Non-Factor?
George Will on on the decline and fall of unions:
American unions have lost their hold on the public's sympathy. Time was, labor's anthems could stir the blood. "Solidarity Forever" declared:
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Somehow those words seem, well, disproportionate to the labor strife that recently so stirred the blood of John Sweeney --head of the AFL-CIO, or what remains of it after the defection on Wednesday of a fourth large union -- that he got himself arrested in a sit-in demonstration. The greedy, parasitic serfdom-lasher was New York University, which, it may be confidently said, is not a nest of reactionaries. The downtrodden serfs are graduate students.
They are teaching and research assistants who in 2000, the last year of the Clinton administration, won the National Labor Relations Board's approval to unionize. About 1,000 did, and associated with the UAW. But by 2004 the composition of the NLRB had changed -- presidential elections do matter -- and it reversed its approval. Then NYU withdrew recognition of the union because it was breaking its promise to confine itself to economic issues and not inject itself into academic decision-making, such as the assignment of teachers to particular courses.
The graduate students say they will strike. And perhaps they will sing:
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel could turn.
But if Northwest can fly without the brains and muscles of unionized mechanics, how likely is it that NYU cannot function without graduate student assistants?
Let's get something straight here; I'm not anti-union. Unlike 70% of my pro-labor liberal friends, I've actually been in a union. There are jobs and situations where unions are a very, very good thing. During the era of robber barons, cartels and sweatshops, unions performed a vital role - equalizing the playing field and securing better working conditions and getting a piece of the income for the workers. I'm a free marketeer - and labor is a factor in that market, one that has every right to compete, just as do suppliers and providers of capital.
If only the major American unions knew what they were.
Will:
That Northwest's operations have been only minimally disrupted by the mechanics' strike is a function of foresight. Northwest had it; the leader of AMFA's 4,430 striking mechanics, O.V. Delle-Femine, did not.
He has forfeited the support of other unions by poaching some of their members and disdaining other workers with lesser skills.
This is a problem that American unions have developed; they have become institutions to protect the middle and upper-middle class, in fields where there is frequently (but not always) enough demand for wages to stay pretty stable even without unions.
On the other hand, unions have left the lower-skilled fields and the service industry almost completely alone (except for taking token swats at the likes of WalMart).
Who needs a union more - the Taco Bell worker, or the airline mechanic who makes $80,000 a year?
Especially when the mechanic's union is utterly worthless:
AMFA has no strike fund or medical coverage for its members, whose coverage from the airline has ended. Northwest wants $203 million worth of concessions from the union -- a demand toughened from $176 million since the strike began -- as part of the $1.4 billion it is seeking from all its unions. Northwest is using cheaper replacement mechanics, many of whom it trained for months -- and not at all secretly -- in Arizona.
Northwest, which has offered permanent employment to some of the replacement workers, seemed to have studied the playbook that Caterpillar used against the United Auto Workers' strike of 1995. The strike failed after 17 months because of replacement workers and picket lines porous even to some union members.
Northwest might also have learned a lesson from Margaret Thatcher's victory over the National Union of Mineworkers. Her government stockpiled coal near power plants and steel mills, and warned other users to prepare for a showdown. Nevertheless, the miners struck. Independent truckers prospered by distributing coal from mines that were still operating. After almost a year, the strikers capitulated. The mines were reformed and, although the number of miners was reduced by 40 percent, they produced 85 percent as much coal as the larger work force had produced.
Again - I'm not "anti-union". There have been times in my career when I wished I'd had one.
But they're not earning their keep these days. Workers have been voting with their feet for a generation, now.
Posted by Mitch at
September 16, 2005 05:26 PM
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I want to thank you for this post. You took the words right out of my mouth. Today's organized labor does service enough to the word "collective" but not to the word "bargaining." Bargaining implies that there is room to bargain, but today's organized labor seems to believe that the only decent response to any demands they make is for employers to give in. I am currently in a union and while I am happy to give credit to their legitimate achievements, I find the self-righteousness and high-handedness repulsive.
Posted by: Daniel Reynolds at September 16, 2005 07:30 PMI'm a pretty hardcore conserative but all this union bashing has gone to far. There are good unions out there. On the other hand what does it matter when all the bought and paided for on both sides of the isles are shipping all our jobs overseas anyways. Chew on that.
Posted by: mike at September 16, 2005 07:48 PMI'm a 46 year-old guy who grew up on the Iron Range. For sure, unions have their place, keeping workers from toiling eighty hours a week, in sickness or health. I know the noble history. At some point unons turned a corner on the Range. As a teen, I'd hear about union dads, uncles and aunts bragging about how little they worked. Finding places to sleep, avoiding managers and doing as little work as possible was the task of which they seemed so proud day to day.
There is a place for unions, but unless the leadership comes from the working stiffs and try to put into perspective their salary that come from dues then the union guy and gal worker bees will always get hosed.
