THE COMPANY GETS A BOARDROOM. THE WORKERS DESERVE A VOICE.

JUSTICE · ECONOMIC JUSTICE

Published by Langhorne P. Breedlove

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2026 · 12:20 AM ET

Tags: Economic Justice · Collective Bargaining · Worker Representation · Employee Ownership · Labor Rights

Dear fellow American proletariat: If eight executives can decide what happens to eight thousand employees before lunch, perhaps the employees ought to be allowed to ask a question before somebody announces that the layoffs are actually an exciting new chapter in operational excellence.

We are told a company is a family, right up until the family receives a calendar invitation titled 'Organizational Update' and discovers that the family has been outsourced. American Proletariat proposes something considerably more practical than another corporate values poster: give working people enforceable ways to speak together, negotiate the conditions of their labor, and participate in decisions that determine their livelihood.

THE MANDATE

Modern Worker Voice & Bargaining would protect the right to organize and bargain through independently chosen unions, while creating additional, legally sound paths to worker representation: elected workplace councils with defined powers, sector-level standards where authorized, portable benefits, meaningful labor-management consultation, and voluntary employee ownership. One model cannot fit a hospital, a farm, a restaurant, a software firm, and a family-owned machine shop. Nor should one institution be granted an exclusive moral franchise on defending workers.

The central rule is simple: workers should be able to choose their own representatives without threats, retaliation, or manipulation. Representation must be independent from the employer, financially transparent, democratically accountable, and open to replacement by the workers it serves. Workers who decline membership or collective activity retain the protections that applicable law provides. This is an expansion of meaningful choice, not compulsory enrollment in somebody else's organization.

The proposal would also require genuine bargaining on wages, scheduling, workplace safety, grievance procedures and other legally defined employment conditions. It would not give every employee a personal veto over ordinary management decisions. It would give workers a lawful, practical means to influence decisions now made entirely above their heads.

THE UNITED STATES ALREADY PROMISED THIS.

Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. Section 7 protects covered employees' rights to organize, form or assist labor organizations, bargain collectively through representatives of their choosing, and act together for mutual aid or protection; it also recognizes rights to refrain from those activities (Source 01). The revolutionary principle is already on the books. The difficulty is delivering it to people whose employers have mastered the art of recognizing a right only after three hearings and an appeal.

The National Labor Relations Board explains that covered workers can act collectively even without a recognized union, including discussing wages, bringing group complaints, or organizing for improved conditions. Under current rules, employers may not threaten or spy on workers because they seek to exercise protected organizing rights (Source 02). These are existing protections, not new AP inventions.

A union election generally can be triggered when at least 30% of workers in an appropriate bargaining unit sign authorization cards or a petition. Certification follows a majority vote among participating voters; an employer may also voluntarily recognize a union upon reliable evidence of majority support, subject to applicable law (Source 03). The process matters because 'worker voice' becomes decorative rather quickly when management selects the workers who are permitted to speak.

THE NUMBERS ARE NOT FLATTERING.

In 2025, 14.7 million American wage-and-salary workers belonged to unions, representing 10.0% of that workforce. The comparable membership rate was 20.1% in 1983. In the private sector, only 5.9% of workers were union members in 2025; in the public sector, the rate was 32.9%. Another 1.8 million workers were covered by a union contract without being union members themselves (Source 04).

These statistics do not mean the other 90% never speak up. They do mean that a policy designed solely around existing union membership will miss a very large share of the people whose jobs are shaped by decisions they cannot individually control.

The NLRA also leaves important categories outside its coverage, including many agricultural and domestic workers, independent contractors, supervisors, public employees, and workers subject to the Railway Labor Act. Some of these workers have rights under other federal or state laws, but the legal map is fragmented (Source 05). A federal reform that claims to include 'everyone' must say exactly which statutes it changes and which employment relationships it covers.

WORKER COUNCILS WITHOUT COMPANY PUPPETS

We propose testing elected workplace councils with real consultation rights over defined operational matters such as scheduling rules, training plans, workplace hazards, technology deployment and large-scale restructuring. They would not displace a recognized union's exclusive bargaining rights or allow management to create an imitation union. Under Section 8(a)(2) of the NLRA, employer domination or interference in a labor organization is unlawful (Source 06). New council legislation must therefore be carefully drafted to protect independence and avoid conflicting with existing bargaining arrangements.

For some workplaces, a council may complement a union; for others, a lawfully designed representation body may provide meaningful consultation where collective bargaining is absent. Elections, recall procedures, record access, confidentiality duties, anti-retaliation protections, and conflict-of-interest rules would matter more than what the body calls itself. There is no virtue in inventing a fancy committee that management can simply ignore.

BARGAINING BEYOND A SINGLE COMPANY

When hundreds of competing firms use the same labor model, company-by-company bargaining can leave workers facing similar pressures despite separate workplaces. AP proposes examining sector standards—baseline pay practices, training, safety and portable benefits across an industry—through legislation that clearly defines bargaining representation, enforcement and antitrust treatment. The current NLRA does not automatically install a nationwide sectoral-bargaining system.

This would demand particular care for small employers, regional differences, independent businesses and workers who move between jobs. Portable credentials and benefits would follow eligible workers rather than evaporating whenever an employer changes. A sector standard must improve conditions without becoming a club used by dominant firms to squeeze out smaller competitors.

