Union Contributions to Labor Welfare Policy and Practice

Past, Present and Future

Paul A. Kurzman, R.Paul Maiden

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415555081
• eBook ISBN: 9781317988403
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book focuses on the contributions of organized labor in the development and evolution of workplace human services in America and eight countries around the world. Beginning with an overview of labor-sponsored social service programs, it showcases the achievements by major trade unions in the arena of human services, from inception to present.

The textbook concludes with a summary chapter which conceptualizes and summarizes current achievements and forecasts the future role of the labor movement in the delivery of workplace human services in the United States and abroad. It will be of use to those involved in the labor movement as well as practitioners in the fields of social work, human services, and labor and industrial relations.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health.

Labor—Social Work Collaboration: Current and Historical Perspectives

PAUL A. KURZMAN, PhD, ACSW
School of Social Work, Hunter College, The City University of New York, New York City, New York, USA

Labor unions and the social work profession have a complicated history of closeness and distance, cooperation and confrontation, respect and caution. However, as both increasingly come under attack by conservative forces, it becomes clear that labor and social work share many common goals that can lead to mutually advantageous joint activities in the arenas of social service and social action. However, the often latent organizational symbiosis present needs to become manifest to establish the preconditions for such collaborative endeavors.

The most militant workers with whom I have to contend are the social service workers. They are the greatest militants in the world. They are going out on strike every Monday and Thursday, and you know why? Because nobody takes them seriously.

Victor Gotbaum, Executive Director, District Council 37, AFSCME (1976)

Introduction

The occupational social work literature tends to see the workplace through the lens of the employing organization, viewing employers as the innovators of programs and the providers of services to employees and their families. As an extension of the occupational social welfare benefit system that Titmuss (1968) proposed, these nonlegislatively mandated benefits and services are seen as the employer’s grant of new entitlements to the workforce as a managerial initiative. However, there is a second lens through which occupational programs should be viewed, especially for the current 12.4% of the American labor force that is represented by a trade union.

This entry defines and describes the human services provided by unions to their members. Placed in historical perspective, these programs largely have evolved in the past 60 years; however, the antecedents of the emerging partnership between the labor movement and the social work profession date back to the Industrial Revolution and the turn of the 20th century (Kurzman, 2008). This review of the major human service programs under the auspices of labor unions explores the unfolding models, noting the similarities (and differences) to programs under the aegis of employers. The discussion concludes with a projection of future trends, based on forces in the world of work that are already in motion.

Historical Context

The relationship between social work and organized labor in the United States has been ambivalent, reflecting great fluctuations and changes over time. At the turn of the 20th century, social workers were seen as Lady Bountifuls, giving charity to working people, rather than fighting for social justice in the workplace. The assistance they gave to poor immigrant workers and their families came with large doses of advice and moral judgment. Also central to social work’s stance was opposition to labor’s central weapon, the strike, and a consistent refusal to side with labor’s enmity toward strike-breakers, called "scabs." During the rampantly probusiness decade of the 1920s, social workers often were lured by industry to serve as "welfare secretaries," helping workers with personal and economic problems, but always as agents of employers. It was not lost on the union movement, of course, that the corporations most likely to hire welfare secretaries were those most solidly anti-union in policy and practice (Akabas & Kurzman, 1982).

In the 1930s, social work moved into the public sector because the voluntary agencies (supported largely by corporate dollars) could no longer fulfill the human and social needs of Americans during the Great Depression. No longer tied to private agencies (financed by welfare capitalism during the first two decades of the century), social workers settled into a closer relationship with the growing labor movement. With a new, public base of financial support, and a growing conviction that individual intervention had to give way to collective action and to systemic social change, the emerging social work profession found itself ideologically closer to organized labor. Prominent social workers, such as Jane Addams, supported the garment workers in building their unions; Harry Hopkins sided with workers at every turn, seeing them (not the corporations) as America’s heroes; and Harry Lurie led the National Conference on Social Welfare to support Roosevelt’s New Deal, and the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively with their employers. As noted elsewhere (Kurzman, 1987, p. 902), social work "established a rapprochement with the trade union movement in the 1930s through active support of the Congress of Industrial Organizations’ (CIO) organizing drives and through outreach to unemployed workers during the height of the Great Depression."

Prominent social work educators and practitioners, such as Grace Marcus, Mary Simkhovitch, Inabel Lindsay, and Wayne McMillen, began to support union activities actively and openly. Progressive social work journals, such as Social Work Today and Survey Graphic, published articles that were fiercely supportive of the growing trade union movement. Most important, social workers themselves were joining labor unions or organizing their own locals when none were present in the voluntary sector (Karger, 1989; Rosenberg & Rosenberg, 2006). Noted labor researcher Mary van Kleeck argued that social workers in trade unions would not only gain a voice in determining their own working conditions but also would be in a better position to increase the effectiveness of the labor movements’ social programs (Reisch & Andrews, 2001; Tambor, 1995). Although professional social workers today belong to diverse unions, the majority are members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the American Federation of Government Employees, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In fact, social workers today belong to unions (23.2%) in much greater proportion than workers in general (Akabas & Kurzman, 2005, p. 197).

In addition, occupational social workers have been providing direct services to members of labor unions and their families under union auspices since 1943. The pioneer social work service to merchant seamen who were members of the National Maritime Union was the first major commitment of the profession to a trade union as an employer and human service provider. Social work pioneer Bertha Reynolds’ landmark work as project director of this 4-year member assistance program (MAP) set the stage for future collaborative ventures (Reynolds, 1951/1975). Notable among the programs that followed were the achievements of the social work research, rehabilitation, and service project led by Weiner and Akabas at the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America from 1964 to 1968; the development in 1971 of MAP and legal assistance programs at District Council 37 of the AFSCME; a social services program for active and retired members at the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU); personal service and member outreach programs at District 65 of the Distributive Workers of America; and a member assistance program at the National Maritime Union (Akabas, Kurzman, & Kolben, 1979; Weiner, Akabas, & Sommer, 1973).

