This past week, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Representative Jim Banks of Indiana introduced the Teamwork for Employees and Managers Act (TEAM) which would allow the creation of workplace organizations for “discussing” key workplace standards - while not actually being unions.

Jamelle Bouie at the New York Times rightly dismissed the bill itself as a stalking horse for employer-controlled committees to displace real unions and dismissed the sponsors as wanna-be “Working-Class Heros.” There have been a lot of versions of these company-union bills over the years so that’s nothing new.

But I think there is something new going on in the background of internal Republican debate, led by groups like American Compass, which recognize a key fact: as the Republican Party has become more dependent on lower-income workers politically, they need to develop some kind of program that actually appeals to them on workplace issues. I don’t think the TEAM Act even meets the minimal program American Compass is promoting, but the pressure on the GOP to sound pro-worker is growing.

Bouie cites the recent Gallup survey that 68 percent of the public approve of labor unions, but American Compass last fall did one of the most in-depth surveys on public attitudes not just about unions but about what they want unions to do that I have seen in recent years - so it’s worth looking at the results in some depth.

Republicans Face Real Problem that Voters are Incredibly Pro-Union

While one part of the survey is designed to slam current unions as “too political” and therefore alienating workers, what’s also true is that any Republican reading the poll has to be sobered at how strongly pro-union, at least in theory, most workers actually are. It’s not just the top-line result of approval of unions but I would point to this question where people were asked what politicians should say about unions. And it wasn’t just that Democrats but even a significant percentage of Republicans wanted them to speak favorably about them. Almost no one favored politicians speaking negatively about unions: all but even the most well-off Republicans favored politicians either saying nice things about unions or just keeping their mouths shut.

A separate question asked what politicians should do when workers are actively trying to organize a workplace - and respondents overwhelmingly want politicians to support those efforts: 85% of Democrats but a full 45% of Republicans as well. And only 18% of Republicans want any politician opposing unionization campaigns.

So any Republican who wants to oppose Starbucks workers organizing, for example, has to be pretty sobered by these numbers. Americans have an overwhelmingly, almost knee-jerk support for people wanting to form unions - something the media notably fails to acknowledge in most of their coverage (or lack thereof) for most labor campaigns.

How Do Workers Feel About Being in a Union Themselves?

For questions on what people want from a union, here’s where the poll plays a bit with the numbers to get results they want, which is that they count only respondents who (a) are not in a union already, (b) work for private, for-profit companies and (c) work at least 30 hours per week at a company. This excludes public and non-profit employees, including large numbers of health care workers for example, who are often the most likely to support unions, and excludes part-time workers who might have the most to gain from employment guarantees of a union contract.

But that said, it’s still an interesting subset of workers to understand how they think about unions, as long as we remember that this is only a subset of workers, even if it is the traditional stereotype of who joins unions.

So of this group, only 32% would categorically not join the union but it’s a cautionary note that only 35% would automatically vote yes. That leaves about a third undecided, which is where employer consultants work to undermine union support in individual organizing campaigns.

Where is the hesitancy of workers to join a union, given how favorable they are overall towards unions generally?

The answer the Compass Institute gives is that workers distrust unions’ involvement in national politics. And on its face, they have a compelling case with 74% of their defined “potential union members” wanting unions to be involved in “workplace issues only” and not “national politics.”

The problem here is this dichotomy between “national politics” and “workplace issues” since everything from trade to environmental regulation to immigration policy to health care coverage debates impacts job prospects for workers and what they need to collectively bargain for with employers.

But given the toxic political polarization we see in politics now, it’s probably accurate and that on its face, there will be a chunk of workers who in the abstract want a union but don’t agree with a particular unions’ stance on immigration, especially if they haven’t been involved in internal union debates on WHY they got involved over the years.

I will say that while American Compass claims that workers also don’t want their employers involved in politics, their framing of that question is ridiculously partisan since it asks workers about opposition to their employers being involved in “social justice issues.”

This framing ignores whether respondents want their employers involved in slashing corporate tax rates and defunding public education or slashing environmental regulations or undermining union power itself (as Rubio is doing with the TEAM Act). Since much of union political engagement historically grew in opposition to corporate political involvement, this framing by American Compass is deceptive. A question that asked “Do you think unions need to be involved in national politics to counteract corporate involvement in political campaigns?” would get very different results.

What Workplace Models is American Compass Promoting?

But progressives should understand the frame that American Compass uses and expect it to be deployed politically by Republicans in support of their version of “pro-worker” models.

