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40 Lab. Stud. J. 5 (2015)

handle is hein.journals/labstuj40 and id is 1 raw text is: Official Journal of United Association for Introductory Essay Labr Education Labor Studies journal 2015, Vol. 40(I) 5-7 New Models of Worker @ 2015 UALE Reprints and permissions: Representation sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav RDOI: 1177/060449X15579766 Isj.sagepub.com Robert Bruno Albert Einstein was reputed to have said that continuing to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results was the definition of insanity. He wasn't referring to the labor movement, but it would seem to be an apt assessment of how poorly the idea of collective bargaining has fared since at least Ronald Reagan's elec- tion. In truth, union membership and political influence were in decline before the PATCO strike. But it was not until AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka came to Chicago in 2013 and declared that the basic system of worker representation is failing to meet the needs of America's working men and women by every critical measure that old models of union behavior were no longer the default organizing mode. Some unions had always been creative about how they behaved, and many used innovative techniques to win organizing campaigns and good labor agreements. It's not that everything that organized labor was doing was failing-just too much of it. The fault of labor's retrenchment lay in many areas. First among them was that the political climate turned decidedly hostile. Labor's enemies were diverse but united behind a union-free ideology. Legal protections for union organizing and bargaining were never robust, but since the 1970s, federal attacks on the National Labor Relations Board and state restrictions on public- and private-sector unionism have degraded respect for industrial democracy. Additionally, trade agreements shipped millions of union jobs someplace else, and fiscal policy shifted increased shares of wealth into fewer already well-provisioned hands, which squeezed the life out of public budgets, further eroding the benefits of unionization. As the external threats multiplied, however, organized labor mostly accepted con- cessions and, more fatefully, defaulted to the familiar practice of accepting changes over which it had no influence. When the ground was collapsing underfoot, the labor movement assumed a fortress mentality. Live to fight another day became the battle cry of a badly damaged army of workers. Perhaps the biggest loss was the conceptual flattening of collective bargaining. From a powerful process for creating economic prosperity and democratic problem solving, collective bargaining was reduced to an inconvenience. While employers had mostly only learned to tolerate what they couldn't avoid, the idea of democracy in the workplace had once held out the promise that all labor could be valued and that the rules we work under could contribute to a broadly shared prosperity. But truthfully, it seems that only unions and groups that stand for workers see the future in such inclusive shades. Yet despite repeated predictions of labor's ultimate demise, unions have proven to be remarkably durable institutions. Fight remains. The cause is no less right. But how

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