It's Labor Day as I write this and ponder wistfully the state of organized labor in the United States. I've always been pro-labor, partly out of sheer genetics. My grandfather was a member of the International Brotherhood of Machinists for more than 50 years, and I'm an associate member of the United Steelworkers.
Despite my beliefs, however, I can't manage much enthusiasm about the current state of the labor movement. Organized labor, partly by its own doing but largely because big business and government long ago joined forces against it, is approaching the point of irrelevance in American society.
Historians tend to date the birth of the labor movement with the Pullman strike of 1894, although I might go back a little further, at least to the unrest in the Pennsylvania coal fields in the 1870s. On the other end of the timeline, the collapse of labor's reign as counterweight to big business is most frequently pegged to President Ronald Reagan's crushing of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) in 1981. But I think labor started to die sooner -- in 1947, years before it reached the pinnacle of its strength, with the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act.
Taft-Hartley, authored by Senator Robert "Mr. Republican" Taft and Congressman Fred A. Hartley, invalidated a host of worker protections included in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Among its most insidious provisions, Taft-Hartley allowed "right to work" measures that have outlawed organized labor for all practical purposes in (so far) 23 states. Taft-Hartley, passed by the GOP-majority "do-nothing Congress" over Harry Truman's veto, tipped the labor-management balance irrevocably in favor of what Franklin Delano Roosevelt aptly referred to as "organized money."
There is no law parallel to Taft-Hartley that allows unions to frustrate and invalidate the rights of corporations to organize. For every fast-shrinking labor union today, there are a dozen burgeoning organized-money groups -- The National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Mining Association -- free to operate in every state, but especially in Washington, D.C.
The impact of Taft-Hartley can't be understated. It ensured that every labor-management dispute after 1947 was a cruel mismatch -- the equivalent of a football game between the New York Giants and Yale, with the Giants spotted two or three touchdowns before the kickoff.
As I've noted, the erosion of labor's political power wasn't immediately evident. But it was steady. And it became crystal clear when Reagan took on PATCO, fired its entire membership, replaced them with scabs and got away with it, more popular than ever. By then, organized money had spent three decades demonizing "union bosses," depicting union members as lazy, selfish, and unpatriotic, and sowing deep, corrosive divisions among public unions, private-sector unions, and non-union workers.
Since Taft-Hartley, the most important factor in the triumph of organized money over organized labor has been, well... money. After all, every big-business lobby -- the US Chamber of Commerce, for example -- includes dozens of millionaires and billionaires. By comparison, the highest annual dues paid by any union member in America is a little over $800. The average is closer to $500.
This isn't even the Giants vs. Yale. It's the Giants vs. the Sisters of Mercy.
In the 2010 mid-term election, before the Supreme Court's pro-lobbyist Citizens United decision could be fully exploited, the big spenders among organized money groups -- like the Chamber of Commerce, American Crossroads, the Club for Growth, etc. -- outspent the richest labor unions by roughly $145 million to $39 million.
But that margin -- less than 4-to-1 -- was a pretty close game. More typical of the Giants vs. Yale syndrome was this year's attempted recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. In that election, the winning team from organized money outspent organized labor, 7-to-1. Even more significantly, exit polls show that 38 percent of union members voted to keep the governor. These masochistic union members voted for Walker despite his proud leadership of a national movement, funded by organized money, whose purpose is to eliminate every right that workers had literally died for in the years leading up to 1935, including the fundamental right to collective bargaining.
When union leaders can't trust the loyalty of almost two-fifths of their members, it's pretty safe to conclude that organized labor ain't organized any more.
In 1980s UK our illustrious PM Margaret Thatcher destroyed many of our unions. It is perhaps no cooincidence she was "best friends" with Ronald Reagan. These days in the UK unions are no where near as prevalent or powerful as they used to be and are mostly assiciated with public service workers.
When union leaders can't trust the loyalty of almost two-fifths of their members, it's pretty safe to conclude that organized labor ain't organized any more.
@David Who betrayed trust first here? Didn't members grow disillusioned with their leaders? Haven't there been major breaches of trust on their part?
Ariella: Dont you think both parties are responsible for this ? I feel its a 50 - 50 battle. Trade Unions do have their points stacked up and so s the employers. Ultimately there should be some sort of an agreement where the problems should be equally sorted. So I feel its a 50 - 50 battle all over again.
And what percentage of union revenues have been spent on building/enhancing public image. The dems/unions always seem to think that people should agree with them because they are "right". I suspect the union reputation problem is of their own making. And I must say my personal experience with union shops is that they are much less productive. Case in point, the auto industry in Britan during the 70's/80's that was referenced in another post. Efficiency was incredibly low and the product was laughable. Busting unions might the best thing to happen to this country.
People fought long and hard to raise their social condition above what was, in the early industrial period, not much different from slavery. Today's workers have seen the benefits that come with their trade as some kind of birthright, but people will always have the privelege of forfeiting hard-won rights. Human nature being what it is, there will always be people willing to facilitate the forfeiture process.
