To people with middle-class or better jobs, the idea of not being paid in full for their work may seem odd. But for millions of workers in low-paying jobs, getting shorted on pay is a common occurrence, one that the writer of this piece shows is reduced when unions are strong.
But the king of Egypt said, “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!”
—Exodus 5:4
Mercedes Herrerra is thirty-nine years old. She grew up in Veracruz, Mexico. She came from a hardworking family. As she says, “My mom instilled in me a desire to stand up for people.” Herrerra and her husband have four children, one granddaughter, and one grandson “on the way.”
Herrerra came to Houston in 1994. She first started cleaning houses in 1996. Then she moved to cleaning downtown buildings and sports facilities, working primarily for staffing agencies. She and her co-workers were frequently victims of wage theft.
She was never paid for overtime. Her employers would tell her, “There is no overtime. After forty hours you work for someone else.” (This is not legal.)
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Herrerra was hired by a cleaning firm contracted to clean the Reliant [Convention] Center. She was in charge of keeping the bathrooms clean. Her staffing agency charged her $100 per week for her shoes, gloves, masks, cleaning supplies, and shuttle rides to the center. She wasn’t told when she was hired that such charges would be taken from her paycheck. As a result, her hourly wage fell significantly below minimum wage. (This is not legal.)
Frequently, employers would just not pay her for all the hours she worked. Herrerra would always complain and try to get all the wages she was owed, but most of her colleagues didn’t feel comfortable standing up for themselves.
For lots of the cleaning firms around town, Friday was a rush day. Workers would be told they had to clean the same number of rooms they regularly did in four hours in only three, so that the managers could get off early. After three hours, the worker would be required to clock out and then finish the work on his or her own time. (Yes, this too is illegal.)
Perhaps worse for Herrerra than the wage theft was the treatment she received. Managers would scream at her and her colleagues. Some would tell workers they were old and worthless.
In 2008, Herrerra took a position cleaning buildings in the Galleria [Houston shopping mall] for ABM, a national janitorial firm. Although ABM always paid her, before the workers organized she only earned $5.15 an hour and she had no vacation days, no sick days, no health insurance or pension, and lots of work. She was only given four hours of work a day. She had to clean eighteen large restrooms in four hours per day.
When one of the organizers came to her door to talk about organizing a union, she knew it was right. Herrerra says, “I had so much anger built up from years of exploitation.” First, she went to a rally at a building to support other janitors. Then she went to some meetings for training. Then she began talking with her co-workers about joining the union. She got people’s names and addresses and tried to motivate them to get involved.
When she got involved, the organizing had already been going on about a year. It took almost two years total to win a union contract.
Things have changed a lot since the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) worked with the 5,300 janitors in Houston to negotiate a union contract. Herrerra started making $7.25 per hour and gets a raise every year. She gets one week of vacation after one year and two weeks after five years. She gets six paid holidays. Now she is getting five hours of work a day and next year she will get six. Even though she doesn’t yet get paid for sick days, she doesn’t fear losing her job because she takes a sick day. Next year, workers will get individual health coverage, and the union is building a health clinic. The workers want lots more in their contract (higher wages, family health care, pensions, paid sick days), but they know it will be difficult to win until more of Houston’s janitors are represented by the union.
But wage theft has been wiped out for the unionized janitors. Anytime there is a problem on wages, workers call the union hotline and someone works out the problems.
Unions not only raise wages, benefits, and working conditions. They stop wage theft. Unions are one of the most effective wage-theft deterrents around.
Unions are critical institutions to support and strengthen in the overall campaign to stop wage theft in the nation. Particularly because so many younger people do not know much about unions, this chapter helps explain how unions help workers and improve society overall.
A LITTLE UNION HISTORY
A union is a formal, structured way for workers to collectively work together to address wages, benefits, and working conditions within a workplace. Workplace organizing is not new. Labor and community organizers claim that Moses was the first organizer. He probably wasn’t—there were surely many organizers before him seeking justice in the workplace. Nonetheless, he clearly helped organize the Israelites to fight the oppression of the Egyptians against the slaves. Moses proposed a three-day strike, which infuriated the pharaoh. Organizing for better working conditions and even striking are not new.
