Ok, Unions!

Let me state up front that I have a fairly strong anti-union bias. It was bred through years of watching unions go on strike for what seemed to be trivial amounts, reports of corruption and crime in union leadership, and other seeming misuse of the collective bargaining power that could be wielded.

It was etched pretty solidly in stone after a local refinery strike. It was a long and bitter strike over issues that I don't remember. What I do remember was that one worker became desperate to keep food on his family's table and a roof over their heads, so he crossed the picket line. One of the picketers shot (with a slingshot, I think) and seriously injured the man. The whole incident was caught on the company's security tapes. The company fired the picketer. The union remained on strike until the picketer was rehired without loss of seniority. OUTRAGE!

Let me also state that I believe unions, when used according to their original purpose, can be a powerful force for good. As I recall, the original goal of unions was to provide safe work environments for employees while ensuring that they were paid a fair wage for the work provided. I do believe it was a time of excesses where employers were reaping huge and lavish benefits while employees subsisted in poverty or almost poverty - with little to look forward to in hopes of relief. Does any of that look even remotely familiar?

Paul Krugman's editorial in yesterday's Enterprise, "War against wages is successfully being waged", outlines what Wal-Mart is doing internally to keep employees from advancing financially if they remain loyal to the company. Over and over you see in the news where a company is approaching bankruptcy. Employees are forced to take huge cuts in pay/benefits or a combination, simply to keep from losing their jobs completely if the company folds. Yet, even on a sinking ship, executives reap millions in salary, benefits and perks, totalling several hundred times what the average employee makes. Health care and promised retirement benefits are being summarily and deeply slashed. (Ok - I'll admit the healthcare system is broken in a variety of ways, and as long as it's tied to employment, it will remain broken. But that's another rant altogether.) When things begin to look rough at a company, reductions-in-force slash through the ranks while expecting the same or a higher level of total production from those left, generally without a corresponding deep cut at the upper management levels. It's unconscionable!

My suspicion is that what is happening is part of a perpetually moving societal pendulum. We are heading out to the far end of the "pro-employer" limits of the pendulum and it's time for the "pro-employee" limit of the swing to shift the momentum in the other direction. The rope of the pendulum is only so long and our society as a whole will crumble if the rope breaks while at either end. I don't see that happening soon, though.

However, I do believe it is now time for the unions to find ways to influence the shift in momentum in the opposite direction. Perhaps it isn't simply a union task to accomplish, but it does seem that they should have a major role if they hope to maintain any relevance in the workforce. I certainly think it's an appropriate time for them to reclaim the noble purpose for which they were founded. Ok, unions! What's next?