off physician and her mother ensured that their two children received a first-class education. Her brother, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/10/nyregion/andre-weil-who-reshaped-mathematics-is-dead-at-92.html">Andre</a>, became one of the great mathematicians of his day.</p>
<p>The Weil children were both prodigies, and Simone graduated first in her class from one of Paris’ most prestigious graduate schools. She became a political activist and championed workers’ rights. She accepted a job teaching philosophy but also chose to work for a farming family and later took a year’s leave to labor in <a href="https://libcom.org/files/december1946politics.pdf">factories</a>. She lived frugally, believing that it would help her better understand workers’ experiences. Later, she left France to fight in the Spanish Civil War.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356461/original/file-20200904-16-1t2e54g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Weil joined the Durruti Column, the largest anarchist group formed during the Spanish Civil War." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356461/original/file-20200904-16-1t2e54g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356461/original/file-20200904-16-1t2e54g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1082&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356461/original/file-20200904-16-1t2e54g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1082&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356461/original/file-20200904-16-1t2e54g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1082&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356461/original/file-20200904-16-1t2e54g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1360&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356461/original/file-20200904-16-1t2e54g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356461/original/file-20200904-16-1t2e54g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1360&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Simone Weil in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War, when she was in the Durruti Column.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/simone-weil-french-philosopher-here-in-1936-during-spanish-news-photo/89869077?adppopup=true">Api/Contributor via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Weil underwent several <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/nbfr.12047">conversion experiences</a>, including one in a church where Saint Francis of Assisi had once prayed. Thereafter, her work took on a more religious character. She believed that Greek, Hindu and Buddhist teachings offered <a href="https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2017.36.1.1">genuine truths</a> along with Christianity, which profoundly shaped her understanding of work. </p>
<p>With the German occupation of France in World War II, she fled first to the U.S. and then to England, where she later died.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Why work matters</h2>
<p>Though Weil understood that people need work to live, she argued that labor fulfills other equally essential functions. One is the opportunity it offers to become more <a href="https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/simone-weil-attention-to-the-real/">fully focused</a> and present in living. To multitask is to live superficially, but those who are completely present with another can give fully of themselves. She called attention “the rarest and purest form of <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00011371">generosity</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356435/original/file-20200903-18-f03at0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A worker lugs bags of pumpkins." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356435/original/file-20200903-18-f03at0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356435/original/file-20200903-18-f03at0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356435/original/file-20200903-18-f03at0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356435/original/file-20200903-18-f03at0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356435/original/file-20200903-18-f03at0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356435/original/file-20200903-18-f03at0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356435/original/file-20200903-18-f03at0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Weil believed work was not only about money but relationships with others.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/NMLstDcJLhs">Photo by Lotte Lohr for Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Weil believed that humans are not cut out for lives of idle pleasure. It is through work, whether in agriculture, manufacturing, the service industry or maintaining a home and raising children that people contribute to the lives of others. Work reminds us, she wrote, that individuals are part of <a href="https://theotherjournal.com/2011/05/03/a-sacred-longing-a-review-of-simone-weils-waiting-for-god/">something greater</a> and provides a larger purpose to live for. She wrote of the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/weil.html">calling to serve others</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Anyone whose attention and love are really directed towards the reality outside the world recognizes at the same time that he is bound, both in public and private life, by the single and permanent obligation to remedy, according to his responsibilities and to the extent of his power, all the privations of soul and body which are liable to destroy or damage the earthly life of any human being whatsoever.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Work must be seen in its larger context, for if it isn’t, laborers may soon feel like <a href="https://www.umasspress.com/9780870232510/oppression-and-liberty/">cogs in a machine</a>, winding a nut onto a bolt or moving papers from an inbox to an outbox. To do work well, people need to understand the context of work and how it makes a difference in the lives of others. </p>
<p>Imagine, Weil wrote, that two women are each sewing clothes for a baby. One woman is pregnant and, while sewing, thinks about the child she is carrying. The other woman is a convict engaged in prison labor. She, too, is careful, but out of fear of being punished. Each woman appears “to be doing the same work,” <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvpj7gb6">she wrote</a>, “but a whole gulf of difference lies between one occupation and the other.” </p>
<p>I have learned from Weil that good work enables us to be fully present, to be active creators rather than mere spectators, to develop the spiritual side of our natures, to gain insights into the larger purposes of our existence and to come more fully to life. In these ways, Labor Day isn’t just about earning money but an occasion to celebrate an essential human capacity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145360/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Gunderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The philosopher Simone Weil offers an illuminating perspective for our work life.Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1442542020-08-24T12:19:45Z2020-08-24T12:19:45ZThe labor-busting law firms and consultants that keep Google, Amazon and other workplaces union-free<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354118/original/file-20200821-20-11nqvca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C48%2C2013%2C1141&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rite Aid hired anti-union consultants to try to prevent workers from successfully organizing. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/labor2008/3292916718/">Amy Niehouse/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>American companies have been very successful at preventing their workers from organizing into unions in recent decades, one of the reasons unionization in the private sector <a href="https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet">is at a record low</a>. </p>
<p>What you may not realize is that a handful of little-known law and consulting firms do much of the dirty work that keeps companies and other organizations union-free.</p>
<p>IKEA, for example, turned to Ogletree Deakins, one of the largest law firms that specialize in so-called union avoidance activities, to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ikea-accused-of-anti-union-tactics-2018-10">help it crush unionization efforts</a> in Stoughton, Massachusetts, in 2016. Google <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/technology/Google-union-consultant.html">hired IRI Consultants</a>, a firm known for its anti-union activities, for advice on how to deal with growing worker unrest. And just this summer, two liberal-leaning organizations – the <a href="https://scholars.org">Scholars Strategy Network</a> and ACLU Kansas – <a href="https://thebaffler.com/working-stiff/the-new-face-of-union-busting-kelly">recruited the services of Ogletree</a> when their employees tried to form unions. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.13.2.0057?seq=1">I’ve been studying</a> these firms for two decades and <a href="https://www.jwj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/JohnLogan12_2006UnionAvoidance.pdf">have chronicled the key roles</a> they have played in undermining an American worker’s federally protected right to organize. Their tactics, abetted by <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/workers-rights-labor-standards-and-global-trade/">weak labor laws</a>, have turned what should be a worker-driven process into essentially a choice being made by companies. </p>
<h2>Avoiding unions 101</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-6186(06)15007-6">lack of effective federal reporting requirements</a> means there isn’t a lot of data on this union-busting industry. We do know that a lot of companies are using it. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An old brochure from the Labor Relations Institute offered clients a money-back guarantee that it could successfully prevent employees from forming a union." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354141/original/file-20200821-24-igubon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Labor Relations Institute offered clients a money-back guarantee that it could successfully prevent employees from forming a union in a brochure from the 2000s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Logan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to a Cornell labor expert, about 75% of all U.S. employers <a href="https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1037&context=reports">have engaged the services of a consultant or law firm</a> to stymie efforts by workers to organize – and are spending an <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/unlawful-employer-opposition-to-union-election-campaigns/">estimated US$340 million a year</a> to do so. </p>
<p>Three of the biggest law firms that do this work are <a href="https://www.littler.com">Littler Mendelson</a>, <a href="https://ogletree.com">Ogletree</a> and <a href="https://www.jacksonlewis.com">Jackson Lewis</a>, which have grown from <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.13.2.0057">regional operations</a> into <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1095796019893336">global union avoidance behemoths</a>. Consultants such as IRI and the <a href="https://lrionline.com">Labor Relations Institute</a> have also developed a reputation for union avoidance expertise in recent decades. IRI even <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1180/Logan-IUR.pdf?1598029329">used to offer a “money-back guarantee”</a> if its efforts weren’t succesful.</p>
<p>Here’s a closer look at the main services they offer clients, which occupy the gray areas of labor law.</p>
<h2>Monitoring unrest in the workplace</h2>
<p>One major reason companies hire these firms is to conduct union vulnerability audits, intended to analyze a workforce to see which departments, locations or demographic groups are most likely to organize. </p>
<p>The tactic has been around since at least the mid-20th century. Management professor Sanford Jacoby documented how <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3115660">Sears Roebuck used vulnerability audits</a> to beat back unionization as early as the 1940s, while labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein showed how Walmart <a href="https://www.minnesotalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Lichtenstein_FinalPDF.pdf">has used similar tactics</a> to remain union-free since the 1960s.</p>
<p>Today’s audits, however, <a href="https://www.littler.com/practice-areas/robotics-artificial-intelligence-ai-and-automation">are more sophisticated</a> and data-driven. Anti-union monitoring software can help management <a href="https://onezero.medium.com/companies-are-using-employee-survey-data-to-predict-and-squash-union-organizing-a7e28a8c2158">squash organizing</a> before it starts, while heat maps that collect data from a wide variety of sources reveal granular detail about where the biggest risks are. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-tracks-unionization-risk-with-heat-map-2020-1">Amazon recently used heat maps</a> to show which of its Whole Foods grocery stories and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/6/29/21303643/amazon-coronavirus-warehouse-workers-protest-jeff-bezos-chris-smalls-boycott-pandemic">distribution warehouses</a> were most at risk of unionization.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A banner that read 'Vote no' was added to billboards that read 'keep 1 team' near a Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tenn." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353964/original/file-20200820-14-dlvh5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nissan used billboards to convey its anti-union message during a unionization drive in 1989.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-ASSOCIATED-PRESS-I-TN-USA-APHST46-FOOTNOTE/bffd484e790d47869a8608cdc17aabf2/1/0">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Union inoculation</h2>
<p>The anti-union firms <a href="https://www.jacksonlewis.com/sites/default/files/media/pnc/1/media.1511.pdf">advise companies</a> to treat unions like a “virus” and to “inoculate” employees with messaging about the purported consequences of organizing early and often. </p>
<p>And to that end, another important service these firms provide is supplying companies with anti-union materials, which <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1057%2F9781137319067_2">can be anything</a> from managerial training and websites targeting employees to “vote no” buttons and anti-union billboards – strategically located on the way to work. </p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=experts">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/business/economy/nissan-united-auto-workers-mississippi.html">Nissan</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-uaw-election-analysis/thirteen-billboards-one-paint-shop-worker-helped-defeat-union-at-vw-plant-in-chattanooga-idUSBREA1L13220140222">Volkswagen</a> and <a href="https://www.al.com/business/2013/08/anti-union_billboards_put_up_n.html">other carmakers</a> have used billboards as part of their campaigns to prevent unionizing at plants in the U.S. And last year, Delta Airlines put up posters <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/5/10/18564745/delta-anti-union-video-game-poster">advising employees</a> that buying a video game console would be a better way to spend money than on union dues. Rite Aid, as part of an effort to stop workers at a warehouse in Lancaster, California, from organizing beginning in 2006, hired <a href="https://www.oliverbell.com/who-we-are/about-oliver">Oliver J. Bell & Associates</a> to provide its managers with training resources, according to a <a href="http://www.teamsters952.org/riteaid_report(1).pdf">report by labor rights organization Jobs with Justice</a>. </p>
<h2>Captivating workers</h2>
<p>A third technique is what union avoidance consultants call <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40342475?seq=1">direct explainer activity</a>, such as conducting mandatory anti-union staff meetings.</p>
<p>Workers who experience them describe these “captive” meetings as a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40342475?seq=1">form of legalized intimidation</a>, which is one reason <a href="https://cllpj.law.illinois.edu/archive/vol_29/">many other democratic countries</a>, such as Germany and Japan, restrict them. </p>
<p>Law firms generally avoid engaging in activities that involve direct contact with employees because, technically, it must be disclosed under the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/olms/regs/statutes/lmrda-act.htm">Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959</a>. This has created an opening for other types of consultants to specialize in this kind of persuasion. Weak enforcement means that reporting is patchy, even among consultants who talk to employees.</p>
<p>As the pandemic and concerns of benefits and safety <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/coronavirus-unions-layoffs.html">has prompted</a> <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/nonprofit-workers-turn-to-unions-during-pandemic-uncertainty">more workers to try to organize</a>, firms have continued to <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/union-busting-during-a-pandemic-could-prove-lethal-to-workers/">conduct these meetings</a>. HCA Healthcare <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/06/coronavirus-hca-healthcare-nurse-union-busting/">reportedly hired consultants</a> to run meetings at a hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, as part of its recent campaign to prevent 1,600 nurses from forming a union. </p>
<p>Using these and other tactics, consultants claim overwhelming success rates in preventing unionization, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/03/business/tougher-tactics-to-keep-out-unions.html">often 95% or higher</a>. While it’s impossible to empirically verify these claims, <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230303348">most labor relations researchers believe</a> they are highly effective.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Logan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Unionization is at a record low in part thanks to the tactics these firms use on behalf of companies and other organizations.John Logan, Professor and Director of Labor and Employment Studies, San Francisco State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1190512019-08-28T12:58:08Z2019-08-28T12:58:08ZWorker-protection laws aren’t ready for an automated future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285371/original/file-20190723-110179-1mgt11u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C19%2C3215%2C2124&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Uber and Lyft drivers protest their working conditions in Los Angeles in May 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Uber-Lyft-Strike/f52489c0915342989cd1e693e51ad748/21/0">AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Science fiction has long imagined a future in which humans constantly interact with robots and intelligent machines. This future is already happening <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/technology/amazon-robots-workers.html">in warehouses</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/30/717233058/even-in-the-robot-age-manufacturers-need-the-human-touch">manufacturing businesses</a>. Other workers use virtual or augmented reality as part of their <a href="https://qctimes.com/business/building-the-future-deere-works-to-attract-a-new-generation/article_110aae08-e313-5167-b519-8c5770a5d63e.html">employment training, to assist them in performing their job</a> or <a href="http://fortune.com/2018/04/09/cleveland-clinic-virtual-physical-therapy/">to interact with clients</a>. And lots of workers are under <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24232361-900-i-travelled-to-a-future-where-ai-cameras-track-your-every-move/">automated surveillance</a> from their employers.</p>
<p>All that automation yields data that can be used to analyze workers’ performance. Those analyses, whether done by humans or software programs, <a href="https://www.cmswire.com/digital-workplace/will-artificial-intelligence-write-performance-evaluations-one-day/">may affect who is hired, fired, promoted and given raises</a>. Some artificial intelligence programs can mine and manipulate the data to predict future actions, such as <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/02/17/castlight-pregnancy-data/">who is likely to quit their job, or to diagnose medical conditions</a>.</p>
<p>If your job doesn’t currently involve these types of technologies, <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/jobs-lost-jobs-gained-what-the-future-of-work-will-mean-for-jobs-skills-and-wages">it likely will in the very near future</a>. This worries <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GmfL_MIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">me</a> – <a href="http://www.law.unc.edu/faculty/directory/hirschjeffreym/">a labor and employment law scholar</a> who researches the <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3334667">role of technology in the workplace</a> – because unless significant changes are made to American workplace laws, these sorts of surveillance and privacy invasions will be perfectly legal.</p>
<h2>New technology disrupting old workplace laws</h2>
<p>The United States’ regulation of the workplace has long been an outlier among much of the world. Especially for private, nonunionized workers, the U.S. largely allows companies and workers to figure out the terms and conditions of work on their own. </p>
<p>In general, for all but the most in-demand workers or those at the highest corporate levels, the lack of regulation means companies can behave however they want – although they are subject to laws <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm">preventing discrimination</a>, <a href="https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/statutes/fairlaborstandact.pdf">setting minimum wages, requiring overtime pay</a> and <a href="https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/oshact/toc">ensuring worker safety</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285372/original/file-20190723-110149-se4l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285372/original/file-20190723-110149-se4l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285372/original/file-20190723-110149-se4l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285372/original/file-20190723-110149-se4l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285372/original/file-20190723-110149-se4l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285372/original/file-20190723-110149-se4l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285372/original/file-20190723-110149-se4l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285372/original/file-20190723-110149-se4l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many farm workers in the U.S. are completely excluded from most workplace protection rules.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Food-and-Farm-Maine-Blueberries/1d4ad98869284f6a83ee21153c58aa7c/37/0">AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But most of those laws are decades old and are rarely updated. They certainly haven’t kept up with technological advances, the increase in <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-government-has-no-idea-how-many-gig-workers-there-areheres-why-thats-a-problem-2018-07-18">temporary or “gig” work</a> and other changes in the economy. Faced with these new challenges, <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=1329522">the old laws leave many workers without adequate protections against workplace abuses</a>, or <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/labor-laws-left-farm-workers-behind-vulnerable-abuse">even totally exclude some workers from any protections at all</a>. For instance, two Trump administration agencies have recently declared that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2019/06/06/new-trump-administration-rule-gig-workers-are-not-employees/">Uber drivers are not employees</a>, and therefore not entitled to minimum wage, overtime or the right to engage in collective action such as joining a union. </p>