The earliest unions in U.S. history were the craft guilds. During colonial times, groups of craftsmen (and sometimes women) organized themselves to share skills and make sure that they weren’t competing with one another in driving down wages. The Carpenters Company of Philadelphia was founded in 1724 and set wages and working conditions for carpenters in the region. In 1741, the Journeymen Caulkers of Boston issued a statement about how they wanted to be paid. By the end of the century there were organized shoemakers, tailors, painters, printers, cabinetmakers, shipbuilders, and many others. These craft guilds were the forerunners of many of the building-trades’ unions, such as the painters’, roofers’, and carpenters’ unions.
The first factories in the United States were textile mills, which emerged in the early 1800s. These were soon followed by iron factories, which enabled the growth of machines for manufacturing and railroads. As factories expanded throughout the 1800s, so too did groups of workers within factories seeking to improve wages and working conditions, although through the first half of the century, the formal organizations of workers were still skilled craftspeople (mostly men). The second half of the century saw more formal unions organized in factory settings and many strikes and campaigns to improve wages and limit working hours. By the end of the century, unions were organizing themselves to function locally, by state, and nationally. Labor unions pushed not only for improved wages and benefits locally, but also for state and national standards on wages and limits on working hours.
Labor history is the story of workers organizing and their great struggle for recognition. Workers did not organize unions for some vague ideological belief in unions. Rather, they organized unions because they thought they would have a better chance to improve their working conditions if they joined with their colleagues than by doing things on their own. Most large employers, and certainly the captains of industry, vehemently opposed unions. Workers who stood up for their rights were often fired or beaten, and sometimes killed.
Relations between unions and employers became so contentious in the midst of the Great Depression that it was hard for the nation to prosper, which finally prompted Congress and President Roosevelt to intervene. In 1935, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act, known as the Wagner Act, which outlined labor’s rights to organize and bargain union contracts. The National Labor Relations Board was established to make sure employers treated workers fairly when they tried to organize unions.
The passage of this law gave a huge boost to labor organizing. From 1935 to 1937, a total of 5 million workers (one in six) joined labor unions. The religious community supported this expansion of unions. From 1935 through 1955, Catholic parishes and orders ran nearly two hundred Catholic labor schools, which taught workers how to organize unions. An interesting article in Time from 1951 describes one such school in Manhattan:
In his eleven years as director of Manhattan’s Xavier Labor School, Father Philip Carey has become a familiar figure to thousands of working men and women. He is a mild and scholarly Jesuit whose students are electricians, scrubwomen, plumbers, bus drivers, pipe fitters, and wire lathers. The lesson Father Carey teaches them: how to build strong and effective unions.
Last week, as the first term of the academic year ended at Xavier, 150 men and women were enrolled. But these were only a fraction of the school’s real student body. When a New York’s dock strike raged Xavier’s assistant director, Father John Corridan, was devoting full time to a steady stream of longshoremen coming for advice. The school never takes sides in such disputes; its influence is felt only indirectly. But over the years, union men all over the East have come to realize that Jesuits Carey and Corridan are as wise about labor problems as any men alive.
The school’s formal course lasts two years, and students of every faith are welcome. Tuition (which is often waived): $5. There are night classes in public speaking and parliamentary procedure, labor ethics and law, in economics and trade union methods. Xavier’s volunteer faculty (three lawyers, ten union officers, two business-men and the two priests) translates its subjects into down-to-earth problems. Students study contracts, sample constitutions, hold mock conventions and negotiation meetings. Sometimes, actual union problems come before their “grievance clinics,” with representatives of management on hand to talk things over with the union. Since 1936, Xavier has turned out 6,000 alumni from the big, sprawling school building on West 16th Street.
The Catholics weren’t the only ones actively supporting workers organizing unions during this union expansion period. The Presbyterians organized the Labor Temple in New York City. The Methodists supported mine workers in their rural congregations. The Congregationalists trained, and the Episcopalians nurtured, Frances Perkins. The Jewish Workmen’s Circle organized Labor Lyceums. African American ministers E.B. McKinney and Owen Whitfield led efforts to organize Mississippi Delta sharecroppers into the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU).
The engagement of the religious community in supporting workers’ efforts to organize unions extended to a broad range of religious bodies—Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Jewish, and others. Why did unions receive such extensive religious support? Unions were seen as effective vehicles through which workers could improve their wages, benefits, and working conditions. Unions were an effective way to stop wage theft and lift workers and their families out of poverty.
