News » February 24, 2005

The Midwest Union Rollback

Newly elected Republican governors nix public workers’ collective bargaining rights

By David Bacon

Republican Governors Matt Blunt (Missouri, right) and Mitch Daniels (Indiana, left) take their cue from the Bush administration in rolling back workers' rights.

Someone in the Republican Party is obviously paying attention to the last decade’s statistics on union growth, which show the biggest gains among public employees. A recent wave of decisions against public workers in Midwest states is threatening to reverse that trend.

Recently elected Republican governors in both Indiana and Missouri have rescinded previous measures that extended state employees collective bargaining rights. Governor Ernie Fletcher did the same last year in Kentucky. And public sector bargaining is under siege in Iowa and Oklahoma.

At a time when the labor movement is declining, and now represents only 12.5 percent of the workforce, these attacks have intensified the crisis of declining union density by aiming at an area where, at least in terms of numbers, unions have been most successful.

In Missouri, Gov. Matt Blunt had promised that he would end collective bargaining for state workers during his campaign, and he did just that within days of taking office. Workers hadn’t had bargaining rights that long—it was only in 2001 that then-Gov. Bob Holden, a Democrat, issued an executive order allowing them to form unions and negotiate contracts.

Of the state’s 61,000 workers, about 25,000 joined the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union. Thus far, the two unions have negotiated agreements covering 9,000 people, including probation and parole workers, maintenance employees, nurses and other healthcare workers. Clauses that require membership as a condition of employment are illegal under Missouri’s “right to work” law, so those contracts have agency-fee provisions that require workers to pay unions a fee for bargaining, even if they don’t belong.

As secretary of state, Blunt had previously challenged Holden’s order allowing agency fees, but an administrative law judge ruled against him. Upon taking office, Blunt claimed that the already-negotiated contracts were void, since they hadn’t been reviewed and approved by the Missouri General Assembly. The legislature, controlled by Republicans, would not likely approve any union contracts, even if it got the chance.

In Indiana, Gov. Mitch Daniels hadn’t warned anyone of his intention to cancel bargaining during his election campaign, but no sooner had he been sworn in than he too ended collective bargaining for state workers.

The process in Indiana was much more firmly established. In an intra-union battle royal in the early ’90s, a number of unions competed fiercely for representation rights after Democratic Gov. Evan Bayh signed the initial executive order in 1989. Of Indiana’s 35,000 state employees, 14,000 finally won representation by the Unity Team, a partnership between the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of Teachers. Another 8,600 workers belong to AFSCME, while 1,400 state police and law enforcement personnel belong to the International Union of Police Associations.

Like those in Missouri, the union contracts covered vacations, seniority rights, job training and education, and grievance procedures, in addition to wages. While half the state’s employees earn less than $29,738 a year, the unions were successful in pushing salaries upward, and in one year some workers received raises as much as 20 percent. Daniels’ order made all of this subject to unilateral decision by state bureaucrats. In place of grievance procedures, he gave state workers the right to appeal discipline decisions to the State Employees Appeals Commission, which has a record of reversing only 2 percent of managerial decisions.

Indiana’s public bargaining arrangement has to be reauthorized every term by each incoming governor. After Bayh, Governors Frank O’Bannon and Joe Kernan each issued the required executive order. Daniels refused to do so. While public sector collective bargaining bills have been introduced into the legislature every session, a Republican majority has blocked it each time.

Democrats in the legislature have sworn to take action if Daniels doesn’t reverse course, but it’s difficult to imagine what they could do. State Rep. Patrick Bauer admitted it was a long shot, but said, “The people of Indiana will know who stands in their corner.” AFSCME is discussing a media and public education campaign. The Unity Team has threatened a lawsuit. In the meantime, Fuzz LeMay, president of Unity Local 9212, put an appeal on their Web site urging workers not to pay attention to managers saying the union was out of business. “I simply say to you brothers and sisters, stay in this fight!” he exhorted. “Your union dues are not that high. There will be better days ahead!”

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, collective bargaining for municipal workers (other than fire and police) was declared unconstitutional by County District Judge Daniel Owens, in a case brought by the city of Enid. The law giving public workers union rights in cities with more than 35,000 people was only passed last year, but already legislation has been introduced to repeal it if the judge’s order fails. And in Iowa, Republican Rep. Bill Dix has unveiled a proposal that would authorize the legislature and governor to intervene in negotiations involving state workers.

All these efforts take their political cue from the Bush administration, which has mounted a concerted campaign to roll back the union rights of federal workers since it first came to power. After 9/11, Bush voided collective bargaining for 186,000 workers in the Homeland Security Department, and has threatened to do the same in the even-larger Defense Department.