<p>Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality and advanced monitoring systems have already begun <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-industrial-revolution-really-tells-us-about-the-future-of-automation-and-work-82051">altering workplaces in fundamental ways</a> that may soon become <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-the-ai-jobs-revolution-bring-about-human-revolt-too-86290">impossible to ignore</a>. That progress highlights the need for meaningful changes to employment laws.</p>
<h2>Consider Uber drivers</h2>
<p>Like other companies in what has been called the “gig economy,” Uber has spent considerable amounts of money and time <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/27/18759387/uber-lyft-drivers-misled-companies-political-campaign">litigating and lobbying</a> to protect regulations classifying its drivers as independent contractors, rather than employees. Uber set its fifth annual federal lobbying record in 2018, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/uber-lobbying-washington-dc-2019/">spending US$2.3 million</a> on issues including keeping its drivers from being classified as employees.</p>
<p>The distinction is a crucial one. Uber does not have to pay employment taxes – or unemployment insurance premiums – on independent contractors. In addition, nonemployees are completely excluded from any workplace protection laws. These workers are not entitled to a minimum wage or overtime; they can be discriminated against based on their race, sex, religion, color, national origin, age, disability and military status; they lack the right to unionize; and they are not entitled to a safe working environment. </p>
<p>Companies have tried to classify workers as independent contractors ever since there have been workplace laws, but technology has greatly expanded companies’ ability to hire labor that blurs the lines between employees and independent contractors.</p>
<h2>Employees aren’t protected, either</h2>
<p>Even for workers who are considered employees, technology allows employers to take advantage of the gaps in workplace laws like never before. Many workers already use computers, smartphones and other equipment that allows employers to <a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/worker-fired-for-disabling-gps-app-that-tracked-her-24-hours-a-day">monitor their activity and location, even when off duty</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266914/original/file-20190401-177163-g5xe0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266914/original/file-20190401-177163-g5xe0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266914/original/file-20190401-177163-g5xe0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266914/original/file-20190401-177163-g5xe0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266914/original/file-20190401-177163-g5xe0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266914/original/file-20190401-177163-g5xe0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266914/original/file-20190401-177163-g5xe0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266914/original/file-20190401-177163-g5xe0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A doctor implants an RFID chip in a patient’s hand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dr_Mark_Gasson_has_an_RFID_microchip_implanted_in_his_left_hand_by_a_surgeon_(March_16_2009).jpg">Paul Hughes/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And emerging technology permits far greater privacy intrusions. For instance, some employers already have <a href="https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/03/28/there-will-be-little-privacy-in-the-workplace-of-the-future">badges that track and monitor workers’ movements and conversations</a>. Japanese employers use technology to monitor workers’ eyelid movements and <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/feeling-sleepy-in-the-office-this-japanese-technology-detects-tired-workers-and-blasts-cold-air-into-the-room/">lower the room temperature if the system identifies signs of drowsiness</a>. </p>
<p>Another company implanted <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-your-pets-microchip-has-to-do-with-the-mark-of-the-beast-114493">RFID chips</a> into <a href="https://iapp.org/news/a/embedded-chip-on-your-shoulder-some-privacy-and-security-considerations/">the arms of employee “volunteers</a>.” The purpose was to make it easier for workers to open doors, log in to their computers, and purchase items from a break room, but a person with an RFID implant can be tracked 24 hours a day. Also, RFID chips are susceptible to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/07/04/535518514/there-are-plenty-of-rfid-blocking-products-but-do-you-need-them">unauthorized access or “skimming” by thieves</a> who are merely physically close to the chip.</p>
<h2>No privacy protections for workers</h2>
<p>The monitoring that’s possible now will seem simplistic compared to what’s coming: a future in which robotics and other technologies capture huge amounts of personal information to feed artificial intelligence software that learns which metrics are associated with things such as workers’ moods and energy levels, or even diseases like depression. </p>
<p>One health care analytic firm, whose clients include some of the biggest employers in the country, already uses workers’ internet search histories and medical insurance claims to <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/02/17/castlight-pregnancy-data/">predict who is at risk of getting diabetes or considering becoming pregnant</a>. The company says it provides only summary information to clients, such as the number of women in a workplace who are trying to have children, but in most instances it can <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/bosses-harness-big-data-to-predict-which-workers-might-get-sick-1455664940">probably legally identify</a> specific workers.</p>
<p>Except for some narrow exceptions – like in bathrooms and other specific areas where workers can expect to be in relative privacy – private-sector employees have virtually no way, nor any legal right, to opt out of this sort of monitoring. They may not even be informed that it is occurring. Public-sector employees have more protection, thanks to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches, but in government workplaces the scope of that prohibition is quite narrow.</p>
<h2>AI discrimination</h2>
<p>In contrast to the almost total lack of privacy laws protecting workers, employment discrimination laws – while far from perfect – can provide some important protections for employees. But those laws have already faced criticism for their overly simplistic and limited view of what constitutes discrimination, <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3330795">which makes it very difficult for victims to file and win lawsuits or obtain meaningful settlements</a>. Emerging technology, particularly AI, will exacerbate this problem.</p>
<p>AI software programs used in the hiring process are marketed as <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18202335/ai-artificial-intelligence-recruiting-hiring-hr-bias-prejudice">eliminating or reducing biased human decision-making</a>. In fact, they can create more bias, because these systems depend on <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-big-data-analysis-of-police-activity-is-inherently-biased-72640">large collections of data</a>, which can be biased themselves. </p>
<p>For instance, Amazon recently abandoned a multi-year project to develop an AI hiring program because it <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK08G">kept discriminating against women</a>. Apparently, the AI program learned from Amazon’s male-dominated workforce that being a man was associated with being a good worker. To its credit, Amazon never used the program for actual hiring decisions, but what about employers who lack the resources, knowledge or desire to identify biased AI? </p>
<p>The laws about discrimination based on computer algorithms are unclear, just as other technologies stretch employment laws and regulations well beyond their clear applications. Without an update to the rules, more workers will continue to fall outside traditional worker protections – and may even be unaware how vulnerable they really are.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Hirsch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If your job doesn’t currently involve automation or artificial intelligence in some way, it likely will soon. Computer-based worker surveillance and performance analysis will come, too.Jeffrey Hirsch, Geneva Yeargan Rand Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1093982019-01-18T11:41:19Z2019-01-18T11:41:19ZHow Central American migrants helped revive the US labor movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253695/original/file-20190114-43535-y6pwuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Salvadoran immigrants were pivotal in the Justice for Janitors campaign in Los Angeles in 1990. It earned wage increases for custodial staff nationwide and inspired today's $15 minimum wage campaign. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-California-Unite-/68d1fe11ffe6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/1/0">AP Photo/Chris Pizzello</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>An updated version of this article was published on Aug. 30, 2022. <a href="https://theconversation.com/amazon-starbucks-worker-wins-recall-earlier-period-of-union-success-when-central-american-migrants-also-expanded-us-labor-movement-189341">Read it here</a>.</em></p>
<p>In the United States’ heated immigration debate, two views have predominated about Central American migrants: President Donald Trump portrays them as a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/11/26/president-trump-migrant-caravan-criminals/2112846002/">national security threat</a>, while others respond that they are <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-a-crisis-at-the-us-mexico-border-6-essential-reads-109547">refugees from violence</a>.</p>
<p>Little is said about the substantial contributions that Central Americans have made to U.S. society over the past 30 years. </p>
<p>For one, Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants have helped expand the U.S. labor movement, organizing far-reaching workers rights’ campaigns in migrant-dominated industries that mainstream unions had thought to be untouchable.</p>
<h2>Migrants and unions</h2>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/central-americans-and-asylum-policy-reagan-era">1 million</a> Salvadorans and Guatemalans came to the United States between 1981 and 1990, fleeing army massacres, political persecution and civil war. </p>
<p>Since the 1980s, I have <a href="https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/ua-professor-s-trial-testimony-highlights-importance-of-public-scholarship">researched, taught and written about</a> this wave of migrants. Back then, President Ronald Reagan warned apocryphally that Central America was a threat to the United States, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/28/world/president-reagan-s-address-on-central-america-to-joint-session-of-congress.html">telling Congress</a> in 1983 that “El Salvador is nearer to Texas than Texas is to Massachusetts.”</p>
<p>Just 2% of Salvadorans and Guatemalans <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-12-20/news/mn-9376_1_asylum-cases">received asylum in the 1980s</a> – so few that a 1990 class action lawsuit alleging discrimination compelled the U.S. government to reopen tens of thousands cases. Last year, about <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/united-states-america/fact-sheet-us-immigration-and-central-american-asylum-seekers">10% to 25%</a> of their asylum petitions are granted.</p>
<p>Then, as now, many undocumented immigrants in the U.S. worked in agriculture or service industries, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-care-about-undocumented-immigrants-for-one-thing-theyve-become-vital-to-key-sectors-of-the-us-economy-98790">often under exploitative conditions</a>. Unionization barely touched these sectors in the 1980s.</p>
<p>More broadly, the bargaining power of labor unions was suffering under Reagan, whose <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-07/trump-is-no-reagan-when-it-comes-to-union-busting">presidency</a> started with his <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2008/08/reagan-fires-11-000-striking-air-traffic-controllers-aug-5-1981-012292">firing of 11,0000 striking air traffic controllers</a>. Downsizing and outsourcing at American companies in the 1980s also <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/618-an-injury-to-all">eroded union membership</a> and pushed wages down. </p>
<p>Many Guatemalans and Salvadorans were veteran community organizers. They had faced down government terror to participate in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-El-Salvador-Strife-Second/dp/0813300711">unions</a>, peasant leagues, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cry-People-Struggle-Catholic-Conflict/dp/0140060472">Catholic social justice campaigns</a> or <a href="https://unmpress.com/books/every-indio-who-falls/9780826348654">indigenous rights</a> initiatives – all currents in 1980s revolutionary Central America. </p>
<p>Drawing on these experiences, many Central American immigrants began to organize in their U.S. workplaces, demanding higher wages and safer conditions. </p>
<h2>Salvadorans led Justice for Janitors to victory</h2>
<p>Salvadoran immigrants in California were pivotal in <a href="https://talkpoverty.org/2015/06/16/justice-for-janitors">Justice for Janitors</a>, a <a href="https://www.seiu.org/about#campaigns">pioneering</a> low-paid workers’ movement that inspired today’s <a href="https://fightfor15.org">US$15 minimum wage campaign</a>. </p>
<p>Justice for Janitors began in Los Angeles in 1990. It aimed to reverse the wage drops that janitors suffered over the past decade. </p>
<p>Rather than do battle with the small subcontractors that hired cleaning crews for big office buildings, Justice for Janitors targeted the corporations that owned those buildings. Led by experienced Salvadoran unionists – some of whom had <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1996-03-03/news/ls-42727_1_yanira-merino/2">fled death squad violence</a> back home – the movement used nonviolent civil disobedience and strikes to expose exploitative labor practices. </p>
<p>Speaking out could be dangerous. Police once clubbed participants at a <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/25-years-later-lessons-from-the-organizers-of-justice-for-janitors/">peaceful march</a> through LA’s Century City neighborhood on June 15, 1990. Undocumented workers feared deportation. </p>
<p>But it worked. Janitors in LA won a <a href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/justice-for-janitors-seiu-raise-america/">22% raise</a> after their 1990 citywide strike, <a href="https://www.labor.ucla.edu/what-we-do/research-tools/campaigns-and-research/justice-for-janitors/">showing</a> mainstream labor unions that even the city’s most marginalized workers – undocumented Central Americans, many of them women – had real organizing power. </p>
<p>Over the next decade, some <a href="http://socialjusticehistory.org/projects/justiceforjanitors/items/index/page/2">100,000 janitors nationwide joined the campaign</a>, under the banner of the <a href="http://www.seiu.org/justice-for-janitors">Service Employees Industrial Union</a>. The movement negotiated contracts that increased wages and health benefits for janitors across the U.S. </p>
<h2>Guatemalans defended Florida farmworkers</h2>
<p>Hundreds of thousands of people fled Guatemala during the early 1980s, escaping a <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403964472">genocidal army campaign</a> against Indigenous communities that left entire regions of its highlands charred and empty.</p>
<p>Roughly 20,000 of these Guatemalan refugees – many of whom spoke <a href="https://mayanlanguageimmigrationlawinfo.wordpress.com/languages/">indigenous Mayan languages</a> – landed in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Maya-Exile-Guatemalans-Allan-Burns/dp/1566390362">Florida</a> in 1982, finding work in sweltering tomato farms and citrus groves. </p>
<p>Up to 90% of the fresh tomatoes in U.S. supermarkets <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/business/in-florida-tomato-fields-a-penny-buys-progress.html">come from Florida</a>. </p>
<p>Working conditions in the state’s tomato fields were dismal in the 1980s. Migrants <a href="https://www.pbs.org/now/society/ciw.html">earned just 40 cents</a> per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes picked. Some were <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/world/ciw-fair-food-program-freedom-project/index.html">forced by armed guards to work against their will</a>, as a 1997 <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/1997/November97/482cr.htm.html">court case about the use of slave labor in Florida’s tomato fields</a> exposed. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253692/original/file-20190114-43510-12eppge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253692/original/file-20190114-43510-12eppge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253692/original/file-20190114-43510-12eppge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253692/original/file-20190114-43510-12eppge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253692/original/file-20190114-43510-12eppge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253692/original/file-20190114-43510-12eppge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253692/original/file-20190114-43510-12eppge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253692/original/file-20190114-43510-12eppge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Farmworkers pick tomatoes in Immokalee, Florida, home to one of the United States’ most successful agricultural labor unions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Florida-United-S-/21d7bffb33e9da11af9f0014c2589dfb/14/0">AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1993, Guatemalan immigrants joined with Florida’s Haitian and Mexican farmworkers to form the <a href="https://ciw-online.org/">Coalition of Immokalee Workers</a>, a community worker alliance that began in the basement of a local church in Immokalee, Florida. It <a href="https://legacy-etd.library.emory.edu/view/record/pid/emory:cr197">used strategies</a> common to Latin American protest movements, including street theater and socially conscious radio broadcasts, to unite Florida’s agricultural workers.</p>
<p>After five years of work stoppages, hunger strikes and marches, Florida’s tomato pickers won wage increases of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/now/society/ciw.html">up to 25%</a>. A multi-year nationwide boycott of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18187-2005Mar8.html">Taco Bell</a> convinced the fast food chain in 2005 to increase the earnings of the farmworkers who supply its ingredients. Other fast food giants followed suit. </p>
<p>In 2015, the Immokalee coalition launched the <a href="http://www.fairfoodprogram.org/">Fair Food Program</a>, an industry-wide agreement with Florida tomato growers to promote strict health and safety standards and allow outside monitors to oversee working conditions. That same year, President Barack Obama gave the Coalition of Immokalee Workers the <a href="https://ciw-online.org/slavery/">Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts in Combating Modern Day Slavery</a>.</p>
<h2>Guatemalans organized North Carolina poultry plants</h2>
<p>As Guatemalan migrants <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Faces-Places-Geography-Immigration/dp/0871545683">spread across the South</a> during the late 1980s, recruited by labor contractors in other states, they soon became a powerful organizing force in North Carolina, too. </p>
<p>Case Farms – a poultry company that supplies KFC, Taco Bell, Boar’s Head and the federal school lunch program – was a <a href="https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/region5/08132015-0">notoriously dangerous</a> place to work. Safety regulations were routinely ignored to increase output, and workers suffered serious injuries – including losing limbs to cutting machines.</p>
<p>In 1990, the Guatemalan immigrants at Case Farms’ plant in Morganton, North Carolina, organized a union drive.</p>
<p>As labor historian Leon Fink describes in his book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Maya-Morganton-Community-Nuevo-South/dp/0807854476">The Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the Nuevo New South</a>,” Guatemalan poultry workers drew on prior organizing experiences back home – including coffee plantation strikes and Mayan pride movements – to organize workers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253698/original/file-20190114-43541-1i1dkm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253698/original/file-20190114-43541-1i1dkm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253698/original/file-20190114-43541-1i1dkm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253698/original/file-20190114-43541-1i1dkm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253698/original/file-20190114-43541-1i1dkm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253698/original/file-20190114-43541-1i1dkm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253698/original/file-20190114-43541-1i1dkm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253698/original/file-20190114-43541-1i1dkm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poultry plants across the southeast U.S. rely heavily on immigrant labor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Nebraska-United-/ff317024b9e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/152/0">AP Photo/Nati Harnik</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After <a href="https://sohp.org/research/past-projects/listening-for-a-change/new-immigrants-and-labor/">five years</a> of walkouts, marches and hunger strikes, the Case Farm workers in 1995 voted to join the Laborers’ International Union of North America. The company refused to negotiate, however, and the union pulled out of contract talks after six years.</p>
<p>In 2017, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio challenged Case Farms to <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-demands-answers-from-case-farms">explain its alleged violations of U.S. law</a>, after a New York Times and ProPublica investigation exposed ongoing <a href="http://labornotes.org/2010/07/immigrant-workers-non-union-chicken-plant-stop-work-over-dangerous-conditions">abusive labor practices there</a>. </p>
