Company union

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A company or "

National Labor Relations Act §8(a)(2),[2]
due to their use as agents for interference with independent unions. However, company unions persist in many countries.

Some labour organizations are accused by rival unions of behaving as "company unions" if they are seen as having too close or congenial a relationship with the employer or with

trade union centres.[3] In a study of one such organisation, this form of company union was observed to rarely or never strike, exert relatively little energy in resolving individual workplace disputes, and undercut other unions by bargaining for well beneath industry-standard terms
, and was characterised thus:

"[...] an accommodationist, or 'company,' union—an opportunistic, pariah organization that allows employers who would otherwise face a 'real' union (i.e., traditional, militant) a convenient union-avoidance alternative."[4]

International law

A "company union" is generally recognized as being an organization that is not freely elected by the workforce, and over which an employer exerts some form of control. The International Labour Organization defines a company union as "A union limited to a single company which dominates or strongly influences it, thereby limiting its influence."[5] Under the ILO Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) Article 2 effectively prohibits any form of company union. It reads as follows:

1. Workers' and employers' organisations shall enjoy adequate protection against any acts of interference by each other or each other's agents or members in their establishment, functioning or administration.

2. In particular, acts which are designed to promote the establishment of workers' organisations under the domination of employers or employers' organisations, or to support workers' organisations by financial or other means, with the object of placing such organisations under the control of employers or employers' organisations, shall be deemed to constitute acts of interference within the meaning of this Article.

National laws

France

The first yellow union in France, the

Vichy Regime. The labor secretary of Philippe Pétain's administration from 1940 to 1942 was René Belin. After the war, René Belin was involved in 1947 with the creation of the Confédération du Travail indépendant (CTI), renamed Confédération Générale des Syndicats Indépendants [fr] (CGSI) in 1949 as the original acronym was already used by Confédération des Travailleurs intellectuels. The movement was joined by former members of the Confédération des syndicats professionnels français, a union created by François de La Rocque in 1936. The CGSI declared that it was formed by "des hommes d’origine et de formation différentes [qui] se sont trouvés d’accord pour dénoncer la malfaisance de la CGT communisée" (men of different origins who agreed to denounce the malfeasance of the communist CGT).[8] CGSI developed mostly in the automobile industry, for instance in the Simca factory of Poissy.[9]

In 1959, the CGSI became the

Force Ouvrière union in the professional elections.[11][12]
In the automobile industry, the CSL remains as the Syndicat Indépendant de l'Automobile (Independent Automobile Workers' Union).

United States

Company unions were common in the United States during the early twentieth century, but were outlawed under the 1935

National Labor Relations Act
§ 8(a)(2) so that trade unions could remain independent of management. All labor organizations would have to be freely elected by the workforce, without interference.

In 1914, 16 miners and family members (and one national guardsman) were killed when the

Ludlow massacre, was a major public relations debacle for mine owners, and one of them—John D. Rockefeller Jr.—hired labor-relations expert and former Canadian Minister of Labour William Lyon Mackenzie King to suggest ways to improve the tarnished image of his company, Colorado Fuel and Iron. One of the elements of the Rockefeller Plan was to form a union, known as the Employee Representation Plan (ERP), based inside the company itself. The ERP allowed workers to elect representatives, who would then meet with company officials to discuss grievances.[13]

In 1933 the miners voted to be represented by the UMW, ending the ERP at Colorado Fuel and Iron. Company unions, however, continued to operate at other mines in Pueblo, Colorado and Wyoming,[14] and the ERP model was being used by numerous other companies.[15] (The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was organized in part to combat the company union at the Pullman Company.)[16]

In 1935, the

National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act) was passed, dramatically changing labor law in the United States. Section 8(a)(2) of the NLRA makes it illegal for an employer "to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it."[17] Company unions were considered illegal under this code, despite the efforts of some businesses to carry on under the guise of an "Employee Representation Organization" (ERO).[14]

In the mid-20th century, managers of high-tech industry like

Intel in 1968) worked to rid their organizations of union interference. "Remaining non-union is an essential for survival for most of our companies," Noyce once said. "If we had the work rules that unionized companies have, we'd all go out of business."[18]

