September 10, 2022

By Thomas Klikauer

Many people know that the trade unions are in dire straits since decades, plagued by a rapidly aging membership, declining union density, strong headwinds from neoliberalism and conservative governments, etc. These facts have been debated since years. Yet, a recent book entitled – Re-Union – How Bold Labor Reforms Can Repair, Revitalize, and Reunite the United States isn’t about rehearsing the facts that we already know. Instead, it makes a bold, plausible, and sensible suggestion on how to revive the fortunes of trade unions in the USA, and in fact, globally.

The central argument to Re-Union the USA is that stronger trade unions operating under a new type of labor system could help address the country’s underlying economic and political challenges. This is true for every country – not just for the USA. Yet, despite the doom and gloom scenarios on trade unions, more workers went on strike in 2018 than had struck in any year since the 1980s, and a similar number went on strike in 2019.

The 1980s are important for trade unions as it marked the beginning of the ideology of neoliberalism when Thatcher – ideologically – married Reagan. Neoliberalism is an extremely anti-union ideology.

One idea behind Re-Union is that its proposed system would seek to push union density higher. Yet, the key to all this might be what is known as The Ghent System, named after the Belgian city of Ghent – wherein unions help deliver unemployment insurance or benefits. This is a system that is currently operating in countries such as: Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, and Belgium. It assures the institutional integration of trade unions into the state apparatus. The Center for American Progress recently called the proposal “American Ghent”.  

This system would indeed formalize the role of trade unions in providing public benefits and it will also do this through a broad-based bargaining system that would provide additional incentives for union membership.

Moreover, it would also fight inequality, which in the USA is most comparable to places like Saudi Arabia, Peru, Guyana, and Thailand. Still in the USA, perhaps – actually, most likely – the Ghent System will lead to an increased trust in governmental institutions. So far, the public’s trust in the government most of the time or just about always, fell from 77% in 1964 to just 17% in 2019. While the Ghent system might not reverse this - it will surely get those numbers up.

Conceivably, the Ghent System might even change the minds of the CEOs who hold strong anti-union attitudes as expressed by, for example, Walmart’s former CEO who once said about his opposition to union, we like driving the car and we’re not going to give the steering wheel to anyone but us. Despite this, Ghent System’s most important policy is to maintain high and stable union membership while also boosting union density by around 20%.

One of the most impressive facts on the Ghent System is its operation in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. When compared to the three master-countries of neoliberalism – Australia, the UK, and the USA – as well as Canada, Japan, Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, three groups of countries emerge:

1.     Countries with low union density and low collective bargaining coverage: Australia, Canada, Japan, the UK, and the USA;

2.     Countries with high collective bargaining coverage but low union density: Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland; and finally,

3.     Countries with high union density and high collective bargaining coverage: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden.

Most illuminatingly, the three groups show that the countries in groups 1 and 2, we do not find any evidence that the Ghent system is being utilized. Meanwhile, the countries under group 3 – Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden – are the nations that operate the Ghent system. These are also the countries with a high number of employers that are covered by multi-employer agreements.

One might indeed argue that the Ghent System boosts productivity. Yet, in recent years, the decoupling of productivity from wages’ growth has been seen – a fact even noticed by the otherwise rather neoliberal OECD, as well as the Economic Policy Institute.

Perfect examples of this are the UK, Australia, and the USA but there are also other countries where workers experience wage stagnation and rising inequality. In Australia, for example, in 1980, the income inequality was so low that the bottom 99% received 95.5% of the nation’s income, almost the level found in Sweden, and slightly better than in Norway. Since then, neoliberalism has changed that by shifting wealth upwards and camouflaging this move through the ideological hallucination of a trickle-down economy.

Perhaps the Ghent System might even render the idea of the UBI obsolete. Yet, even the most extreme version of this idea does not fully address the USA’s wage and inequality challenges, let alone do much for democracy.

Beyond that, the proponents of the Ghent System are rather optimistic – perhaps a touch bit too optimistic – about getting the Ghent system into the USA. They argue that a pro-union electoral majority could exists in the near future since the public is supportive of unions – which is currently at its highest since 1965.

On the downside, a significant support for the Republican Party or business for a new labor system of Ghent seems unlikely. Indeed, one just needs to consider that the Republican Party has converted itself from the extremism of the Tea Party into the radical extremism of Trumpism.

Furthermore, US businesses remain staunchly anti-union as bosses did rather well during the years of neoliberalism. And finally, there are still the imperatives of Media Capitalism working against the Ghent System.

Yet, Ghent system supporters believe that the window for success may be wider for an incremental approach that seeks labor reform. Simultaneously, many are also aware that although the Supreme Court famously upheld the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act, the law did not even survive the few years without court decisions weakening it.

Given the recent stacking of the US Supreme Court with Trump’s stooges and its recent decisions, the inspiring optimism of Ghent system supporters might turn out to be illusionary.

Despite their somewhat over-enthusiasm, Ghent system supporters do present a well-thought-out and comprehensive argument for the Ghent system. Advocates of the Ghent system suggest that it is a possible remedy to reverse the current declining trend of the unions, even supporting a revitalization of trade unions, and the strengthening of collective bargaining.

The Ghent System basically argues that trade unions should be incorporated into what Althusser once called the state apparatus. On the upswing, the Ghent System would indeed stabilize trade unions and increase collective bargaining.

It would also assure that businesses will have to engage in multi-employer bargaining while more workers are included into collective bargaining. In the end, The Ghent system proposal is workable, plausible, and a well laid out pitch that might just reverse the current trends of wage stagnation and rising inequality.

Among his 800 publications, is Thomas Klikauer’s recent book on Media Capitalism.