<p>These unionization stories show Central American migrants in a new light – not as criminals or victims, but as people who have helped make the U.S. a safer place for workers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Oglesby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Central Americans who came to the US in the 1980s fleeing civil war drew on their background fighting for social justice back home to help unionize farmworkers, janitors and poultry packers in the US.Elizabeth Oglesby, Associate Professor of Latin American Studies and Geography, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1023742018-08-30T17:20:29Z2018-08-30T17:20:29ZWho wants to join a union? A growing number of Americans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234146/original/file-20180829-195319-smafdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fighting for a $15 an hour wage in Pittsburgh</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Minimum-Wage/2dac84783c94461d90d2b2f8deb7e9b8/49/0">AP Photo/Keith Srakocic</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Only <a href="https://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpslutab3.htm">10.7 percent</a> of American workers belong to a union today, approximately half as many as in 1983. That’s a level not seen since the 1930s, just before passage of the labor law that was supposed to <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/resources/national-labor-relations-act-nlra">protect workers’ right to organize</a>.</p>
<p>Yet American workers have not given up on unions. When <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xjA-7UkAAAAJ&hl=en">we conducted</a> a nationally representative <a href="http://gcgj.mit.edu/new-paper-worker-voice-appear-ilr-review">survey of the workforce</a> with the <a href="http://www.norc.org/Pages/default.aspx">National Opinion Research Corporation</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QfH1gOcAAAAJ&hl=en">we found interest</a> in joining unions to be at a four-decade high. </p>
<h2>Four times higher</h2>
<p>The results obtained from nearly 4,000 respondents show that 48 percent – nearly half of nonunionized workers – would join a union if given the opportunity to do so.</p>
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<p>That marks a sharp increase from about one-third of the workforce expressing this preference <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41840979?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">in 1977</a> <a href="https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=books">and 1995</a>, the last two times this question was asked on national surveys. The scale of this change indicates that 58 million American workers would want to join a union if they could, quadruple the number of current union members.</p>
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<h2>A question of influence</h2>
<p>One of the strongest predictors of who might join a union is the size of the gap between the amount of say or influence they expect to have at their workplaces and their <a href="http://gcgj.mit.edu/new-paper-worker-voice-appear-ilr-review">real-life experience</a>.</p>
<p>More than 50 percent of the workers who took part in our survey reported they have less say than they feel that they ought to have, what we call the “voice gap,” on key issues such as benefits, compensation, promotions and job security. Between a third and half of the workers we surveyed reported a gap between expected and actual say or influence on decisions about how and when they work, safety and protections from discrimination.</p>
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<p>While workers are clear on what they want, the reality is few workers who don’t belong to unions will get to join one, since fewer than <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/graphs-data/petitions-and-elections/representation-petitions-rc">1 percent</a> will experience an organizing drive at their workplaces. Also, fewer than <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001979390806200101">10 percent</a> of all these efforts to unionize and get a collective bargaining agreement succeed when employers resist.</p>
<h2>New strategies</h2>
<p>Recognizing these obstacles, unions are turning to new strategies for improving working conditions. Perhaps the best example is union support <a href="https://fightfor15.org/about-us/">for a US$15</a> minimum wage that would primarily benefit workers who aren’t their members. </p>
<p>Several new organizing efforts are taking shape, benefiting everyone from <a href="https://ciw-online.org/">South Florida tomato pickers</a> to <a href="https://home.coworker.org/">baristas toiling in a Starbucks</a> near you.</p>
<p>But unions and these new forms of advocacy can’t get workers the voice they expect on their jobs until U.S. <a href="https://mitsloan-php.s3.amazonaws.com/iwer/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Kochan.-2011-ABA-Labor-Law-Journal-article-on-NLRA.pdf">labor laws</a> become stronger.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102374/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Funding for this research was provided to the MIT Sloan School of Management’s Good Companies Good Jobs Initiative by the Hitachi Foundation and by the Mary Rowe Fund for Conflict Management</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Funding for this research was provided to the MIT Sloan School of Management’s Good Companies Good Jobs Initiative by the Hitachi Foundation and by the Mary Rowe Fund for Conflict Management.</span></em></p>Americans want more say about their benefits, training and other important issues at work.Thomas Kochan, George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management Professor, Work and Organization Studies Co-Director, MIT Sloan Institute for Work and Employment Research, MIT Sloan School of ManagementDuanyi Yang, Ph.D. Candidate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)Erin L. Kelly, Sloan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies Professor, Work and Organization Studies, MIT Sloan School of ManagementWill Kimball, Ph.D. Student, MIT Sloan School of ManagementLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/830642017-09-01T12:25:15Z2017-09-01T12:25:15ZWant a job? It’s still about education.<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184253/original/file-20170831-22427-2p1jv0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C668%2C3239%2C2459&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Specialized training is becoming more and more important to financial success in today's labor market.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.aetc.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2001535925/">U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Michael Ellis</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the 20th century, there was nothing that could help you achieve labor market success more than <a href="http://educationnext.org/the-human-capital-century/">a good education</a>. Even today, education is one of the strongest predictors of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm">whether someone is employed and how much he or she is paid</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, the rules have changed. A high school diploma in 1950 (and maybe into the 1980s) could get you a solid, middle-class job. But a diploma today is a minimum requirement to get nearly any job – and, for most, it’s not enough to get you into the middle class.</p>
<p>As a scholar of education policy, and of career and technical education in particular, I have seen incredible changes in technology and the workforce. And, while degree requirements have changed, education continues to be the cornerstone of job preparation and success.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184254/original/file-20170831-25608-qmzk6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184254/original/file-20170831-25608-qmzk6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184254/original/file-20170831-25608-qmzk6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184254/original/file-20170831-25608-qmzk6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184254/original/file-20170831-25608-qmzk6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184254/original/file-20170831-25608-qmzk6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184254/original/file-20170831-25608-qmzk6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A high school education was generally enough to get you into a good middle-class job in the 1950s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gary_Plant_Tubular_Steel_Corporation.jpg">Public domain</a></span>
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<h2>A changing workforce</h2>
<p>So what’s changed? The shift in the economic value of education has largely been driven by <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2728062">increased demands for technical knowledge and skill</a>. These demands come from the evolution of technologies and trends in the offshoring of routine, middle-skill jobs. In short, the middle-class jobs that remain simply require more expertise, which usually comes from more education.</p>
<p>The result has been a growing gulf between high- and low-wage earners. Indeed, the gap between those with only a high school diploma or GED and those with more education is at <a href="http://www.epi.org/blog/looking-at-the-latest-wage-data-by-education-level/">an all-time high</a>. And there’s no reason to expect this trend to reverse itself.</p>
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<p>What’s more, there’s been considerable debate about the existence of a <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608707/the-myth-of-the-skills-gap/">skill gap</a> in the workforce: a suggestion that young people today simply <a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/is-there-really-a-skills-gap.html">don’t have the skills demanded by employers</a>. Indeed, there are high levels of <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cbc.asp">underemployment among younger workers</a> in the U.S., which could suggest that employers are dissatisfied with what young applicants have to offer.</p>
<p>Where once employers might have offered <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0019793915619904">on-the-job training</a>, this appears to be in decline. It may be that the skill set required now is more technical and more appropriately handled by formal education programs, or it may be the demand for profit margins have diminished employer appetite for funding such programs. Whatever the cause, young applicants are expected to have certain skills already acquired before they will be hired.</p>
<h2>What does a normal high school degree get you?</h2>
<p>Most young people entering the workforce bring with them the skills they acquired in school. What they can expect to achieve depends a great deal on their highest level of education, and the skills that employers expect come with it.</p>
<p>Earning a high school diploma is more or less required in the current job market, but the average wages of those with a high school degree or less are dropping, and the number of attainable jobs for those with a high school diploma or less has been in <a href="http://www.epi.org/blog/looking-at-the-latest-wage-data-by-education-level/">long-term decline</a>.</p>
<p>While it may be easier to get a job with only a high school education <a href="https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2014/article/education-level-and-jobs.htm">in some states than in others</a>, this is no longer the norm in most places.</p>
<h2>What does technical education get you?</h2>
<p>Technical education in high school is one area where job placement may be more of a bright spot. Research shows that the work-based learning and technical skills acquired in such programs <a href="https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/full_50.pdf">lead to better employment outcomes</a> and that the odds of being <a href="https://edexcellence.net/publications/career-and-technical-education-in-high-school-does-it-improve-student-outcomes">employed right out of high school</a> are also higher.</p>
<p>There’s even some evidence that participation in career and technical education programs in high school can <a href="https://edexcellence.net/publications/career-and-technical-education-in-high-school-does-it-improve-student-outcomes">ease the transition to college</a>, especially two-year colleges.</p>
<p>Though initial employment outcomes may be better for those with technical education in high school, there’s concern among some that over the long term these students may not be better off than their nontechnical peers. Specifically, though studies have been limited in scope, researchers have found that the lack of a college degree and the reliance on specific skills (that may go out of date) <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w17504">could reduce lifetime earnings</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184256/original/file-20170831-22403-1imisah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184256/original/file-20170831-22403-1imisah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184256/original/file-20170831-22403-1imisah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184256/original/file-20170831-22403-1imisah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184256/original/file-20170831-22403-1imisah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184256/original/file-20170831-22403-1imisah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184256/original/file-20170831-22403-1imisah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Technical high school students face better job prospects after graduation. However, their long-term earning potential may suffer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/mexico-city-july-15th-2017-two-702578356?src=O6DX5jljl-CSK7xK7mTQJg-1-22">Schlyx/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<h2>What does a college degree get you?</h2>
<p>Job placement, employment and pay remain highest for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, with <a href="https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm">larger and growing returns to master’s degrees</a>. Yet, despite the good track record, more recent evidence suggests that wage benefits for college degrees are <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w22935">smaller than in the past</a>.</p>
<p>These lessening benefits of a college degree – along with <a href="http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/student-debt-rising-worldwide">rising levels of student loan debt</a> – have encouraged a push for <a href="https://www.edutopia.org/blog/college-and-career-readiness-redefining-ready-anne-obrien">more career-aligned college education</a> that prepares graduates for well-paying and available jobs.</p>
<h2>Where we go from here</h2>
<p>The labor movement of the late 19th through mid-20th centuries brought sharp increases in unionization in a nation whose economy was largely driven by manufacturing and production. As the 20th century waned, the high-tech, information-driven economy required skills beyond what was typically acquired in high school.</p>
<p>Educational models have been changing to meet these demands.</p>
<p>High schools have added technical education programs that mirror growing demand for health care, IT and advanced manufacturing, while community colleges have <a href="http://capseecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/career-technical-labor-market-outcomes.pdf">modified and grown their programming</a> to offer certificates and associates degrees that better align with the changing demands for labor and technical skill.</p>
<p>The challenge in the decades ahead will continue to be how best to help young people acquire the skills necessary to earn a living wage – both initially and across their lifetimes. I believe this will require educational programs that respond to the changing economic landscape, as well as innovative worker retraining programs for those displaced by technological advances and the continued loss of jobs overseas.</p>
<p>What will not change is the central role of education in helping Americans succeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaun M. Dougherty receives funding from the Institute for Education Sciences, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to conduct research related to career and technical educaiton. </span></em></p>As technology and the labor market rapidly evolve, so too does the value of a high school diploma. Despite the changes, one thing remains true: Education is still the cornerstone of career success.Shaun M. Dougherty, Assistant Professor of Education & Public Policy, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/830292017-09-01T01:09:32Z2017-09-01T01:09:32ZHow can job loss be bad for health, and recession be good for it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183822/original/file-20170829-5505-1jbvxdz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Several studies have shown that health suffers after being laid off, as fear and anxiety lead to stress.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fired-frustrated-man-suit-sitting-near-284883515?src=KBzKRMq0yNAIBWg2oW4qCQ-1-1">VGstockstudio/Shutterstock.com </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s no better time than Labor Day to think about the critical role that work – both our own jobs and the labor of others – plays in all of our lives. But this role is surprisingly complex: While job loss and unemployment can cause individuals’ own health to suffer, studies have shown that mortality rates go down during a recession.</p>
<p>Understanding this seeming contradiction forces us to think not only about how our own employment affects health, but also about how the labor and working conditions of others can affect us all.</p>
<p>My <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629615000788">own research in economics</a> with co-author Jessamyn Schaller shows that in the immediate aftermath of job loss, workers report worse mental and physical health. Those with preexisting chronic conditions, who may be relatively heavy users of health care services prior to job loss, become less likely to visit the doctor or obtain prescription drugs. But there’s more to the story than this.</p>
<h2>Laid-off workers much more likely to die early</h2>
<p>The link between work and health can be dramatic. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2009.124.3.1265">Economists Daniel Sullivan and Til von Wachter</a> have shown that U.S. workers who lose jobs in mass layoffs have death rates in the years just after the layoff that are 50 percent higher than similar workers who did not lose jobs. </p>
<p>The same study showed that, even 20 years later, these displaced workers had elevated death rates. While the mechanisms at work here are not fully understood, reductions in income, income uncertainty and the associated stress are thought to drive these negative health effects.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183824/original/file-20170829-6659-dx378i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183824/original/file-20170829-6659-dx378i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183824/original/file-20170829-6659-dx378i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183824/original/file-20170829-6659-dx378i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183824/original/file-20170829-6659-dx378i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183824/original/file-20170829-6659-dx378i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183824/original/file-20170829-6659-dx378i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The effects of being laid off can cause stress and impair health for years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-sitting-stressed-not-happy-her-699244135?src=XePbBjaSzcWp9X4C9UiSsg-2-73">Seastontime/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Both of these studies address the possibility that workers who are already in poor health may be more likely to suffer job loss. If this is the case, poor health could lead to unemployment rather than the reverse. Our work on shorter-term health effects looked only at outcomes that could be measured both before and after job loss to be sure that the health effects appeared only after the job loss. </p>
<p>Research using mass layoffs also guards against reverse causality, the idea that poor health leads to unemployment rather than the reverse. They do this by focusing on major mass layoff events where unhealthy individual workers are unlikely to have been chosen for layoffs. Further, Sullivan and von Wachter showed that firms with a greater ability to select particular workers for layoff did not seem to lay off less healthy employees.</p>
<h2>An unexpected twist</h2>
<p>The more surprising part of the relationship between health and unemployment flips the initial pattern of job loss leading to poor health on its head. </p>
<p>A series of studies, many by economist Christopher Ruhm, shows compelling and surprising evidence that “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/003355300554872">recessions are good for your health</a>.” More specifically, they show that mortality is lower when unemployment is relatively high. While this link may have weakened somewhat in the past decade, it is robust across a number of studies including data from the 1970s through the early 2000s. </p>
<p>How can, or could, this finding coexist with what we know about the harm of individual job loss? </p>
<p>A key point is that, even in the worst years of a recession, most workers remain employed and so are not subject to the negative effects of individual job loss. Which begs a question: What factors could explain the beneficial health effects of a recession?</p>
<h2>Possible explanations</h2>
<p>We’ve long known that when there is less economic activity (as in a recession) there are <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616300715">fewer cars and commercial vehicles on the road</a>, and so fewer traffic deaths. Motor vehicle accidents, however, are too small a fraction of all deaths to fully explain the pattern of increased mortality during recessions. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629604001250">Research</a> has also suggested that individuals may engage in more positive health behaviors, including getting more exercise and seeing the doctor more often, when hours of work decline. </p>
<p>Many of us work less during bad economic times because of reduced hours, fewer work assignments or less overtime. Working a bit less would certainly benefit some, but that does not change the fact that having no access to paid work is also quite stressful. </p>
<p>Finally, pollution may decline during times of reduced productive activity like recessions, and <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/686251">less pollution could mean in fewer respiratory-related health problems and deaths</a>.</p>
<p>One limitation of these explanations for the surprising connection between recessions and mortality is that none can adequately explain mortality patterns among the elderly. Because most deaths, of course, occur among <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/25592386">the elderly</a>, we need an explanation that applies to older individuals, who account for most of the aggregate mortality rates.</p>
<h2>A subtle difference, an important finding</h2>
<p>That brings us to a final explanation, one that forces us to think more squarely about the role that others’ work opportunities and choices may have on our own quality of life.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20130057">colleagues and I showed</a> that during times of low unemployment, employment of direct-care health workers, such as nursing aides and other health aides, declines. These are often physically and emotionally <a href="http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/month130&div=68&g_sent=1&collection=journals">demanding, low-paid, high-turnover jobs</a>. </p>
