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By Noah Grand
Daily Bruin Reporter
Labor party members discussed at the UCLA School of Law Thursday
how understanding the U.S. Constitution can strengthen
workers’ positions during strikes.
“You cannot organize a union by following the labor
laws,” said Ed Bruno, who has 30 years of experience as a
union organizer. “We have to trump the bad law with the
Constitution.”
Jim Pope, a law professor at Rutgers University, said workers
should use a constitutional right to strike to achieve changes in
the workplace.
Without the ability to improve their workplace, Pope said a
worker’s only option is to quit and go to another job, where
the same situation ““ which he called “involuntary
servitude” ““ would occur.
The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, best known for
abolishing slavery, states that “neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United
States.”
The original idea behind the term “involuntary
servitude” was defined by an inability to quit, according to
Pope. But he said, the ability to quit does not help a worker if
they cannot get into a better job after quitting.
Pope said people should use the 13th Amendment to justify
striking. During a strike, a group of workers refuse to work
““ essentially they quit ““ until their demands are
met.
Bruno and Pope want to frame all disputes between workers and
employers around this ability to strike, which they say is provided
by the 13th Amendment. They want the public to consider these
issues as important to all workers instead of individual disputes
confined to individual unions.
“We’re framing union problems as something for the
union when they should be problems for everyone,” Bruno
said.
He said unions currently cannot work together until they think
about these issues in constitutional terms. Currently, only member
of one bargaining group ““ the local segment of a union which
negotiates with the employer ““ can strike, and only against
problems with their employer.
“There are 14 million people in unions across the United
States, all of whom are put in small boxes called bargaining
units,” Bruno said. “Our problem stands from our
inability to show solidarity.”
But he warned that mere numbers are not sufficient if they are
not actively committed to the union.
“You have to be careful to build the union and not just
say everyone is in,” Bruno said. “You need an active
base.”
Lobbying and the political process have not worked to reform
labor law, Bruno said, so another means of reform is needed.
“Constitutional rights have always come through claiming
them,” Pope said, referring to Supreme Court cases of free
speech after arrests were made for pro-Communist speech in the
1920s.
“Labor (movements) put the First Amendment on the map when
the group said we will exercise that right to free speech,”
Pope said.