Zogby has released a new poll:
Released: August 10, 2005
Disorganized Labor
As Seen in The Wall Street Journal
For the first time since 1938, the labor movement actually seems in danger
of becoming politically irrelevant. Or at least that is the spin that
commentators have offered. I’m not so certain.
The AFL-CIO is effectively committed to the Democratic Party. So are the
Teamsters and the SEIU and the other members of the nascent Change to Win
Coalition. Teamsters President James P. Hoffa even addressed the 2004
Democratic National Convention. These groups will continue to support the
Democrats, to donate to the Democrats, and to mobilize resources on Election
Day for the Democrats. Unionized voters will continue to be at least twice
as likely to join the Democrats as the Republicans. And the Democrats will,
in turn, continue to largely listen to organized labor.
But Labor’s problem is not politics. Labor’s problem is Labor. Labor faces a
crisis in confidence among non-union workers. A poll I recently conducted on
behalf of the Public Service Research Foundation found that a 56% majority
of workers who are not organized wouldn’t vote to organize — while just 35%
would consider doing so. And for America’s organized labor movement, that’s
a significant problem.
The origins of Labor’s problems may be in the fact that people just don’t
identify themselves with the goals of their union. We can still picture an
era when “Union Yes” bumper stickers were everywhere, and only “scabs”
crossed picket lines. Today, that sentiment has cooled.
Two summers ago, I asked voters whether the AFL-CIO spoke for them when they
went to the polls. The answers produced a real surprise: Among unionized
likely voters, just 27% said the AFL-CIO spoke for them all or most of the
time. This was lower than the 32% of unionized voters who said the NRA spoke
for them! In fact, nearly as many unionized workers (23%) said the
Republicans spoke for them as said the AFL-CIO, while a higher percentage —
35% — believed that the Democrats spoke for them.
That is bad news for organized labor. However, the fact that I posed a
similar question in 1999 and found that 46% of unionized voters believed the
AFL-CIO and other unions spoke for them is even more telling. When that lack
of union identity is coupled with a labor force where 39% of workers believe
that while unions once were necessary, their time has passed, it becomes
obvious that Labor has lost the hearts and minds of the work force. And when
union members stop believing that organized labor speaks for them, the
results are declining membership and influence, and an almost inevitable
schism among member unions.
The decision by the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union
to bolt the AFL-CIO — and for the other members of the Change to Win
Coalition to boycott last week’s AFL-CIO convention — reads like an epitaph
after a decade of John Sweeney’s leadership of organized labor. Of course,
this is not the first time that organized labor has split. Lane Kirkland
spent the ’80s bringing the United Automobile Workers, Teamsters, and United
Mine Workers back into the fold after infighting. And the decision by the
Congress of Industrial Organizations to break away from the American
Federation of Labor in 1938 was a pivotal moment in the evolution of the
American Labor movement.
But Labor now stands on different ground. With less than 8% of private
sector workers unionized, individual identities are much less shaped by
union membership. And with a recent Zogby International poll of public
sector union members suggesting that 24% consider themselves conservative
ideologically, and with 49% owning either stocks or a 401(k) plan, the needs
of unionized workers have shifted.
Although Mr. Sweeney’s decade as president of the AFL-CIO has not brought
growth or consensus to organized labor, recent events could ultimately
strengthen it. The Change to Win Coalition’s stated goals offer some new
ideas, re-addressing bad employers and the need to redirect resources to
grow organized labor. Our poll of workers found that while 70% say their
company cares about them as individuals, 26% do not believe that. And with
one in every four workers believing his employer doesn’t care about him, the
ground is fertile for Labor’s main goal — reaching out to workers who have
not chosen to organize. Labor must stay politically relevant; but unions
must go back to what they were once very good at: They must convince people
that organized labor has workers’ interests at heart.
(8/10/2005)
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