<p>When these workers have other options, in good economic times, they take them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183825/original/file-20170829-6731-6wze7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183825/original/file-20170829-6731-6wze7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183825/original/file-20170829-6731-6wze7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183825/original/file-20170829-6731-6wze7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183825/original/file-20170829-6731-6wze7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183825/original/file-20170829-6731-6wze7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183825/original/file-20170829-6731-6wze7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Health care workers in nursing homes may be able to find better jobs when employment is high.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/home-nursing-care-senior-couple-569882203?src=BAbUs0po2XNw_BIJHDje6g-1-19">Robert Kneschke/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, in times of low unemployment, nursing homes are far less likely to be fully staffed with front-line patient care workers. In a weak economy, staff may be better trained, and there may be less frequent turnover. Our <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20130057">work</a> connects this to mortality by showing that most of the responsiveness of death rates to unemployment rates occurs among the elderly living in nursing homes. This is precisely where staff vacancies can be acute during good economic times. Hard times may improve the quality of health care and reduce mortality by making it easier to recruit and retain health care workers.</p>
<p>This is a powerful illustration that not only is our own work critical to our well-being, but the work and working conditions of others affect us as well, sometimes in surprising ways. </p>
<p>Labor Day celebrates the contributions of American workers and should remind us that disruptions in the labor market can have powerful effects on individuals’ lives and health. During good times, vacancies in critical occupations, even when driven by better options elsewhere, may be bad news for some.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83029/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ann Huff Stevens has received past research funding from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. </span></em></p>The negative effects of job loss have been well-documented and fairly well-understood. But why would studies also suggest that health improves during a recession? The reasons may surprise you.Ann Huff Stevens, Professor of Economics, University of California, DavisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/824742017-08-30T20:46:32Z2017-08-30T20:46:32ZRobots won’t steal our jobs if we put workers at center of AI revolution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184069/original/file-20170830-24267-1w1z0fj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Future robots will work side by side with humans, just as they do today.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Minchillo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The technologies driving artificial intelligence are expanding exponentially, leading <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/716715/Robots-earth-world-destroy-human-race-AI">many technology experts and futurists</a> to predict machines will soon be doing many of the jobs that humans do today. <a href="http://www.theclever.com/15-legitimate-fears-about-artificial-intelligence/">Some even predict</a> humans could lose control over their future.</p>
<p>While we agree about the seismic changes afoot, we don’t believe this is the right way to think about it. Approaching the challenge this way assumes society has to be passive about how tomorrow’s technologies are designed and implemented. The truth is there is no absolute law that determines the shape and consequences of innovation. We can all influence where it takes us. </p>
<p>Thus, the question society should be asking is: “How can we direct the development of future technologies so that robots complement rather than replace us?” </p>
<p>The Japanese <a href="https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/48159/industrialrelati00shim.pdf?sequence=1">have an apt phrase for this</a>: “giving wisdom to the machines.” And the wisdom comes from workers and an integrated approach to technology design, as our research shows.</p>
<h2>Lessons from history</h2>
<p>There is no question coming technologies like AI will eliminate some jobs, as did those of the past. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The invention of the steam engine was supposed to reduce the number of manufacturing workers. Instead, their ranks soared.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lewis_Hine_Power_house_mechanic_working_on_steam_pump.jpg">Lewis Hine</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.nber.org/chapters/c1567.pdf">More than half of the American workforce</a> was involved in farming in the 1890s, back when it was a physically demanding, labor-intensive industry. Today, thanks to mechanization and the use of sophisticated data analytics to handle the operation of crops and cattle, <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAPEMANA">fewer than 2 percent</a> are in agriculture, yet their output is <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/agricultural-productivity-in-the-us/agricultural-productivity-in-the-us/#National%20Tables,%201948-2013">significantly higher</a>. </p>
<p>But new technologies will also create new jobs. After steam engines replaced water wheels as the source of power in manufacturing in the 1800s, the <a href="http://www.nber.org/chapters/c1567.pdf">sector expanded sevenfold</a>, from 1.2 million jobs in 1830 to 8.3 million by 1910. Similarly, many feared that the ATM’s emergence in the early 1970s <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-robots-and-jobs/">would replace bank tellers</a>. Yet even though the machines are now ubiquitous, <a href="https://economics.mit.edu/files/11563">there are actually more tellers today</a> doing a wider variety of customer service tasks. </p>
<p>So trying to predict whether a new wave of technologies will create more jobs than it will destroy is not worth the effort, and <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/06/future-of-jobs">even the experts are split 50-50</a>.</p>
<p>It’s particularly pointless given that perhaps fewer than 5 percent of current occupations are likely to disappear entirely in the next decade, according to a <a href="http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/where-machines-could-replace-humans-and-where-they-cant-yet">detailed study</a> by McKinsey. </p>
<p>Instead, let’s focus on the changes they’ll make to how people work.</p>
<h2>It’s about tasks, not jobs</h2>
<p>To understand why, it’s helpful to think of a job as made up of a collection of tasks that can be carried out in different ways when supported by new technologies. </p>
<p>And in turn, the tasks performed by different workers – colleagues, managers and many others – can also be rearranged in ways that make the best use of technologies to get the work accomplished. <a href="http://www.jwalkonline.org/upload/pdf/Hackman%20%26%20Oldham%20(1975)%20-%20Development%20of%20the%20JDS.pdf">Job design specialists</a> call these “work systems.” </p>
<p>One of the McKinsey study’s key findings was that about a third of the tasks performed in 60 percent of today’s jobs are likely to be eliminated or altered significantly by coming technologies. In other words, the vast majority of our jobs will still be there, but what we do on a daily basis will change drastically.</p>
<p>To date, robotics and other digital technologies have had <a href="https://economics.mit.edu/files/11600">their biggest effects</a> on mostly routine tasks like spell-checking and those that are dangerous, dirty or hard, such as lifting heavy tires onto a wheel on an assembly line. Advances in AI and machine learning will significantly expand the array of tasks and occupations affected. </p>
<h2>Creating an integrated strategy</h2>
<p>We have been exploring these issues for years as part of our ongoing discussions on <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-we-reinvented-labor-for-the-21st-century-64775">how to remake labor for the 21st century</a>. In our recently published book, “<a href="http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/press-releases/mit-sloan-professors-new-book-lays-out-a-comprehensive-strategy-to-change-the-course-of-the-countrys-economy-and-employment-system/">Shaping the Future of Work: A Handbook for Change and a New Social Contract</a>,” we describe why society needs an integrated strategy to gain control over how future technologies will affect work.</p>
<p>And that strategy starts with helping define the problems humans want new technologies to solve. We shouldn’t be leaving this solely to their inventors.</p>
<p>Fortunately, <a href="http://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-robots-still-need-us-david-a-mindell-debunks-theory-of-complete-autonomy/">some engineers</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjFXpR3Rzjk">AI experts</a> are recognizing that the end users of a new technology must have a central role in guiding its design to specify which problems they’re trying to solve.</p>
<p>The second step is ensuring that these technologies are designed alongside the work systems with which they will be paired. A so-called simultaneous design process produces better results for both the companies and their workers compared with a sequential strategy – typical today – which involves designing a technology and only later considering the impact on a workforce. </p>
<p>An excellent illustration of simultaneous design is how <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=KBm8F9cI8OYC&pg=PA226&lpg=PA226&dq=toyota+robots+assembly+lines+1980s&source=bl&ots=SiT7qDlz9O&sig=L4xMjrxVFZh9SWpSHTSxpwDYRFo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZ0_2Uk__VAhXCRCYKHYGEDyYQ6AEIUjAJ#v=onepage&q=toyota%20robots%20assembly%20lines%201980s&f=false">Toyota handled the introduction of robotics</a> onto its assembly lines in the 1980s. Unlike rivals such as General Motors that followed a sequential strategy, the Japanese automaker redesigned its work systems at the same time, which allowed it to get the most out of the new technologies and its employees. Importantly, Toyota solicited ideas for improving operations directly from workers. </p>
<p>In doing so, Toyota <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/transforming-organizations-9780195065046?cc=us&lang=en&">achieved higher productivity</a> and quality in its plants than competitors like GM that invested heavily in stand-alone automation before they began to alter work systems.</p>
<p>Similarly, businesses that tweaked their work systems in concert with investing in IT in the 1990s <a href="http://digital.mit.edu/research/papers/154_erikbworkplace.pdf">outperformed</a> those that didn’t. And <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0019793916640493">health care companies</a> like <a href="http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2044&context=articles">Kaiser Permanente</a> and others learned the same lesson as they introduced electronic medical records over the past decade. </p>
<p>Each example demonstrates that the introduction of a new technology does more than just eliminate jobs. If managed well, it can change how work is done in ways that can both increase productivity and the level of service by augmenting the tasks humans do.</p>
<h2>Worker wisdom</h2>
<p>But the process doesn’t end there. Companies need to invest in continuous training so their workers are ready to help influence, use and adapt to technological changes. That’s the third step in getting the most out of new technologies. </p>
<p>And it needs to begin before they are introduced. The important part of this is that workers need to learn what <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/03/11/hybrid-job-skills/">some are calling “hybrid” skills</a>: a combination of technical knowledge of the new technology with aptitudes for communications and problem-solving. </p>
<p>Companies whose workers have these skills will have the best chance of getting the biggest return on their technology investments. It is not surprising that these hybrid skills are now in high and growing demand and command good salaries. </p>
<p>None of this is to deny that some jobs will be eliminated and some workers will be displaced. So the final element of an integrated strategy must be to help those displaced find new jobs and compensate those unable to do so for the losses endured. Ford and the United Auto Workers, for example, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/business/15ford.html?mcubz=3">offered generous early retirement benefits</a> and cash severance payments in addition to retraining assistance when the company downsized from 2007 to 2010. </p>
<p>Examples like this will need to become the norm in the years ahead. Failure to treat displaced workers equitably will only widen the gaps between winners and losers in the future economy that <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/22/news/economy/us-inequality-worse/index.html">are now already all too apparent</a>.</p>
<p>In sum, companies that engage their workforce when they design and implement new technologies will be best-positioned to manage the coming AI revolution. By respecting the fact that today’s workers, like those before them, understand their jobs better than anyone and the many tasks they entail, they will be better able to “give wisdom to the machines.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82474/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Kochan receives funding from The Hitachi Foundation in support of the MIT Good Companies-Good Jobs Initiative and from the MIT Mary Rowe Fund for Conflict Management Research..</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee Dyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rather than fret about how many jobs future technologies will destroy, we should focus on how to shape them so that they complement the workforce of tomorrow.Thomas Kochan, George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management Professor, Work and Organization Studies Co-Director, MIT Sloan Institute for Work and Employment Research, MIT Sloan School of ManagementLee Dyer, Professor Emeritus of Human Resource Studies and Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies, Cornell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/645262017-08-29T13:35:44Z2017-08-29T13:35:44ZHave we forgotten the true meaning of Labor Day?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136006/original/image-20160830-28253-doourx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The first Labor Day was hardly a national holiday. Workers had to strike to celebrate it. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dol.gov/LaborDay/2014/img/highlight-img2.jpg">Frank Leslie's Weekly Illustrated Newspaper's September 16, 1882</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history">Labor Day</a> is a U.S. national holiday held the first Monday every September. Unlike most U.S. holidays, it is a strange celebration without rituals, except for shopping and barbecuing. For most people it simply marks the last weekend of summer and the start of the school year.</p>
<p>The holiday’s founders in the late 1800s <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2079344">envisioned something very different</a> from what the day has become. The founders were looking for two things: a means of unifying union workers and a reduction in work time.</p>
<h2>History of Labor Day</h2>
<p>The first Labor Day occurred in 1882 in New York City under the direction of that city’s <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/1459046/history-and-functions-of-central-labor-unions">Central Labor Union</a>. </p>
<p>In the 1800s, unions covered only a small fraction of workers and were <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/balkanize">balkanized</a> and relatively weak. The goal of organizations like the Central Labor Union and more modern-day counterparts like the <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/">AFL-CIO</a> was to bring many small unions together to achieve a critical mass and power. The organizers of the first Labor Day were interested in creating an event that brought different types of workers together to meet each other and recognize their common interests.</p>
<p>However, the organizers had a large problem: No government or company recognized the first Monday in September as a day off work. The issue was solved temporarily by <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2079344">declaring a one-day strike in the city</a>. All striking workers were expected to march in a parade and then eat and drink at a giant picnic afterwards. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1882-09-07/ed-1/seq-4/">New York Tribune’s reporter covering the event</a> felt the entire day was like one long political barbecue, with “rather dull speeches.”</p>
<h2>Why was Labor Day invented?</h2>
<p>Labor Day came about because workers felt they were spending too many hours and days on the job. </p>
<p>In the 1830s, <a href="https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/">manufacturing workers</a> were putting in 70-hour weeks on average. Sixty years later, in 1890, hours of work had dropped, although the average manufacturing worker still toiled in a factory 60 hours a week. </p>
<p>These long working hours caused many union organizers to focus on winning a shorter <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-the-40-hour-workweek-2015-10">eight-hour work day</a>. They also focused on getting workers more days off, such as the Labor Day holiday, and reducing the <a href="https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/">workweek to just six days</a>.</p>
<p>These early organizers clearly won since the most recent data show that the average person working in manufacturing is <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm">employed for a bit over 40 hours a week</a> and most people work only five days a week.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, many <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6555.html">politicians and business owners were actually in favor of giving workers more time off</a>. That’s because workers who had no free time were not able to spend their wages on traveling, entertainment or dining out. </p>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMxc7kEkx_0HCkI_Dxo7ow">U.S. economy</a> expanded beyond farming and basic manufacturing in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it became important for <a href="http://businessmacroeconomics.com/">businesses</a> to find consumers interested in buying the products and services being produced in ever greater amounts. Shortening the work week was one way of turning the working class into the consuming class. </p>
<h2>Common misconceptions</h2>
<p>The common misconception is that since Labor Day is a national holiday, everyone gets the day off. Nothing could be further from the truth.</p>
<p>While the first Labor Day was created by striking, the idea of a special holiday for workers was easy for politicians to support. It was easy because proclaiming a holiday, like <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/05/06/presidential-proclamation-mothers-day-2016">Mother’s Day</a>, costs legislators nothing and benefits them by currying favor with voters. <a href="https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history">In 1887</a>, Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey all declared a special legal holiday in September to celebrate workers.</p>
<p>Within 12 years, half the states in the country recognized Labor Day as a holiday. It became a national holiday in June 1894 when <a href="http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/The-first-Labor-Day/">President Grover Cleveland signed</a> the Labor Day bill into law. While most people interpreted this as recognizing the day as a national vacation, <a href="http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/Federal_Holidays.pdf">Congress’ proclamation</a> covers only federal employees. It is up to each state to declare its own legal holidays.</p>
<p>Moreover, proclaiming any day an official holiday means little, as an official holiday does not require private employers and even some government agencies to give their workers the day off. <a href="http://www.aol.com/article/2016/08/29/best-labor-day-sales-2016/21460893/">Many stores are open</a> on Labor Day. Essential government services in protection and transportation continue to function, and even less essential programs like national parks are open. Because not everyone is given time off on Labor Day, union workers as recently as the 1930s <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/41814888">were being urged</a> to stage one-day strikes if their employer refused to give them the day off.</p>
<p>In the president’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/08/presidential-proclamation-labor-day-2015">annual Labor Day declaration</a> last year, Obama encouraged Americans “to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies and activities that honor the contributions and resilience of working Americans.”</p>
<p>The proclamation, however, does not officially declare that anyone gets time off.</p>
<h2>Controversy: Militants and founders</h2>
<p>Today most people in the U.S. think of Labor Day as a noncontroversial holiday.</p>
<p>There is no <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/drinking-diaries/201211/avoiding-family-angst-thanksgiving">family drama like at Thanksgiving</a>, no <a href="http://www.interfaithfamily.com/holidays/hanukkah_and_christmas/December_Dilemma_Interfaith_Couples_Face_Emotional_Choices_Christmas_Hanukkah_or_Both.shtml">religious issues</a> like at Christmas. However, 100 years ago there was controversy.</p>
<p>The first controversy that people fought over was how militant workers should act on a day designed to honor workers. Communist, Marxist and socialist members of the trade union movement supported <a href="http://time.com/3836834/may-day-labor-history/">May 1 as an international day</a> of demonstrations, street protests and even <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldman/peopleevents/e_iww.html">violence</a>, which <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/2016/05/01/protesters-clash-with-police-at-may-day-rallies-world-wide/83792826/">continues even today</a>.</p>
<p>More moderate trade union members, however, advocated for a September Labor Day of parades and picnics. In the U.S., picnics, instead of street protests, won the day. </p>
<p>There is also dispute over who suggested the idea. The earliest history from the mid-1930s credits Peter J. McGuire, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/41814888">who founded the New York City Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners</a>, in 1881 with suggesting a date that would fall “nearly midway between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving” that “would publicly show the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41838739">Later scholarship from the early 1970s</a> makes an excellent case that Matthew Maguire, a representative from the Machinists Union, actually was the founder of Labor Day. However, because Matthew Maguire was seen as too radical, the more moderate Peter McGuire was given the credit.</p>