Although today’s relationship is a mutually beneficial one, the inherently fragile nature of the link between organized labor and the social work profession cannot be ignored (Straussner & Phillips, 1988). Social workers work in corporate settings more frequently than in labor unions, and the interests and ideology of many social workers still are often more toward provision of social services than toward the creation of progressive social change (Karger, 1988; Kurzman, 2000).

The Labor Setting

Fifty six of the independent and autonomous unions in the United States currently belong to a national federation called the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Technically international in scope (in that some unions have members in Mexico and Canada aswell), the national union structure most commonly is organized into locals, district councils, and state federations. Electing its own officers, each union local largely determines its policies and thereby forges its own destiny through the work of its staffin the day-by-day relationship with the employers for whom its members work. In addition, central labor councils frequently are formed in major cities so that the many union locals can have a collective influence on public policy and receive training and services for their staff (representatives and business agents) and volunteers (shop stewards and union counselors), which a central body usually can best provide. The AFL-CIO central office does considerable research, economic analysis, and lobbying in Washington, DC, on behalf of its member unions, focusing on issues such as work and family, safety and health, and retirement security. All the international unions and many of the locals and district councils manage semiautonomous health and welfare (pension and benefit) funds for their members. These funds frequently provide the auspices and financial support for occupational social work services to their members.

The AFL-CIO currently represents 10.5 million members, including 2 million members in Working America, its new community affiliate (www.aflcio.org/aboutus/faq). However, AFL-CIO membership numbers have declined because in 2005 several leading unions, including the SEIU, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers, and UNITE-HERE (which represents hotel, restaurant, casino, and apparel workers), left the AFL-CIO, asserting it was too bureaucratic, and ineffective in organizing new work sites. Calling themselves the Change to Win Federation, the breakaway unions expanded to seven and now have more than 5 million members—approximately half the size of the AFL-CIO (Greenhouse, 2008, p. A-9). Although overall union membership in the United States has declined steadily over the past 50 years, down to just 12.4% of the labor force in 2008 (by contrast, it was 20% in 1983), a revitalized labor movement, sparked largely by organizing initiatives of Change to Win member unions, added 428,000 new members in 2008 to increase union membership in the nation to approximately 15.7 million (Freeman, 2008, p. D-2; "A Hopeful Year," 2008, p. A-30).

Rationale for Services

The landmark social work service programs at the National Maritime Union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and District Council 37 (AFSCME) have been noted above. As successful as each program may have proved to be, what also is notable is the path they cut for similar programs, starting primarily in the 1970s. Not only did social work pioneers show skeptical observers that it could be done, they put forward a conceptualization of why their experiments had been successful. As Akabas (1977, p. 743) observed: "When the benefits of labor organization are available to all workers, either through collective bargaining or through employers’ unilateral efforts to avoid organization, some new enticement must be offered to achieve union membership growth and loyalty."

Having won as many financial gains in wages and benefits as they could, the unions needed to create new services to maintain the loyalty of their members and leaders. Although wages and working conditions would always remain the central labor agenda, there was a perceived need for both "bread and roses" (Meltzer,1991).Members were not looking for charity but, in Samuel Gompers’ term, for "advocates" who would help them achieve a greater measure of social justice (Livesay, 1993).

In this spirit, unions in major industrial centers, with a historically strong and progressive labor tradition, have been the most responsive to workplace human service programs. In Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle unions expressed interest and began programs to serve active and retired members. A partial list of labor unions that employ professional social workers today in such programs includes AFSCME; United Automobile Workers Union; Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union; American Federation of Musicians; Sheet Metal Workers Union; District 1199, United Health Care Workers East; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; and the SEIU.

In addition to maintaining the loyalty of members to their leaders, labor-based human service programs have proved helpful to union staffin protecting members’ jobs. Before such programs were instituted, a union grievance representative often felt helpless at an arbitration hearing against management’s detailed documentation of a troubled member’s repeated absenteeism, lateness, drinking, or declining job performance. However, when a trained social worker on the staffof the union’s MAP can attest to the presence of a health or mental health problem, and make a professional commitment to oversee appropriate individual or group treatment, management’s arguments for immediate dismissal may be tempered by the union’s guarantee to provide or supervise the necessary care. When a labor leader institutes such an occupational program that helps to protect a member’s job, member loyalty is likely to follow.

Range of Services

In keeping with the themes of protecting members’ jobs and providing an additional membership benefit, labor-sponsored programs have blended advocacy with the provision of services. Recognizing the complexity of managing as an individual or, more commonly, as a family, union-based service programs have focused on linking members to hard-to-find entitlements, providing short-term on-site personal social services, and removing the stigma associated with accepting help. Hard-to-find entitlements include the many government benefits to which working (and retired) people may be entitled but of which they may be unaware or unable to negotiate on their own. Personal services include, in Kamerman and Kahn’s (1976) terms, public and private social utilities and individual and family case services. Negotiating the fragmented and often transient public and voluntary community service arrangements is a skill that human service professionals bring that is of great value to a membership organization. Going well beyond information and referral, professional staffusually have the capacity to form firm links with public benefit programs and voluntary service providers. Equally important, workplace behavioral health care workers have the expertise to provide specialized and emergency services in-house, including individual and group counsel...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• About the Editors
• Preface
• Introduction
• PART 1: LABOR AND SOCIAL WORK
• PART 2: LABOR WELFARE IN THE UNITED STATES
• PART 3: INTERNATIONAL LABOR WELFARE
• Index