Political economy program hosts union lecture

As students prepare to graduate college and enter the workforce, unions are something they are bound to face. Invited by Associate Professor of International Affairs and Program Director of Political Economy Elizabeth Bennett, Professor Emeritus of Economics Martin Hart-Landsberg and Scott Cheesewright ’09 came to campus on Jan. 27 to give a talk entitled “Why Unions Matter.” Landsberg is the founder of Lewis & Clark’s Political economy program, and Cheesewright is an LC alumnus who majored in Economics. 

Landsberg and Cheesewright both work for Portland Jobs with Justice, an organization whose purpose is to defend and protect worker’s rights. 

They serve on a committee called Portland Rising which, according to Cheesewright, puts on “events approximately monthly to bring together unions, workers and people of faith to strategize how to improve the lives of working people and support workers who are in struggle.”

However, the main focus of the “Why Unions Matter” program is increasing awareness among students. 

“Colleges, universities, high schools are places where there are a lot of people who we think should know about (unions) and the unions aren’t going in there to talk about it,” Landsberg said. 

Over the past two years, Jobs with Justice representatives have given this talk over eighty times, visiting colleges and high schools in the Portland metro area and all across Oregon. 

Cole Harris ’20, a Political Economy minor, attended the talk.

“As a senior going into the job market, finding job opportunities that treat workers equitably is really challenging, and I think this was really helpful in discerning where to look for a potential employment opportunity,” Harris said.

The talk began with an introduction by Landsberg as he shared statistics that showed a decline in union participation from 17.7 million people in 1983 (21% of the workforce) to 14.6 million people in 2019 (10.3% of the workforce). Landsberg claimed that this decline can be explained by a pervasive and sustained attack on unions by large corporations with help from the government. In addition, the media vilifies union activities, according to Landsberg, turning strikes into “disturbances.” He argued that these representations isolate unions and deter non-union workers from joining.

Cheesewright then told several stories from his work as a union organizer with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which he does in addition to his work at Jobs with Justice. He talked about his childhood growing up in a small town in Colorado and how his mom worked in a non-union hospital as a child care teacher for 16 years. She saw no increase in wages aside from normal inflation adjustments, so she confronted her human resources representative and was fired within a month.

“Colorado is a right-to-work state, which means there are additional barriers to workers building strong unions,” Cheesewright said.

The event closed with additional statistics from Landsberg, he explained that during economic expansions in the ’50s and ’60s, the additional income created by the expansion went to the bottom 99% of the population, as opposed to the most recent economic expansion, where over 75% of new income created went to the top 1% of the population. Landsberg argues that when union participation goes down, the share of income going to the top 20% of the population goes up, and 40% of the shift in income is explained by union density. 

 “In the United States, unions are supposed to be a protected right … but they often aren’t,” Landsberg said.