Well, we touched briefly in the fact that the changing composition of the
textile workforce, particularly the big increase in the black
population, has had an important effect on the ability to organize
textile workers, and I think that probably will continue to be a factor,
and so that, over time, the probability is that a larger proportion of
the textile workforce will be organized. So much for that point.
Another point is I've always had in the back of my mind a feeling that
something is wrong about the way in which the whole process of workers'
getting organized operates in the United States. The structure of
organizing was pretty well
Page 29 set by the Wagner Act,
which set forth certain rules as to how workers get recognized or unions
get recognized and how they bargain. This is really largely a matter of
happenstance, in that, nobody tried to figure out what would be the best
system. It was really, how can be respond to the exigencies of the day,
how can we solve this immediate problem. As a result, it was decided
that majority rule should be the dominant principle. If a majority of
the workers votes for a union, in a free election, then the workers in
that plant would be represented by a union. That has a lot of sense
going for it. It sounds very good—democratic and all that sort of thing.
But, in actual practice, it turns out to be a lot less than ideal,
especially in the textile industry where, in any given plant, you have a
certain number of workers who have a strong feeling that they want to be
represented by a union, you have another group of workers who say they
want to be represented by the union when a union representative comes
over to them and asks them, and they might even sign a card. And this is
a point I should have mentioned earlier, it's important, I think, that
in any textile plant, even with the nature of the workforce, the nature
of the environment, the employer, there's a substantial portion of the
workers who are pro-union, who want a union. That may vary from twenty
to forty percent. And there is another substantial body, probably of
similar size, who, while not strongly pro-union, are very ready to sign
up. And they will respond favorably when
Page 30 asked. So
you have substantial groups of workers in any textile plant—anywhere
from fifty to seventy percent, say—who say they are willing to join a
union and want the union to represent them for collective bargaining.
And yet, because of the processes, under the law, the union generally
gets less than fifty percent of the votes. There's something obviously
wrong here. The first thing that's wrong is that the swing voters tend
to be dissuaded from voting yes largly through employer coercion.