The AFL and the Chamber of Commerce Are Not Going to Like Thomas Geoghegan’s New Book

Globalization has cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States and undermined labor union power.

But could globalization have a boomerang effect and end up jumpstarting the labor movement in the United States?

geoghegan

Thomas Geoghegan believes the answer could be yes.

Geoghegan is a labor lawyer and partner at Despres, Schwartz and Geoghegan in Chicago.

He points to the case of VW and the United Auto Workers union (UAW).

Last February, the UAW lost an election at VW’s Chattanooga, Tennessee facility by a vote of 712-626.

But the UAW may win by losing. How?

Last fall, VW said it would meet with a union that has support of more than 45 percent of workers.

UAW says it now has more than 50 percent support at that plant.

Geoghegan says that VW’s deal with the UAW might open the door to European style works councils in the heart of non-union Dixie. And that might lead to a revitalized labor movement throughout the United States.

Geoghegan has a new book out — Only One Thing Can Save Us: Why America Needs a New Kind of Labor Movement (New Press, December 2014).
In it, he welcomes VW’s labor ideas in Tennessee and proposes a new labor law model that neither the Chamber of Commerce nor the AFL-CIO is going to like.

Geoghegan is partial to a European model for labor in the United States. He likes the fact that unions in Europe don’t have to get a majority vote to get recognition. He likes the works councils — which are elected by workers who help determine rules on the plant floor. And he likes the practice of co-determination — where workers get seats on corporate boards.

“VW is an example of how globalization could work for labor,” Geoghegan told Corporate Crime Reporter last week. “There is a very strong union at VW. They are arguing for works councils in all the VW plants around the world. There are 27 countries where VW has plants. And while the works councils differ from one country to another, 25 of those countries have works councils. There are two that don’t. China and the United States. And one day, China will have them.”

“Once a model like this — a model of the kind of worker control that we are not used to seeing here in the United States — gets introduced into a place like the non-union Dixie south, which is the most improbable place for an advanced form of worker control to start out in the United States, that is going to make a difference.”

“These foreign transplants can fail, and sometimes they take root. As we become a more globalized economy, there is a real chance that good things as well as bad things are going to happen for labor.”

As for labor law in the United States, Geoghegan doesn’t think the labor law model in the United States — with its foundation being the agency shop — is worth defending.

The agency shop requires workers to pay dues to a union — whether they belong to that union or not. For years, corporate lobbyists have been pushing “right to work” legislation that would undermine the agency shop. In right to work states, if you don’t belong to a union, you don’t have to pay dues.

The right wing plays off of real populist anathema of workers being forced to pay dues to a union it doesn’t want to join.

“There is a lot to be said to the notion that if you don’t provide voice, at least you provide exit,” Geoghegan says. “It creates a dynamic where people don’t feel it’s imposed on them. Right now, even with right to work, people feel it’s being imposed upon them because the union is your exclusive representative, whether you like it or not.”

“But take this Tennessee situation with VW. The union is saying — we are not going to control the work site, it’s up to you (through works councils). That creates an atmosphere that disarms the biggest argument the right has against labor — you are being forced into something. I’m in favor of being forced into something. I believe in solidarity and collective action. But you can have that without exclusive representation. The Europeans have it. We could move in that direction and still have a strong labor movement.”

Geoghegan proposes a grand bargain for a new labor movement.

“I propose a great bargain — giving up the agency shop in return for a labor law that gives working people the same kind of rights and same legal remedies that exist now under the civil rights laws for employees who face discrimination because of race, sex, age or gender,” Geoghegan says.

“I’m trying to apply that same model to unions. That gives individual workers the rights to go to court, hire their own lawyers, let the lawyers get legal fees, which you can’t get now under the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) go for preliminary injunctions, most of all rifle through the company files and depose CEOs — also something you can’t do under the labor laws.”

“Employers are completely insulated from the kind of litigation that they face in almost every area of American life and commerce. Under the labor law, you can’t get in there to depose them usually. You don’t get legal fees. You don’t get injunctions. You don’t get before district court judges.”

“The civil rights laws have been extremely powerful in stopping blatant, open race discrimination. In labor, we are stuck in this time warp of the 1930s. The idea was that the solutions would be collectivist in approach. There would be remedies for the unions, not for individual workers.”

“I’m proposing a simple change in the civil rights laws to make them apply to working people. Legislation along these lines has been introduced by Congressman Keith Ellison and John Lewis.”

But Geoghegan argues that much good organizing can be done without changing the law. He says that three Starbucks workers can simply walk off the job in the middle of the day and be protected under the Wagner Act. And he wants a series of those kinds of disruptive strikes to jumpstart the labor movement.

“These disruptive in and out strikes have been tried in cases where unions haven’t been able to get contracts,” Geoghegan says. “You can’t walk off, oddly enough, if you are under a collective bargaining agreement. They all have no strike clauses and no strike clauses are implied. But that’s only seven percent of the private sector that are under collective bargaining agreements. That leaves 93 percent who are free to walk out any time.”

“I argue for employing these strikes more aggressively in a context where you aren’t necessarily trying to get contracts. It’s fine if three go out. If Starbucks want to settle, they cut a deal with those three who walk out. That’s not illegal. It’s not illegal for Starbucks to raise their wages or to raise all employee wages.”

Geoghegan believes that both AFL and the Chamber of Commerce are not going to like his grand bargain — get rid of the agency shop and pass a civil rights law to protect labor.

The AFL?

“I think they would be against it,” he says.

Why?

“It’s like shooting Niagara,” he says. “You don’t know what the consequences are going to be. You get the civil rights law. Will you really transform the country? Will it lead to much more membership? I think the bargain would be in labor’s favor if you can use the law to transform the way employers treat workers who want to join unions and union organizers. I think you could get to 20 percent or 25 percent coverage of the workforce.”

“We have right to work in more than half the country and in the federal government. Agency shop exists in a declining number of states. You don’t have to join a union if you are a federal employee and you don’t have to pay dues.”
Geoghegan quotes John Dewey as saying that “once an organism loses the sense that it can affect its environment, it starts to weaken and die.”

Cleary, that’s the case with labor in the United States. It is weak and dying. Is there any indication that labor is getting off the mat?

“The teachers union,” he says. “The nurses union. There used to be this phrase — the vanguard of the working class. It always seemed to be steelworkers or coal miners or auto workers. But now it’s the caregivers — the teachers, the nurses — who are the militants. Take education and health care.”

“One of the solutions we haven’t discussed is to have state laws for these not for profits — educational institutions, university hospitals — which can’t move from state to state. They are stuck in these states. And require the institutions to allow some of their employees to elect some of the directors of these not for profit boards. Right now, the board members pick their own successors. And there is no accountability.”

Are we going to start to weaken or die? Or will we get off the mat?

“It’s going in both directions. There are a lot of extremely bright militant working people who want to shake things up. That number is growing. The number of people who are disengaged, don’t know what a union is, have given up — that number is also growing. Which direction is going to win out?”

[For the complete q/a transcript of the Interview with Thomas Geoghegan, see 29 Corporate Crime Reporter 2(13), January 12, 2015, print edition only.]

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