Labor will have to figure out how to face up to an authoritarian playbook.
Last spring, the Trump administration issued an executive order canceling collective bargaining rights for 700,000 to 1,000,000 workers employed by the federal government. A fact sheet accompanying the executive order made its intent clear: “The president will not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions.” According to historian Joseph McCartin, it’s the most significant act of union busting in U. S. history.
As Senator Jeff Merkley has been warning, this unprecedented move comes straight out of the “authoritarian playbook” and should trigger alarm bells within the house of labor. It represents a classic example of how authoritarian governments and dictatorial leaders operate. They seek to maintain unchecked power and control by discouraging or silencing voices that might question their policies.
The assault on federal unions made me think about the labor movement’s role as a bulwark against authoritarianism and a defender of democracy. Unions are quite familiar with authoritarian tactics used by employers and their allies to deter workers from organizing and acting collectively. This knowledge is especially relevant as we see the growing use of these tactics that seek to replace democracy with strong-man rule.
It is no secret why employers have resisted unions so aggressively throughout our history. By providing workers with a genuine voice, unions limit the management’s absolute power. Collective bargaining is an expression of democracy in the workplace. Workers practice democracy by developing contract proposals, negotiating with management, and voting by majority to either accept a tentative agreement or go on strike. Unions also restrain employer power through grievance procedures, third-party arbitration, and member mobilizations. These checks and balances, which are essential to democracy, contrast sharply with nonunion workplaces, which resemble authoritarian regimes where small groups make the rules and enforce them as they see fit.
To maintain the tight control that is characteristic of authoritarian regimes, employers have often gone to great lengths to maintain their power. In many coal mining and steel towns, bosses threatened to fire workers if they voted for political candidates not favored by the company. A 1922 United Mine Workers strike leaflet explicitly linked union organizing with the practice of democracy, proclaiming “union towns are free towns” where miners can “meet and discuss their problems as Free Americans.” When unions organized in these company towns, they ended authoritarian rule in both the workplace and the community, allowing workers to exercise their full rights as citizens in a democracy for the first time.
Unions confront authoritarianism in other important ways. They resist the “divide and conquer” approach favored by authoritarians, who often pit different groups against each to splinter potential opposition. At its best, the union movement has countered this tactic with a strong commitment to unity, refusing to allow authoritarians to divide workers along lines of race, gender, ethnicity, and yes, documented versus undocumented status. And, as journalist Eric Levitz observed in a 2019 piece, unions seek a more equal distribution of wealth and resources, countering the power of the billionaires and oligarchs who support authoritarian rule.
As the alarm bells about authoritarianism ring louder, unions are increasingly answering the call. The labor mobilizations in Minneapolis, Portland, and other places are encouraging developments. But an intensive campaign of internal education is needed to alert more union members to the nature of the authoritarian threat. Unions bring considerable resources to this fight, most notably our traditions of unity and solidarity, which authoritarians perhaps fear the most. And because unions have a special appreciation of “what democracy looks like,” they know full well what it will take to maintain it.
Bob Bussel is professor emeritus at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education & Research Center.