To its credit, American Compass trashes the Republican myth that individual workers are seriously negotiating their conditions of employment in any meaningful way. Roughly 70% of workers have either “never” negotiated working conditions with their employer or not done so in the last five years.

And it’s not because they love their jobs, even if many have some positive things to say about their employers. On average, far more workers would not recommend their jobs to a friend, with only upper-class workers on average enthusiastic about their workplace.

So the message American Compass has for Republicans is that they are delusional if they think most of their working class supporters are satisfied with their jobs or employers.

Yet Americans do have a rugged individualist streak. Even if they don’t actually negotiate individually with their employers in practice, in the abstract they would prefer to do so themselves.

And the standard framing of creating a polarized choice between labor unions as “outside organizations” versus “representatives chosen by employees” does resonate with people. Which is why you hear it incessantly in anti-union messaging during union campaigns.

Which adds up to workers being very conflicted about what they want from a union or a union-like organization. And in the end, much as the American Compass folks would like to say that workers want labor-management teams that can create win-win solutions to every workplace problem, workers in the poll just don’t really buy it.

Asked about if cooperation from management is needed for a successful worker organization, only 27% of potential union members agreed that cooperation with management was needed to be successful.

I actually appreciate that American Compass gave respondents a choice between a “worker organization that lacks power but has management cooperation” (essentially what Rubio and other Republicans promote) versus one with “more power, but management opposes” (ie. actual labor unions.) Respondents didn’t jump on the labor union model but only 15% supported the “team-style” approach.

Interestingly, they note that two-thirds of workers supported the “no power but management cooperates” option in a survey two decades ago. So the evidence presented is that workers have gotten radically more distrustful of employers in the last two decades.

Still, taking the power question aside, most respondents do buy into the idea of employees and management being involved together in running a worker organization- which adds to your sense reading the answers how conflicted a lot of people are on what is needed to fix the problems they see in their workplace life.

They also ask a bunch of questions about whether unions should be involved more in providing benefits and training instead of politics (yep, as framed) but the more interesting question asked is whether unions should lose the right to strike in exchange of getting seats on the board of directors of their employer. Workers are notably skeptical of the value of that; only a minority of even Republicans support the idea. Note that Rubio’s bill, while it doesn’t eliminated the right-to-strike, does give workers a seat (singular and non-voting) on their company’s board of directors.

What’s the Implication of Workers’ Views Here?

The good news for pro-union progressives is that Americans have an overwhelmingly positive view of unions in general and an overwhelmingly distrustful view of employer intentions. But political polarization means a lot of workers are distrustful of union involvement in politics (read supporting Democrats) and they are conflicted on what kind of organization they need in their workplaces to improve them.

Republicans are trying to sell management-worker “teams” as the way to thread the needle, but clearly progressives just need to bang the “no real worker power” message and there is little likelihood of workers, even those currently supporting Republicans, will buy that as a real solution. But Republicans will try, so understanding the messaging here is critical in counteracting it among voters.

For progressives, the key is no doubt selling unions through the organizing that’s happening, since when it comes to an actual union campaign, Americans are barely conflicted at all. They are for the workers and they want politicians to support the union or shut up and get out of the way.

And the more stories the public get of how unions actually organize, which these days in particular require employees being incredibly active in leading those fights inside workplaces, the more GOP propaganda creating a false choice between an “outside organization” versus one “chosen by employees” is likely to be dissolved.

More workers need to understand as well that “collective negotiations” is less about strikes or showdowns that happen every few years than about creating actual rights within the workplace, including free speech and just cause protections, where you need collective support to protect those rights. Pro-union folks need to be clearer and more specific on what collective negotiations get people in the workplace that individual negotiations can never deliver.

As to politics by unions, I’m obviously in the camp of more, not less social unionism and political involvement, but I also recognize that union political involvement has to be sold in the context of the overwhelmingly corporate corruption of our politics - and the need for collective action through unions to counteract that corporate power. We need to highlight continually all the ways employers are involved in politics, which is the best way to get more workers, grudgingly in some cases, to admit that unions need to be involved in politics as well.

Overall, I appreciated the depth and variety of questions asked in the American Compass survey and while some of the framing was biased, the results were clearly not always what they wanted to hear. Unsurprisingly, given the divisions in our politics among American workers, there were clear contradications and conflicts in the views expressed by American workers, but it’s overall a really positive base on which to rebuild the US union movement.

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