Citizens of the Corporation?: Workplace Democracy in a Post-Union Era
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Description
Once upon a time, in the cauldron of economic depression and widespread labor unrest that produced the New Deal, the idea of “industrial democracy” burst into mainstream discourse and helped produce the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The NLRA, still the foundation of U.S. labor law, created a framework for industrial democracy through union representation and collective bargaining. Of course, unionization was not mandatory; it was an option that could be exercised by a majority of workers in a particular bargaining unit, and that employers (at least since the 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the NLRA) could freely and quite aggressively oppose. And that they did. For unionized operations, with their higher wages and benefits, had to compete with nonunion operations. Globalization and deregulation gradually ramped up product market pressures, which stoked employer resistance to unionization, which in turn outstripped the reach and deterrent capacity of the aging NLRA. That, in short, is the story behind the drastic decline of union density to less than 8 percent in the private sector. It will take a monumental effort by organized labor, and a political economic sea change, to bring that figure back up to double digits. That battle is worth fighting, but it would still leave 90 percent of private sector workers without any semblance of what we once called industrial democracy. It is telling that we can barely entertain the notion of a democratic form of workplace governance today without backpedaling: we do not really mean “democracy,” of course, but only some form of collective worker “voice” or participation. We cannot quite conceive of workers as citizens of the workplace with a right of collective self-determination, but only perhaps as “stakeholders” of firms that are governed by managers who are chosen by and accountable to the firm’s shareholders. Nor is there much currency these days to the notion that citizens in a democratic society must enjoy a measure of democracy in their economic lives. We have become accustomed to thinking of work as a domain of economic relations—of market forces, supply and demand, entry and exit— rather than a domain of politics. And yet perhaps there is still a case to be made for a form of workplace democracy that can meet employee needs and aspirations without provoking vehement employer resistance—a domesticated version of workplace democracy to supplement (and not to replace) the essential right of workers to go into opposition against their employer by forming a union. This essay explores the question of what workplace democracy could mean in the twenty- first century for the overwhelming majority of private sector workers that are destined to remain without union representation. It first takes up the questions of “what workers want,” and what they have by way of representation in today’s workplace. It then turns to whether and why workers still need a collective voice in the modern workplace, given the rise of employment mandates and improved workplace management practices. Finally, it suggests a role for responsible corporate citizens in supplying a measure of what workers want and need as workplace citizens (if only the law would allow them to do so).
Source Publication
Corporations and Citizenship?
Source Editors/Authors
Greg Urban
Publication Date
2014
Recommended Citation
Estlund, Cynthia, "Citizens of the Corporation?: Workplace Democracy in a Post-Union Era" (2014). Faculty Chapters. 433.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/433
