Opinion: In Search of Union Democracy
Introduction by C.M. Lewis
Robert and John Kennedy confer during a session of the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management. (Kennedy Library)
The question of trade union democracy has occupied labor scholarship and labor activism for decades. Desire for internal accountability for trade union leadership has often existed in tension with the need for highly disciplined action against capital, leading some scholars to question the limits of democracy in the labor movement. Conversely, numerous reform movements—such as Teamsters for a Democratic Union—have argued for greater democracy, often arguing that greater democracy leads to greater militancy.
The American Civil Liberties Union commissioned a survey of democracy in the trade union movement during the Second World War, predating both of the major post-war amendments to the National Labor Relations Act: the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959. A final report was published in November of 1943, leading to a push for a “Bill of Rights” for trade union members in Congress. Some aspects of such a “Bill of Rights” were adopted as part of Landrum-Griffin over a decade later.
We are republishing the pamphlet—which is not widely available—in parts, with introductions. This selection is the foreword to the pamphlet. Our republication will comprise part of a series on the question of union democracy.
The report “Democracy in Trade Unions,” issued by the American Civil Liberties Union in 1943, is a product of its times—sometimes to a fault—and is at points eerily prescient of the political challenges that organized labor would face in the coming decades.
As the below will detail, the pamphlet was intended to stave off significant legislative intervention by encouraging organized labor to critically examine its own practices. The intent was not to establish wide-ranging governmental controls or regulation of trade union democracy, or trade unions as institutions: rather, it was hoped that unions would take care of their own house. Self-regulation would avoid, it was hoped, external regulation of organized labor.
It is unclear how much changed within labor between the issuance of the report and the passage of Landrum-Griffin in 1959, but regardless, Congress—motivated by James R. Hoffa and allegations of corruption in the Teamsters—ultimately intervened to establish wide-ranging governmental regulation of internal trade union governance. In this sense, the report failed to achieve its aim of avoiding wide-ranging government intervention.
There were concrete reasons for them to express alarm about potential backlash even in advance of the post-war strike wave and the introduction of Taft-Hartley. The foreword alludes to bills introduced on the state level introducing mandatory licensure of union organizers and business agents, some of which are still (as in Texas) on the books. Many of these bills also introduced onerous reporting and disclosure requirements under the guise of protecting trade union democracy. These were some of the earliest signs of employer resistance to the NLRA regime translating into policymaking, and are often ignored as a warning of the backlash that would turn into Taft-Hartley and later curbs on union power.
For all of its concern, the report was informed by perhaps too much optimism that the regime established by the National Labor Relations Act would hold, and that the era of pitched industrial warfare and widespread employer abuses had fully ended. Although there has yet to be a return to the commonplace violence of the pre-NLRA era, decades of experience under the NLRA (as amended) has shown that employers have not, as the report assumed, ceased abuses of workers and of the law. The development of labor law has simply changed the methods through which they do so.
It was also informed by a view of labor unions as an emerging part of civil society, playing a quasi-governmental role representing organized workers. The foreword’s authors assumed that the “autocratic” tendencies of labor, fashioned to fight autocratic capital, were no longer necessary, and that labor organizations would become state-adjacent actors mediating labor relations. Desire for avoiding industrial conflict seemed to be an assumed goal.
This is a particular perspective on the role of trade unions and their position in 1943, and one which many—particularly more radical elements within the Congress of Industrial Organizations—may have disputed. Those radicals were not particularly beloved by the report’s authors: a topic which will be addressed by later segments.
However, the report presents a sober and valuable view of the question of trade union democracy, and represents one of the first serious attempts to grapple with the question of democratic trade unionism in the post-NLRA era. It raises vital questions that are relevant not only for understanding organized labor’s history, but can be applied to scrutinizing the labor movement today. It is not the sole or “correct” view, but it is part of a debate which still resonates nearly eighty years after the report’s publication.
As an editorial note: the report’s language is a product of its time, and reflects the social views of the period. Language has been changed in highly limited instances, with care to avoid changing the meaning of the text.
Foreword
The undersigned welcome this survey of democracy in trade unions as a timely contribution to public policy. While we have not participated in the research or drafting, we endorse the recommendations as in the best interests both of unions and the public. None of us are employers or trade union officials, and all of us represent in various ways what may be properly called the public interest.
It is evident that unless the abuses in trade unions which have aroused widespread hostility are corrected, the drive for legislative control may not only undo the great gains for labor’s rights of recent years, but also impose unwarranted restrictions. Those abuses arise largely from lack of democratic practices in many unions—resulting in the exclusion of Black workers, women and others qualified by their skills, in limitation of membership by high fees, in control of autocratic cliques, or in a few unions by racketeers—and in the failure of some unions to hold regular and fair elections and to account to the membership for union funds.
These practices are, it is true, exceptions to the generally democratic methods of most unions. But they are exceptions conspicuous enough to furnish ammunition for labor’s enemies, by which public sympathy is alienated, and unreasonable public controls thereby more easily imposed. It is therefore imperative that through pressure within the trade union movement itself, these exceptional abuses be corrected, or that such controls as may be established by law do not go beyond reasonable requirements for promoting genuine democratic responsibility within the unions.