Posted by: Dave Willard at September 16, 2005 10:37 PMMitch,
Posted by: 5 O.T. at September 17, 2005 10:44 AMCheck out the sermon from Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis on Labor Day. (www.Westminster.org) This church is the most left wing group in an increasingly left wing denomination. The minister extolls the virtues of labor unions, boycotts of Taco Bell and the need to increase the minimum wage, among other things.
For further grins you can read the following weeks sermon in which the minister advocates the forgivness of the 9-11 hijackers.
A truly once great church being dragged down by left wing ideologues.
Before unions can make a comeback they have to convince their prospective members that they share with one another a common economic destiny. Tough to do in today's fractured workforce.
Posted by: Terry at September 17, 2005 11:34 AMI just finished reading Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. Reading it was like peering into another universe. Every political thought was concerned with the collective; either Spain would becom a communist collective or a fascist collective. There was no third choice.
Today using any public facility -- public transport or even a phone booth -- is done only as a last resort. The victory of the individual over the collective is complete.
Now if we could only get rid of the public employee unions.
Like Mitch, I am not anti-union, but I also believe in choice. I work at the U of MN and am part of the union. I was not given a choice in joining at least in fair-share terms. They withdraw dues from my check automatically.
This Union, part of AFSCME is worse than worthless. They "represent" around 2,000 workers at the U, but over half of those are fair-share members who pay 85% of dues, but cannot vote on union matters.
The union spends all of its time and money spouting the feminist rhetoric of the '60s and no time in plannin or actually finding out what is important to their members.
2 years ago they went on a strike (in the midst of the recession) and after 2 weeks signed a contract that was quite a bit worse than had been offered before the strike.
Last year, in the month before the election, I must have received over a dozen of pieces of mail from the union praising John Kerry and demonizing Bush (even the union magazine mailed to me and phone calls from the local and visitors to my house and cube all tried to convince me that Bush was evil.
Each time they ask for my support, I tell them if they actually focused on the worker (not politics) and actually tried to create a better place to work (not a place where you can't earn merit raises because it is unfair), I might support them. All I get in reply is more slogans dating to the '60s socialist movement
Posted by: Michael Teachout at September 17, 2005 04:54 PMLike Mitch, I am not anti-union, but I also believe in choice. I work at the U of MN and am part of the union. I was not given a choice in joining at least in fair-share terms. They withdraw dues from my check automatically.
This Union, part of AFSCME is worse than worthless. They "represent" around 2,000 workers at the U, but over half of those are fair-share members who pay 85% of dues, but cannot vote on union matters.
The union spends all of its time and money spouting the feminist rhetoric of the '60s and no time in plannin or actually finding out what is important to their members.
2 years ago they went on a strike (in the midst of the recession) and after 2 weeks signed a contract that was quite a bit worse than had been offered before the strike.
Last year, in the month before the election, I must have received over a dozen of pieces of mail from the union praising John Kerry and demonizing Bush (even the union magazine mailed to me and phone calls from the local and visitors to my house and cube all tried to convince me that Bush was evil.
Each time they ask for my support, I tell them if they actually focused on the worker (not politics) and actually tried to create a better place to work (not a place where you can't earn merit raises because it is unfair), I might support them. All I get in reply is more slogans dating to the '60s socialist movement
Posted by: Michael Teachout at September 17, 2005 04:54 PMLike Mitch, I am not anti-union, but I also believe in choice. I work at the U of MN and am part of the union. I was not given a choice in joining at least in fair-share terms. They withdraw dues from my check automatically.
This Union, part of AFSCME is worse than worthless. They "represent" around 2,000 workers at the U, but over half of those are fair-share members who pay 85% of dues, but cannot vote on union matters.
The union spends all of its time and money spouting the feminist rhetoric of the '60s and no time in plannin or actually finding out what is important to their members.
2 years ago they went on a strike (in the midst of the recession) and after 2 weeks signed a contract that was quite a bit worse than had been offered before the strike.
Last year, in the month before the election, I must have received over a dozen of pieces of mail from the union praising John Kerry and demonizing Bush (even the union magazine mailed to me and phone calls from the local and visitors to my house and cube all tried to convince me that Bush was evil.
Each time they ask for my support, I tell them if they actually focused on the worker (not politics) and actually tried to create a better place to work (not a place where you can't earn merit raises because it is unfair), I might support them. All I get in reply is more slogans dating to the '60s socialist movement
Posted by: Michael Teachout at September 17, 2005 04:54 PMP.B.--- Move to France or Germany if you think things are so bad and so hopeless here.
Posted by: 5 O.T. at September 18, 2005 10:02 AMJeez, PB - *I* made the economy? A lower middle-class kid from North Dakota who never cracked $20K a year until he was 31 years old? Wow. Who knew?
And *I* killed unions? Shullbit. I was a union member!
Unions are perfectly fine - but a combination of the market and their own shortsightedness killed them. Not me.
Posted by: mitch at September 18, 2005 07:11 PM