By Robert Ovetz

Courtesy of The Chief

At a recent worker organizing conference I heard a talk by a PSC-CUNY member who called for repealing the Taylor Law. During the break, while we talked about how to do that, they dismissed using “illegal” strikes. The reason was, they said, PSC would be unable to do one-on-one meetings with all the faculty to collect their dues once automatic dues deduction is suspended as punishment for striking.  

Dues are not the issue. A union that is unwilling to do one-on-ones with its members to organize them does not deserve their dues.   

The well-organized strike builds the union. It motivates the committed members to the struggle and brings in those on the sidelines. Win the strike and members will generously pay their dues. 

What can be done to defeat the draconian 1967 Public Employees Fair Employment Act, otherwise known as the Taylor Law? Passed in response to the 1966 New Year’s strike by the Amalgamated Transit Union and the Transport Workers Union, it imposes steep costs for striking. A union can lose dues deductions for up to a year, be hit with fines and possible jail time for leaders. TWU’s former president, Roger Toussaint, knows that well. When his union struck in 1985 against attacks on their pension by a Republican governor and mayor, the union was fined $2.5 million and he served four days in jail. Nevertheless, the dues kept coming in. 

Despite the 1982 Triborough Amendment, employers continue to use the law to drag their feet engaging in bad faith bargaining until impasse that leads to binding arbitration, according to Hofstra law professor Rebecca Marks. Buffalo teachers worked for 12 years until 2016 without a contract. Their previous contract took 10 years. The law exempts firefighters and law enforcement. 

The Taylor Law is hardly unique. Only 12 states allow public workers to strike if they can get through the many roadblocks put in their way. Federal workers, at least those allowed to even unionize, are under entirely different sets of labor law that prohibit strikes. And let’s not forget that nearly every union contract, including my own, includes an onerous no-strikes clause, although it expires when the CBA does. 

Striking is the only strategy to kill the Taylor Law. 

Cozying up to the political parties hasn’t worked. In fact, supposedly pro-labor-Governor Andrew Cuomo carried out vicious attacks on public workers, attacked the pension system and raised the retirement age. When Professor Zephyr Teachout and actors union member Cynthia Nixon both ran against him promising to kill the Taylor Law, some of the union leadership turned against them and embraced the governor, who later resigned in disgrace.  

Few realize that the Taylor Law hasn’t stopped strikes, it has only made it imperative that workers win their strike. As the old PATCO saying goes, “There are no illegal strikes, just unsuccessful ones.” They should know. The air traffic controllers union carried out a banned federal strike in 1981 and lost both the strike and their jobs. 

In the four years following passage of the law, there were 299 strikes. It took bankruptcy in 1975 to dampen the strikes. Since 1983 there have been only about 50 strikes. There have also been an unknown number of strike threats.

It’s important to remember that labor law is enacted in response to worker struggles in order to control, manage or repress them. Labor law that serves our interests is never enacted voluntarily because we elected and supported the right politicians. After all, look at the so-called Democratic Socialists like U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Ortiz who voted to break the railroad workers strike last Fall.  

Strikes in New York follow the long tradition of the workers movement to strike to assert our power regardless of whether the law allows it. My first book, “When Workers Shot Back,” recounts a long series of strikes from the 1877 railroad strike to the 1920s miners strikes that defied the law. Federal labor law first began because of “illegal” wildcat strikes in the weapons industry during WWI.  

Other public workers have struck and won despite strike bans. In 1970, the postal workers struck and won. A wave of public sector strikes concentrated in the South during the 1960s and 1970s resulted in enshrining collective bargaining into law in many states.  

And in 2018 to 2019, teachers struck in "right to work" states West Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Virginia and Arizona in defiance of bans on public-sector strikes. They won increased funding for public education and better pay and benefits. In Virginia, the strikes resulted in legalized local collective bargaining in 2021. During the early months of the pandemic, Payday Report counted as many as 600 wildcat strikes around the country. 

The workers movement needs a shift of perspective. Our struggles force changes to labor law, not the other way around. A law that cannot stop a strike is irrelevant and will be changed in response to our actions.  

When my acquaintance’s union, PSC-CUNY, threatened to strike in 2016 after five years without a contract, they won better job security for contingent faculty. As reported on [the pages of The Chief], other New York public unions have followed with their own credible strike threats. The Taylor Law is toothless when workers organize a credible strike threat that promises to disrupt business as usual. 

SEIU 200United Lead Organizer Sean Collins recently wrote about the Taylor Law that “Worker power, not legislative horse-trading, will change the state of play.” 

If our union leaders are unwilling to join our newly reinvigorated U.S. and global labor movement they should step aside and let the rank and file lead.   

The strike is still the only effective tactic we have to get rid of the Taylor, other laws and no strike clauses standing in the way of our ability to organize and fight. 

Robert Ovetz teaches at two California public universities. He is editor of “Workers' Inquiry and Global Class Struggle,” and the author of “When Workers Shot Back” and mostly recently “We the Elites: Why the US Constitution Serves the Few.” Follow him at @OvetzRobert