<p>Who actually came up with the idea will likely never be known, but you can vote <a href="https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history">online here</a> to express your view. </p>
<h2>Have we lost the spirit of Labor Day?</h2>
<p>Today Labor Day is no longer about trade unionists marching down the street with banners and their tools of trade. Instead, it is a confused holiday with no associated rituals.</p>
<p>The original holiday was meant to handle a problem of long working hours and no time off. Although the battle over these issues would seem to have been won long ago, this issue is starting to come back with a vengeance, not for manufacturing workers but for highly skilled white-collar workers, many of whom are constantly connected to work.</p>
<p>If <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3046429/the-new-rules-of-work/the-highest-paying-jobs-of-the-future-will-eat-your-life">you work all the time</a> and never really take a vacation, start a new ritual that honors the original spirit of Labor Day. Give yourself the day off. Don’t go in to work. Shut off your phone, computer and other electronic devices connecting you to your daily grind. Then go to a <a href="http://www.wbaltv.com/news/labor-day-cookout-ideas/41411898">barbecue</a>, like the original participants did over a century ago, and celebrate having at least one day off from work during the year!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64526/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The holiday began as a strike against excessive workweeks but now bears little resemblance to its worker-centric origins, even as the founders’ gains are slowly lost.Jay L. Zagorsky, Senior Lecturer, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/821252017-08-28T02:45:59Z2017-08-28T02:45:59ZHow robots could help bridge the elder-care gap<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183499/original/file-20170825-19934-3c3fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Robots can also lend a hand of sorts.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/elderly-happy-man-reading-book-his-245553955">Photographee.eu/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite innovations that make it easier for seniors to keep living on their own rather than moving into special facilities, most elderly people eventually need a hand with chores and other everyday activities.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-family-care-isnt-always-the-best-care-for-the-elderly-72808">Friends and relatives</a> often can’t do all the work. Growing evidence indicates it’s neither sustainable nor healthy for seniors or their <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2791523/">loved ones</a>. Yet demand for professional caregivers already <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/story/13924339/1/the-perilous-shortage-of-elder-caregivers.html">far outstrips</a> supply, and experts say this <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-column-miller-caregivers-idUSKBN1AJ1JQ">workforce shortage</a> will only get worse.</p>
<p>So how will our society bridge this elder-care gap? In a word, robots.</p>
<p>Just as automation has begun to do jobs previously seen as uniquely suited for humans, like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-robot-army-has-grown-by-50-2017-1">retrieving goods from warehouses</a>, robots will assist your elderly relatives. As a robotics researcher, I believe artificial intelligence has the potential not only to care for our elders but to do so in a way that increases their independence and reduces their social isolation.</p>
<h2>Personal robots</h2>
<p>In the 2004 movie “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343818/">I, Robot</a>,” the robot-hating protagonist Del Spooner (played by Will Smith) is shocked to discover a robot in his grandmother’s house, baking a pie. You may have similar mental images: When many people imagine robots in the home, they envision mechanized domestic workers doing tasks in human-like ways.</p>
<p>In reality, many of the robots that will provide support for older adults who “<a href="http://ageinplace.com/aging-in-place-basics/what-is-aging-in-place/">age in place</a>” – staying at home when they might otherwise be forced to relocate to assisted living or nursing homes – won’t look like people.</p>
<p>Instead, they will be specialized systems, akin to <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-wild-mystery-ride-of-roomba-maker-irobot-2017-08-11">the Roomba</a>, iRobot’s robotic vacuum cleaner and the first commercially successful consumer robot. Small, specific devices are not only easier to design and deploy, they allow for incremental adoption as requirements evolve over time.</p>
<p>Seniors, like everyone else, need <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12369-013-0220-0">different things</a>. Many need help with the mechanics of eating, bathing, dressing and standing up – tasks known as “activities of daily living.” Along with daily help with cooking and <a href="http://drugtopics.modernmedicine.com/drug-topics/news/modernmedicine/modern-medicine-feature-articles/robotic-medication-delivery-enhance">managing their medications</a>, they can benefit from a robotic hand with more intermittent things such as doing the laundry and getting to the doctor’s office. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183060/original/file-20170822-13692-pbqmr5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183060/original/file-20170822-13692-pbqmr5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183060/original/file-20170822-13692-pbqmr5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183060/original/file-20170822-13692-pbqmr5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183060/original/file-20170822-13692-pbqmr5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183060/original/file-20170822-13692-pbqmr5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183060/original/file-20170822-13692-pbqmr5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183060/original/file-20170822-13692-pbqmr5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robots can hand medicine to patients.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Interactive Robotics and Language Lab, University of Maryland, Baltimore County</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That may sound far-fetched, but in addition to vacuuming <a href="http://www.irobot.com/For-the-Home/Mopping.aspx">robots can already mop</a> our floors and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/does-a-robotic-lawn-mower-really-cut-it-1460488911">mow our lawns</a>. Experimental robots help <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2015/02/26/robear-japan-caregiver/">lift people</a> into and out of chairs and beds, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgDMlTjRSs4">follow recipes</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-built-a-robot-butler-but-dont-throw-out-the-ironing-board-just-yet-46480">fold towels</a> and <a href="https://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/45009">dispense pills</a>. Soon, autonomous (<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/22/ford-outlines-plan-to-build-self-driving-cars-at-scale-to-deploy-with-partners/">self-driving</a>) cars will ferry people to appointments and gatherings.</p>
<p>The kinds of robots already available include models that <a href="https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/04/waymo-trials-free-self-driving-taxi-service-in-phoenix">drive</a>, provide <a href="http://www.parorobots.com/">pet-like social companionship</a> and <a href="https://www.ald.softbankrobotics.com/en/robots/pepper">greet customers</a>. Some of these technologies are already in limited trials in <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149291817302023">nursing homes</a>, and seniors of course can already rely on their own Roombas.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, robot companions may soon help <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/the-future-of-robot-caregivers.html">relieve loneliness</a> and nudge forgetful elders to <a href="http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6476702">eat</a> on a regular schedule.</p>
<p>Scientists and other inventors are building robots that will do these jobs and many others.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183354/original/file-20170824-18740-dz8q8z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183354/original/file-20170824-18740-dz8q8z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183354/original/file-20170824-18740-dz8q8z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183354/original/file-20170824-18740-dz8q8z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183354/original/file-20170824-18740-dz8q8z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183354/original/file-20170824-18740-dz8q8z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183354/original/file-20170824-18740-dz8q8z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183354/original/file-20170824-18740-dz8q8z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pepper, a social companion robot, in a retail environment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SoftBank_pepper.JPG">Tokumeigakarinoaoshima</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Round-the-clock care</h2>
<p>While some tasks remain out of reach of today’s robots, such as inserting IVs or trimming toenails, mechanical caregivers can offer clear advantages over their human counterparts. </p>
<p>The most obvious one is their capacity to work around the clock. Machines, unlike people, are available 24/7. When used in the home, they can support <a href="http://ageinplace.com/aging-in-place-basics/what-is-aging-in-place/">aging in place</a>.</p>
<p>Another plus: Relying on technology to meet day-to-day needs like mopping the floor can improve the quality of time elders spend with family and friends. Delegating mundane chores to robots also leaves more time for seniors to socialize with the people who care about them, and not just for them.</p>
<p>And since using devices isn’t the same as asking someone for help, relying on caregiving robots may lead seniors to perceive less lost autonomy than when they depend on human helpers.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ppyWqFdc1Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jenay Beer, a researcher at the University of South Carolina, advocates using robots to help elders age in place.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Interacting with robots</h2>
<p>This brave new world of robot caregivers won’t take shape unless we make them user-friendly and intuitive, and that means interaction styles matter. In my lab, we work on how robots can interact with people by talking with them. Fortunately, <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/05/17/tech-adoption-climbs-among-older-adults">recent research</a> by the <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/">Pew Research Center</a> shows that older adults are embracing technology more and more, just like everyone else. </p>
<p>Now that we are beginning to see robots that can competently perform some tasks, <a href="http://tedxpeachtree.com/2015-speaker-spotlight-jenay-beer">researchers</a> like Jenay Beer, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of South Carolina, are trying to figure out which activities seniors <a href="http://leadingage.org/what-influences-technology-adoption-older-adults">need the most help with</a> and what kinds of robots they might be most willing to use in the near term.</p>
<p>To that end, researchers are asking questions like: </p>
<ul>
<li>Do robots need to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/grandma-rsquo-s-little-robot">understand and convey emotion</a> to be accepted?</li>
<li>How can robots provide <a href="https://news.usc.edu/117383/a-future-with-robots-as-companions-could-be-closer-than-you-think">social support</a>?</li>
<li>Is it best when machines simulate <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/03/science/a-man-a-plan-and-a-robot-that-makes-eye-contact.html">eye contact</a> with us?</li>
<li>Does it help if they can <a href="https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/27447">converse</a>?</li>
</ul>
<p>But the fact is we don’t need all the answers before robots begin to help elders age in place.</p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>After all, there’s no time to lose.</p>
<p>The Census Bureau estimated that 15 percent of Americans – nearly one in six of us – were aged 65 or older in 2016, up from <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/cb17-100.html">12 percent</a> in 2000. Demographers <a href="http://www.prb.org/Publications/Media-Guides/2016/aging-unitedstates-fact-sheet.aspx">anticipate</a> that by 2060 almost one in four will be in that age group. That means there will be some 48 million more elderly people in the U.S. than there are now.</p>
<p><iframe id="P4qOj" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/P4qOj/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>I believe robots will perform many elder-care tasks within a decade. Some activities will still require human caregivers, and there are people for whom robotic assistance will never be the answer. But you can bet that robots will help seniors age in place, even if they won’t look like butlers or pastry chefs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cynthia Matuszek receives funding from the US National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>Robots have the potential to help support a growing population that wants to age in their own homes. But those helpful machines won’t be the humanoid butlers of science fiction.Cynthia Matuszek, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, UMBC, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/818082017-08-24T00:31:13Z2017-08-24T00:31:13ZHow noncompete clauses clash with US labor laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183187/original/file-20170823-13299-1cts6v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jimmy John's tried to stop its workers from toiling for other sandwich makers.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Jimmy-Johns-Sells-Stake/7f2ace26f2de4a5f83fdbcfa8d4db8b4/1/0">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most Americans with jobs work “at-will”: Employers owe their employees nothing in the relationship and vice versa. Either party may terminate the arrangement at any time for a good or bad reason or none at all. </p>
<p>In keeping with that no-strings-attached spirit, employees may move on as they see fit – unless they happen to be among the nearly <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/economic-policy/Documents/UST%20Non-competes%20Report.pdf">one in five workers</a> bound by a contract that explicitly forbids getting hired by a competitor. These “<a href="http://www.milkenreview.org/articles/the-rigged-labor-market">noncompete clauses</a>” may make sense for CEOs and other top executives who possess trade secrets but seem nonsensical when they are applied to <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-noncompete-low-wage-20170705-story.html">low-wage workers</a> such as draftsmen in the construction industry. </p>
<p>As a scholar of employment law and policy, I have many concerns about noncompete clauses – such as how they tend to make the relationship between workers and bosses too lopsided, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2625714">suppress wages and discourage labor market mobility</a>. In addition to tracing their legal and legislative history, I have come up with a way to limit this impediment to worker mobility.</p>
<h2>How we got here</h2>
<p>Courts began to enshrine the at-will doctrine in the 19th century, making exceptions only for employees with fixed-term contracts. In <a href="https://casetext.com/case/payne-v-railroad-company">Payne v. Western & Atlantic Railroad Co.</a>, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that a railway foreman in Chattanooga had the right to forbid his workers from buying whiskey from a merchant named L. Payne.</p>
<p>Payne had sued the railroad, claiming it couldn’t threaten to fire employees to discourage them from buying goods from a third party. The court disagreed, arguing that the railroad had a right to terminate employees for any reason – even that one. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182834/original/file-20170821-4973-j4aj82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182834/original/file-20170821-4973-j4aj82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182834/original/file-20170821-4973-j4aj82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182834/original/file-20170821-4973-j4aj82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182834/original/file-20170821-4973-j4aj82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182834/original/file-20170821-4973-j4aj82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182834/original/file-20170821-4973-j4aj82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182834/original/file-20170821-4973-j4aj82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Pullman strike halted national rail traffic and marked a turning point in U.S. labor history.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pullman_strike_guard_harpers.jpg">Harper's Weekly</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The notion of at-will employment and its associated lack of job protections soon rose to the level of constitutional mandate. The 1894 <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1029.html">Pullman strike</a>, which disrupted national rail traffic, prompted Congress to pass the <a href="http://recordsofrights.org/records/67/the-erdman-act">Erdman Act</a> four years later. That law guaranteed the right of rail workers to join and form unions and to engage in collective bargaining. </p>
<p>But the Supreme Court struck down that law in 1908. Writing for the majority in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/208/161/case.html">Adair v. United States</a>, Justice John Marshall Harlan explained that since employers were free to use their property as they wished, they could impose and enforce their own labor rules. Employees, in turn, were free to quit. Harlan wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The right of a person to sell his labor upon such terms as he deems proper is, in its essence, the same as the right of the purchaser of labor to prescribe the conditions upon which he will accept such labor from the person offering to sell it.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>That might sound reasonable, but the Adair ruling led to the proliferation of “yellow dog” contracts threatening workers with firing if they joined or organized unions. The term disparaged people who accepted such conditions, but the principle had widespread <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/245/229/">legal approval</a>. </p>
<p>For three decades, the at-will doctrine stymied legislation that would have protected labor rights. Even when a supervisor told a long-term employee he would be fired unless <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3245015/comerford-v-international-harvester-co/?">his wife had sex with the supervisor</a>, courts refused to protect the man from losing his job.</p>
<h2>Labor rights and the law</h2>
<p>With the passage of the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/resources/national-labor-relations-act">National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act</a> in 1935, all private sector workers and unions gained the power to collectively bargain with employers. Subsequent labor agreements, such as the one the <a href="https://www.usw.org/union/history">Steel Workers Organizing Committee</a> negotiated with U.S. Steel in 1937, made employers prove “just cause” before firing anyone. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183189/original/file-20170823-13303-1sv699u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183189/original/file-20170823-13303-1sv699u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183189/original/file-20170823-13303-1sv699u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183189/original/file-20170823-13303-1sv699u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183189/original/file-20170823-13303-1sv699u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183189/original/file-20170823-13303-1sv699u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183189/original/file-20170823-13303-1sv699u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183189/original/file-20170823-13303-1sv699u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laws like the Civil Rights Act that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed in 1964 don’t protect American workers from noncompete clauses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/LBJs-Legacy/90ea6ef61620416bbaa367f693f86257/6/1">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm">Civil Rights</a> acts of 1964 and 1991 added employment protections prohibiting discrimination based on race, gender, religion and national origin.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ada.gov/">The Americans with Disabilities Act</a>, which Congress passed in 1990, ensured that persons with disabilities would have access to jobs with or without reasonable accommodation. </p>
<p>Those laws and other measures, including modern exceptions to the at-will rule, offer workers some security. But they provide no protection at the federal level from noncompete clauses.</p>
<h2>Push-back</h2>
<p>The leeway for employers to impose these provisions <a href="https://quirkyemploymentquestions.com/post-employment-restrictive-covenants/quirky-question-226-one-size-fits-all-national-non-compete/">varies widely from state to state</a> and is in flux. For example, <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/economic-policy/Documents/UST%20Non-competes%20Report.pdf">Alabama and Oregon</a> have sought in recent years to limit their scope, while <a href="https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=aadbea62-9a31-4ae3-92dd-8198906c37f6">Georgia</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/business/economy/boise-idaho-noncompete-law.html?mcubz=0">Idaho</a> have made it easier for companies to enforce them. A uniform federal rule could clarify the situation and benefit both employees and employers.</p>
<p>Critics have pointed out the disadvantages of noncompete clauses to unskilled labor. “By locking low-wage workers into their jobs and prohibiting them from seeking better-paying jobs elsewhere (companies) have no reason to increase their wages or benefits,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said when she sued the <a href="http://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/pressroom/2016_06/20160608.html">Jimmy John’s</a> fast-food franchise last year for making its employees sign noncompete clauses.</p>
<p>The chain subsequently agreed to <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-non-compete-agreements/">drop its noncompetes</a>, which had also come under fire in New York. The clauses had barred the sandwich maker’s workers from working for other firms earning more than 10 percent of their revenue from “submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita, and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches” for two years after leaving the Jimmy John’s payroll.</p>
<h2>A proposal</h2>
