Workplace Democracy

Elaine Bernard

Reviving unions, as Steve Lerner correctly points out, is of importance not only to the labor movement, but for all of American civil society. While militant tactics can contribute to this revitalization, we need to do more than become militant business unions. That is, we need to adopt (or perhaps restore) a bold philosophy of the role of unions and the rights of workers in a democracy.

When Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA, the cornerstone of US labor law) in 1935, its purpose was not simply to provide a procedural mechanism to end industrial strife in the workplace. Rather, it had the far more ambitious mission of promoting industrial democracy. To extend democracy into the workplace, the NLRA instituted "free collective bargaining" between workers and employers. Unions were to be encouraged, not simply tolerated, as it was understood that workers could not engage in meaningful collective bargaining without collective representation.

Viewing labor rights as part of a wider struggle for democracy is essential for the growth of the labor movement today.

Needless to say, it has been a long time since we've heard any President or Administration, much less Congress, talk about promoting industrial democracy. In fact, the very term "industrial democracy" seems like a contradiction in terms. While we might not expect politicians to lead the charge for democracy in the workplace and the right of workers to fully participate in workplace decisions, what about organized labor? Has labor been on the defensive so long that they have lost sight of this long-term goal?

While the occasional union document makes a passing reference to "workplace democracy," beyond this brief salute to the cause, labor has made little effort in recent years to draw the connection between workers' rights in the workplace and the overall struggle of working people for democracy in the United States. Rather than relegating workplace democracy to an abstract, long-term goal, labor today needs to tap this source of wider appeal for unions by placing the extension of democracy into the workplace front and center in its vision of a new labor movement.

Fighting for democracy in the workplace -- not simply the right to form unions-- is vital to restoring the social mission of labor and returning unions to their social movement heritage. While unions remain necessary in our society to actualize workplace rights, it is also important for unions to lead the charge on the whole anti-democratic workplace regime.

But democracy is not an extracurricular activity that can be relegated to evenings and weekends.

Viewing labor rights as part of a wider struggle for democracy is essential for the growth of the labor movement today. With organized labor down to just 15 percent of the total workforce, and a dismal 11 percent of the private sector, the vast majority of today's workers have no direct experience with unions. But as citizens, they have a concept of democracy and the rights of citizens. Unfortunately, American workers are schooled every day at work to believe that democracy stops at the factory or office door. But democracy is not an extracurricular activity that can be relegated to evenings and weekends. The labor movement is the natural vehicle to convey this to a broad public.

While the battle to restore "fairness" in labor law is important, even a victory in this campaign would simply bring us back to 1935. We should instead question the basic assumption of US labor law that the natural state of the workplace is union-free with workers having no rights. We need to re-establish among a new generation of workers the fundamental idea that one of the key purposes of a union is to bring democratic rights of participation, enjoyed in the rest of society, into the workplace.

The authoritarianism of the workplace in the United States diminishes our standing as a democracy. Indeed, in the latter part of this century, instead of the democratization of the American workplace, the hierarchical corporate workplace model is coming to dominate the rest of society. Tactics are important to the revitalization of the US labor movement, but the tactics need to arise out of a new sense of entitlement.

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