Keeping employers from using their leverage over the lives of employees to lock unions out of most work places is a key benefit of "neutrality agreements." Whether unions win and workers join union is a vital question in a number of ways.

I’ve written here and here about the attempts of union to organize unorganized workers using “neutrality agreements” in which employers agree to not campaign against unionization.

As Ed Ott, NYC Central Labor Council Director, said at Demos while ago, unions are the engine for helping lower income people to financial security. This was shown to be true recently in an interesting study by the Center for Economic & Policy Research . The study by John Schmitt compared the wages of unionized with non-unionized workers. Union workers make more (yawn?) But a surprising finding – low-wage union workers make much more – 20% more than non-union workers. (Hat tip to Jonathan Tasini for finding this first, by the way).

In addition strong unions help further the progressive agenda in other ways: unions campaign for affordable housing, for education funding and fair tax. The last 7 & ½ years of Mr. Bush’s class war on low and moderate income people harmed all of us: less money for affordable housing, education, higher gas & food prices and stagnating wages and of course, no start on sustainable energy policy. No matter who’s elected president, the struggle to reverse the impacts of the years of Bush looting will require serious struggle. Strong unions would be helpful in that effort and yet –as Andy McDonald of the Service Workers International Union (SEIU) pointed out -- 7 ½ % of private-sector workers are represented by unions; 92 ½ % are not. .

I wrote previously about labor-management neutrality agreements which have been the subject of intense debate among union activists and labor scholars. Under these confidential agreements, union leaders and employers make deals which facilitate union organizing.

“Neutrality Agreements”-- more or less secret deals -- between a union and management involve give and take on both sides. The unions agree to limit their organizing efforts to specific locales, to not campaign against management, and to not strike (under most circumstances). At some sites, Management agrees not to oppose the union’s organizing efforts and to recognize the union where a majority of workers have signed cards asking for union representation. Management gets some stability, some immunity from workplace disruption. Unions get the freedom to organize. Some have charged that such agreements lock out other unions, allow parent unions to dominate locals, and erode workers rights. It’s a difficult balance. At what point does an agreement go too far and align the union with the boss?

To be fair, for a change, I called up SEIU, Unite-Here and a few observer-activists to get their views:

Andy McDonald, an SEIU voice, pointed out that – of the private-sector work-force, 92½% are without union representation. “SEIU is obsessed with addressing the needs of the 921/2 %.” Psychologically obsessed?” Obsessed, he affirmed.

The union song , above, by Florence Reese, underscores the complete divide many of us grew up with between workers and their labor unions and the bosses. Like many things I learned on my parents’ knees, this model of class struggle may be subject to revision. Some of you may know that, as total labor union membership and share of the workforce has dropped dramatically over the last many years, unions have developed competing labor federations: the AFL-CIO rooted in a long complex history and a newer federation Change to Win (CTW) .

Initially the differences between the AFL-CIO and CTW seemed to be about how to organize new workers. CTW unions, like the Teamsters, the Service Employees and Unite-Here wanted to devote more money and resources to organizing new members than the AFL was prepared to. As time has gone by however, it appears that Change to Win has changed in another way. They’ve abandoned the old paradigm of workers vs. bosses and changed. Will they win?

The Service Employees International Union (Andy Stern Pres.) and Unite-Here (Bruce Raynor & John Wilhelm, Co-Presidents) have embarked on a new era of labor-management relations. While their reasons for doing so are clear and understandable (to me at least) not everyone is clapping and there appear to be some very unpalatable outcomes.

In brief, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, (subscription required, sorry)

Two of the nation's largest labor unions have struck confidential agreements with large employers that give the companies the right to designate which of their locations, and how many workers, the unions can seek to organize.
The agreements are raising questions about union transparency and workers' rights. A summary document put together by the unions says it is critical to the success of the partnership "that we honor the confidentiality and not publicly disclose the existence of these agreements." That includes not disclosing them to union members. [emphasis added by me]