Book review for British Journal of Industrial Relations
April 5, 2000
The Unions and the Democrats: An Enduring Alliance by Taylor E. Dark. ILR Press/Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1999, vii+233 pages, ISBN 0-8014-3576-5, xx37.50.
In 1969, J. David Greenstone wrote a seminal book on Labor in American Politics (University of Chicago Press) in which he underscored the influential, aggregating role played by American unions in national politics. This role was similar he argued to that played by European unions inside their own broad alliances with social-democratic (including labor and socialist) parties. Ever since then, however, conventional wisdom has been that the long-term decline of American unions in membership and collective bargaining gains has undercut labor's political role, transforming labor from a broad social force to a special interest group while weakening labor's influence inside the Democratic party.
Now along comes Taylor Dark to challenge the conventional view. With consistent elegance, tracing labor's role under every presidency since Lyndon Johnson, Dark argues that relations with Democrats in Congress and in the White House are not so different today from what they were 35 years ago. In the 1960s, AFL-CIO leaders played a broad role in aggregating interests, including a bridging role between a Democratic Congress and White House. The labor/Democratic alliance was at the center of welfare state advances and Great Society legislation, from the Civil Rights act of 1964 to Medicare to the War on Poverty. In the 1990s, labor, under Kirkland and then Sweeney, has worked closely with Democrats in Congress as well as President Clinton (a "new Democrat") to promote the Family and Medical Leave Act, minimum wage legislation, health care reform, the "Motor-Voter Act" and much more – with considerable success. At same time, in both the 1960s and 1990s (as in the intervening years as well), unions were largely unsuccessful in promoting their own specific organizational interests in labor law reform.
There were, of course, variations and changes along the way. Dark emphasizes contrasting periods of "centralized pluralism" and "fragmented pluralism," predominant institutional configurations that shape labor's relative influence. Thus in the 1960s and 1990s, Democratic power in Congress and the White House as well as labor's political influence were fairly centralized. Under such circumstances, deals could be cut and New Deal-type legislation could be passed, in negotiations among top Democratic and labor leaders. In the 1970s, by contrast, labor's power became fragmented: national and local unions, for example, split over whether to endorse Democratic nominee McGovern for president while the nominating process fractured the Democrats along similar lines. Centralized pluralism gave way to a weaker fragmented pluralism and an extended period in which labor's political influence waned (first under Carter and then under Reagan and Bush). As both labor and the Democrats pulled together in the 1980s and 1990s, however, the door opened for a new period of closer and more successful collaboration. In his focus on organizational structures and relationships, Dark fits his analysis into a framework of "new institutionalism," an important contemporary school of thought across the social sciences (Dark himself is a political scientist) in which institutions shape political behavior, possible coalitions and policy effectiveness.
In making this argument, Dark takes on the "New Deal is dead" view. Yes, he argues, the core labor/Democratic alliance, and each party internally, came apart to some extent as a result of the political divisions and social movements of the 1960s. In the long run, however, there has been a remarkable continuity in the role played by organized labor in the Democratic party at the national level, from the origins of the New Deal coalition in the 1930s right up through the 1990s. Far from reflecting the lag-time in a long-term breakdown, this continuity is the product of an ongoing, active reproduction of the labor/Democratic alliance. Under John Sweeney's leadership, Dark maintains, labor has pulled together in the late 1990s to reassert with new vigor this essentially traditional role in politics. New Deal programs, in fact, remain largely intact, thanks to a spirited, consistent, long-term defense by labor and its Democratic allies in Congress (and sometimes in the White House).
Dark's analysis also challenges the views of third party advocates, who argue that labor has never had its own party and needs one to rebuild its political influence. On the contrary, labor has played a central role in Democratic party politics, from candidate selection to legislation, ever since the 1930s. The positive side of the 1970s fragmentation and party reforms was the realignment of the Democratic party, with conservative southern Democrats losing power and in many cases (including younger generations of conservatives) finding a new home in the Republican party. At the same time, northern party bosses lost influence in nominating processes as a result of party reforms, leaving the field open for even stronger labor influence in the party and with elected Democrats. Labor's strong influence in Congress is reflected in the broad consensus on raising the minimum wage as well as specific controversial victories such as the defeat of Clinton's "fast track" free-trade legislaion in 1997 (with the support of old Democratic allies as well as new allies in the environmental movement).
Labor's new unity and renewed political influence under the Sweeney regime at the AFL-CIO reflects, in Dark's view, the fact that the labor movement has finally come to terms with the social movements of the 1960s. Today's enduring coalitions with blacks, women, environmentalists and their allies in the Democratic party and Congress (and under Clinton in the White House) reflect labor's participation in a reconstituted, modernized New Deal coalition, freed of the stranglehold of powerful conservative southern committee chairs in Congress. To the benefit of all parties involved, labor has made its peace with the 1960s (and indeed many of today's newly prominent labor activists are veterans of the social movements of the sixties). Yet as Dark persuasively argues, the result is a labor/Democratic alliance that to a large extent fights for traditional New Deal goals, with much success.
The book does conclude on a pessimistic note: that if labor does not reverse its long-term decline in membership, the hollowing-out effect will sooner or later undermine labor's political influence (and the Democratic party as well). Current union revitalization efforts may well determine the future of the Democratic party, its positions and political strength. And this raises the one critique I would make of this excellent book: a tendency to present the political story without enough attention to the broader context. While Dark's arguments about the labor/Democratic alliance and the persistence of New Deal-type policies and legislation are persuasive, labor's declining influence can be clearly seen in other ways. Beginning in the 1970s, and endorsed by the state by Reagan's firing of the PATCO workers in 1981, American employers across a broad range of industries took the offensive against unions. Using a vast array of legal and illegal tactics, supported by a growing industry in management consulting, employers defeated union organizing drives, demanded concessions, expanded the "union-free environment," and succeeded in marginalizing union influence in much of the American economy. In circumstances of such intense crisis, a strong labor/Democratic coalition could have reasonably been expected to launch a broad-based defense, if not a powerful counterattack, using political as well as economic and organizational weapons. In the 1930s, a germinal New Deal coalition promoted and defended a broad new framework for industrial relations, including new rights and legitimacy for organized labor. In the 1980s and even in the 1990s, nothing comparable has been forthcoming even in quite desperate circumstances, and the political components of a counteroffensive to match overwhelming employer power in the workplace remained limited and "on the agenda" for the future. This is not to criticize contemporary efforts to revitalize the American labor movement, which have shown impressive successes and are, I believe, on the right track. Dark's focused political analysis, however, does mask the broader context in a way that does not fully reflect the decline of the American labor movement and its inability, in the 1970s, 1980s and well into the 1990s, to reverse its shrinking influence in the workplace and society.
This is, nonetheless, a fine book, perhaps the best study of labor in politics since the work of Greenstone. The book's evidence restores a necessary balance, and a useful explanatory framework, to an understanding of labor's role in American politics. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in labor's political activities, the Democratic party and its policies and influence in Congress and the White House, the alleged breakup of the New Deal coalition, progressive political coalitions of today and tomorrow, and/or the contemporary revitalization of the American labor movement.
LOWELL TURNER
Cornell University