UNIONS STOP WAGE THEFT
Unions are still the best and most effective vehicle for stopping wage theft, for the following reasons:
Unions train workers about their rights in the workplace. Basic laws protecting workers are confusing, and consequently most workers are unsure about their rights and where to turn for help. Unions train local leaders about their rights in the workplace. When workers know the laws and their rights, they are much more vigorous advocates on their own behalf.
Unions have attorneys available to answer questions and file suits. Whenever questions about the legality of some payment arrangement arise, unionized workers can ask their union’s attorneys to answer questions. If problems can’t be resolved at the worksite, the attorneys help workers file claims, grievances, or suits.
Unions provide workers a structure for expressing concerns. With a union contract comes a structure for addressing problems in the workplace. Usually, each workplace has one or more shop stewards who support workers in addressing problems in their workplace. If workers aren’t being paid correctly, the shop stewards will work with the workers to make sure problems are corrected through a grievance procedure.
Unions protect workers who complain. One reason many workers don’t file complaints with government agencies about problems on the worksite, even if they know there is a legal violation, is that they are fearful that their employers will retaliate against them. Because union contracts outline clear procedures for how workers can’t be fired and for how unions will challenge unfair practices, workers feel safe about raising concerns.
Unions create a counterbalance to management’s control in the workplace. In most workplaces without a contract, workers have little real power to influence decisions made in the workplace. When employers steal wages, or are tempted to steal wages, unions challenge them and hold them accountable to paying workers based on both the labor laws and the contract. If situations aren’t clear, they will usually get clarified in the next contract negotiations.
Unions maintain relationships with community allies and resources. Unions usually have relationships with newspaper reporters, social service agencies, religious organizations, politicians, and others who can join workers in pressuring their employers (if needed) to do the right thing.
Industries that have high percentages of workers represented by unions (referred to as high “union density”) almost never have significant wage-theft problems. The unions aggressively enforce their contracts and enforce the nation’s labor laws. Unions provide a strong “pushback” force against the forces that might be tempted to steal wages.
HOW ELSE DO UNIONS HELP WORKERS?
In addition to stopping wage theft, unions play important roles in improving working conditions for workers. Unions help workers secure the following:
Better wages. Workers in unions earn more money than workers doing the exact same job in nonunionized workplaces. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2006 the union pay advantage was 30 percent higher for all workers, and it is even larger for people of color and women. Janitors in Chicago and janitors in Houston were doing the same jobs for the same companies, but unionized janitors earned twice as much.
Benefits. Unionized workers are more likely to have health insurance. Union members are also more likely to have health plans that include dental, prescriptions, and eyeglass coverage. In 2006, 80 percent of union workers in the private sector had employer-provided medical care benefits, compared with 49 percent of nonunion workers. Many unions are fighting to preserve or establish affordable co-payments for health insurance. Unionized workers are more likely to have short-term disability benefits as well. Janitors in Houston would never have had health care without the union.
Retirement benefits. Unionized workers are more likely to have retirement benefits. Most union members, 68 percent, have defined-benefit coverage plans, compared with only 14 percent of nonunion workers.
A voice in decisions. All workers want to be involved in decisions that affect their working lives, and yet many find themselves and their suggestions routinely ignored or rejected. Workers want to do high-quality work, and they often use their union contracts as a way to improve the overall quality of work provided. The early labor guilds were formed in order to improve members’ quality of work, and those values still hold in the building-trades’ unions. Teachers often bargain over ways to improve the quality of teaching for children. Nurses bargain over patient care. Public-sector workers bargain over how to serve their clients or the public better.
Workers want a voice in decisions about work, but many feel that they are denied the right to talk and think when they enter the workplace. Too often, management, which controls workers’ basic livelihood, discourages workers’ participation in the company decision-making process. This is especially frustrating to workers when issues such as the scheduling of hours, workloads, and ways to make the work more effective are decided. Unions help workers have a voice in the decisions.
Safe working environments. If you work in a place where workers routinely get injured or some have even been killed, you will probably want a union to help negotiate safe working conditions. Take the case of those whose jobs involve working in trenches—working in manholes or any confined space below ground level. Between 1985 and 1995, 522 workers in the United States were killed in trench-related mishaps, only 60 of whom worked for union shops. The other 462 were employed by nonunionized firms. Recent tragedies in nonunion coal mines also highlight the stark difference in safety standards between union and nonunion shops. In 2006, 12 miners died from an explosion at the Sago mine, owned by the nonunion firm, International Coal Group. The company was cited by the Mine Safety Health Administration for multiple violations, but got away by paying just $24,000 in fines. A union presence would have helped ensure that safety standards were met.