<p>In 2015, Sen. <a href="https://www.franken.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=3167">Al Franken</a> introduced legislation to ban noncompete clauses for low-wage workers. The Minnesota Democrat’s bill failed to gain enough support to become law, and, in light of President Donald Trump’s goal of reducing the number of <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-signs-executive-order-remove-job-killing-regulations/story?id=45711543">federal regulations</a>, nothing presently stands in the way of states that want to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/05/27/noncompete-clauses-jobs-workplace/348384001/">expand these restrictive labor practices</a>.</p>
<p>I propose a balanced approach between the current free-for-all among the states and outlawing these clauses altogether: Congress could modify the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/chapter-6">Norris-LaGuardia Act</a>. Passed in 1932, this law banned injunctions against specified union activities by removing federal court jurisdiction over those disputes. </p>
<p>Similarly, Congress could render noncompete clauses unenforceable in federal courts unless employment contracts provide due process protections, such as arbitration, against capricious or unjust discharges of employees. In exchange for job security, a worker might be willing to commit to some curtailment of other employment opportunities.</p>
<p>This approach would balance the rights of workers and management by allowing workers to trade some rights of freely accessing labor markets against better job security. </p>
<p>That is, workers would have a choice of security or mobility. Employers could choose to attract employees with incentives, such as higher salaries or more job stability. </p>
<p><a href="https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2014/01/29/non-compete-provisions-in-ceo-contracts/">Executive contracts</a> with noncompete clauses typically include lucrative buyout provisions and protections from arbitrary treatment. If employees with lower pay and less prestige aren’t free to get new jobs, their bosses have a corresponding duty to extend to them the rights enjoyed by people atop the corporate ladder.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81808/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond Hogler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nearly one in five employed Americans is bound by a contract restricting moves to rival companies. Here’s one way to make those arrangements less common.Raymond Hogler, Professor of Management, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/827422017-08-23T02:03:39Z2017-08-23T02:03:39ZUAW’s loss at Nissan auto plant masks genuine progress for organized labor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183017/original/file-20170822-30547-wqzpxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 5,000-strong pro-union march in March suggested labor support in Canton is growing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A spirited, decade-long effort by workers to organize a union at the sprawling Nissan assembly plant in Canton, Mississippi, seemed to drive into a ditch on August 5, when officials finally tallied the election ballots.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://nissanourfuture.com/nissan-employees-elect-to-self-represent-in-nearly-2-to-1-margin/">margin looked definitive</a>: 1,307 workers voted to have the United Auto Workers represent them, while 2,244 voted against.</p>
<p>It was a dismal and disappointing result for organized labor that would seem to conform to the half-century slide in its ranks and impact on the U.S. economy. At first glance, the outcome threatens to further solidify a standard of falling wages, more temporary workers and fewer workplace rights from Long Beach to Long Island. </p>
<p>But the story doesn’t end there. Behind this loss there’s a glimmer of hope for labor. Decades of research on labor and globalization, particularly in manufacturing and the auto industry, lead me to believe that while the pro-union workers may have suffered a setback, the campaign is far from over. In fact, there are signs that the UAW’s organizing effort has made some lasting inroads that could lead to success down the road. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UAW members and their volunteers stood outside an entrance to the Nissan vehicle assembly plant in Canton as voting was set to begin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What happened in Canton</h2>
<p>Nissan, a <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nissan-profit-up-27-as-sales-incentives-rise-2017-05-11">highly successful Japanese automaker</a>, operates with unions at <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-bc-us--nissan-union-20170803-story.html">all its auto assembly plants worldwide</a> except the two in the United States (the company has <a href="https://www.nissanusa.com/about/corporate-info">two other U.S. factories</a> that assemble powertrains). </p>
<p>Nissan workers at the Canton car factory – which makes up to 450,000 Altimas, Frontiers, Armadas and other cars and vans a year – <a href="http://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/2017/07/28/state-leaders-unionizing-nissan-will-not-help-mississippi/">began to organize</a> soon after it opened in 2003. </p>
<p>As the Canton effort gained momentum, workers and UAW organizers built a <a href="http://www.beneaththeshine.org/docs/MAFFAN-Background.pdf">social movement</a> in the plant and in the broader community. Churches, community groups, civil rights organizations and political leaders all became involved. The workforce, overwhelmingly African-American, defined <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/05/mississippi-nissan-workers-vote-against-union">their struggle</a> in terms of civil rights.</p>
<p>That’s because workers felt their right to join a union and bargain collectively was being <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/bp181/">violated</a>. Those rights were enshrined in the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/who-we-are/our-history/1935-passage-wagner-act">1935 National Labor Relations Act</a>, also known as the Wagner Act or often described as labor’s Magna Carta.</p>
<p>The act created the National Labor Relations Board, which <a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/76xke7xd9780252030048.html">initially told companies to remain neutral</a> when workers are considering forming a union because, as Alexander Hamilton <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed79.asp">warned</a> a century and a half earlier, employers have an inherent power over their employees: “a power over a man’s support is a power over his will.” The National Labor Relations Board, particularly in its early days, deemed a company’s anti-union statements equivalent to unfair labor practices, according to <a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/76xke7xd9780252030048.html">historian David Brody</a>.</p>
<p>But workers say Nissan took a strong anti-union approach and mounted a no-holds-barred <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/05/business/nissan-united-auto-workers-union-mississippi.html">campaign of fear</a>. Some of the tactics included mandatory group meetings, one-on-one supervisory interrogations, surveillance of union activity and nonstop videos featuring top plant managers predicting dire consequences if the union succeeded. </p>
<p>Phil Bryant, the governor of Mississippi, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/right-to-works-rapid-spread-is-creating-more-union-free-riders-38805">right-to-work</a> state, also <a href="http://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/2017/07/28/state-leaders-unionizing-nissan-will-not-help-mississippi/">weighed in ominously to reporters on the eve of the vote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If you want to take away your job, if you want to end manufacturing as we know it in Mississippi, just start expanding unions.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board <a href="https://uaw.org/app/uploads/2017/07/Nissan-4th-Amended-Complaint.pdf">issued a complaint</a> in July that accused Nissan of threatening to terminate employees involved in the unionizing effort and to close down their plant if their organizing drive succeeded – both illegal acts under Wagner. </p>
<p>Clearly, the workforce was divided. Many workers were nervous about challenging the status quo because they were earning more at Nissan than they would have at other jobs in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/the-10-states-and-10-jobs-with-the-most-low-wage-workers/256553/">low-wage Mississippi</a>. Others simply didn’t want a union or believed the company’s scare tactics suggesting unionization would lead to terrible results. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mississippi Republican Gov. Phil Bryant claimed a pro-union vote at Nissan would lead to job losses in the state.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Unions and wage growth</h2>
<p>A <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122411414817">mountain of scholarship</a>, however, concludes strong unions historically have contributed to higher wages and a growing middle class – <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-us-labor-unions-and-why-they-still-matter-38263">even for workers who aren’t unionized</a>. </p>
<p>Unions paved the way to the middle class after World War II by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/the-price-of-inequality-by-joseph-e-stiglitz.html">linking rapidly rising productivity</a> to growing wages and benefits. </p>
<p>When unions are dismantled, such wage gains unravel, and so does the middle class. That’s what we’ve seen for the past 50 years. The <a href="http://equitablegrowth.org/equitablog/the-challenging-and-continuing-slide-in-u-s-unionization-rates/">sharp union decline</a> since the late 1970s triggered “substantial wage losses among workers who do not belong to a union,” according to a <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/union-decline-lowers-wages-of-nonunion-workers-the-overlooked-reason-why-wages-are-stuck-and-inequality-is-growing/">2016 Economic Policy Institute study</a>. Western and Rosenfeld found that the decline of labor explains a fifth to a third of the growth in inequality. </p>
<p>Economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman found that despite the U.S. economy almost doubling in size since 1986, <a href="http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/PSZ2017.pdf">almost all the gains flowed</a> to the upper reaches of the income distribution, primarily the top 1 percent. The authors blamed “weakened unions” as one of the reasons the bottom half of wage earners – 117 million Americans – were largely left behind. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vehicles are suspended above other installation stations as they are moved along the assembly line at the Nissan Canton Vehicle Assembly Plant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reason for optimism</h2>
<p>Although the final vote at the Nissan plant was lopsided, it also offers a degree of hope to those who’d like to see the resurgence of organized labor. </p>
<p>The result, which saw 38 percent vote for the UAW, was in fact the union’s best result by far out of three efforts to unionize Nissan plants in the U.S. The UAW <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2017/07/20/uaw-nissan-battle-mississippi-factory-union-representation-representation/103877590/">tried and failed</a> twice before, both times at its car factory in Smyrna, Tennessee, in 1989 and 2001, earning about 30 percent support.</p>
<p>An additional caveat to the seemingly anti-union outcome is that auto plants like Nissan’s are increasingly being run by temporary workers. In Canton’s case, 2,700 out of 6,500 are temporary, hired through an outside contractor and <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2017/08/04/nissan-uaw-election-canton-mississippi/104308020/">paid a starting rate</a> of US$13 an hour – about half what a full-time employee earns for the same work.</p>
<p>Union support ran high among these temps, but they were prohibited from voting. What this shows is that, despite the loss at the ballot box, the unionization drive has galvanized much of the community and created a social movement in Canton. In addition, protests during the campaign led Nissan to promise to adopt some changes that would benefit these temp workers. Failure to meet these promises would also aid pro-union forces. </p>
<p>The loss was a disappointment to be sure. The contemporary labor movement, however, emerged <a href="http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/depwwii/unions/">against similar seemingly impossible odds</a> in the midst of the Great Depression. The pro-union Nissan workers, like their peers from the 1930s, have built a social movement on the shop floor and in the community around their cause and have reached what I’d consider a critical mass of support. </p>
<p>On the eve of the election, the UAW filed seven new complaints with the NLRB, which could grant them a new election in six months based on the alleged violations of the Wagner Act. Whatever happens with these complaints, neither these workers nor the UAW are going away. </p>
<p>Union supporters suffered a sharp setback, but it may not be the end of the story, for the Canton workers or the national labor movement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harley Shaiken is a founding member of the Advisory Board of the Center for American Progress and I am on the Advisory Board of Jobs With Justice</span></em></p>Although workers at a Nissan auto plant in Mississippi rejected a proposal to join the United Auto Workers Union, organized labor has reason to be optimistic about its future.Harley Shaiken, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies and Professor of Letters and Science, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/810662017-08-17T01:27:50Z2017-08-17T01:27:50ZHow union stakes in ailing papers like the Chicago Sun-Times may keep them alive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182267/original/file-20170816-28350-5h03cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A pedestrian walks past a Chicago Sun-Times newspaper box.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/M. Spencer Green</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.chicagolabor.org/news/press-releases/newly-formed-group">recent purchase</a> of the Chicago Sun-Times for a nominal US$1 by a consortium of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-backstory-behind-the-unions-that-bought-a-chicago-sun-times-stake-81311">labor-affiliated organizations</a> and individual investors highlights the troubled state of the newspaper industry. </p>
<p>It also raises the question of whether union ownership can bolster the odds that this Windy City daily whose founding dates back to 1929 can survive.</p>
<p>Research <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25067537">conducted by me</a> and <a href="http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1072&context=books">others</a> suggests that, perhaps surprisingly, giving unions a financial stake in a company can offer advantages that would not only benefit Chicago Sun-Times employees but the newspaper and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/23/business/media/chicago-sun-times-ownership.html?_r=0">wider community</a> as well.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182261/original/file-20170816-32661-7mwx4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182261/original/file-20170816-32661-7mwx4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182261/original/file-20170816-32661-7mwx4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182261/original/file-20170816-32661-7mwx4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182261/original/file-20170816-32661-7mwx4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182261/original/file-20170816-32661-7mwx4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182261/original/file-20170816-32661-7mwx4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chicago Federation of Labor president Jorge Ramirez, left, and former Chicago Alderman Edwin Eisendrath are now in charge of the Chicago Sun-Times.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The state of the industry</h2>
<p>Regardless of who owns it, the Chicago Sun-Times operates in an industry <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100104660">wrenched by a tsunami</a> of economic, technological and social change that has rendered the traditional business model of newspapers obsolete.</p>
<p>Just 20 percent of the U.S. population <a href="http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/pathways-to-news/">got its news from a print newspaper</a> last year, compared with 27 percent in 2013. Weekday circulation for print dailies <a href="http://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/">dropped to 34.7 million</a> in 2016 – the lowest in at least 77 years – down from 52.3 million a decade earlier. And advertising revenue from both print and digital dailies <a href="http://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/">plunged to $18.3 billion</a> last year from $49.4 billion in 2005.</p>
<p>The Chicago Sun-Times, which <a href="http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/sun-times-seeks-new-ownership-and-tronc-wants-to-buy-it/">has won eight Pulitzer Prizes</a> and was the home of legendary film critic Roger Ebert, itself offered vivid testimony of these hardships <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/business/media/01paper.html">when it declared bankruptcy in 2009</a>. This led to steep bargaining concessions by its employees after <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-statement-closing-its-investigation-possible-acquisition-chicago-sun-times">it was bought</a> by STMG Holdings, the only bidder for the company.</p>
<p>For example, the paper negotiated a 15 percent cut in pay and benefits for newsroom employees who belonged to the NewsGuild union.</p>
<p>These realities highlight the challenges confronting the new Chicago Sun-Times investors, which include the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) union, former Chicago Alderman Edwin Eisendrath and several local labor unions. The head of the CFL is expected to be named chairman, while Eisendrath will be the chief executive. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182259/original/file-20170816-32624-1uka781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182259/original/file-20170816-32624-1uka781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182259/original/file-20170816-32624-1uka781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182259/original/file-20170816-32624-1uka781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182259/original/file-20170816-32624-1uka781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182259/original/file-20170816-32624-1uka781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182259/original/file-20170816-32624-1uka781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man hawks copies of the Chicago Sun-Times in 2009 as the paper went through bankruptcy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Labor and the media</h2>
<p>While labor unions have little experience running major newspapers, they <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/016344300022003003">have a long history of engagement</a> with the media, primarily to serve three explicit objectives:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>to communicate with their members and targeted audiences regarding organizing drives and bargaining campaigns;</p></li>
<li><p>to counter the often heavily business-slanted presentation of news and information through not only print but also radio and television;</p></li>
<li><p>to convey broader messages for economic and social change.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The specific media through which unions have sought to realize these goals have varied. To communicate with members, unions have relied extensively on internal organs, which have morphed beyond print publications to the widespread use of social media. </p>
<p>However, efforts to make their voices heard beyond the rank and file by obtaining or purchasing time in the mainstream media <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/016344300022003003">have at times been thwarted</a> by broadcasters, which tended to adopt a pro-business perspective. </p>
<p>In the 1930s and 1940s, for example, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) adopted a code of ethics that banned the airing of controversial issues, apart from political advertising; the code also forbade soliciting members. The code was operationalized by broadcasters to ban unions from advertising or buying time because they raised “controversial” issues like strikes and lowering the cost of living.</p>
<p>Unions challenged the NAB code, as administered, before the Federal Communications Commission and received some relief in the mid-1940s, but the media remained business-dominated.</p>
<p>In such an environment, unions resorted to establishing their own media enterprises, especially in radio. The Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL), for example, established WCFL-FM in 1926, a noncommercial radio station that promoted the voice of labor. In 1949, the United Auto Workers and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union established radio stations in Detroit, Cleveland, Chattanooga, Los Angeles and New York City.</p>
<p>Unions have faced several major hurdles in their efforts to reach wider audiences through the direct operation of their own media businesses. A key liability is that labor simply lacks the financial wherewithal to operate in any news-related medium on a scale comparable to corporations and business moguls.</p>
<p>In the Chicago Sun-Times’ case, while the acquisition involved a token price of $1, the investment consortium <a href="http://www.poynter.org/2017/chicago-sun-times-sold-to-group-including-unions-former-politician/466606/">had to secure funding</a> of $11.2 million to cover anticipated losses over the next three years.</p>
<p><a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/0019-8676.00065">Research I have conducted on union finances</a> has shown that the aggregated assets and revenues of labor organizations pale in comparison to the financial capacity of large companies in the U.S. Many of the wealthiest people in the world, in fact, each have far more financial capacity at their disposal than all U.S. labor organizations (local, regional and national) combined. </p>
<p>Another major liability is the sheer decline in labor’s presence in the workplace. Today, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">only about 6.4 percent of the private sector workforce</a> is unionized, compared with almost 17 percent in 1983. If membership is a proxy for union support, then union-owned papers and other media have a relatively small audience to tap directly. And this audience is by no means homogeneous in economic, political or ideological outlook.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182327/original/file-20170816-17639-ifac6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182327/original/file-20170816-17639-ifac6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182327/original/file-20170816-17639-ifac6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182327/original/file-20170816-17639-ifac6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182327/original/file-20170816-17639-ifac6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182327/original/file-20170816-17639-ifac6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182327/original/file-20170816-17639-ifac6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UAW President Dennis Williams speaks as, from left, General Motors CEO Mary Barra, United Auto Workers Vice President Cindy Estrada and GM Vice President Cathy Clegg listen. In 2009, the UAW made concessions in exchange for partial ownership of GM and other companies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Paul Sancya</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The difference a union makes</h2>
