Organizing today is so challenging — especially since the takeover in Washington — that it is hard to predict new strategies after the threats to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The National Relations Board was established in 1937 to support and control the explosive labor movement of the time. One provision allows a union to get workers to sign authorization cards, which can be submitted with a petition to the board for a representation election. The board then schedules an election at the work site to determine if the majority of workers want to be represented by the union. If the union wins the election, it has the right to negotiate for a first contract with the employer.
As Elon Musk rampages through various areas of the federal government, the attacks on the NLRB are almost unmentioned but represent a major challenge for organizers. The former general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, formerly a lawyer with the CWA, was fired within the first week of the new administration, and Gwynne Wilcox, a board member, was also terminated even though her five-year term did not expire until 2028. The NLRB now has only two members, and under federal law, it cannot act without a minimum of three.
So there may be, in effect, no NLRB for a while. Marvin Kaplan, originally nominated to the NLRB by Trump in 2017, will be the chair of a committee which may not really function.
The new normal
This is a reflection of court cases brought by Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk that challenge the very existence of the NLRB. The most serious of these challenges is a lawsuit filed in Texas in early 2024, as lawyers for SpaceX, claimed that the NLRB’s enforcement proceedings violated the corporation’s constitutional right to a jury trial. The suit also claimed that the restrictions on the removal of NLRB board members and administrative judges — which keep them free from political interference when administrations change — violated the Constitution’s separation-of-powers provision. As Musk takes a hatchet to government agencies, the destruction of the NLRB is increasingly likely.
In “normal” times, an organizer gets workers to sign authorization cards, files a petition with the board, and prepares for an election. If the union wins the secret ballot election, it is then legally set up to negotiate with the employer. We have been following this pattern for 60 years — it’s all we have known as organizers.
Winning an election, unfortunately, only gives the union legal recognition — not a contract but a piece of paper that asserts that the union is legit. That piece of paper is only as strong as the organizing behind it.
The practical procedures of the NLRB — collect the cards, file a petition, go to an election — have been discredited over the years and are especially dangerous under this new configuration of the NLRB.
These dramatic political moves should change — must change — the strategy of every organizer. The recent history of unionism in the US has been one of failure, so anything that forces a recognition of this failure and a rethinking of organizing strategies is so important. In a perverse way, the election of Trump may force positive changes on our movement.
Organizing is the answer
Under “the most pro-union president in US history,” union membership actually dropped in 2024, as 16 million workers in the United States were represented by a union: 11.1% of all wage and salary workers were covered by a contract, but only 10 percent were actually members because of open shop laws, which allow workers to get the benefits of a union contract without paying dues. However, that 16 million was a drop of 170,000 from 2023 and barely an increase from 10.3 percent in 2021.
During the fiscal year 2023, the NLRB saw a three percent increase in union election petitions, which built upon 2022’s significant uptick of 53 percent of union election petitions. That was the highest number filed since 2015, but not nearly enough to reverse the tide of declining union membership. In the past four years, the scheduled time for an election was cut and the number of petitions grew, but the expansion of the workforce meant that our numbers really didn’t increase much.
Historical precedent
In the 1930s, with no labor legislation, the workers’ movement lived by the motto of “self-help”: we are treated badly at work, so we will organize, no matter what the bosses do. There were no “labor laws” exception provisions to block our organizing. The sit-down strike became a popular tactic, and the bosses responded in several ways. General Motors signed an agreement with the UAW, and US Steel signed with the Steelworkers Organizing Committee after the Flint sit-down strike in 1937. Meanwhile, Republic Steel shot 10 workers in the back and killed them in the Memorial Day Massacre. As a result, workplace stoppages immediately enforced a contract and conditions on the job. Today, a “normal” approach to handling workplace issues is endless grievance steps, paperwork, and a far-away arbitration.
An important element of the movement in the 1930s was the participation by radical groups so that the ruling class feared a revolution if the movement continued. As a compromise between capital and labor’s militant advance, they enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to divert the radical movement and to provide a structure that would accept unions that recognized management rights. Over 70 years, the law has become so dominant that many organizers think it is eternal and the only way to organize.
Most labor histories state that the growth of unionism was due to the existence of the NLRB and not the other way around. In fact, today’s overall union density is lower than before the NLRA was passed in 1935. The movement created the law, not the other way around.
A shift in strategy
The decisive attacks by the new administration prove that organizers must change their strategy. Organizers must challenge their co-workers: If we are unhappy with our conditions at work, only we can change them. Building a movement in which workers help out members of other unions and are visible in our communities will beat back the ruling class. Simply signing cards won’t do it any longer.
A campaign should openly challenge the boss, so workers can sign cards if they want an NLRB election, but the support should be broadcast all around the workplace in case the NLRB is dismantled. A huge poster with the signatures of card signers is a great visual device, and of course, boldly wearing union insignias — buttons, T-shirts, caps — makes the union loud and clear. Workers should discuss a work stoppage to demand union recognition. This aggressive movement can help eliminate the fear that is such an effective anti-union tactic. Weakness goes to strength, so wavering workers will see the strength of the union and will go with the campaign.
What we have been doing hasn’t worked. It is a new day, so we have to create new organizing strategies.
