Gokhale1

Nicolas Koutsourais

James Cavendish, Ph.D.

SYO 4536

03 December 2023

The Right to Unionize and Collective Bargaining

Collective bargaining is one of the main tools employed by labor unions and while it is

one method utilized by labor unions, it can also be considered a fundamental pillar of the

philosophy of a union. This is because a union is In the United States, labor unions themselves

have been the main way to organize for workers in industries where basic conditions aren’t being

met to uphold safety, sanity, and a fulfilling, satisfying life.

Currently, our laws do not allow government/public services to go on strike. While they

can have Unions, I know this because my father works in management (non-union employee) at

the USPS while my mother works as a delivery worker (union employee), they are severely

limited in their ability for collective action. Instead, they rely on union management to arbitrate

cases for them with management when grievances are made, and trust that the union will make

decisions best for them. Over time while labor unions have existed, they have influenced general

consensus enough and enough minds to result in certain federal standards like modern labor laws

existing (I.e. overtime pay, lunch breaks, protections from unjust removal from positions) and

more and more “company unions” like the USPS has have begun popping up (Godard & Frege

2013). Some people argue that the more of these corporate unions continue to exist, the more the

workplace and labor loses levels of democracy. With this view, the fact that these corporate

alternative unions exist at a rate of 1.5 to traditional unions is cause for concern (Godard & Frege

2013).
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Collective bargaining is still so influential that there is a debate about the possibility of it

in the public sector for government employees. Based on the need for equity, the argument was

in the 1960s that public sector and federal employees should have the right to unionize and

engage in collective action because they had been denied the use of these tools and solidarity that

had existed since the 1930s (Lewin, Keefe, & Kochan 2012). It wasn’t till 1962 that President

Kennedy signed an executive order that allowed federal employees to bargain collectively on a

limited number of issues, over the next 15 years numerous states followed to incorporate similar

policies for state workers into their laws (Lewin, Keefe, & Kochan 2012). The three main points

of opposition to these changes, according to Lewin, Keefe, and Kochan, claim it would give

social workers too much power since the demand for them is inelastic, this would drive their

wages beyond private sector employees, an appeal to the importance of merit. Secondly, they

believed that it would give the public sector too much power to influence the decisions of

politicians in policymaking, appealing to equality. Last, a general strike from the public sector

could cripple the country far beyond the industries being involved, thus bringing the whole

country to a halt (Lewin, Keefe, & Kochan 2012). This leave unions stuck between a rock and a

hard place, because without that essential of a tool that really leans into the solidarity a union

provides, they are forced to rely again on third parties to do the negotiating for the union rather

than members being involved directly in the process (Lewin, Keefe, & Kochan 2012). These

arguments were largely very theoretical and philosophical (Lewin, Keefe, & Kochan 2012), and

it is worth examining some more concrete examples of the importance or inefficiency of labor

unions and the right to collectively bargain.

In the sector of public education, there is considerable debate over whether teachers (and

sometimes even students) should be able to collectively bargain (Burroughs 2008). Teachers
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have gradually organized across the country since 1970’s, with only five states [as of 2008] not

allowing collective bargaining (Burroughs 2008). Overall, the actions of this trend led to pay

raises, better benefits, and a decline in strikes across the country. Opponents to these actions and

the organization of these unions cited that the unions do not focus on the top priority in

education, which is students, but rather solely focus on bettering the conditions of and gaining

materials for teachers (Burroughs 2008). They also cite an over importance on beauracratic

structures and layers of process documentation, which slows down overall efficiency of hiring

good teachers and replacing ones that are less effective. There is also the issue of socio-economic

disparities affecting the effectiveness of teacher unions and their ability to negotiate good

contracts. A study found that the poorest school districts have the most restrictive contracts and

lack the ability to collectively bargain or have usual bonus packages and assistance common in

other unions (Burroughs 2008). The other big criticism of teachers' unions is that they often are

the only obstacle to comprehensive education reform. These ideas for reform typically include

things like abolishing the single salary schedule, performance pay, greater amounts of private

and charter schools, and more power to the principals of schools (Burroughs 2008). Opponents

of unions are aided by the media, which commonly promotes narratives of meritocracy and

individualism (Martin 2004), this is especially attractive as a critique of teachers' unions which

are criticized as doing too much to protect lazy and ineffective teachers while also appealing to

the merit of students being trampled on by selfish teachers (Martin 2004). Overall, many studies

done on union vs. Non-union schools’ students’ test scores typically find that students at union

school score better on standardized tests than non-union school students (Burroughs 2008).

Opponents of these studies point to things like drop-out rates, with the reliance on standardized

testing which was compounded by the No Child Left Behind act. Experts in the field of public
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education stress that there is not enough data either way to suggest the efficacy of collective

bargaining for teacher unions and its side-effects on students.

Some proponents of labor unions and the right to organize stress the tangible, medical

importance of unions, even going so far to stress their importance as public health institutions

(Malinowski, Minkler, Stock 2015). There has been documented evidence that unions have a

positive effect on lowering drinking and smoking rates in labored workers. This is through

factors like raising income and easing healthcare costs on workers (Malinowski, Minkler, Stock

2015), and it is not only union workers that benefit. “The social work profession needs a political

ally if it is to be successful in advancing the historical vision of the profession and the protection

of the social programs currently threatened” (Rosenberg, Rosenberg 2006) Some people find

unions crucial to the preservation of social work in general, in light of many social programs

being cut with every following election cycle. The creation of social welfare was the result of the

combination of two movements, the settlement house movement and the charity organization

movement during the 1800’s (Rosenberg, Rosenberg 2006). The settlement house valued

policies that protected workers and women, promoting transformative justice in the sense of

fixing problems that resulted in inequalities, while the charity organizers valued individuality

and personal improvement. The combination of these led to social welfare, which led to the

structures we have today being worked by social workers. In the 1930’s the social work

profession is finalized by presidential policies and is able to exist with an ideological split on

union membership (Rosenberg, Rosenberg 2006). Social workers demonstrate limited interest in

unionizing unless they are a person of color or older (Rosenberg, Rosenberg 2006), these

demographics historically value union membership over others. Despite research showing that

unions have a positive effect on lowering overdose and suicide mortality (Eisenberg-Guyot,
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Mooney, Hagopian, et al. 2019), are considered so important by some that they should work with

and be considered public health institutions (Malinowski, Minkler, Stock 2015), are in most

cases preferred by workers and better run than corporate alternatives (Godard & Frege 2013),

and are crucial in preserving social workers jobs and social safety nets (Rosenberg, Rosenberg

2006), they still have a bleak future in the United States with a continued downward trend of

membership (Freeman, Hilbrich 2013).

Works Cited

Solidarity and disparity: declining labor union density and changing racial and

educational mortality inequities in the United States Solidarity and disparity - PMC (nih.gov)

The New Great Debate about Unionism and Collective Bargaining in U.S. State and Local

Governments (sagepub.com)

10.7591_9781501728549.pdf

FRAMED!

EPB Collective Bargaining_101608.fm (ed.gov)

Everything we do know (and don’t know) about collective bargaining: The Zeitgeist in

the academic and political debate on the role and effects of collective bargaining (sagepub.com)

Labor Unions: A Public Health Institution - ProQuest

Do Unions Matter? An Examination of the Historical and Contemporary Role of Labor

Unions in the Social Work Profession - ProQuest

15855239 (harvard.edu)

LABOR UNIONS, ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF REPRESENTATION, AND THE EXERCISE OF

AUTH...: EBSCOhost