OWNERSHIP IS AN OPTION. NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR RIGHTS.

The U.S. Department of Labor identifies employee stock ownership plans, worker cooperatives, and employee ownership trusts as different ways to give workers a financial stake in business. It established a federal Employee Ownership Initiative under provisions of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (Source 07). That means there are already practical models to learn from without pretending every cashier must become a corporate finance professor.

A worker cooperative can give member-workers democratic governance rights; an employee stock ownership plan is ordinarily a retirement-benefit trust holding company stock for eligible employees; employee ownership trusts can hold shares for workers' benefit under another legal arrangement (Source 08). These models differ significantly in governance, risk and liquidity, so one-size-fits-all promises about 'ownership' are unhelpful.

AP would support independent education, succession assistance and fair financing for employers and workers who choose those arrangements. But a worker's basic rights cannot be contingent upon buying shares or accepting investment risk. An ESOP is not a replacement for a safe workplace, and an equity grant does not excuse wage theft. Ownership must be a real opportunity, not a decorative substitute for the paycheck.

THE LEGAL PATH

Congress should consider amendments to the NLRA and related labor statutes to strengthen anti-retaliation remedies, improve access to collective representation, address genuinely uncovered categories, and authorize worker-council or sector arrangements where they can coexist with existing exclusive-representation rules. State, Tribal, and public-sector employment jurisdictions require separate analysis. Labor-law preemption, First Amendment rights, antitrust law, contracts and constitutional due process cannot be dismissed with an enthusiastic slogan.

Implementation could begin with public research and opt-in demonstration programs, transparent standards for workplace consultation, independent labor-education grants, digital access to organizing information, and strengthened enforcement for retaliatory conduct. Later phases would depend on measurable success, industry-specific consultation and legislative approval. No company should be allowed to buy its way out of a legal duty; no worker organization should be exempt from democratic accountability.

THE TEN-YEAR LEDGER

A ten-year budget must separately estimate federal enforcement staff, election and case-processing capacity, public education, state implementation assistance, pilot grants, recordkeeping systems and evaluation. It must also assess employer compliance costs, wage or benefit changes, employment effects, bargaining coverage, litigation costs and tax effects. The fiscal model cannot honestly be completed without eligibility counts, program design, adoption rates, enforcement caseloads and legal text.

Public grants and agency operations are direct governmental expenditures. Wage increases negotiated between private parties are not automatically federal outlays. Worker ownership financing may involve loans, tax provisions or private capital, each requiring separate risk accounting. Any claim that 'worker voice pays for itself' would have to survive an independently reviewable fiscal model. The workers deserve one; the taxpayers do too.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Representation bodies can be captured by management. Unions can become remote from their members. Industry standards can be written to favor incumbents. Bargaining can stall; elections can become acrimonious; small firms can face new administrative burdens. Some workers may prefer individual negotiation or deliberately avoid membership. The answer is neither to abandon collective rights nor to pretend every organization with 'worker' in its name is democratic.

The safeguards are contested elections, rights to organize or refrain, financial transparency, independent adjudication, real penalties for retaliation, periodic review, and meaningful protection for small employers and workers outside traditional arrangements. Evaluations should measure actual outcomes—not the number of glossy reports announcing a successful stakeholder-engagement journey.

HOW WE WILL KNOW IF IT WORKED

Publish annual figures on bargaining coverage, representation elections, resolution times, unfair-labor-practice enforcement, median wages and benefits, safety conditions, turnover, grievance outcomes, small-firm compliance costs, employee ownership transitions and workers' reported ability to influence decisions. Break out results by industry, state, employer size and relevant worker characteristics while preserving privacy.

A strong economy needs businesses willing to invest, managers capable of managing, and workers who can bargain without betting their livelihoods on whether the boss woke up magnanimous. We are not trying to make every employee the chief executive. We are insisting that employees stop being the only people in the enterprise expected to accept every decision as an act of God.

A business can be privately owned without being privately governed in every respect. And the workers who build its value should have a voice in their own lives.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

01 · U.S. House Office of the Law Revision Counsel — 29 U.S.C. § 157, Right of Employees as to Organization and Collective Bargaining. https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/119-136/t29/s157/

02 · National Labor Relations Board — Interfering with Employee Rights (Sections 7 and 8(a)(1)). https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/interfering-with-employee-rights-section-7-8a1

03 · National Labor Relations Board — Your Right to Form a Union. https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/your-right-to-form-a-union

04 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Union Members, 2025 (February 18, 2026). https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.htm

05 · National Labor Relations Board — Are You Covered? https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/are-you-covered

06 · National Labor Relations Board — What's the Law? Employers: Section 8(a)(2). https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employers

07 · U.S. Department of Labor — Employee Ownership Initiative. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-activities/programs-and-initiatives/employee-ownership-initiative

08 · U.S. Department of Labor — Employee Ownership: ESOPs, Worker Cooperatives and Employee Ownership Trusts. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-activities/programs-and-initiatives/employee-ownership-initiative/tools-and-resources/employee-ownership

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WE ARE ONE.  ·  E PLURIBUS UNUM.