Job security. As companies outsource, downsize, and shift from permanent to contingent employees, workers have grown concerned about their job security. People want assurance that companies won’t outsource their jobs to some cheaper group, another state, or even another country. Unions can’t guarantee complete job security, but contracts negotiated by unions attempt to create some job protections when at all possible. In addition, unions protect workers from bosses who fire workers without cause. Most states in the nation are “at will” states, meaning that workers can be fired for any reason that isn’t protected under various laws. So you can’t be fired for being a certain faith or a certain race, but you can be fired because the boss doesn’t like your “attitude” or you didn’t come to work when your child was sick, for example. Union contracts ensure that there is “just cause” and a fair process before firing someone.
Fairness. Workers want to know what the rules are, what the consequences are for breaking those rules, and what the appeal (grievance) process is for alleged rule violations. Some personnel policies clearly outline them. Most don’t. Too often workers follow the policies while the employers do not. Without a personnel policy that acts as a binding contract, or a union contract that makes the rules and procedures clear, workers feel, and often are, vulnerable to the whims of supervisors. Promotions, raises, penalties, and dismissals often seem random and unfair. Minorities and women benefit from union contracts that enshrine nondiscrimination language and ensure that all union members, no matter their race or gender, are paid, promoted, and treated based on their abilities to do the job.
ARE UNIONS PERFECT?
I have never given a presentation about religion-labor partnerships or wage theft and not been asked a question about problems with unions. Let me share the typical questions and some of my responses.
Aren’t unions corrupt? Unions, like religious bodies, are made up of human beings with all their flaws and frailties. There is some corruption in unions, as within religious institutions. And wherever corruption or greed is uncovered, it must be cleaned up. For that purpose, most unions have rigorous procedures to combat corruption. When a local union is found to be corrupt, the national leadership will take over control until it can be cleaned up and an election of new leaders held. As wrong as union corruption is, it is unfortunate that it receives so much front-page media attention in comparison to the important justice work done by unions to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions for workers in low-wage jobs. By the way, did you see the stories about the Presbyterian treasurer who stole money, or the Episcopal treasurer who stole $2 million, or the National Baptist president who stole $102,000? Corruption is part of the human condition and is neither unique nor even particularly prevalent in unions.
The perception of unions as corrupt is reinforced by many mainstream newspapers that refer to union leaders as union “bosses,” using a mob connotation, even though union leadership is mostly democratically elected by union members. Most of the union leaders I know are hardworking, ethical men and women who are seeking to improve conditions for their members and other workers in society. Corporate CEOs aren’t called corporate bosses by the press, so why should union leaders be given that name?
Aren’t unions violent? Unions advocate legal and peaceful means for achieving social gains. All national union leaders abhor violence and teach their members to practice and preach nonviolence. Nonetheless, when workers are locked out, their jobs are moved overseas, or their economic livelihood is threatened, a handful of workers may act out their anger in inappropriate ways. Unions do not condone or in any manner support the behavior of a handful of workers who may resort to violence. Despite knowing that unions don’t condone violence, when union-busting consultants want to denigrate unions, they describe them as violent and show photos of violence on a picket line. Violence is wrong, whether it involves workers on a picket line, security guards harassing picketers, or companies causing economic violence (stealing wages) against workers.
Aren’t unions racist or sexist? Like corruption, racism and sexism are sins shared by unions, the religious community, and the society at large. A key goal of the leadership of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win is ensuring full participation for all in work, in society, and in unions. Although work still needs to be done, the AFL-CIO has made significant progress in making its leadership more closely reflect its membership. Part of this may be due to a change the AFL-CIO made to its constitution, which was meant to significantly develop the race and gender diversity of its leadership. Upon its establishment in 2005, Change to Win instituted three positions on its leadership council specifically designed to further race and gender diversity on the council.
Don’t unions drive companies overseas? Unions themselves do not drive companies overseas. Nonetheless, it is true that companies often choose to move to other countries or other parts of the United States in search of lower wages and more vulnerable workers. Manufacturing firms that operate in the global economy often look for alternative production locations where labor or resource costs are lower. Unions are very sensitive to industry concerns about competitiveness because they want jobs to stay with their members. As a result, most unions are willing to bargain around ways to keep a company competitive, but the unions must also be convinced that the company is willing to invest in its workers and to invest in adequate research and product design.