It may be argued that in time of war trade unions, like other agencies, must submit to restrictions essential to complete national unity. But it is evident that with few exceptions the unions have been willing to forego the exercise of many of these rights and to cooperate wholeheartedly in obtaining maximum production with minimum interruption. The vice of the restrictions proposed in war-time, and already adopted in many states and by Congress, is not their relation to the war but their reflection of hostile forces using the war as an occasion to harm or destroy the union permanently. And to do so labor’s enemies cite the evils inherent in undemocratic union practices, though they may affect only a minority—autocratic leadership, racketeering, arbitrary rule, manipulation by minorities.
It therefore is imperative, even in the midst of war, if labor is to survive the attack without loss of essential rights, that the abuses be promptly tackled and remedied, chiefly by the unions themselves. A disposition to recognize them and to correct them would go far to enlist that public confidence in unionism without which it cannot maintain or extend its independence and rights.
We who endorse this report are wholly opposed to legislation which would impose legal restrictions on the right to strike (save as it may be voluntarily surrendered in war-time), and on the right to peaceful picketing. We are opposed also to compulsory incorporation of unions, to licensing labor representatives, to outlawing jurisdictional strikes or the closed shop.
We are opposed to legal restraints on unions beyond two measures guaranteeing (1) that unions shall be open to all qualified members without restriction (2) that the democratic rights of members under union constitutions shall be protected.
We support legislation encouraging orderly industrial relations. We have supported the National Labor Relations Act as a necessary guarantee of peaceful organization and collective bargaining. We have welcomed as a public service the exposures by the Senate Committee on Civil Liberties of the lawless practices by which trade unions were so long fought and which happily appear now to be largely a matter of history.
The rule of force in industrial relations has been supplanted, with few exceptions, by the rule of law. It is essential, therefore, that trade unions which now receive governmental recognition and protection should respond by freeing themselves from any remnants of the autocratic practices which accompanied the era of industrial warfare.
It is only reasonable that the law should afford relief to union members to insure that their leaders should hold office as a result of fair and regular elections, that they should account to the membership for the expenditure of union’s funds; that honest opposition to union leadership should be tolerated without penalty; that fair trials with provision for appeals to an impartial tribunal should be afforded to all members, and that no discrimination should be made between members on account of their attitude to the leadership or on grounds of race, sex, religion, politics, or national origin.
These are elementary principles of democratic fairness. They are guarantees not only for union members but for all of us. Democracy within private agencies as powerful as trade unions goes far toward maintaining democracy in our political life.
We cannot emphasize too strongly that we are dealing not with the main current of American trade unionism, but with exceptional practices—but practices [of] sufficient importance to arouse undeserved prejudice against the trade union movement as a whole. We assert our profound belief that American trade unionism is on the whole democratic, that it is public-spirited, that it is highly patriotic and that it constitutes one of the most progressive forces in American life. Its evils have been exaggerated out of all proportions by a hostile press and by antagonistic employers. It is the function of those of us who endeavor to see fairly the structure and purposes of trade unions and to advocate those measures which in the long run will establish them in public confidence as one of the bulwarks of American democracy.
While all of the undersigned join in support of the general objectives of the recommendations, not all agree on all specific items. A few of those with reservations think the recommendations too far-reaching, but most would go further. It would only lead to confusion to publish those reservations now.
James Chamberlain Baker (Bishop of Methodist Episcopal Church, Los Angeles, California)
Mary R. Beard (Historian, New Milford, Connecticut)
Carl Becker (Cornell University)
Jacob Billikopf (Labor Relations Expert, Philadelphia, Pa.)
Morris Llewellyn Cooke (Consulting Engineer, Washington, D.C.)
John A. Fitch (New York School of Social Work)
William G. Haber (University of Michigan)
Herbert Harris (Fortune Magazine, New York City)
Willard Hotchkiss (Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Freda Kirchwey (Editor, The Nation, New York City)
William Draper Lewis (Director, American Law Institute, Philadelphia, Pa.)
Lewis Mayers (College of the City of New York)
Spencer Miller, Jr. (Former Director, Workers Education Bureau, New York)
James Myers (Industrial Secretary, Federal Council of Churches, New York City)
Max Otto (University of Wisconsin)
Selig Perlman (University of Wisconsin)
Edward Alswroth Ross (University of Wisconsin)
Msgr. John A. Ryan (National Catholic Welfare Conference, Washington, D.C.)
Joel Seidman (Author of “Union Rights and Union Duties,” New York City)
I.L. Scharfman (University of Michigan)
Herbert L. Spencer (President, Pennsylvania College for Women, Pittsburgh)
Philip J. Taft (Brown University, Providence, R.I.)
Ordway Tead (Editor, Harper & Bros., New York City)
Francis Tyson (University of Pittsburgh)
Lynn T. White (San Francisco Theological Seminary)
William Allen White (Editor of The Emporia Gazette, Kan.)
C.M. Lewis is an editor of Strikewave and a union activist in Pennsylvania.