(man, this must be my day to be centrist boy)
So apparently there’s a crackup in progress at the AFL-CIO. As a Democrat, I’m supposed to be concerned about this. Union households vote heavily Democratic, and they’re seen as one of the traditional pillars of the DNC. But I seriously question the relevancy of the unions, as currently structured, to our national workforce. I have never had union membership, but from the outside looking in it often appears that while they once strongly advocated for the rights of workers pertaining to what were once luxuries - like the idea of eight hour workdays and “the weekend” - they are nowadays more like a good concept gone bad.
In most other industries, a crack in the monopoly usually leads to benefits for the end users (AT&T for instance), so perhaps instead of a unionized borg, this split will cause the more forward-thinking elements in labor to innovate and get back to basics.
There was an article in the Nation a few months ago about unions today. One proposal was to offer non-union households membership for a nominal fee, say $40-50 annually. This fee would fund lobbying efforts on behalf of workers.
40 years of anti-union propaganda has put those ideas in your head, Oliver. When union membership was at its highest, in the late 60’s, was also when wages were at their highest. They have stagnated since then, while the standard of living in countries like France, Sweden, Japan, and Germany has surpassed ours.
Unions are part of the solution for today’s worker. Maybe not THESE unions, but unions are part of the solution.
“40 years of anti-union propaganda has put those ideas in your head, Oliver”
Gee, I’m betting he thought this all out on his own, Neo.
Dugger
Oliver, and all Americans need to think about what strong unions CAN do to benefit the American worker. They can advocate for universal healthcare, like every other civilized country in the world. They can advocate for real whistle-blower protections. They can advocate for stronger wage growth. They can advocate for actions that protect jobs, rather than export them.
The struggle for workers didn’t end with the 40-hour work week (which is being eroded by liberalised “exempt” standards) and the weekend. If anything, the right-wing corporatists want to take away even that, so unions need to fight to protect even these rights.
I am in a union and because of that I am not subject to firing without cause or notice. In a clerical capacity, that’s an enormous benefit. If problems arise, I have a union rep on site who will come to meetings with me, whether to participate in discussions or simply be a witness to the meeting. That makes a big difference in how issues are addressed between supervisors and subordinates. The union could be better about negotiating wages, but as we are also state employees, there’s only so much leeway. They do try. The union was able to bring pressure to bear when the state simply eliminated the only health plan in our area that isn’t run by a religious organization. Their success meant I could keep the best doctor I’ve ever had. The union also organized voter drives, gave us detailed information on ALL the candidates, including places where we could find more information, and encouraged everyone to encourage everyone they know to vote, regardless of party. All of these things make a difference, and not just to those of us in the unions.
Since unions are responsible for having improved working conditions, wages and benefits, they were systematically attacked and weakened by those who don’t like workers to have a say. If Democrats really want to do something to prove they aren’t Republican-lite, actually address Taft-Hartley. Work to repeal it and make it extremely difficult for them to reinstate anything like it. THEN you’d see an upsurge in union organization.
For the record, I don’t mind the split. It might shake up the union bureacracy enough that they are willing to fight Wal-Mart. That would be refreshing.
I’ve been a union member; my dad belonged to unions all his life, through a whole slew of “careers.” So maybe (probably) this affects my whole take on unionism.
The Forbes article to which you linked says one of the main sources of contention is the apparently unstoppable downward slide in union membership. I agree with JSStewart: the problems with unions today, including the membership decline, aren’t problems inherently in the idea of unions; they’re problems attributable to “the disintegration of labor law into a tool of corporations and politicians.”
I can’t think of a moment in US history when workers are more in need of protection, from SOMEONE, against the forces of corrupt, unfettered capitalism. Wal-Mart is just the most openly talked about, but I doubt it’s the worst example.
The split may or may not fix things. It’s like a metaphor for DLC-type Dems vs. all the other kinds.
“they are nowadays more like a good concept gone bad.” - what the hell is that supposed to mean? Unions are struggling because the labor law protections they once held have been whittled away through coprporate and political corruption. The Department of Labor is now the Department of Corporate Power.
