A Left point of view
By David Leonhardt | New York Times
To celebrate his first Thanksgiving as president, Franklin Roosevelt traveled to his vacation home in Warm Springs, Ga., in 1933, and he invited a guest to join him: Eddie Cantor, a comedian who was then among Hollywood’s biggest stars.
The invitation wasn’t simply a politician’s attempt to associate himself with a celebrity. It also came with a political message. Cantor was one of the founders of a new Hollywood labor union, the Screen Actors Guild, along with James Cagney, Miriam Hopkins, Groucho Marx, Spencer Tracy and others. The previous month, the union’s members had elected Cantor as their president.
The Guild’s formation was part of a surge in union membership in the 1930s. During Roosevelt’s early flurry of legislation, he signed an economic recovery bill that included a provision giving workers a clearer right to join labor unions than they had previously had. Americans responded by signing up for unions by the thousands.
Cantor was a symbol of this right. Hollywood stars were obviously not typical workers, but they were famous. By inviting Cantor to join him for Thanksgiving, Roosevelt reminded Americans of the central role that labor unions played in a healthy capitalist economy. The president was subtly encouraging other workers to consider joining a union at their own workplace.
Rising approval
Ninety years later, Cantor’s union (now known as SAG–AFTRA) is in the news again, after going on strike last week. Its members still are not typical workers, and the strike’s outcome will have little direct effect on most Americans. By comparison, the recent attempts to form unions at Starbucks and Amazon probably matter much more to the future of the U.S. economy.
But Hollywood continues to have symbolic importance. Actors are familiar figures to many Americans. Over the past few days, people have seen these familiar figures — including George Clooney, Rosario Dawson, Mandy Moore, Margot Robbie and Jason Sudeikis — walking picket lines and arguing for fair wages.
“The eyes of the world and particularly the eyes of labor are upon us,” Fran Drescher, the current union president and former star of “The Nanny,” said in a fiery speech last week. “What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor.”
She added, “I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us!”
The actors’ strike, along with a simultaneous Hollywood writers’ strike, has become one more way in which labor unions are a subject of newfound interest and attention. More than 70 percent of Americans say they approve of labor unions, according to Gallup, up from 54 percent a decade ago. Unions have their highest approval rating since 1965.
This interest in unions is economically rational for many workers. Collective bargaining gives employees leverage that they tend to lack when they negotiate on their own. Unionized workers typically make 10 percent to 20 percent more than similar nonunionized workers, as I’ve explained before. The extra pay often comes out of executive salaries or corporate profits, reducing income inequality in the process.
Still, a surge in unionization resembling that 1930s surge seems unlikely today. Forming new unions remains extremely difficult. Many companies go to extremes to keep out a union, including firing the workers who try to organize one, usually with little legal penalty.
The union boom in Roosevelt’s day depended on changes in federal law. Two years ago, the House of Representatives passed a bill to protect union organizing, and President Biden favored it, but it lacked the support in the Senate to pass. Until that changes, strikes like those in Hollywood are likely to remain rare events — and income inequality is likely to remain high.