One way of forestalling unions while obeying the Wagner Act was the introduction of "employee involvement (EI) programs" and other in-house job-cooperation groups. One company included them in their "Intel values," cited by employees as reasons why they didn't need a union. With workers integrated (at least on a project level) into the decision-making structure, the independent union is seen by some as an anachronism. Pat Hill-Hubbard, senior vice-president of the

American Electronics Association, said in 1994: "Unions as they have existed in the past are no longer relevant. Labor law of 40 years ago is not appropriate to 20th century economics." Author David Bacon calls EI programs "the modern company union".[19]

In 1995, pursuant to a report from the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations, Republicans in the U.S. Congress introduced and voted for the

AFL–CIO leader in Los Angeles, said the "Team Act actually would take us backward to the days of company unions."[22] President Bill Clinton vetoed
the bill on 30 July 1996.

Calls to legalize company unions are rare, but New York University law professor Richard Epstein, in an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal on September 11, 2018, called for the repeal of Section 8(a)(2) of the NLRA.[23]

China

Trade unions in the

market reforms are changing the relationship between workers and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (China's sole national trade federation), critics such as U.S. presidential candidate and activist Ralph Nader maintain they are "government-controlled with the Chinese communist party turning them into what would be called 'company unions' in the U.S."[24]

Russia

In many Post-Soviet states, including the Russian Federation, the economic collapse of the early 1990s brought a sharp decline in labor activity. As a result, official union structures often function as de facto company unions.[25]

Japan

Company unions are a mainstay of labor organization in Japan, viewed with much less animosity than in Europe or the United States. Unaffiliated with RENGO (the largest Japanese trade union federation), company unions appeal to both the lack of class consciousness in Japanese society and the drive for social status, which is often characterized by loyalty to one's employer.[26]

Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU), as both a political party and a federations of different trade unions in Hong Kong, has been adapting a political stand which are mostly inclined to the Hong Kong and Beijing Government. Therefore, HKFTU is sometimes classified as a company union, and a Pro-Beijing political party.

Mexico

In the 1930s, unions in

Nuevo Leon, however, coordinated its workers into sindicatos blancos ("white unions"), company unions controlled by corporations in the industrialized region.[27]

Guatemala

In 1997, the

seaport, electrical grid, and telephone and postal services. Canada Post International Limited (CPIL), a subsidiary of Canada Post, and its partner International Postal Services (IPS), was contracted to manage the privatization process. In anticipation of union resistance, CPIL-IPS agents reportedly used company unions, along with bribery and death threats, to ensure a smooth transition.[28]

Company unions are also prevalent among the maquiladoras in Guatemala.[29]

Theory

Supporters of independent trade unions contend that company unions face a

Bombay at the time of the study."[31] Marcel van der Linden states that company unions are "heteronomous trade unions that never or rarely organize strikes" and are mainly established to "keep 'industrial peace' and prevent autonomous trade unions."[32]

Proponents of company unions claim they are more efficient in responding to worker grievances than independent trade unions. Proponents also note that independent trade unions do not necessarily have the company's best interests at heart; company unions are designed to resolve disputes within the framework of maximum organizational (not just company) profitability.[citation needed] For example, economist Leo Wolman wrote in 1924: "[T]he distinction ... between trade unions and other workmen's associations is frequently a vague and changing one. What is today a company union may tomorrow have all of the characteristics of a trade union."[33]

In their wide-ranging 2017 study of the Canadian company union CLAC, geographer Steven Tufts and sociologist Mark Thomas draw a distinction between multiple categories of organisation commonly called "company unions", arguing that it is a mistake to regard the company union phenomenon as purely or essentially pro-business and anti-worker (or necessarily beholden to any specific business), and that rather they should be seen as occupying one end of a spectrum of possible relationships between business and labour: the "accommodationist" end.[4] A defining feature of "accommodationist" or company unionism is that it "seek[s] compromise with employers and capital in the first instance", that is to say, it holds a priori that workers are not generally in competition with employers, and should not organise to take action in despite of, or demand significant concessions from, employers in order to achieve better employment conditions. They "explicitly advocate for collaborative relationships with employers and disparage conflict as a means of achieving gains for workers from the outset."[4]

