I got a real nice note from the Vice-President of a local union yesterday, pretty-much agreeing with me about my stance on the need for more worker-representation. She suggested that people need to know and understand the history of unions and what benefits unions have brought to ALL workers. And, she is right. The forty hour workweek and paid holidays and health insurance and child- employment laws and overtime and numerous safety advancements, including workman’s comp are all arrows in the quill. Without union we all suffer. However, in the heyday of union history, we also have the union abuses: Mafia money laundering, using pension money for personal gain, murder. It’s not all a pretty picture. “Power corrupts, absolute power—corrupts absolutely.” Anyone my age will remember the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance. Movies have been made. That one person remains the face of unions in the America psychic. And that is a real shame. Unions are so much more than that and the good clearly outweighs the bad. But the opposition to unions is organized and formidable. And, unions, unfortunately decided to place their emphasis on organizing more white-collar business back in the 70s when it became apparent that service-sector jobs were replacing blue-collar jobs in America. It was a mistake. For too many reasons to get into right now, but the biggest drawback is the two cultures—blue-collar and white-collar—are so very different. The simplest way to say this is that most folks look at white-collar jobs as a temporary place; you either aspire to management, where you don’t need or want union representation or, you are at that job until something better comes along; blue-collar jobs are more permanent, folks go to work and want to spend 30-years and earn their retirement benefits. Unions should have stayed in the blue-collar worlds—trucking, warehousing, distribution, construction, building, manufacturing and let Wal-Mart alone. Those kids and old folk and young women working there are just passing time and passing by… What unions did get right was the organizing of government employees. There, folks are both white-collar and permanent. That, it would seem anyway, was the one shining example of where the union movement had a real positive effect in the last 30 years or so. I remember when I was 16-years-old and the cafeteria workers at OSU went on strike and won the right for state workers to organize. Big deal at the time because until then state workers could not organize. What unions need is a grass roots movement. And WOW, how the time is ripe for that. But unions are so disorganized and so myopic; it’s hard for me to see how they can use the current situation—high unemployment, stagnate wages, loss of benefits and loss of a manufacturing base to their advantage. Unions should figure out how to connect with these high school and college kids who will be facing a terrible work environment. Movies about Eugene V. Debs should be made, people don’t even know the man existed. And, if you check out Wikipedia about Debs you get such a poor picture (literally) of this hero that it boggles the mind. Unions don’t have an effective communication engine to help rectify things like this. Any number of worker-strikes would make great television—even if were fictionalized to a degree. A movement against history book distributors for schools should be joined to ensure that this proud union history is fully explored. But the unions don’t have a consensus as to how to proceed through the 21st Century. They target Wal-Mart instead of large home-builders, Home Depot instead of construction workers, cafeteria workers instead of transportation companies. Eugene V, Debs will roll-over in his grave.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 12:33:51 +0000
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