Why Sectoral Bargaining Matters for the Labor Movement
Sectoral bargaining allows unions in countries around the world to improve the lives of enormous numbers of workers, including many who aren’t union members themselves. The sectoral model could be a huge boon to labor power in the United States.
Workers from United Auto Workers Local 440 picket outside a General Motors factory in Bedford, Indiana, in September 2019. (Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
On March 9, 2021, the US House of Representatives passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to increase federal protections against some of the systemic violations of worker freedoms. The PRO Act would revise key pieces of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935, providing real financial punishments for violations of organizing rights. The bill now faces a tough fight in the US Senate, and business pushback — the killer of numerous labor-law reform efforts in recent decades — hasn’t yet begun in earnest.
Still, the bill is an important one. To understand why the PRO Act would be so transformational for American labor, we have to discuss the broader labor-relations system that the PRO Act would change — in particular, the American political history that has created such enormous economic inequality and a 10.8 percent union density (the percentage of workers who are union members, or 14.3 million workers) and a 12.1 percent union coverage rate (the percentage of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements, or 16 million workers). As unions are the historical instrument of redistributing wealth and power downward, the significance of understanding how labor law impacts workers’ ability to build power can’t be understated.
Labor Law vs. Labor Organizing
US labor law largely functions through a system of enterprise bargaining: workers form new unions or join already existing ones to have a voice in determining their working conditions, workplace by workplace, shop by shop. Once management recognizes that workers have unionized, the two sides must bargain their first collective bargaining agreement or union contract. US labor law, as established by the NLRA and furthered by public-sector labor legislation with differing systems for local, state, and federal workers, thus creates a piecemeal, patchwork system.
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