It really saddens me to hear such anti-union sentiments in this thread from working-class and lower-middle-class people. Sure, Stomp’s arguments are emotional, and with good reason. He is right on as far as the historical role of unions in creating our relatively high standard of living. Even my conservative Dad, who would love to give credit for everything to capitalism, has to admit that America became the first majority-middle-class nation in the history of the world partly due to the labor movement and partly due to economic expansion.
As a teacher, I owe everything I have to unions. My union has made it possible for me to live a middle-class lifestyle and go the doctor, dentist and optician. Sometimes I get mad at the bonehead things my union officers occasionally do, but at the end of the day I am glad that I have someone in my corner, to negotiate for me and to make sure I have due process if I ever get in trouble. If it weren’t for my union, nobody at work would ever have the courage to stand up and say when they think something is wrong. I wish all working people could be in unions, or at least have the choice to pick a union if they want, and so I support all labor organizing efforts.
Millions of lives have been improved by the direct or indirect influence of the labor movement. Even non-unionized workers have benefited when union wages set an industry standard, or when business owners raise wages of their own accord in an effort to pre-empt unionization.
Support for unions by the general public is important. Most people work for a living, and so it is in their interest to support other workers. The more working-class people support unions, the more likely it is that unions will be able to support you when the time comes. Most socially-conscious legislation at the state and federal levels is supported by unions, including environmental legislation. (There are exceptions, of course. Unions in polluting industries have sometimes derailed environmental bills, and the prison guards union in California is very reactionary and has too much influence.)
Supporting the labor movement is like supporting America. You may disagree with some of its individual actions, like this strike or a faraway war, but in the end you support the institution because it is good overall. Actually, the labor movement IS America. Working people have always struggled for a better life through organization *(Read Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”!) and the labor movement is a fundamental part of American life, just as much or more than the military, small business, universities or Wall Street. Yes, it is true that most people aren’t unionized, but then most people aren’t small business owners, military personnel or university students either. The influence is larger than the numbers.
It is crucial to support unions now, because the political momentum is currently against organized labor. We may not immediately go back to the days of child labor and 18-hour days, but the threat of givebacks is there. The UPS workers and the L.A. bus drivers had to go on strike and they had to win, because the threat of contracted-out and part-time positions is real. And remember, it was CA Governor Pete Wilson who undermined the principle of overtime for the eight-hour-plus day. (This was later undone by Gray Davis, who was actually a pretty good governor on labor and environmental matters.)
Why should we unionized folk agree to any degradation in our standard of living when the average CEO makes 411x what their workers make, as opposed to 13-24x in Western Europe? (My cite is Michael Moore, who cites Business Week and the New York Times.) Unions are not insensitive to management claims of economic stress – that’s why unions bring their own budget and financial experts to negotiations and suggest cuts in waste. That’s what my union does, and yes, we have sometimes agreed to temporary givebacks because of economic conditions. But most of the time, we find waste and executive perks that can be cut in order to protect lower-wage employees.
I know a lot of people here probably don’t like Michael Moore, but I encourage everyone to read Chapter 7, “Horatio Alger Must Die,” in his new book Dude, Where’s My Country? He points out many examples of how Corporate America is profiting at the expense of the worker, and interestingly enough, he levels some scathing criticisms at the Big Union boys too. But he still supports unions, just like he supports America.
I also recommend Chapter 36 of Al Franken’s new book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, titled “The Waitress and the Lawyer,” which is based on an actual one-act play Franken produced that shows how low-wage workers are being squeezed in W’s Texas. Also, please read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickeled And Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America.
All four of the authors I have recommended in this post have written modern political classics!
Of course I can’t accuse anyone of a sin if they go to a grocery store during this strike. If the strike goes on very long I may have to go to the supermarket myself, although I’ll try to cut back on my trips. Maybe on my way in I’ll offer the picketers some words of encouragement, or maybe even some coffee and donuts. I just hope that those who cross the picket line to go shopping do so out of need and not out of ideology.
The striking supermarket workers don’t actually need *everyone * to stop going to the market. All they need is to make some impact on the overall level of business at the market, and judging by tonight’s news they are succeeding. Some markets are closing early, some managers are driving delivery trucks, and some shoppers are greeting familiar faces on the picket line in a friendly way. (According to Channel 7.) But time will tell.
People, please try to have a little empathy. Everybody does what they need to do in order to get by economically, and striking is something unionized workers sometimes have to do. And remember, at two of the chains the workers are locked out, not striking.
Strikes affect me economically as well. I don’t drive a car, and when the bus drivers struck I couldn’t go to work. But I didn’t get mad at the drivers – I got mad at the County Supervisors for not even trying to do anything to end the strike. The bus drivers were clearly in the right, and one of the County Supes was quoted in the LA Weekly saying they didn’t care about bus riders.
Shayna, I was not there, but I do not believe anyone tried to “scare,” “bully” or “frighten” you – unless they threatened you or inflicted some other form of verbal aggression on you. Are you saying that’s what happened? Most unions don’t allow that, and picket lines, in and of themselves, are not “frightening”. Everybody has the right to protest on a street corner and try to inform passers-by about their cause, including strikers. It’s called free speech. And if you choose not to listen to them, then most picketers are smart enough to give up on you.
bri1600bv – yes, there is a free market for labor, and unions are part of that free market equation. Workers have the right to organize themselves into larger groups in order to bargain more effectively in that free market. Union tactics are essentially economic actions within the free market. Saying that the existence of unions somehow undermines the existence of the free market is as ludicrous as saying that CCORPORATIONS are anti- free market. All actors in the economy, employers and employees, have the right and the incentive to associate in bigger groups to increase their economic clout. The practice is at least three hundred years old. Or do you claim that the free market only applies to the owning/employing side???
Capital is not the only side of the economic equation, there’s a labor side too. It is incredible how some people view all business actions as legitimate and normal while they view all labor actions as suspicious and somehow unnatural. Listen up, people, everything in the labor-capital relationship is between consenting adults – the government hardly imposes anything except some fundamental rules of fairness. If you claim, like bri, that union tactics are “coercion,” or if you claim, like Shayna, that unions are “holding you hostage” by limiting your economic choices – well, why don’t you say the same about businesses and corporations, which limit your choices even more???
bri, unions and strikes are as American as apple pie.
Clearly, there are some limited perspectives at work here. An anti-union colleague of mine once told me that he hoped the UPS strikers lost, because the bad sinister unions “can’t tell business what to do.” Well, the businesses tell the workers what to do, so WTF? A balanced economic equation depends on equality.
Why is it wrong for workers to use the economic “coercion” of a strike, when corporations use economic coercion daily in other ways? Like Wal-Mart driving its smaller competitors out of business. Your boss is probably the most coercive person you will ever know, including your parents.
Much of the time, the law and the government even favor the employer: for instance, unions can’t advocate “secondary boycotts,” or boycotts of businesses that do business with the employer being struck. In return, the employer is expected to respect the results of unionization elections and bargain in good faith. Half the time, the employer even wins those elections, and much of the time contract negotiations go nowhere. It is very hard work to unionize a workplace, but when such a campaign succeeds – oh, it was so worth it!!! Nuff said.
Live Better, Work Union. It’s not just a bumpersticker!