It isn’t the structure of unions so much as the disintegration of labor law into a tool of corporations and politicians. For things to work labor law has to tilt the field a bit to prop up workers, because aside from the ability to withold labor, they have no power at all.
There is also an inherent inequity when union officers, essentially all coming from the rank and file, are put up against business and legal professionals. The way things are set up, they really don’t stand a chance. I’ve been there and done that. I don’t know how you solve this problem without having a government advocate for workers. The Department of Labor sure as hell isn’t one.
“I’ve never been a black person, but from the outside looking in…”
Maybe when I put it that way you can see the flaw in the ‘reasoning’. And just where that form of ‘reasoning’ is most likely to go.
That said, the AFL-CIO worked hand-in-glove with the CIA to destroy foreign unions, making it possible for capitalists to buy from offshore labor gulags instead of domestic producers. After 50 years, the AFL-CIO alliance has delivered much less than the sum of the parts.
Whats that I hear? Oh, thats the tin-foil beany patrol coming.
Thanks serial, that was some mighty fine humor.
One area of America that hasn’t ever really unionized is the technical areas, such as engineering and IT.
There are attempts to unionize those areas, but each attempt has met with eventual failure. Engineers and technicians are just too wimpy to ever stand up for themselves.
What could be a better time for unions, though? With the tech bubble burst and tech jobs going overseas faster than any other area, wouldn’t protection of the tech jobs that are left be a great area for a union to make a stab at a comeback in America?
Well, fill me in, Binky- did union membership rise after the AFL-CIO merger? How about labor solidarity- any sign of that in the ‘68 elections? Were efforts to clean up corrupt unions intitiated by the AFL-CIO leadership, or by rebels from the shop floor who in some cases were gunned down by union goons?
And, has the AFL-CIO ever officially protested the murder of hundreds of union leaders each year for the past decade in Colombia?
As for IT, that job sector is like carrying a plate of water. It doesn’t take a steel mill and a turret lathe to raise a call center…
So wait, because they didn’t actively protest the murders, that means they were in cahoots with the CIA to commit the murders?
Huh? There seems to be some leap of logic that is missing
pionar,
“We need both strong unions and strong corporations to get along. If we have strong unions and weak corporations, those workers end up making more than they re worth, which adversely affects the economy. The other way around, wages are too low, and that adversely affects the economy.”
good stuff
Dugger
My father was in a union for most of his working career. He thought it was the dumbest idea ever. Of course, he had a good local employer, so there really was never a need for a union in that shop.
That said, I’ve seen both sides of the union atmosphere. Just out of high school, and before I decided that I needed to be in college, I worked for Meijer, a midwest retailer along the lines of a Wal-Mart SuperCenter. This was the late 90s.
Anyway, I had moved up to being a manager in the grocery department. That meant I had to go to a store in Ohio for training. Now, the Ohio stores were unionized. The Indiana stores, where I worked, were not.
While Meijer at the time paid better-than-average wages for the industry (I don’t know about now, but I don’t hear good things) at its non-union stores, the union workers made way more and had way better benefits. But they were also held to higher standards.
Whereas grocery stockers in the store I worked at were expected to stock shelves at a rate of 70 cases per hour (easily attainable with some practice and tricks of the trade), the stockers at that store were expected to stock at a rate of over 100 cases per hour. That was just insane to me. But, that was part of their bargaining agreement.
However, a better benefits package proved to get a better quality worker. They always met quota and even had enough time to order new stock. We couldn’t do that at my store, and we often had to have the first shift finish the third shift’s work. We also had to hire a person just to do ordering.
The moral of the story? Yes, union workers are paid more. But those workers are also expected to do more.
We need both strong unions and strong corporations to get along. If we have strong unions and weak corporations, those workers end up making more than they’re worth, which adversely affects the economy. The other way around, wages are too low, and that adversely affects the economy.
Whatever happened to being fair? Why must business and labor always try to squeeze every bit possible out of one another?
Strong unions can help create stronger corporations. It is not in the interest of any union to deliberately weaken their employers, and to say otherwise is baloney.
Nor is it in the interest of anyone to begrudge workers hard fought salaries while turning their heads to outrageously inflated salaries of CEO’s who successfully skim all they can get away with.