People who are able to approach collective bargaining who are gifted with a certain degree of sophistication have a certain duty to act for the greater good--the sustaining of a stable society--should the opportunity present itself. Leaving the sheep to the wolves, and saying that's the way it is, is not always the safest stance.
Ariella, I suppose workers now put their trust in employers whose priority is to enrich employees?
As a society, we've become mercenary in our actions. We each vote for whatever benefits us directly and individually. The collective is long gone. All about me and mine.
@Bolaji, I agree, cynic that I am. But the same dynamics dictate union negotations, and many leaders have sold out the newer members to maximize the benefits and pay for the more senior ones.
Now, I majored in Labor Studies and was taught by professors who tended to be pro-union. They were also de facto union members, as all faculty is within the City University of New York system. However, the union didn't deliver much to its members, and even adjuncts were supposed to be covered, for our pay was garnished for dues. The fact of the matter is that a couple of universities I've worked at that didn't take union dues off our pay actually paid better than CUNY. And in another state univeristy I worked at, the head of the department admitted that most adjuncts did not want the dubious benefits offered, and some would even avoid consecutive semesters of work just to not be opted into it against their will.
I am amazed at the extent to which organized business has managed to make the individual worker believe they could go all alone. We cast all unions as being against companies and the rest of society; as organizations bent on squeezing employers and government and making sure their members do the least amount of work for the highest pay and; as being by nature bad for the larger society.
I reject that view. I don't belong to any workers' union today but I once on another continent belonged to a journalists' union that did not do collective bargaining but hosted workshops about my work, paid the tuitiion for my post graduate degree in journalism and was instrumental to my first trip outside of my country as part of a group of journalists learning about another nation.
My union helped widows of journalists killed in the Liberian war. Three of them were my friends. My union paid attorney fees when a dictatorial government charged journalists with violating laws that were retroactively promulgated to punish offences and violations that weren't in existence at the time of the violation.
I gladly paid my union dues and would today pay union dues if my contributions would help another person advance themselves professionally. Unions arent' all about just collective bargaining or whatever other negative notions we have attached to them.
Even in the area of collective bargaining, is unionization wrong for our society at large? CEOs and top executives at companies get paid hundreds of millions of dollars (Apple's current CEO Tim Cook received over $300 million in his first year in office after Steve Jobs passed) while line workers can consider themselves lucky if they get paid anything above $100,000 -- these are the lucky ones.
Workers have supported the shift in allegiance from unions to companies as if corporations have a fiduciary duty to workers. They don't.
If busting unions were the best thing to happen to Great Britain, I wish you then all joy in opening your next Made in China package.
Ariella, Why have unions become so toxic and why do we pretend they are what's wrong with our society. David Benjamin points out unions aren't as strong today as they once were; their membership numbers are falling and; their financial strength is waning. Yet, workers continue to believe they would succeed and become richer individually -- if they only could get a break, take a second job, get another degree, become more specialized or even work extra four hours per day or over the weekend.
Unions aren't perfect. Companies aren't either but I marvel at the number of times I have received work-related emails from colleagues that are supposedly on vacation. They attend phone conference calls during their vacations and crank out project suggestions during their off hours. All because of the fears that if they didn't they might be seen as slacking or not dedicated enough or because they want to prove to their supervisors they are conscientious. I am equally guilty.
Unions ensured their is someone around to replace you while on vacation so you don't quiver with trepidation throughout your holiday knowing the pile of work that awaits your resumption. They fought for us to have 5-day work week, paid holidays and sabbatical (aaah!) but corporations fought back and told us they were bad for us and the union bosses became the new criminals.
@Bolaji It's a very complex issue. Most workers in the US are not unionized. They do not get annual raises when the economy is in a downturn. In fact, they more likely to be told to either take a cut in hours or salary or both if they don't want to lose their jobs altogether. But unions usually take a line that ignores economic reality and demands that companies continue giving annual raises, no matter what happens to everyone else. As a result, unionized school teachers are now earning more than experienced, degreed, and highly skilled IT workers whose pay took a dip of 25% to 50% after 2008.
I discuss this with someone who declares himself anti-union. He has a relative who worked for the MTA. The relative retired with his full pension and full health care benefits several years ago. No one in private industry gets a deal like that now. Certainly, it's a boon to this person who is in rather poor health and requires regular medical care. But, obviously, the costs get passed on to the MTA that then sucks it out commuters with increased fares and decreased service. Trust me, they are not taking it out of the bonuses they pay their top level executives who always cry poverty to get approval on increases and then find a surplus when it comes to bonus time.
Unions definitely improved working conditions for factory workers. But they don't improve the situation of all workers, and one has to question what really would work best for all -- including keeping commuting expenses affordable for workers who do not get overtime pay even when putting in 10 hour days.
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