On the Rise of Independent Unions
Chipotle workers in Augusta, Maine, celebrate filing for union recognition as Chipotle United in June 2022.
This year, we have witnessed the rise of independent unions in many industries and across the US: Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island, NY; Trader Joe’s United in Hadley, MA and in Minneapolis, MN, Chipotle Workers United in Augusta, ME; Geico United Labor Union in Buffalo, NY; Home Depot Workers United in Philadelphia, PA; New Seasons Labor Union in Portland, OR; and T-Force Social Care Alliance. The existence of these new unions has changed the landscape of the labor movement. Just a year ago, hardly anyone knew what unions were, let alone independent unions. Today, independent labor unions are leading a revival of worker organizing.
This poses the question: what explains the emergence of independent unions in the US? To answer this question, one must look at the trajectory of the US labor movement for the past few decades. This is because the independence of these unions, including ours, is defined by their relation to the big trade union federations: the American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC, formerly Change to Win).
Since the birth of the AFL-CIO in 1955, its history has been marked by its inability to keep up with the changing US economy. Workers have had to pay the price – and we continue to do so. Over the years, this has meant the loss of jobs due to automation; workplace injuries resulting in disabilities and fatalities due to new technologies that increase productivity; poverty wages, long hours, and terrible working conditions in an ever-expanding service industry, which remains largely unorganized; an intensified legal and policy assault on unions in the name of increasing productivity and combating “inflated” wages. This trend persisted with the founding of the CTW/SOC. As a result, large numbers of workers continue to be unorganized. Union density plunged from a peak of 34.8% in 1954 to 10.3% in 2021, despite the hopeful upsurge in October 2021 that many dubbed “Striketober.”
A damning report from Chris Bohner of Radish Research revealed that even though union density has declined over the past decade, union coffers have expanded:
While union membership declined by nearly half a million members from 2010 to 2020, this membership loss did not adversely impact union finances. Total revenues increased by 28% over the last decade, exceeding the 17% increase in union spending. As a result, labor has reliably generated large budget surpluses, netting over $18.5 billion over the last decade, or $1.7 billion annually on average. As surpluses have increased, the net assets (assets minus liabilities) of organized labor have nearly doubled, increasing from $15 billion in 2010 to $29 billion in 2020.
This means that money was not the source of the failures of the big unions, and that in fact, union leaders have had the funds to hire union organizers to turn the tide. Instead, they have done the exact opposite. They cut staff during 2020, the year that employers laid off workers left and right and used COVID to grind workers down further. And the AFL-CIO did this while increasing the gross earnings of those in management positions:
According to the Census Bureau, organized labor employs 23,440 fewer employees in 2020 compared to 2010, a 19% decline in the workforce (with a steep drop in 2020 likely due to the pandemic). However, management positions within organized labor have increased by 28%, with more than 10,000 employees earning a gross salary over $125,000, putting labor leaders and senior management in the top tenth percentile of income in the U.S.
This report reminds us of another recent and relevant incident. In May 2019, a leaked copy of the AFL-CIO’s internal budget for 2018-2019 revealed that union leaders dedicated less than a tenth of their budget to organizing while they dedicated more than 35% to funding political activities. This shows workers that the big unions have other priorities, priorities that cannot replace the work of organizing the unorganized – the reason why unions exist in the first place.
In response to the formation of independent unions, some say that independent unions should affiliate with the AFL- CIO, because independent unions do not have as many resources. It is no doubt true that independent unions do not have the resources of the AFL-CIO and the Strategic Organizing Center. But given the history of the big trade unions, it is clear that the question is not simply about resources. It is about the nature of different types of unions—that is, whether the unions prepare workers to win victories from employers in order to further strengthen the working class itself, and whether they use their resources to do that.
Of course, we cannot be indifferent to the question of scale, and we recognize that a patchwork landscape of small independents will be unable to advance the interests of the working class in a durable manner, no matter how militant each individual union may be. The current renewal of the labor movement through independent unions must therefore proceed along the path of ever-closer and more systematic links in the line of sectoral unions. Moreover – depending on the sector – our organizing efforts must proceed both within and outside the big unions, everywhere and always working to extend the organization and militancy of the working class.