Though all trade unions do in fact compromise with employers as a matter of arriving at collective agreements, the accommodationist attitude more broadly, and the company union as a specific adoption of that attitude, maintains that workers should not exert any strictly independent collective agency with regard to their employment.[4] This insistence against the legitimacy of independent worker agency often extends beyond the confines of the workplace, and company or accommodationist unions often seek to dispute the legitimacy of the trade union movement as a political movement at large.[4] This brings them into conflict with traditional trade unions in multiple ways; because these aim to organise workers democratically at their jobs in order to pursue their own collective self-interest, as distinct and separate from the interests of the employer; and doubly because traditional trade unions often view workers' struggles as interrelated with broader social-political struggles, and encourage unionised workers to see themselves in solidarity with one another and with broader struggles for justice in society.[4]

In particular, because accommodationist or company unions therefore have no intrinsic means of contesting for the rights and wellbeing of workers beyond what the employer is simply willing to offer (since they don't believe in striking for demands), and beyond what the law already provides for or guarantees (since they don't believe that unions should campaign or lobby for political change or mount legal action), this conflict with "real" unions is not merely ideological, but necessarily practical as well: accommodationist unions organise in direct opposition to existing autonomous trade unions, and generally seek to expand by raiding their shops and locals, with the often explicit goal of supplanting them as the "official" or preferred union recognised by the employer to represent workers, thus setting themselves up as eventual company unions proper.[4] This aggressive practice they then rationalise via recourse to the same accommodationist theory and rhetoric: according to the logic of accommodationism, traditional militant trade unions can be said to have no one but themselves to blame if an employer would rather bargain with a company union than with one which organises worker power to fight for gains.[4]

See also

  • US labor law
  • UK labour law
  • Employers Group, which, as the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, promoted company unions in California

Notes

  1. ^ "Convention C098: Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98)". www.ilo.org. Archived from the original on 2015-06-06. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  2. ^ "Interfering with or dominating a union (Section 8(a)(2)) | National Labor Relations Board". www.nlrb.gov. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  3. ^ Beware of Phony "Unions": AFL warns workers about Company Unions & CLACArchived 2007-09-19 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tufts & Thomas 2017.
  5. ^ ILO.
  6. ^ George L. Mosse The French Right and the Working Classes: Les Jaunes Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 7, No. 3/4 (Jul. - Oct., 1972), pp. 185-208.
  7. ^ Zeev Sternhell a Droite révolutionnaire: Les Origines françaises du fascisme, 1885-1914 (Paris, 1978)
  8. ^ Le syndicaliste indépendant, special issue, march 1956
  9. ^ Jean-Louis Loubet et Nicolas Hatzfeld POISSY: DE LA CGT À LA CFT HISTOIRE D’UNE USINE ATYPIQUE Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire, 73, p. 67-81 (2002)
  10. ^ Results from professional elections 1987-1997 Archived 2008-04-06 at the Wayback Machine La Documentation Française
  11. ^ Elyane Bressol Confédération des Syndicats Libres Archived 2008-11-22 at the Wayback Machine Institut d'histoire sociale CGT
  12. ^ La fin de la Confédération des Syndicats libres (CSL) Archived 2012-07-11 at archive.today Institut Supérieur du Travail
  13. .
  14. ^ a b Bessemer Historical Society.
  15. ^ "Colorado".
  16. ^ Berman.
  17. ^ National Labor Relations Act. [1].
  18. ISSN 0190-8286
    . Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  19. ^ Bacon.
  20. ^ See the Text of the TEAM Bill[permanent dead link]
  21. ^ DLC.
  22. ^ Smith.
  23. ^ Wall Street Journal, Sept. 11, 2018. [2].
  24. ^ Nader.
  25. ^ Riddell.
  26. ^ Hatsuoka.
  27. ^ La Botz.
  28. ^ Skinner.
  29. ^ Coats.
  30. ^ Reid, 151.
  31. ^ Aidt and Tzannatos, 58-59.
  32. ^ van der Linden, Marcel. Workers of the World: Essays Toward a Global Labor History, pp 228-9. Brill Academic Publishers, 2008
  33. ^ Wolman, 21.

References