<p>While that trend is unlikely to change, the union-backed purchase of the Chicago Sun-Times could potentially help turn around its flagging fortunes. To understand how, it’s useful to consider union ownership in other industries.</p>
<p>Notably, the UAW <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100731920">made major economic concessions</a> in 2009 in exchange for partial ownership of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler through Voluntary Employee Beneficial Associations. </p>
<p>Though union ownership of business is not common in our capitalist system, and is often viewed skeptically by labor advocates, there are widespread uses of other forms of shared capitalism, in which employees obtain a stake in the financial performance of the business. Research indicates that <a href="http://www.nber.org/chapters/c8085.pdf">at least one-half</a> of the private sector U.S. workforce is covered by some form of such capitalism, which includes profit-sharing, gain-sharing and employee stock ownership programs.</p>
<p>Numerous studies have concluded that these types of shared capitalism are associated with <a href="http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1072&context=books">more positive employee attitudes</a>, higher levels of productivity and <a href="http://www.nber.org/chapters/c8085.pdf">better financial performance</a>. The impact is amplified if these financial ties are combined with employee involvement, employment security and practices that invest in employees, such as training. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25067537">My research</a> on labor-management partnerships indicates that providing employees, through their union representatives, a bigger voice in the organization and workplace results in less conflict, improved organizational performance and cost savings.</p>
<p>Of course, labor ownership in newspapers won’t resolve all the harsh economic realities newspapers face due to the rapid technological advances that have made the news and other information instantaneously and freely available on multiple platforms.</p>
<p>Still, I believe the deal struck by the Chicago Sun-Times and its new investors provides several avenues for unions to affect the company’s employment practices so as to produce individual, organizational and societal benefits. </p>
<p>The placement of a union official at the helm as chairman is one such good step. It should help set the tone for labor-management relations, providing workers with job security, preventing further wage and benefit concessions and promoting the kind of investment in training and talent that will help it compete in the digital world. </p>
<p>Furthermore, unions may use their ownership position to present perspectives on business and economic affairs that better reflect the interests of the working class. This could potentially broaden the appeal of the newspaper and have broader societal benefits by offering more diverse perspectives. </p>
<p>In short, the stage is set for the union investors to show what they can do. They possess advantages which should be methodically exploited. A stronger union voice arguably promotes both industrial and political democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81066/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marick Masters received funding from U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Three Rivers Labor-Management Committee, and Pennsylvania State AFL-CIO. He is a former Democratic candidate for the U.S. Congress in 1992 in the 18th congressional district of Pennsylvania. He is also a senior partner in AIM (Albright, Irr, and Masters), a business consulting firm.</span></em></p>Giving labor unions a financial stake in a company such as a newspaper can offer unique advantages that could benefit employees, society and the bottom line.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/645742016-09-04T22:24:08Z2016-09-04T22:24:08ZMcDonald’s and the global revolution of fast food workers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136457/original/image-20160902-20238-1a2ddus.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">NYC Fight for $15 rally</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Liz Cooke</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When it comes to their wages, McDonald’s workers around the world are not “Loving It” – and they haven’t been shy about expressing their discontent over the past four years. </p>
<p>But this Labor Day, America’s fast food workers can celebrate victories that have improved wages for some of them. And they can applaud a global labor movement of low-wage workers that they helped spark and continue to inspire.</p>
<p>In April, fast food workers led <a href="http://uniteresist.org/2016/04/incredible-fastfoodglobal-day-of-action-hits-over-40-countries/">the most global strike in history</a>. It took place in 300 cities, in more than 40 countries in every region of the globe. It was a day of action against what activists called “McJobs” – low-wage, precarious work. And it caught the attention of the world.</p>
<p>From Manhattan to Manila, from Tokyo to Toronto, fast food workers were joined in living wage protests by home health care workers, airport workers, retail workers and millions of others who are fully employed but do not earn enough to make ends meet. </p>
<p>Earlier in the year, 27-year-old Florida McDonald’s worker Bleu Rainer drove from Tampa across the state to protest outside of the Republican debate at the University of Miami. </p>
<p>Chanting, “We work, we sweat. Put $15 in our checks,” he says protesters succeeded in <a href="http://miami.cbslocal.com/2016/03/10/protesters-fight-for-15-outside-of-gop-debate-in-miami/">injecting the fight</a> for a living wage into the feisty Republican debate, where billionaire candidate Donald Trump raised eyebrows by insisting that wages in the U.S. are already too high. </p>
<p>When America’s low-wage workers, a disproportionate number of whom are African-American, convened in Richmond, Virginia this August, they vowed to continue fighting and tied their struggle to the larger battle to overcome American racism. They coined the new slogan: Black Work Matters.</p>
<p>As a labor historian, I became interested in the global fast food workers movement, which uses history, popular culture and social media to organize and make its case. Over the last year, I’ve talked to fast food workers in Tampa, New York, Los Angeles, Manila, Philippines and Phnom Penh, Cambodia, among other places. </p>
<p>They are literally hungry for change and they are making change happen.</p>
<h2>A global network</h2>
<p>Like popular culture, the problems of today’s work world are global. As the slogan goes, “McJobs Cost Us All.” Vast, transnational low-wage employers like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/20/mcdonalds-brazil-human-rights-committee-hearing">McDonald’s</a> and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/la-walmart-sg-storygallery.html">Wal-Mart</a> drive wages down for everyone. With <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2014">more than half</a> of U.S. workers earning less than US$30,000 a year in 2014, the poverty line for a family of five, it is not a surprise that the Fight for $15 movement has attracted workers of all kinds.</p>
<p>The movement is bigger than just the United States. In Manila, young Filipino activists in the RESPECT Fast Food Worker Alliance staged <a href="http://www.iuf.org/w/?q=node/5096">singing, dancing flash mobs</a> in their nation’s legislature to demand labor protections. And, in Moscow, fast food workers staged protests to highlight the fact that they were not teenagers working for “going out” money but adults trying to support families with inadequate wages. </p>
<p>Where did all this anger come from? In 2015, <a href="http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/pdf/2015/the-high-public-cost-of-low-wages.pdf">52 percent</a> of fast food workers in the U.S. received public assistance to make ends meet. Many had to work two and three jobs. Some commuted to work from homeless shelters. Maia Montcrief from Long Beach, California, told me that she lives in a one-bedroom apartment with six people. She is one of the lucky ones.</p>
<p>Though fast food workers have protested at many global and localized chains, the main focus of their movement has been McDonald’s. With 36,538 restaurants in 119 countries, McDonald’s is the world’s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-workforces-in-the-world-2015-6">second-largest private employer</a>. Only Wal-Mart employs more. </p>
<p>“Because McDonald’s has employees everywhere,” activist Bleu Rainer told me, “everything they do has a global impact that affects all workers.” </p>
<h2>Bleu’s story</h2>
<p>Rainer is a 27-year-old McDonald’s worker.</p>
<p>“I’ve worked in the fast food industry in North Carolina and Florida,” Rainer told me, “and in eight years I’ve made no more than eight dollars and five cents an hour.” He said that even when he was offered a promotion to manager, his salary did not increase.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136467/original/image-20160902-20255-1179kzj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136467/original/image-20160902-20255-1179kzj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136467/original/image-20160902-20255-1179kzj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136467/original/image-20160902-20255-1179kzj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136467/original/image-20160902-20255-1179kzj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136467/original/image-20160902-20255-1179kzj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136467/original/image-20160902-20255-1179kzj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bleu Rainer.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“I have witnessed the torture of not having enough to afford rent, which led to me sleeping from house to house,” Rainer says. “One time I even had to sleep at bus stops because I was homeless. I have had to rely on food stamps just to get a good meal and when those food stamps run out it’s back to nothing at all. Sometimes I think to myself: I’m working so hard every day. So why am I still hungry? Why am I not making a living wage? Why can’t I feed myself?” </p>
<p>Beginning in 2012, Rainer and a small group of New York City fast food workers kicked off a protest against poverty wages. It was a decidedly 21st-century movement. They used one-day flash strikes instead of long-term actions that hurt workers more than employers. They deployed social media to organize and publicize their actions. And they gleefully subverted expensive corporate slogans – especially the McDonald’s jingle “<a href="http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2014/McDonalds-Im-Lovin-It-Campaign/">I’m Lovin’ It</a>,” the first worldwide ad campaign for the burger giant, which they paid Justin Timberlake $6 million to sing on TV. </p>
<p>“Poverty Wages: Not Lovin’ It” became the slogan of a new movement, and signs with those words soon appeared in as many countries and as many languages as the original version. </p>
<p>When I first met Rainer in Tampa, he was helping to organize a broad coalition of low-wage workers: fast food workers, home health care attendants and adjunct college professors – none of whom made enough money to pay their bills. As we sat together at a table in a West Tampa Cuban diner, the professors made clear that they saw themselves paddling in the same boat as fast food workers and home health care aides. They earned around $8 an hour, worked on short-term contracts and had absolutely no job security. “They try to convince us we’re better, we’re the elect,” said Cole Bellamy, who teaches 12 courses a year. “But that’s the lie they tell us to keep us quiet.”</p>
<p>“We are all fast food workers,” said graduate student Keegan Shephard. </p>
<p>“Or maybe we are all professor adjuncts,” said Rainer.</p>
<h2>The successes</h2>
<p>Their campaign has been remarkably successful in a short period of time. </p>
<p>This March, <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-mcdonalds-labor-case-0311-biz-20160310-story.html">the National Labor Relations Board ruled</a> that the McDonald’s corporation is a joint employer of those who work in franchise-owned restaurants, a huge victory for fast food activists. Last summer, New York state granted a $15 minimum wage to the state’s 180,000 fast food workers. Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles also passed $15 living wage ordinances. This spring, the state of California, which has a population of nearly 40 million people, passed a phased-in statewide $15 wage. The wages of federal food workers have been raised. Wal-Mart has raised <a href="http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2016/01/20/more-than-one-million-walmart-associates-receive-pay-increase-in-2016">its minimum</a>. <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/03/09/mcdonalds-wages/">McDonald’s</a> offered increases to those who work in restaurants owned outright by the corporation, which pressured franchise owners to do the same. </p>
<p>Four years ago, when the first fast food workers’ strikes were held in New York and Chicago, the $15 minimum wage seemed a fantasy. Now it is <a href="http://prospect.org/article/how-new-yorks-fight-15-launched-nationwide-movement">a reality</a> in many of the largest labor markets in the U.S., and it is <a href="http://prospect.org/article/how-fight-15-won">fast food workers who launched</a> the tidal wave.</p>
<p>Yet, with all this success, the life of an average fast food worker is still difficult, at best. One reason most fast food workers are so poor is because their wages are so low. But it is also because computers scheduling shifts change workers’ hours at the drop of a hat, making it impossible for parents of young children to plan child care or to know for sure whether they will be able to pay their bills each month. Algorithms, I have learned through numerous interviews, maximize efficiency for the company and cut labor costs whenever possible. Workers believe they are used to intentionally keep workers’ hours low enough that they are not covered under state and federal labor laws and can be seen as part-time or temporary workers. </p>
<p>One McDonald’s worker I met in New York City in 2015, who depended on his full-time salary, showed me a paycheck for two weeks’ work that totaled $109. </p>
<p>Contrary to public opinion, most fast food workers are <a href="http://groundswell.org/fast-food-misconceptions/">not teenagers</a> on their first job but adults supporting families. The average fast food worker is 29 years old. Over 25 percent are parents. Nearly one in three have college degrees – or are <a href="http://www.nelp.org/publication/fight-for-15-impact-report-raises-for-17-million-workers-10-million-going-to-15/">working their way through college</a>. </p>
<p>This is not the first time that restaurant workers have organized. Restaurant unions have, in different eras, been strong in some big cities, especially <a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/86dnq7dp9780252061868.html">New York</a> and <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Storming-Caesars-Palace-P600.aspx">Las Vegas</a>. But this is the first time that fast food workers have organized, and it is definitely the first time that they have organized in conjunction with a range of other low-wage workers and on a global scale.</p>
<p>Massimo Frattini, a former hotel worker from Milan who is one of the global coordinators for fast food workers’ actions, told me that he was stunned by the worldwide response when the first global strike took place in 2014.</p>
<p>On that day, fast food workers in 230 cities, in 34 countries, on six continents, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/15/news/economy/fast-food-strike/index.html">walked off the job</a> to dramatize their need for a living wage, full-time work and union recognition. The scale of the strike surprised pretty much everyone: the workers, the organizers and definitely McDonald’s. </p>
<p>Workers staged mock trials of a weeping Ronald McDonald for wage theft in the streets of Seoul. They shut down McDonald’s in Brussels and in London’s Trafalgar Square.</p>
<p>“We were not aware of how organized workers were in the fast food sector in the Philippines or Thailand or New Zealand,” Frattini said. “But the truth is they knew that alone, they were helpless against these massive corporations. But maybe together they could raise the issue on the global stage. And they could provide better services and negotiate better agreements for their members.”</p>
<p>Over the next year, workers from New York, Chicago, and 150 U.S. cities met with workers from Denmark, Argentina, Thailand, South Korea, the Philippines and numerous other countries. The Service Employees International Union in the United States and Frattini’s international union of food, hotel and farm workers, which represents 12 million workers in 120 countries, paid for these meetings. </p>
<p>Workers compared notes on wages and working conditions. Workers from McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken from every continent on Earth began planning strategy for global living wage agreements.</p>
<p>One of the original organizers, Naquasia LeGrand, was just a 22-year-old kid from Brooklyn who was tired of working three jobs. She looked back during the summer of 2016 on what she had helped start in 2012. She <a href="http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/08/188808/%E2%80%98we-triggered-something-epic%E2%80%99-interview-naquasia-legrand-fight-15">said</a>: “We triggered something epic that had never been done.” Indeed they had: a global fast food workers’ revolution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64574/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annelise Orleck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A global movement of low-wage workers is improving conditions for fast food employees and others in the U.S. and around the world. A Dartmouth labor historian examines the movement’s origins.Annelise Orleck, Professor of History, Dartmouth CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/645162016-09-02T18:07:58Z2016-09-02T18:07:58ZWhy a four-day workweek is not good for your health<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136464/original/image-20160902-20220-956xtf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A four-day workweek won't guarantee you more days like this.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/downloading_tips.mhtml?code=&id=130167068&size=medium&image_format=jpg&method=download&super_url=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTQ3Mjg1NzQzNywiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfMTMwMTY3MDY4IiwiayI6InBob3RvLzEzMDE2NzA2OC9tZWRpdW0uanBnIiwibSI6IjEiLCJkIjoic2h1dHRlcnN0b2NrLW1lZGlhIn0sIkdVYkVZSm9zSTNtQlVJTWlEOE0vTkpmTXNxTSJd%2Fshutterstock_130167068.jpg&racksite_id=ny&chosen_subscription=1&license=standard&src=wek9eIHCF3vc5cukeI3Bxg-1-5">www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many employers and employees love the thought of a <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/peggydrexler/2014/09/29/consider-the-benefits-of-the-4-day-work-week/">four-day workweek</a>. Supposedly, a four-day work schedule allows workers extra time to pursue leisure activities and family togetherness. Spurred on by visions of spending more time at the beach, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/27/pf/4-day-work-week/">many people are now encouraging businesses</a> to adopt this kind of work plan. </p>
<p>There are many <a href="http://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/should-we-all-be-on-the-4-day-workweek.html">purported advantages</a>. Some authorities say that a <a href="http://www.medicaldaily.com/are-there-health-benefits-4-day-workweek-294640">four-day work schedule facilitates</a> the ability to provide child care and assistance for the elderly. </p>
<p>Proponents of such “compressed” work schedules − those in which employees work longer hours for fewer days of the week – point to gains in productivity that result from <a href="http://www.cheatsheet.com/business/3-reasons-to-embrace-a-4-day-workweek.html/?a=viewall">decreased overhead costs</a>, such as not having to keep the lights on when nobody is working. Additional cost savings can be obtained from reducing total <a href="https://www.laserfiche.com/simplicity/is-a-four-day-work-week-right-for-your-company/">weekly commuting time</a>. </p>
<p>A variety of business have tested the four-day concept, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/">including Amazon, Google, Deloitte</a> and a host of smaller firms. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/">Amazon</a> announced in 2016 that it was experimenting with an even shorter workweek of 30 hours for select employees, who would earn 75 percent of their full-time salary, should they choose to opt in. </p>
<p>Many of the pilot programs have shown promising results. Statistics from the Society for Human Resource Management indicate that <a href="https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/four-day-workweek.aspx">31 percent of employees</a> were in a compressed workweek schedule as of 2015. That’s the case, however, for only 5 percent of large companies.</p>
<p>This is an issue in which I have considerable experience. I have been studying the health effects of long working hours for nearly 30 years. All the studies point to the potential dangers that can occur as the result of the additional risks created when work demands exceed a particular threshold. Most of the studies I have performed suggest that the dangers are most pronounced when people regularly work more than 12 hours per day or 60 hours per week. </p>
<h2>It sounded like a good idea</h2>
<p>The idea of a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/four-day-workweek/396530/">four-day workweek</a> is not new. Labor experts have been studying and advocating these approaches since the 1970s. For example, in 2008, researchers from <a href="https://news.byu.edu/news/byu-study-reveals-results-city%E2%80%99s-four-day-work-week">Brigham Young University</a> conducted a series of surveys among employees and community members to assess their perspectives about a four-day workweek. The researchers found that about four-fifths of the employees reported a positive experience working that type of schedule. </p>
<p>Based on these positive results, Utah’s governor enacted a <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/04/utah-ends-4-day-workweek-experiment/">mandatory four-day workweek</a> for all state employees. The state’s goal was to curb energy costs, improve air quality, ensure that needed services would still be available (for instance, garbage collection) and help to recruit and retain state employees. In 2011, however, Utah reversed course, saying that <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/04/utah-ends-4-day-workweek-experiment/">savings never materialized</a>. </p>
<p>Other research has also supported the development and adoption of compressed work schedules. A 1998 study found that <a href="http://myweb.usf.edu/%7Ejdorio/CONSEQUENCES%20OF%20ALTERNATIVE%20WORK%20SCHEDULES.pdf">compressed schedules</a> were related to high levels of job satisfaction and employees’ satisfaction with their work schedules; supervisors also reported they were pleased with the four-day workweek schedules. </p>
