The state of the unions: Labor leaders look toward challenging years ahead

The last four years have been fruitful for the labor movement both across the nation and in central Ohio, with public favorability toward unions rising as workers have organized and expand into new spaces, including libraries, youth centers, arts institutions and nonprofit healthcare organizations.

Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, traced this growth to the early months of the Covid pandemic, a time in which workers nationwide began to reassess their relationships to their jobs. The movement was further aided by the presence in office of President Joe Biden, who historians have graded higher on labor than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

“[Biden] wasn’t afraid to say the word ‘union’ or to talk about labor unions, and in policy it was very clear he stood with labor unions,” said Cropper, who noted Biden’s insistence on workers having a seat at the table in the passage of the CHIPS Act as just one example of his embrace of labor. “Also, look at the appointments me made to the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board), to the Department of Labor. The people he put in positions to impact union policy were union friendly, which was huge, and it’s something we’re very concerned about moving into the future.”

In the aftermath of November’s election, which saw Donald Trump return to the presidency and Ohio continue its rightward lurch, the landscape toward labor is now certainly more hostile than it was even a month ago. Additionally, one potential guardrail was stripped away when senate Democrats failed to confirm a Democratic member of the NLRB earlier this month, with independent Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema opposing the nomination. Had it gone through, the confirmation would have assured Democratic control of the NLRB through the first two years of the Trump presidency, slowing the incoming administration’s efforts to roll back gains made by labor over the last four years. Now, Trump will have the ability to replace NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abbruzzo with an anti-labor appointee who could potentially weaponize the agency against union power.

“When push comes to shove, people like Donald Trump follow the money and they make policies that benefit where the money comes from. Just look at how many billionaires have contributed to his campaign, like Elon Musk, who has been proven to not be a friend to labor. The fact that [Musk] has been given so much prominence within Trump’s world is a sign we should be fearful of what’s next for working-class people,” Cropper said. “Now, having said that, we’re used to that kind of environment. … Labor has been forged through struggle. … Whatever happens, we’ll work our way through it, and we’ll come out stronger on the other end.”

Similar responses surfaced in interviews with a trio of central Ohio labor leaders, who remained defiant even as they addressed their fears about the various hurdles likely to materialize as the Biden administration exits the stage.

Elizabeth Vasey, an adult services librarian at Worthington Public Libraries and the president of Worthington Public Libraries United, echoed concerns raised by Cropper about the “death by 1,000 cuts” approach that could be adopted by Ohio’s Republican majority, which is positioned to chip away at the ability of workers to organize by considering legislation barring unions from collecting dues via automatic paycheck deduction or forcing annual union recertification. 

“They could just wear us down slowly,” said Vasey, who has considered threats ranging from national Republicans ending the right of public-sector employees to unionize to Ohio Republicans taking the ideas present in House Bill 556, which would charge teachers and school librarians with a felony for peddling material deemed to be “obscene,” and extending them to public libraries. “And in the bill, they don’t say what ‘obscenity’ is, so they can define it in any way they want. And I know that’s something a lot of us at Worthington Libraries are thinking about.”

In flipping two House seats and reducing the Republican supermajority, Cropper said Ohio Democrats have at least created opportunities for referendum, which could blunt aspects of any potential Republican legislation. At the same time, the Republican Party tightened its grip on the Ohio Supreme Court, which moved from a 4-3 majority to 6-1, creating an environment in which fighting legislation in the courts might have less appeal to labor leaders.

“It certainly creates a disincentive to challenge things through the judicial system,” Cropper said. “We have a [school] voucher lawsuit out there now, and the question becomes, what happens when a voucher lawsuit reaches a Supreme Court that is stacked with people who are pro-privatization?”

Breann Smith, a medical case manager at Equitas Health and the president of Equitas Health Workers United, said these harsher on-the-ground realities have led union member to revisit the roots of labor organizing, when workers forged the movement in defiance of the laws that were then on the books. “Strikes used to be illegal, and [workers] still did it,” Smith said. “At a certain point, the law can be what it is, but we still have to get in that good trouble. And we have to understand that we still have power in numbers.”

In the immediate aftermath of the election, Smith said the mood within Equitas was particularly dire, especially considering the potential harms that could be advanced by the Trump administration against the people within the LQBTQ+ community the health nonprofit serves. “A lot of us have been talking about how we are going to survive the next four years,” said Smith, who added that this conversation quickly pivoted to concepts of mutual aid and community building. “A lot of it has been reinforcing the message that we have always taken care of ourselves, and that we will continue to do so.”

Being part of a newly established union has only grown this awareness, said Smith, who described Equitas Health Workers United as a place in which this spirit of community has been more easily forged. “It reminds us that we have a lot of support from one another,” she said, “and that we have fought and won before.”

“We were all just talking about how we’re grateful to have our union, because we know we have a way to fight, to push back, to organize,” said Courtney Johnson, a Library Media Specialist at Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School and veteran Columbus Education Association member, who highlighted the importance of finding ways to go on the offensive, embracing labor stoppages as a tool (the Teamsters recently announced a strike of Amazon workers centered on seven facilities nationwide) and expanding union membership through more aggressive on-the-ground organizing efforts.

To that end, Cropper said she would like to see national labor organizations expend a larger percentage of their war chests on unionization drives. “We actually had that conversation with the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) this year, and I was on the side of putting as much money into organizing as we can, even if it means increasing dues,” Cropper said. “The atmosphere now is ripe for organizing, which hasn’t always been the case. To me, now is the time to go full throttle and really go after people.”

This idea is further bolstered by the reality that, under a Trump administration, unions exist as possibly the only place in which workers can still amass the political strength needed to fight back against the power of capital.

“When you look at the money they spent to unseat Sherrod Brown, the most pro-union, pro-worker senator we had … it’s evidence of the power that we have,” Johnson said. “We know that unions create a strong middle class. I mean, I have the life I do because I come from a family of union members going three generations back. So, I definitely believe we have power, and we need to use that power. The more people that get into unions, the better. And I think we also need to learn to cast a wider net. I don’t ever want it to feel like it’s union working people versus non-union working people, because we’re all working people, and we should all be fighting together for the same things.”