Panel discusses Constitution and labor

Politics professor Paul Frymer discussed labor rights in the United States on Thursday afternoon in his talk “Labor and the Constitution: What Rights Do Americans Have in the Workplace?” The lecture was presented by the Program in American Studies; the Program in Law and Public Affairs; the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions; and the Office of the Provost as the annual University Constitution Day Lecture.The respondents were economics professor Henry Farber GS ’77 and James Pope GS ’04, a Sidney Reitman Scholar and professor of law at Rutgers School of Law.

“We live in a democratic society under a constitution,” Frymer said. “We spend most of our waking hours in a place that the Constitution hovers [over] but rarely enters; that is, the workplace. Indeed, the Constitution is thought to travel with us wherever we go. It just doesn’t travel with us if we work at Wal-Mart down at Route 1.”

Frymer said that labor unions are once again becoming increasingly relevant, as shown by recent examples such as the fight that occurred in the spring between the Wisconsin state government and public employee unions or the current protest by the Asbestos, Lead & Hazardous Waste Laborers’ Local 78 against the University’s asbestos abatement project on the Merwick construction site.

“We’re living in a time of severe budget problems and, specifically, a time of severe budget crises,” Frymer said. “After decades of cutbacks, one of the final frontiers now is public employees who have big pensions, have security and have a number of rights that have been built and embedded for many decades.”

According to Frymer, labor unions have also been portrayed poorly in the media and are painted as preventing job growth and national reform. However, while many Americans believe that unions are too powerful, the number of union members has significantly decreased. Fifty years ago, one-third of Americans in the private workforce were in unions; today, that number is less than 7 percent.

Frymer added that, despite the animosity toward labor unions, it is true that many rights guaranteed by the Constitution do not translate to the workplace.

“There is very little right to free speech in the workplace,” Frymer said. “The right to the Fourth Amendment, privacy, does not exist. The right to a trial, a judge, a jury of your peers if you’re accused of misconduct at work — no. You don’t go to jail, necessarily ... but you’ll certainly be fired based on hearsay, based on no-say.”

He also noted the lack of focus in the United States Constitution on labor, unlike in other constitutions such as that of Italy.

“What does the Constitution say about labor? Very little,” Farber said.

Though Farber agreed with Frymer's assertion, Pope disagreed. “It doesn’t matter how many words you have in the Constitution," he said, citing as an example the Constitution's protection of free speech.

“I don’t believe that this mainly depends on institutions, like courts and government,” Pope said. “This mainly depends on the people. It’s about culture, what people believe in and what people are willing to do to act. It’s all about what will actually happen, what people will tolerate and what they won’t tolerate.”