<h2>Are there hidden dangers?</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136465/original/image-20160902-20253-exy1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136465/original/image-20160902-20253-exy1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136465/original/image-20160902-20253-exy1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136465/original/image-20160902-20253-exy1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136465/original/image-20160902-20253-exy1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136465/original/image-20160902-20253-exy1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136465/original/image-20160902-20253-exy1at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Long hours can lead to stress, injury and illness.</span>
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<p>Despite the widespread enthusiasm for a four-day week, I am not convinced that kind of schedule is beneficial for employees or for businesses. The primary problem with the idea is that whatever work needs to be done, needs to get done in the same amount of total time. Despite wishes to the contrary, there are still only 24 hours in a day. </p>
<p>The math is simple: working five eight-hour shifts is equivalent to working four 10-hour shifts. That’s true. But the implications of these schedules are different. The danger is in disregarding the health effects that can occur as a result of fatigue and stress that accumulate over a longer-than-normal working day. </p>
<p>I performed a study showing that the risk of suffering an industrial accident is <a href="http://journals.lww.com/joem/pages/default.aspx">raised by 37 percent</a> for employees working more than 12 hours in a day. The risk is 61 percent higher for people in “overtime” shifts. Working more than 60 hours in a week is related to an additional injury risk of 23 percent. As the hours worked in those schedules increase, the risks grow accordingly. </p>
<p>More recently, Dr. Xiaoxi Yao, a colleague of mine who is now at the Mayo Clinic, and I recently performed another study using 32 years of work-hour information to analyze the relationship between long working hours over many years and the risk of being diagnosed with a chronic disease later in life. We found that the <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160616071935.htm">dangers were quite substantial</a>, especially for women. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160616071935.htm">Women working</a> more than 60 hours per week, equivalent to 12 hours per day, were more than three times as likely to eventually suffer heart disease, cancer, arthritis or diabetes, and more than twice as likely to have chronic lung disease or asthma, as women working a conventional 40-hour workweek. Working just a bit more, an average of 41 to 50 hours per week, over many years <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160616071935.htm">appeared to substantially increase</a> the long-term risk of disease. </p>
<p>These studies show that not all hours are created equal. The research suggests that <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160616071935.htm">harm may occur past a certain point</a>. A four-day week causes workers to squeeze more hours than usual into a day. For workers who are already prone to overwork, the additional burden of compressing five days into four could literally break the camel’s – or worker’s – back. </p>
<h2>Is the stress worth it?</h2>
<p>Besides the health issues, employers and workers also need to consider the effect that compressing hours into a four-day period has on workers’ mental health, stress levels and fatigue.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/four-day-workweek.aspx">Occupational psychologists</a> realize that people do not function as effectively when tired or stressed. This may be even more of a concern for older persons. </p>
<p>Moreover, just squeezing five days of 10-hour-a-day work into a compressed 40-hour schedule can create more rigidity and reduced flexibility for families and children. For example, if the two additional work hours per day are added onto a conventional day schedule that begins in the morning at approximately 8 or 9 a.m. and extends into the late afternoon hours at about 4 to 5 p.m., then many working parents will lose the ability to interact with their children just at the “prime time” of about 5 to 7 p.m. when kids otherwise would be most likely to be in the house and potentially available to socialize with their siblings and parents – before their bedtime arrives. </p>
<p>There are many obvious ways to address these concerns and make life easier for workers and their families. Don’t overwork. Don’t stay too long at work. Find a job with an employer that has flexible working hours. </p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but the prospect of a four-day week scares me. I already have a hard enough time getting my regular weekly work done over five days. And it’s always so tempting to glance at my work email – just a couple more notes to jot down. </p>
<p>Instead, why not just pull back at a certain point? Maybe it’s time to take Friday off every so often. How about ending work at noon on Fridays, as is the practice of many Jews, to bring in the weekend in a gradual way? The trade-off, if necessary, would involve adding a small increase of one hour per day to the normal Monday through Friday schedule. That approach is actually my personal favorite. </p>
<p>My friend Lonnie Golden, a professor at Pennsylvania State University - Abington, advocates adopting a “Goldilocks” workweek: one that is not too long, not too short and that satisfies the employer’s interest in productivity and the employee’s interest in attaining good health and well-being.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64516/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Allard Dembe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea of a four-day workweek sounds great, and many companies have tested or even implemented it, citing happier, healthier workers. But here’s why it may not be healthy.Allard Dembe, Professor of Public Health, College of Public Health, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/647752016-09-02T14:02:08Z2016-09-02T14:02:08ZIt’s time we reinvented labor for the 21st century<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136360/original/image-20160901-1012-4yr28n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Strikes don't work as well as they used to.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Striking workers via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Labor Day, politicians have traditionally paid lip service to the plight of the worker, whom the national holiday is meant to honor. With working-class struggles taking center stage in this year’s election, we will likely hear from them more than usual talking about the steps they will take to reduce income inequality or end three decades of wage stagnation. </p>
<p>Some of them will go one step further and voice support for unions and collective bargaining, both of which have declined at the same time wages have stagnated.</p>
<p>They do so for good reason. Not only have American workers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/03/09/real-earnings-real-anger/?utm_term=.59fa5dbdcd3f">made it clear</a> they are fed up with being left behind as the economy prospers, there is a growing body of evidence that union decline is one of the key causes of wage stagnation and income inequality. </p>
<p>The solution, however, isn’t to bring back the unions of yesterday. We need to create stronger business-labor partnerships for tomorrow. </p>
<h2>Slide of union power</h2>
<p>As far back at the mid-1980s, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=SK5opOtSfpMC">our research at MIT showed</a> that collective bargaining was no longer capable of using the threat of strikes or other forms of pressure to get businesses to match negotiated wage increases.</p>
<p>Previously, strike threats and the fear of getting organized led companies to match wages negotiated in key bargains. For example, in the late 1940s, General Motors and the United Auto Workers negotiated a wage formula linking wage hikes to increases in productivity and the cost of living. Unionized businesses had to follow suit or risk a strike. Even companies without unions had to do the same if they wanted to avoid their workers getting organized.</p>
<p>Recent research shows that the decline in union bargaining power observed in the 1980s has persisted and has now taken a big toll on union and nonunion workers alike. A <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/union-decline-lowers-wages-of-nonunion-workers-the-overlooked-reason-why-wages-are-stuck-and-inequality-is-growing/">just-released report</a> from liberal-leaning think tank the Economic Policy Institute, for example, estimates that the <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">decline in unions</a> – from 23 percent in 1979 to 11 percent in 2013 – and their collective bargaining power has caused men in the private sector to earn US$109 billion less every year and women to earn $24 billion less. </p>
<p>Other recent research shows that the decline in wages has now spread to the public sector. Teachers have been <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-pay-gap-is-wider-than-ever-teachers-pay-continues-to-fall-further-behind-pay-of-comparable-workers/">especially hard hit</a>. In 1979, teachers earned just 2 percent less than comparable college graduates. In 2015, the earnings gap had widened to 17 percent. </p>
<h2>More than empty rhetoric?</h2>
<p>Research like this has convinced <a href="http://www.afscme.org/news/press-room/press-releases/2015/candidate-quotes-from-afscme-presidential-endorsement-meetings">more Democratic candidates</a> to call for rebuilding labor unions. </p>
<p>But is that possible or is it just empty rhetoric? </p>
<p>As I’ve <a href="http://theconversation.com/how-to-transform-workers-campaign-rage-into-better-jobs-and-wages-56790">argued before</a>, I believe it is empty for two reasons. First, since 1978 three major efforts to pass labor law reform to make it easier to form a union have been blocked in Congress. And there is no reason to believe this will change. </p>
<p>Second, even if unions started growing again, they would not be able to rely on their past sources of power to drive up wages. There is just too much domestic and international competition, and it is too easy to move capital and jobs to lower-wage countries. That makes it much harder to use strike or unionizing threats to get businesses to lift wages or match negotiated increases. </p>
<p>So what else can be done? In previous articles, I’ve made the case for a new labor policy that not only supports unions but also promotes labor management partnerships. <a href="http://theconversation.com/how-to-transform-workers-campaign-rage-into-better-jobs-and-wages-56790">I’ve also suggested</a> extending protection against employer retaliation to more workers, such as fast-food employees fighting for a $15 minimum wage or independent contractors like Uber or Lyft drivers. These changes would help reframe labor policy to fit the modern economy. </p>
<p>But labor policy can no longer stand alone. A more complete strategy is needed that integrates a revised labor policy with something known as a <a href="http://www.cows.org/building-the-high-road">“high road” economic strategy</a>.</p>
<p>At MIT, my colleagues and I teach this approach to our MBA students, in <a href="http://cdn.executive.mit.edu/00/000147a915d7fdabc7f93519980000/file/ton-webinarthe-good-jobs-strategy-v7pdf">executive education classes</a> and in our <a href="http://cdn.executive.mit.edu/00/000147a915d7fdabc7f93519980000/file/ton-webinarthe-good-jobs-strategy-v7pdf">public online courses</a>. We tell current and future business executives that they have a choice in how they compete in the marketplace: They can minimize labor costs and fight to keep unions out of their organizations or they can invest in their workers, drawing on their knowledge, skills and motivation to achieve high levels of productivity and customer service. And then reward those employees with their fair share of the profits they help produce. </p>
<p>Over the past two decades, <a href="http://cepr.net/publications/reports/high-performance-work-practices-and-sustainable-economic-growth">researchers have discovered</a> how companies employing this “high-road” approach – such as retailers like Costco or Market Basket, airlines like Southwest or health care providers like Kaiser Permanente – do just as well or even better on long-term financial returns, customer service and wages than “low-road” competitors, such as Walmart or Spirit Airlines. </p>
<h2>The task ahead</h2>
<p>How can we encourage more companies to move in this direction? </p>
<p>As educators, we have an important role to play, but our efforts need to be matched by a well-coordinated effort that cuts across the federal government and business to realize the benefits of a high-road policy. One example is repairing America’s decaying infrastructure through public-private partnerships, which some business and labor leaders have <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/290262-rebuilding-americas-water-infrastructure-with-public-private-partnerships">already committed to</a>. </p>
<p>The same deal needs to be struck in implementing a new manufacturing policy. We are not likely to bring back many of the jobs lost to China and other lower-wage countries. The best way for government to help rebuild our manufacturing base is to support investments in <a href="https://www.manufacturing.gov/">next generation technologies</a>, such as light metals, photonics, robotics and wearable fibers that will generate energy and cool our bodies. But it’s also important to insist the businesses getting federal funding commit to making their products here and investing in their workforces. </p>
<p>So this Labor Day, I believe politicians need to go beyond the empty rhetoric of the past and commit to doing the hard work of recasting labor policy in ways it might be possible to enact. </p>
<p>And then they should follow up with the comprehensive and disciplined administrative actions needed to realize a high-road strategy that puts the economy on a course that will truly work for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Kochan has done some volunteer work for the Hillary Clinton campaign. </span></em></p>The link between labor’s decline and stagnating worker pay has convinced some politicians that we need to rebuild unions. What we need are new labor policies for tomorrow’s workforce.Thomas Kochan, Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of ManagementLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/460002015-09-07T12:22:59Z2015-09-07T12:22:59ZProfs: Small government is bad for your pursuit of happiness<p>What’s better at creating happiness – the government or the market? </p>
<p>Conservatives say <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism_and_Freedom">market forces should reign</a> in all aspects of political and personal life. They say that only completely unregulated markets can create a flourishing economy. </p>
<p>Liberals hold that markets sometimes produce inequality – even pain.</p>
<p>As political scientists, we have spent years examining how these different approaches to public policy affect the quality of human life. After all, the Declaration of Independence promises us “the pursuit of happiness”. It’s a question at the root of American politics.</p>
<p>In examining the link between human well-being and public policies, we find strong evidence that certain government policies result in greater levels of happiness than others. If you want to promote happiness, you should support government interventions – and reject policies like those of the current Republican Party presidential candidates.</p>
<h2>The market approach</h2>
<p>Scott Walker provides a good example of a pro-market approach.</p>
<p>As governor of Wisconsin, Walker opposed such intrusions into the market as the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/14/why-scott-walker-thinks-the-minimum-wage-is-lame/">minimum wage</a>, public <a href="http://www.westernjournalism.com/scott-walker-made-major-changes-to-welfare-freeloaders-hardest-hit/">assistance to the poor</a> and <a href="http://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/tns-scott-walker-medicaid-expansion-wisconsin.html">Medicaid expansions</a>. He worked hard to shrink government and to curb workers’ rights to organize into <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaugust_2015/features/scott_walkers_real_legacy055860.php?page=all">labor unions</a>. Conservatives feel these all interfere with free market outcomes.</p>
<p>Walker, like all of the current Republican presidential candidates, believes any government role in the economy is bad. Florida Senator Marco Rubio finds problems in any social <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21606852-republican-party-should-take-florida-senators-ideas-seriously-marco-rubio-and">safety net</a> that gives people more than they earn in the market. Jeb Bush opposes any government role in providing access to <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/jeb-bush-talks-alternative-to-obamacare-monstrosity-115913.html">health care</a> because it both regulates the insurance market and removes incentives for people to work hard enough to afford the health care they need or want. Carly Fiorina is like her GOP brothers in opposing almost all regulations, including the <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/carly-fiorina-opposes-federal-minimum-wage-law/article/2570335?custom_click=rss&utm_campaign=Weekly+Standard+Story+Box&utm_source=weeklystandard.com&utm_medium=referral">minimum wage</a>. All of these Republicans support “<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21645857-wisconsin-may-become-25th-right-work-state-republicans-v-unions">right to work</a>” laws – laws that make union membership optional– because they believe weaker unions lead to <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324296604578179603136860138">job growth by reducing wages</a>.</p>
<h2>Leveling the field?</h2>
<p>In contrast, progressives stress using the government to achieve goals that don’t come readily via the market. They want government to create fairness and to protect the environment even if that may hinder pure free market operation. </p>
<p>Holding that the market is <a href="http://theweek.com/articles/564965/problem-completely-free-markets">neither always free nor fair</a>, they promote <a href="http://democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/issue/worker-safety-and-health">job safety</a> laws and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/30/12-minimum-wage_n_7183780.html">minimum wage</a> laws, and restrict an employer’s ability to discriminate on the basis of race, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/opinion/a-showdown-on-the-pay-gap.html">gender</a>, religion and sexual <a href="http://genprogress.org/voices/2015/07/23/38083/democrats-to-propose-new-standard-for-lgbtq-non-discrimination-protections/">orientation</a> in pay, service or hiring.</p>
<p>Democrats say we need some regulations on the efficient but pitiless market forces. Left to itself, the market works only to maximize stockholder profits, the thinking goes. They believe that sometimes businesses or wealthy people must bear some hardships to make life better for everyone. In the name of fairness, they argue that government workers must issue marriage licenses to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/26/politics/hillary-clinton-virginia-marriage/">gay couples</a> and businesses cannot discriminate. </p>
<p>Like <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Maynard-Keynes">John Maynard Keynes</a>, Democrats hold that free markets may be beneficial in the long run, but government action is needed if we are to enjoy those benefits before we die. </p>
<h2>The pursuit of happiness</h2>
<p>The United Nations, preparing its “<a href="https://worldhappiness.report/">World Happiness Report</a>”, surveys the happiness of residents in each member nation. The UN asks, among other things, how people rate their lives on a scale from the “best possible” to “worst possible”. They report – and our research backs this up – that the most important factors for happiness are social support, income security and health. Of these, the latter two can be most directly influenced by governmental policy.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/political-economy/political-economy-human-happiness-how-voters-choices-determine-quality-life">research</a> shows that citizens are happier when policies are in place to assure them of fair wages, fair treatment at work and a social safety net that provides some security when the market fails. </p>
<p>The chart below shows how the minimum wage affects overall levels of satisfaction with life. Satisfaction increases as the minimum wage increases. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93828/original/image-20150903-8827-18e94cx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93828/original/image-20150903-8827-18e94cx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93828/original/image-20150903-8827-18e94cx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93828/original/image-20150903-8827-18e94cx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93828/original/image-20150903-8827-18e94cx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93828/original/image-20150903-8827-18e94cx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93828/original/image-20150903-8827-18e94cx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Min Wage by Life Satisfaction.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is strong proof that certain interventions in the market can improve human happiness. People are happier in nations like Switzerland, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Costa Rica or even Mexico – and in American states like California, Massachusetts and Minnesota – where there are reliable laws protecting workers from the worst downsides of market forces. </p>
<p>While there are surely some negative economic consequences of regulation, the net human impact of these policies is fast and positive. It is important to note that this “happiness benefit” applies to everyone in society: the affluent and the poor, men and women, the employed and unemployed, union members and non-members, liberals and conservatives.</p>
<p>It’s equally easy to show the relationship between the share of workers belonging to unions and happiness. Where large segments of the population belong to strong unions, the governmental protections are less important since strong unions typically provide the same benefits (security, living wages and health care).</p>
<p>The evidence is clear: pro-worker “interventions” in the market benefit society. All citizens are happier when they know that the minimum payoff for hard work is sufficient for living.</p>
<p>The real question is whether our public policies should serve the interests of these citizens or those of the market.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46000/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research shows that government interventions decried by the GOP actually make people happier.Benjamin Radcliff, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre DameMichael Krassa, Chair, Human Dimensions of Environmental Systems and Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.