The assault on Midwest public workers, says AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney, “echoes a message coming from the White House down to men and women on the front lines of our struggles against poverty, disease, crime and terrorism all across our country: ‘We expect first-class devotion, service and sacrifice, but we will treat you like second-class citizens.’”

In the current discussions over the direction of the labor movement, some voices have proposed a more militant response. Now that the attack on workers has spread to the states, such proposals are sure to be raised more frequently, and more loudly.

• Help In These Times publish more articles like this. Donate today!
• Subscribe today and save 46% off the newsstand price!

• subscribe to print magazine

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments

  I heard on the news today. IT workers are sueing their employers for overtime pay.

  Everyone for the last twenty years has marveled at the wonderful productivity gains in this country, but can’t seem to put their finger on where they are coming from.

  Well, the answer is right in front of their faces. They just don’t want to SAY what it is, because it is in direct conflict with the so-called “magic” of the free market, and the pro-business policies of government during that same period.

  Productivity gains have come at the expense of workers (the 40 hour workweek is long dead), stagnant and at times DECLINING wages, unpaid overtime, reduced benefits (which reduces cost), destruction of unions and an absolute tilting of the scales in favor of management and their corporate masters.

  The pendulum has swung totally against PEOPLE. Government sold the public a bill of goods that reduced taxes on corporations would lead to wage growth, job creation and prosperity.

  The American people were rewarded with job outsourcing, draconian job cuts, a systemic and chronic national unemployment rate of almost 6%, a shredded safety net, a pass off of coverage costs from the federal government to those unable to meet their simple daily expenses, and now to add insult to injury LOCAL governments turning their backs on their citizens.

  THIS is the ownership society of the class warfare waging elitist Republicans. This is the AMERICA of the richest 1% of the population that bankrupted the nation the LAST time, with the same callous, free market rhetoric, policies and unfettered behavior of greed, callousness, and lack of moral committment to the country.

  Posted by Liberal AND Proud on Feb 24, 2005 at 3:33 PM

  I don’t care what some people say about immigrant workers, americans ARE the hardest working people in the world and more and more they are getting less and less of anything for all their trouble! How many americans take actual vacations anymore? We, as a people, MUST stop this isolating at home with TV thing and FUCKING ORGANIZE ourselves. THEY SURE ARE!

  Posted by God Bless The UNION on Feb 24, 2005 at 9:49 PM

  Capital and businesses have more value to politicians than than do individuals - though human beings should come first and are the very basis of support for all of the above. When the amount of payroll paid by a company exceeds the amount of capital invested in the enterprise by stockholders - who is doing the work to keep the company open, should the continuing profits not be shared equally? Depends on how stupid advertising has made your family.(sic)

  Posted by SH on Feb 25, 2005 at 3:38 AM

  Off Topic but we all need to keep our eyes out to
  stop this insanity and help if we can.

  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,148719,00.html

  Posted by protect the innocent on Feb 25, 2005 at 8:53 PM

  If things get bad enough will people change their voting patterns and start to fight in order to regain the simple rights that are being stripped away.  As it is almost everyone I know now works 50 hours a week and most are on salary.  The White Collar sweatshop is a fact of life that people put themselves through so that perhaps one day they will make corporate. I have been obsessed with the labor movement as of late and have been trying to follow the drama that it is going through as we speak.  I really think labor is one of the few forces that stand in the way of the Right’s goals.  I am glad we have David Bacon to help articulate some of the issues at hand everyone should read his book Children of NAFTA to see what these types of neo-liberal policies foment.  And if anyone wants, I have been so sick of these attacks I have been ranting on my own blog ocne a day www.citizenchris.org Please check it out and comment.

  Posted by Chris A Snyder on Feb 27, 2005 at 12:40 AM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 47 posts.

Also featured A Corrupted Election
Beating the Boomers
The People’s Business

Full contents
Previous issues
Subscribe and save!

Also by David Bacon

• Lockout KO’d
  San Francisco hotel workers triumph with help from city-by-city supportPosted on December 22, 2004
• Grocery Workers Go to War Over Healthcare
  Los Angeles—Mark Norton is one of 70,000 workers locked out or forced on… morePosted on January 27, 2004
• Workers Unite
  Unions around the world oppose the drive for warPosted on February 28, 2003
• No Quiero Taco Bell!
  David Bacon interviews Lucas Benitez of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.Posted on April 12, 2002
• Test Unrest
  California teachers are leading a backlash against high-stakes exams.Posted on February 1, 2002