I’m a union member, and my union has even been on strike recently.
One problems unions have today is that they get sidetracked by secondary issues, such as a variety of liberal causes (noble causes, but nonetheless) when they should be focused on two areas: organizing and training. Get out of “politics” in the general sense, and focus like a laser beam on organizing, wages, benefits and training.
It used to be a union was an important source of on-the-job training: apprentices becoming journeymen becoming masters. If the unions focused more on “join the union to LEARN a trade, and then the Union will help you find employment at good wages”, many more people would be joining unions. IOW, join the union BEFORE you get the job, join it to FIND the job, not simply be forced to join because your job contract demands it.
Secondly, there is organizing. There shouldn’t be a single business in the nation that employs hourly-wage workers that HASN’T had its employees approached by union organizers. Why they aren’t (figuratively) beating on the doors of every Wal-Mart in the country every single day is baffling. Why isn’t there an informational picket line outside every Wal-Mart, passing out organizing information to the employees as they come to work every morning? And any employee who expresses interest should be wisked off to free training on how to organize their work place. Reprisals against employees for workplace organizing are still illegal, which is where the Dept. of Labor comes in, who should have its feet held to the fire if it fails to enforce the law.
Well, sometimes you have to do politics. For example, homecare workers in Washington state were denied collective bargaining. The state paid them as “independent contractors” so the state could avoid paying Social Security taxes, unemployment taxes, or workman’s comp taxes- and also so the workers couldn’t demand collective bargaining, even if they formed a union.
To bust this system, SEIU had to go to the voters with an initiative measure. All the institutional players were against it- even the organizations that claim to be helping the elderly and disabled. Everybody claimed that paying the workers more than their average rate of about $860 per month would bankrupt the state etc etc.
The voters didn’t buy the scare stories, and approved the initiative with 60% of the vote. Since then the workers have approved SEIU as their bargaining unit, and had their pay raised from $7.15 an hour to about $9.50 per hour.
SEIU has cracked a few other nuts in Seattle too. 30 years ago Swedish hospital just fired anyone who talked about a union. Now their workers are represented by SEIU. Nurses at Group Health had to go out on strike to get a good contract- they did that after changing from their ‘company union’ to SEIU. These are all workpaces that no other union even tried to organize.
Unions have to be about politics- in fact most of us non-union employees are just hitching a free ride on all the good work unions do in insuring worker rights and safety.
If a union only organizes and doesn’t enter the political fray, they will organize, but Republicans elected will pass laws hostile to workers, which will undermine the unions gains.
But, neoconsrloopy, why should unions be involved in non-labor issues?
pionar says: “But, neoconsrloopy, why should unions be involved in non-labor issues?”
My point exactly. It might get some points from the Leftist side when a union shows up to march in an anti-war or pro-choice rally, but what does that have to do DIRECTLY with worker’s rights?
You can make the argument that it all forms a continuum of “oppression” by the powers-that-be, but as much as I am anti-war and pro-choice, it’s just spliiting the attention the unions should be focusing on labor issues exclusively.
It’s like when an anti-war rally ends up as a forum for every Leftist cause from saving the redwoods to freeing Mumia, instead of focusing on the issue at hand.
And as a result, the right-wing can whip up resentment toward unions in the conservative working class and use it to push things like the “paycheck protection” initiative we now have to deal with here in California.
O for heaven’s sakes. And just what percentage of union effort is spent showing up at anti-war rallies? Certainly less than one percent.
But maybe they should have been more concerned about foreign policy. How many jobs would be going overseas if the workers in foreign countries were unionized? How many schools and clinics could we buy for the cost of one aircraft carrier? How much did we spend on our 10,000 (formerly 22,000) nuclear warheads and delivery systems?
Instead, AFL-CIO unions lobbied for more military spending. They stood by and twiddled their thumbs (or served as conduits for CIA money, in the case of the attempted coup against Chavez in Venezuela) while labor leaders were assassinated in foreign countries. And now- here’s a real shocker- our entire defense is threatened by a senseless war in Iraq brought to you by the nation’s foremost war profiteers.
Connect the dots, folks- keeping foreign labor weak has made domestic labor weak. This is not a tough concept to grasp.