Labor Unions On the Downhill Slide
By Pete Fisher (02/28/06)
This week in San Diego AFL-CIO leaders met at a luxury resort to assess their situation and try to figure out what path the union will follow.
They have lost a considerable amount of support with the split of the federation a year ago and now are beginning to sweat a little with 25% of their funding gone. Some of the issues at hand are many companies are fighting to remain non-union, wages are lower than what they have fought for, and many of the industries they were strong in have been weakened, such as the auto industry. Union wages and benefits drove the cost of cars up, reducing the amount of profit the auto makers saw at the end of the year.
Most people I have discussed unions with are of a similar mind set concerning this, and of course I speak of those who are not in unions. They feel unions had their time, but have outgrown their usefulness. The phrase used most often as I grew up was that the union protected the lazy man. And for years they did just that. People in the auto union were making great money, in any aspect of the factory. The guy who slapped pieces of carpet in the car trunk as it passed was making as much if not more than a private sector engineer for years. The retirement and benefits were above and beyond what most people had elsewhere, demanded by strikes if the union did not get what they desired.
The union also has been a heavy political contributor to the DNC, this year alone planning on giving 40 million dollars to affect elections. They have that kind of money to throw around, yet cry poor when negotiating for higher wages and benefits. The millions stocked away should not be for political purposes, it should be for retirement and benefits of those who contribute to the fund.
Now I do have mixed feelings about union labor. I think the original ideas behind the union were not so bad. Build American, buy American, and utilize the American work force. But the unions have been riddle with corruption and those who have been paying their dues for years are finding out that the union is not much different than Enron. Depending on how the top dogs spend your cash, you can end up with nothing. Many members of the Teamsters here in the Chicago area have been disillusioned for the past 10 years. The same with the Electricians Union where members one day find themselves either railroaded by the customer, or find their benefits are not all there with no protection from the union.
The union is simply a service provider, and therefore subject to the whims of the customers they serve. For example, a truck driver who is let go because a customer did not like something he did or said is no longer backed up by the union. The union allows the driver to go through the grievance committee, but the union will take the side of the customer more than the union member in order to keep the business. Many former Teamster members in this area are no longer proponents of unions due to the way they were ousted without the support of the union. I personally know one man who was 5 minutes late in a blizzard and was written up. The Teamsters backed up the customer complaint and several other petty complaints were allowed on his record and he was let go. Several other drivers I know went through similar experiences and speak of the Teamsters now as a patsy for those they serve.
A local electricians union refused to heed its members warning to not tie itself to one single customer. The union never listened, and when the company went belly up, the electricians were forced out and had to look for other work. They also felt betrayed and began working on their own or for a non-union company. Seeing these things, it is no surprise to me that unions have lost their steam. In short, unions have out lived their usefulness and priced themselves out of many markets.
Again, I agree with employing Americans and buying American goods, because a healthy economy for Americans will encourage longer term spending. And with the out sourcing of many corporations, and sending American tech jobs overseas, or importing cheaper labor from without, many are once again considering unionizing. But can it be done without trying to create a socialist system and pricing themselves out of the market? I honestly don't know. There were times I wondered if a union for IT and Engineers could have prevented the loss of so many jobs. I have said myself many times, that if I had to take lower pay, yet knew my job would be there in 20 years, I would take the lower pay over a high paid position where that security was not there.
But the way things are these days, I refuse to take a 5 year loan out for a car, or take vacations as I used to because having been laid off to out sourcing twice I get the jitters thinking of what could be. But watching some truck driver friends get railroaded by their own unions, and seeing an electrician have to hit the pavement with less than 2 years to retire and tend bar to make his mortgage, the union has no answers either. And just as large corporations can sponsor multi million dollar NASCAR races, and spend many millions more on CEO’s who make larger bonuses by laying people off, the union has millions to throw away on politics and luxurious resort meetings to try and find the answers.
So we as Americans are stuck between non-union corporations and labor unions, both entities that have shown little regard for the workers' future. I wish I could find a way to amalgamate the two ideologies and seek a future for American workers that did not resemble the mob tactics of one and the unabashed disregard for the workforce displayed by the other.
Maybe the next time the AFL-CIO leaders meet, they can find a way to morph their organization into something that can be useful and get away from the socialist mentality that has weakened them and America. Otherwise this downward spiral they are experiencing will become impossible to pull out of and eventually they will find that gravity is a force not to be toyed with.
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