This post is inspired by a plenary session and a workshop that I attended at the Labor Research and Action Network (LRAN) conference that was held in Portland on June 20-21.
The plenary session took up the matter of how labor can use co-enforcement strategies in Oregon. That session featured the following presenters and presentations:
• Jessica Giannettino Villatoro, Deputy Commissioner, Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI)
• Why the Agency Embraced Co-Enforcement, Big Changes: Laura van Enckevort, Wage and Hour Division Administrator, OR BOLI
• Transforming Day to Day Practices, Setting Sectoral Tables: Kate Suisman, Attorney, Northwest Workers' Justice Project and Liz Marquez, Policy Associate, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN)
• Co-enforcement in Practice:
- Adam Jeffries, Proactive Investigations and Enforcement Unit, OR BOLI
- Construction: Trampas Simmons, Special Representative and Jesus Saucedo, Organizer, Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, taking on multiple subcontracting entities
- Childcare: Nat Glitsch, Organizer, ILWU Local 5 organizing in childcare centers
Progress, Challenges and Lessons:
• Moderator: Janice Fine, Professor, Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations
The workshop that inspired this post dealt with defining co-enforcement, how to use co-enforcement locally, and how to use enforcement as a means for building worker power. That workshop was led by the following researchers and analysts:
• Janice Fine, Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations
• Jeremy Simer, Researcher, SEIU Local 49
• Janet Bauer, Research Associate, Oregon LERC
• Jillian Cruickshank, Policy Analyst, Jobs with Justice
• Tia Koonse, Legal and Policy Research Manager, UCLA Labor Center
This post is a mash-up of what I understood the speakers listed above and certain audience members to say and some of my thinking.
I think that the key underlying assumption shared by most of the speakers was that the strategic use of laws, regulations, and public institutions by unions and pro-labor and pro-worker non-profits can build worker power. There was an optimistic belief that government---the state---can be democratic and user-friendly by workers and our organizations and a more realistic assessment that pro-worker policies often pass through legislative action and rule-making processes without enough thought being given to who is going to do enforcement and what enforcement of these laws and regulations looks like. This lack of foresight and planning is not sustainable and eventually creates working-class distrust and cynicism. These understandings led most of the speakers to support strategic enforcement of laws and rules by unions and allied organizations, better and more research, and alliances between unions and likely partners.
“Co-enforcement” simply refers to unions and union-friendly organizations partnering to enforce the laws and rules that are on the books, and perhaps stretching them in practice to meet their intended purposes. The problem here is that the dominant understanding of government today is that state institutions are supposed to be neutral while workers need laws, policies and enforcement that are not neutral and that help us. It helps to remember that many local, state, and federal agencies were set up in response to working-class demands for protection and redress and that conservatives (with help from many liberals) have been successful in weakening these agencies and redirecting their missions. I think that on this point several of the speakers exaggerated the relative strength of the Progressives who were in power in the early years of the 20th century and the good work done for working-class people under the New Deal of the 1930s, downplayed or were silent on the advances we made under the Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon administrations, and did not address the austerity measures that we saw under the Carter and Clinton and Obama administrations.
Perhaps it is that in many regions of the world, including the United States, many traditional functions of government have either been taken over by corporations or abandoned. The rising corporate model is not the traditional one of reinvesting some profits in producing goods and services but of moving away from direct ownership of production and distribution and instead holding onto profits and banking them, causing a dangerous expansion of the financial sector. More companies connect consumers to services and service providers and charge fees and make profits from doing that rather than through production and distributing goods and services that they own. Under such new conditions enforcement and co-enforcement come up against special challenges.
Whether I’m right or wrong here, I agreed with the speakers who made it clear that we need to go beyond umpires and adjudicators and get into real enforcement. Oregon is unique in that we are one of only 5 states where commissioners of labor are elected. Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries has a wage and hour division, a civil rights division and apprenticeship programs oversight. Workers’ comp and insurance, workplace safety and health, the Employment Department, business licensing and oversight, and the Construction Contractors Board are separate from BOLI.
Frontline state and agency staff dealing with workers’ rights and benefits need up-to-date training and support to meet today’s demand. So do union staff and members and the folks working in organizations allied with unions. Still, the problems these people face go beyond training. The will to fight hard for workers’ rights requires in the first place an understanding of the contours of class struggle and resources. Jessica Giannettino Villatoro pointed out that we have under-resourced wage and hour investigators here in Oregon handling over 200 claims a year when they should be handling 85 or fewer. They are trained in laws, policies, and enforcement, and they benefit from their contact with people working in pro-worker non-profits, but they and their non-profit activist colleagues do not learn the fundamentals of class struggle as a cohort.
Other conference speakers pointed out that complaints, by themselves, don’t empower workers or our organizations. The policy analysts, investigators and enforcement agents work in a fragmented and underfunded system that cannot bring lasting justice as it is. The system that we have now---including workplace inspections and enforcement, passing worker-friendly laws and doing good rule-making, and even union organizing and contract negotiations and grievance handling---is weak or broken. We need to think of this as one system and not as separate silos to understand what is going on around us and make real change.
When conference speakers spoke about labor winning more of our fights these days and an upsurge in the number of strikes I wondered why it doesn’t feel like we’re winning much of the time. Why are the strikes that are taking place not more politicized and why don’t they seem to be helping to give us a ride into a victory at the polls in November? Working-class cynicism is fed by weak laws and policies and under-resourced enforcement, laws and standards that hamper union enforcement, and at least 30 years of concessions-based bargaining by unions and related losses in union power.
This cynicism is not unreasonable, but many workers still maintain a fundamental but fragile hope in the system despite their pessimism. What happens when these hopes are dashed? Can unions and social movements grow quickly enough and win enough fights to disprove the cynical arguments that unions lack power and presence in worker’s lives? Will there be a more-or-less unified working-class vote in November, and which way will that vote go? Graham Trainor, President of the Oregon AFL-CIO, said in his address to the conference that one in five or one in six workers in our region are union members, that unions are winning our battles, and that “We can’t be afraid to lead with a progressive agenda.” These remarks show that the labor is making quantitative and qualitative advances. But what are the practical connections between relatively high union density and progressive politics under current conditions? How do we define winning our battles under these changing conditions? And whose progressive agenda makes the cut?
Employers know all of this and don’t have much reason to fear penalties or repercussions for their inevitable bad behavior or condemnation for intervening in the political process and the courts. They may be frustrated by sometimes having to work with so many different agencies and deal with a system that tends to be one-size-fits-all, but in the long run the faults in the system and the top-heavy nature of the system works in favor the worst actors among the employers and provides incentives for employers to cross the line.
Combining state resources that affect workers’ salaries,
working conditions, and benefits under one umbrella might help create real
enforcement of pro-worker and pro-labor laws and rules. It might also lead to
strategic enforcement in certain areas and leave workers not covered by the
decisions on strategic enforcement out in the cold. Imagine a situation where,
say, farmworkers get justifiable strategic attention from state agencies,
unions, and union allies but home construction workers or university workers
are not included in strategic planning and enforcement. That would be divisive
in the first place, but I believe that we would then see corporate money and financing
go into areas of the economy where enforcement is weak or non-existent and a
new crop of corporate bottom feeders arise.
