Workers make important on-the-job decisions every day. Nurses give instructions on how to take care of patients, construction workers decide how to best complete a job, retail managers direct where things go in a store, and so on. Despite workplace realities, employers around the country are pushing hard to classify workers who make important decisions as bosses.
The real bosses—the capitalists—want workers in skilled positions to be classified as “supervisors” under the
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The NLRA, also known as the Wagner Act, is the primary federal labor law that determines the rights of employees to join unions and bargain collectively with employers over wages and terms and conditions of employment.
Enacted by Congress in 1935, the Wagner Act also deemed anti-union activities by owners and violent union busters to be “unfair labor practices.” It passed in the wake of three massive general strikes across the United States in 1934: in San Francisco, Toledo and Minneapolis. Then-president Franklin Roosevelt and the bourgeoisie saw the Act as necessary to quell a potential revolutionary upsurge in the working class and preserve U.S. capitalism. Although the Wagner Act promised more workers’ rights, it also diffused the struggle by shifting union power from strikes to elections and collective bargaining negotiations.
Congress amended the Wagner Act with the reactionary Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. Although the U.S. labor movement surged in militancy and strikes in 1946 following the government-imposed wage freeze that lasted throughout World War II, the passage of Taft-Hartley the following year was clear proof of the damage done to the U.S. labor movement by the rising tide of anti-communism as the anti-Soviet Cold War began to take hold everywhere.
Communists and socialists began to be purged from the U.S. labor movement. Without their militant vanguard, the labor movement was rapidly weakened by the U.S. capitalists, who went on the offensive to roll back pro-worker labor laws that had been passed under the pressure of the mass strikes of the 1930s.
Taft-Hartley, among many other things, made certain union activities “unfair labor practices”—striking false parity between the organized workers and the capitalist owners—and expressly excluded supervisors from coverage under the Act. This gave employers the green light to sack supervisors engaging in union activities or those not supporting the employer’s stance in labor struggles.
The language of the NLRA thus became extremely broad, allowing capitalists and courts to deem many senior employees as supervisors. “Supervisors” are defined in the law as “individuals” who control the working fate of others by hiring, firing, disciplining, promoting and so forth—or those who direct other employees’ work while exercising “independent judgment.” Administrative and court rulings have continued to widen the meaning of “supervisor” over the years.
More recently, as unions have organized in new, formerly non-unionized industries like health care, capitalist owners have used the expanded supervisory language to their advantage to crush organizing drives or bust unions. Now, the issue is coming to a head for millions of workers.
“We strongly believe that anybody who has supervisory authority should be exempt,” said Stephen Bokat, senior vice president and general counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “You cannot have double loyalty in a unionized facility. If you are directing subordinates, then you should report to management. But that won’t work if you are also a member of a union because your loyalties are divided.”
Classifying employees as supervisors would strike a major blow against unions and hurt workers in numerous industries. A worker classified as a supervisor would be ousted from their union if they have one; it would prevent them from joining a union if they don’t. This would greatly hinder union organizing efforts.
Kentucky River cases
The “Kentucky River” cases, based on charges filed with the NLRB by employers in 2002, could affect the status of up to eight million workers. Organized labor correctly fears that the NLRB, a board of five rotating members appointed by the president to serve five-year terms, will side with the capitalists as they have in so many cases in the past.
The issue of classifying workers as supervisors isn’t new. The Supreme Court has twice eroded the law over the last 12 years to assist the bosses in turning workers into supervisors. And two years ago, the Department of Labor moved to prevent millions of people from overtime eligibility based on employment reclassification.
This strategy is part of the overall anti-labor offensive mounted by the capitalist bosses and the government. They work in tandem to make it harder for workers to organize unions or stay in them. They want workers to have the fewest rights possible.
Attacks against workers are always present under capitalism, but the newest concerted assault on organized workers’ rights started in the late 1970s under the Carter administration, was ratcheted-up significantly by President Reagan, and then continued by Bush, Clinton and now Bush Jr.
Over the past few decades, union ranks have been diminished by the millions. The percent of workers in unions reached its height in 1953 at 32.5 percent of the workforce. By the fall of 2004, unions represented only 12 percent of the non-farm labor force and 8 percent of workers in the private sector.
These statistics don’t mean that workers are unwilling to join unions. Organized labor still represents more than 13 million workers, and more than 42 million nonunion workers in the United States want to join a union. (IBEW, “Union Busting Business is Booming,” Nov. 7, 2003) But workers and unions face unrestrained, systematic opposition from employers and the government to organize and fight for union rights.
New labor strategies and tactics needed
The AFL-CIO has been speaking out against the potential classification of millions as supervisors. The labor federation held rallies in 20 cities over the last two weeks to urge the NLRB to protect and not erode workers’ rights. Over 1,500 union members and leaders rallied in Washington, D.C., outside the NLRB on July 14. Rallies also happened that day in Portland, Ore.; Phoenix; Chicago; Milwaukee; and Albuquerque, N.M. The country’s other labor federation, Change to Win, has been more silent on the issue with some member unions, like the Service Employees, speaking out against changing workers’ classification.
The AFL-CIO has launched an online e-mail campaign, directing thousands of letters to members of Congress. But
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This is emblematic of the general lack of class struggle tactics employed by the labor leadership in recent decades. Rather than ignite rank-and-file action, organized labor has kept most of its struggles squarely in the halls of Congress.
This current struggle over supervisory status is no different. Organized labor is directing its members’ ire toward the NLRB and the Bush administration, highlighting the fact that Bush’s three recent appointees to the NLRB will cause the board to issue an anti-worker decision in the “Kentucky River” cases.
Bush’s appointees likely will rule in favor of the corporate owners. However, focusing political pressure almost solely on the NLRB shows an underlying faith in how the board works. These trade unionists, along with many Democratic Party allies, believe that the NLRB, if different in composition, actually operates in the interests of workers.
They believe that when a Democrat is president, the NLRB magically becomes pro-worker because the president can appoint more progressive members. This notion is utterly false.
Through both Democrat and Republican administrations over the past 70 years, the NLRB has eroded labor laws won with the blood and struggle of millions of workers. And when it hasn’t done the job well enough for the capitalists, Congress or the courts have stepped in to smash workers’ rights. Every NLRB decision can be appealed to federal courts of appeal and, ultimately, the Supreme Court.
Additional procedural measures keep the NLRB from being effective. When the board determines that owners break the law, which they do on a regular basis, there are no meaningful remedies or penalties to stop them. Labor laws also are easily manipulated by employers.
At bottom, the NLRB’s normal role is to regulate labor-management conflict in a way that is beneficial to maintaining labor peace. This allows for the smooth functioning of the day-in and day-out instrument of capitalist exploitation. It has the added advantage for the bosses of channeling the class struggle into a mediated arena that guarantees the interests of the corporations. In recent decades, as labor militancy ebbed, the NLRB became a more explicit tool for smashing union organizing drives.
It’s an agency of the executive branch controlled by the president. No organization created by the capitalists can be an adequate substitute for vigorous factory, plant, worksite, and street struggles waged in the name of building class solidarity and class consciousness.