WHY AREN’T UNIONS STRONGER?
Given the crisis of wage theft in the nation and the effective role unions play in stopping wage theft, one would think that unions would be growing by leaps and bounds. In fact, many workers would like to have a union in their workplace—53 percent of all working Americans who are not currently represented by unions would vote to join a union if they had the opportunity to do so without risking their jobs. However, many workers are afraid.
Whenever I am speaking with a group about unions, I always ask, “What would happen if you tried to organize a union at your workplace?” Every single time the response is the same: “I would get fired.”
Whether or not it is true that someone would get fired, the collective wisdom and understanding in the society is that if you try to organize a union, you will get fired. Needless to say, this puts a decided chill on organizing. Who can afford to lose a job unexpectedly?
The weak laws alone are bad enough for those who choose to organize. Adding insult to injury, a sophisticated, multimillion-dollar industry has developed to consult and advise employers on how to oppose unions and frighten workers. More than 80 percent of companies faced with union organizing efforts hire these consultants and law firms to wage antiunion campaigns. No other industrialized nation has such a powerful union-busting industry or weaker labor protections.
U.S. labor law related to unions is mainly governed by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Taft-Hartley amendments. The original National Labor Relations Act was passed in 1935 to improve workers’ living standards by increasing the power of unions. Over the course of the next sixty-five years, the intent of the law has been changed through amendments to the act, and various judicial and administrative decisions have weakened the unions. The Taft-Hartley amendments to the NLRA, passed in 1947, increased managers’ abilities to oppose unions. The amendments permitted the employers to campaign against union representation as long as there was “no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit.” Workers repeatedly express feeling under attack when employers oppose unions.
WHAT HAPPENS TO WORKERS WHO ATTEMPT TO ORGANIZE?
1. Ninety-one percent of employers require employees to attend a one-on-one meeting with their supervisors where they are told why unions are bad and why they should vote against a union.
2. Fifty-one percent of employers illegally coerce union opposition through bribes and favors.
3. Thirty percent of employers illegally fire prounion employees.
4. Forty-nine percent of employers illegally threaten to eliminate all workers’ jobs if they join a union.
Most of this antiunion activity occurs after the workers have signed cards indicating they want to be represented by a union and before the official NLRB-supervised election. If the point of an election is to determine what workers really want, then it would seem that both sides—union and management—should be able to present their cases fairly. But given the laws, the antiunion campaigns, and the control that employers have over workers’ lives, the cases are not presented evenly. In effect, the time between signing union cards and holding an election appears to be a time to scare workers into voting against unions.
Antiunion activities have become so prevalent that an initiative was introduced in Congress in early 2006 to expand employees’ freedom to choose and pursue union representation. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as the initiative is known, calls for stronger penalties for violations of the election process that occurs between union-card signing and the NLRB-supervised election, mediation and arbitration for stalled contract negotiations, and union formation through majority sign-up. Whether there is an NLRB-supervised election, card-check recognition, or a community-sponsored election, the principles of fairness and respect for one another must be maintained by all parties, employees and employers alike.
UNIONS ARE VITAL TO SOCIETY
Unions are vitally needed in U.S. society. When unions represent most workers in an industry, wage theft is virtually eliminated. Given the prevalence of wage theft, it would be useful if all workers in the garment industry, poultry plants, nursing homes, agriculture, restaurants, hotels, and retail stores were represented by unions. Many unions are focusing their organizing efforts on workers in these industries. Their campaigns are worthy of support.
Unions and collective bargaining contracts are one of the best ways to help U.S. families reach the American dream of middle-class wages, benefits, and working conditions. In the past, unions have turned low-paying, sweatshop jobs in manufacturing and construction into well-paying middle-class jobs. This effort is still needed in manufacturing and construction and must be extended to retail jobs as well. Unions help companies share their wealth with the workers who help create the wealth.
Unions also raise working conditions for large groups of workers by advocating laws that set national standards and by promoting the general welfare of all workers. Unions will be leading advocates for national health care, paid sick days, pension protections, and a host of other standards that would improve conditions for Americans.
The Israelites in Egypt needed to organize. Mercedes Herrerra in Houston needed a union. Millions of workers around the nation need protection against wage theft.
There is no better vehicle for protecting against wage theft than unions. If you want to fight poverty, encourage unions. If you want to improve your life at work, join unions. If you want to stop wage theft, support unions.
Adapted from Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid—and What We Can Do About It.