American unions are at an historic juncture. The recent election loss at Amazon represents an historic opportunity to regenerate the union movement that was lost. The fight to unionize Amazon is not permanently lost; it may only have just begun. But for unions to prevail down the road it will take more than the strategy and tactics used at the Bessemer, Alabama facility where labor lost by a 2 to 1 margin. Why does labor keep losing union elections when polls show more than 65% of Americans want a union? (And higher among younger workers).
Having been a union organizer myself with four different unions in previous years, what follows in my most recent Alternative Visions radio show is some of my comments on why Management strategies and tactics to defeat unionization prevail most of the time, and why Unions’ strategies and tactics mostly fail. The show commentary places the recent Amazon election in historical context of what I call union labor’s ‘Great Detour’, which began in 1947, accelerated in the 1980s under Neoliberal industrial policies, and continues to this day.
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RADIO SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT:
Dr. Rasmus follows up last week’s analysis of the Union defeat at Amazon by placing it in historic context, from the growth of union membership in the 1930s and 1940s to the great strike wave of 1970-71 and the Great Detour and decline of unions under Neoliberal industrial parties that began with Reagan in the 1980s and continues to this day. How the 1947 Taft Hartley and 1959 Landrum Griffin Acts stopped union strikes for recognition in their tracks and how Employer-State strategy cooperation in the 1970s and beyond have rolled back union membership in the private sector from its peak of 35% (80% in basic industries like auto, steel, transport, etc.) to its barely 5% today. Rasmus explains the strategies and tactics used by employers, with aid of government, to prevent unionization in NLRB elections, such as recently occurred at Amazon. How these strategies and tactics—along with offshoring, free trade, onshoring of H1-B visas, outsourcing, contingent, gig, and other work—have together resulted in a near collapse of private sector unionization in America. Rasmus concludes with a comment on the failure of Obama administration do reform the problem of de-unionization and pass ‘card check’, as well as a review of the Biden administration’s recent PRO Act bill recently passed by the US House of Representatives but all but dead in the US Senate committee.
Dr. Jack Rasmus @drjackrasmus
Jack Rasmus 
Hi Dr Rasmus,
I heard you speak (and met you) a number of years ago at a Green Sunday presentation at the Niebel Proctor Library on Telegraph. I subscribe to your blog and enjoy your writing very much. However, lately you have stopped writing your blogs and have been using podcasts and audio presentations. That is a problem for me because I have a severe sensorineural hearing loss, and rely on closed captioning to fully understand and enjoy movies, DVDs, videos, TV programs, etc. And it is hard to lipread audio tapes, CDs, etc. :-). Thus I miss much of what is said in any audio or video presentation. Thus I wondered if there is a printed transcript available for your audio or video presentations. And if it is at all possible, I would appreciate your writing blog articles for those of us who are hearing impaired. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Larry Fishman 577 58th Street Oakland, CA 94609 510-601-5005
[…] Dr. Rasmus draws on attempts to organize unions on four occasions to make his case. Read/listen at Jack Rasmus […]
Impressive but disheartening. Disheartening because I knew so little of modern labor day history. Obviously not a mistake either by our educational institutions or mainstream media but clearly still disheartening that I was exposed to so little labor history. My other comment is that the roots of neoliberalism began with the economic defeat of this country arising out of the Indochina wars. Essentially this country could not have both guns and butter and the overheating of the economy by the war economy pushed prices out of control. That price spiral triggered a serious and successful labor movement and that movement brought on the counterattack on labor called neoliberalism. It is not a mistake that neoliberalism began with Ronald Reagan since Reagan started his political career attacking the labor movement in the film industry in Los Angeles.
Actually, Neoliberalism began in the last two years of the Carter administration. Reagan tax policies were being formulated then by the BUsiness Council, Business Roundtable, and Chamber of Commerce; they were then quickly launched under Reagan. Monetary policy actually began in 1980, when Carter agreed with business to replace the chair of the Fed with Volcker. Free Trade and other ‘external’ policy would have to wait until the late 1980s in Reagan’s second term; and only really implemented by Clinton. But industrial and anti-union policy originated in 1979, with the Carter-Corporate imposed deal to resolve the 1979 UAW-Chrysler negotiations. That’s when ‘concession bargaining’ began. Other policies to depress wages were introduced in 1980 as well, with the deregulation of key industries legislation. Thus also passed under Carter. Tax policies to encourage offshoring of jobs were developed in 1997-80, but only implemented in 1981 and after. So both Democrats and Republican elites were responsible for the launching of Neoliberal industrial policies that have devastated unions since 1979, and resulted in the mass offshoring of US higher paid, union manufacturing jobs, and stagnation and compression of real wages ever since 1983. Yes, most Americans, and union members included, have little idea of what has happened under Neoliberalism, why their benefits have eroded, why their wages have stagnated, and why their unions have almost disappeared in the private sector In exchange for unions, decent wages, and good jobs, Neoliberalism instead has given them cheap credit (& a mountain of debt), more hours of work per week, the option to put their wives and kids to work, and cheap China made goods from Walmart to offset the lack of wage income growth. All that, in exchange for 40 yrs of real wage compression, less coverage & higher cost of healthcare, replacement of pensions with 401k plans, and destruction of their unions. That’s a big part of the escalation of income inequality in America; the other big cause of the shift in income inequality has been the financialization of capital which has resulted in an explosion of income gains for the 1% and their corporations from investing in financial asset markets where the profitability and returns are far greater than from investing in real assets that produce things and jobs and wages. Add to that the inverting of the tax system, so that wealthy asset owners are redistributed more than a $trillion a year, every year, for the last 20 yrs in stock buybacks and dividend payouts by the corporations they own. The tax system+financialization+destruction of unions and wage stagnation and benefits privatization=accelerating income and wealth inequality in America. It’s all documentable, in my 2020 book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism’ and before that in my 2005 book, ‘The (Class) War At Home’.