Thread: Rising Anti-Union Sentiment in the United States

I can see that there is a startling anti-labor, and especially anti-union movement that is rising dramatically not only in the U.S. but also throughout the entire world. This change in perception has been increasing since the 1970's, but I feel that with the upsurge in the ultra neo-conservative movement in this country it is has started to gain momentum exponentially. Frankly it is scaring the crap out of me. We seem to be in danger of wiping out all of the hard earned gains that took generations for the various labor movements to build.

This is becoming quite personal for me. I have always been a fiercely pro-labor person, and I am currently attempting to land a job in an industry with a very strong union. I would like to start a career in this industry, but I have no idea what could be around the corner and it is very worrying. Just today I saw an article in the New York Times that said the government is working out a deal with the various states in which they can declare bankruptcy and bail on the pensions that they promised union members in the public services. These people have been working their entire lives under the promise that they would have retirements to fall back on in their later years, and now it appears that those promises will be broken.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the gap between the two widens that much more. This cycle will lead to ever greater and more frequent financial crisis and the cycle will continue unabated.

When the hell is it going to end?

Froman, I worked under a union in a large oil company for over 20 years when you combine two different jobs. I will tell you from my experience my take on it.

When unions were first formed, yes they were badly needed. Workers were subjected to harsh conditions in unsafe environment for very low pay with no benefits while the owners of the company got super rich on their backs. By banding together and striking, shutting down the profits, they forced the companies to pay better, enforce safe work practices and include benefits such as pensions and health insurance.

But in time, they got corrupt as most large organizations do. The union president lives very well with a new car and plush office all supplied by the workers union dues. They merged behind the democratic party which at one time actually might have been behind the working man. In my workplace, the split between liberal and conservative was equal if not in favor of the conservatives. I am staunchly conservative so a portion of my dues went to promote these liberal politicians at election time. Of course, the union vehemently denied that any of our dues were used to promote a particular candidate, but where did the signs and stickers come from? I told my steward that if I saw one sign that read "USW supports Obama" I would withdraw my membership and dues.

I can also attest to the back room deals that are made between the unions supposed representatives and the company during contract negotiations. I personally witnessed our union president telling us that "this is all we are going to get, if we go on strike, we will just lose money." After taking the deal, he got a company job in a position to fire anyone.

When actually done wrong by the company, if you filed a grievance, the grievance was dropped through private negotiations between our "representatives" and the company in exchange for things that they wanted. By the time I retired last year, the vast majority knew that the union was corrupt and damn near useless, but better than nothing we supposed.

We now see union thugs all wearing a certain color T shirt identifying them attacking everyday voters attending a political rally that they oppose, being bussed in by their union. They also have been using violence and threats against non union member for years, videos abound on youtube, exposing non union member social security numbers, harassing their family and wielding bats.

As i said, when they were created, they were needed. But once you get this job you will see what you get for your dues. Companies are actually paying better and increasing benefits for their workers not to form a union.

I see your point Ditch. Unions, like any large and powerful organization will eventually move toward corruption and moral bankruptcy. It's like entropy, as soon as the system gets set up it begins to degrade. They have a pretty sordid history, what with all the racism, violence, and mob influence. The thing that I don't understand (and I feel that this is a much broader problem with the discourse in this country) is the idea that if something is not working perfectly it must be burnt to the ground and never spoken of again. This can be seen in the struggle between those who are for strict regulation of the financial industry and those who want an entirely free-market, laissez faire system that is free to run rampant. Also in the debate between public and private health care. In fact, it can be seen in practically every issue.

I just wish that the default reaction to a broken or damaged system would be to examine and repair that system, not to completely tear it down and throw the baby out with the bathwater. My worry is that in a few generations we will have jumped back to the other side of the spectrum and find ourselves working for robber barons in conditions similar to those at the turn of the 19th century.

By the way, I totally agree with you about the democratic party. It doesn't stand for the working man any longer. I certainly don't consider myself a conservative, but in my opinion the Republican and Democratic parties are just two sides of the country club separated by a chalk line on the marble floor.

Ditch pretty much summed up my experience with a union. I worked 25yrs. for the Gov. and was represented by the AFL-CIO. Corruption seems to be a human condition that creeps into all our endeavors. One sad part is that many blindly follow the Unions, while behind closed doors they are being sold out for concessions that the Union wants.

Union Sundown by Bob Dylan

Well, my shoes, they come from Singapore
My flashlight’s from Taiwan
My tablecloth’s from Malaysia
My belt buckle’s from the Amazon
You know, this shirt I wear comes from the Philippines
And the car I drive is a Chevrolet
It was put together down in Argentina
By a guy makin’ thirty cents a day

Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
’Til greed got in the way

Well, this silk dress is from Hong Kong
And the pearls are from Japan
Well, the dog collar’s from India
And the flower pot’s from Pakistan
All the furniture, it says “Made in Brazil”
Where a woman, she slaved for sure
Bringin’ home thirty cents a day to a family of twelve
You know, that’s a lot of money to her

Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
’Til greed got in the way

Well, you know, lots of people complainin’ that there is no work
I say, “Why you say that for
When nothin’ you got is U.S.–made?”
They don’t make nothin’ here no more
You know, capitalism is above the law
It say, “It don’t count ’less it sells”
When it costs too much to build it at home
You just build it cheaper someplace else

Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
’Til greed got in the way

Well, the job that you used to have
They gave it to somebody down in El Salvador
The unions are big business, friend
And they’re goin’ out like a dinosaur
They used to grow food in Kansas
Now they want to grow it on the moon and eat it raw
I can see the day coming when even your home garden
Is gonna be against the law

Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
’Til greed got in the way

Democracy don’t rule the world
You’d better get that in your head
This world is ruled by violence
But I guess that’s better left unsaid
From Broadway to the Milky Way
That’s a lot of territory indeed
And a man’s gonna do what he has to do
When he’s got a hungry mouth to feed

Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
’Til greed got in the way

Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music

Originally Posted by froman

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the gap between the two widens that much more. This cycle will lead to ever greater and more frequent financial crisis and the cycle will continue unabated.
When the hell is it going to end?

The reason that the middle class is shrinking has to do with technology and disappearing manufacturing jobs. Many jobs that once provided middle class incomes have gone away – replaced by automation and sourced overseas. The "greedy" rich aren’t the culprits, conservatives aren't the boogeyman -- and no amount of unionization will solve the problem. In fact, unions are partly to blame for the inflated wages that force manufacturing overseas so American companies can try to remain competitive.

And we're going to be losing more and more technology and service jobs to overseas sources as well as the workforce in Asia and elsewhere becomes more and more educated. At the same time, our public education system continues to deteriorate. That also hurts us when it comes to innovation and the development of new technologies. There are good arguments to be made that the teachers unions are partly to blame for this -- so again, unions may be more the problem than the solution.

To JosephB:

I'm not quite sure exactly what your getting at. Are you saying that the folks that actually make things, the producers in our global economy, are doomed to a life of slave wages?

The corporate headquarters in America decide to move production to country X because factories in America are providing salaries to workers that will enable them to support a family, send their kids to college to get a better life, and let them live a decent life in the short time between when they retire and when they die. In other words "inflated wages". The dirt poor folks in country X are happy for ten years when their wages move from peanuts to a decent wage and their middle class slowly builds from nothing to a majority.

Uh oh! Now all of a sudden the producers in country X are within reach of a decent life. They are making relatively good wages and they want to achieve the same benefits for their children and themselves that were once realized by the ex-producers in America whose jobs they have unknowingly taken. The corporate headquarters are sweating now. These peasants are starting to get "greedy" and the few thousand stockholders are getting restless because the company growth rate is dropping a few percentage points.

Wait a minute...What do we have here?

Country Y.

It's dirt poor. These people have nothing and their government is dying to get their hands on some of those plum manufacturing contracts that have been bestowed exclusively upon country X for the last decade. All of a sudden all of the manufacturing jobs in country X disappear. The rug is pulled out from under them and the cycle continues in country Y.

Then country Z.

And on and on. That's unrestrained capitalism. That's pure free trade. Somebody has to make the things that we use in everyday life. When an economy is built on an imaginary industry like obscure financial products or a ridiculously inflated real estate market the bubble will eventually burst. Every time. The productive economy must regain it's rightful place at the forefront of the global economy. How we go about placing it there is up for debate but that is where it has to be.

I love that Bob Dillan song by the way Baron, but I don't believe that he was castigating the unions necessarily. I believe that he was castigating the arena in which the unions operate, in which the entire economy operates. I believe that Dillan was making a statement about the greed of those in power at the expense of the laborers, and a statement about unfair global free trade policies that have only accelerated since he wrote the song. In a way I believe his song is one of the most powerful arguments for a more tenacious and grassroots global labor movement.

In my half century of lifetime, I've seen unions do nothing but create trouble. In 1971, Gils Bakery was the hottest thing in Albuquerque. They provided the pastries for the morning radio and TV shows. They had the contract with school cafeterias for thirty miles around the city. Suddenly, the workers unionized. They demanded wages to be tripled and profit sharing. The owner said he couldn't do it. The workers went out on strike. Two weeks later, when talks broke down, the owner shuttered the bakery, put it all up for sale, and just like that-200 people out of work, forever. The bakery never reopened.

A most recent example. Five years ago, SEIU made a big stink in organizing a lot of the janitors in Houston. Five years later, the janitors still work thirty hours a week for minimum wage. The only differences is that their checks are smaller because they pay union dues.

It was also about that time that a grocery store union went on strike in California because the workers were told that their health insurance costs would go from free to 5.00 a month. Wow, 5.00 a month-that's like stealing. Can you believe they stayed out on strike for eight months over 5.00 a month ? My nephew is one of those knuckleheads. I used to think highly of him, but if he had to compete in a non union environment, he's lose big time.

I'm sorry, but I only see a need to unionize workers in dangerous environs (i.e. refineries, certain factories, etc). Houston Police are unionized. By contract, they are only required to make one contact and write two tickets, meaning, they take a report on a stolen tire and make two traffic stops, and that's their day. The rest of the shift, they're hanging out somewhere. Completely unproductive.

Unions are composed of people, people with ambitions. Often a person will take a job as a union steward just to get a lot of face time with management, to show them just how sharp and articulate that they are. Their ulterior motive is to move into management, into a well paid salary job with increased stock options. what kind of representation do you think you will get from this person for your dues?

I worked for the same union, but totally different companies. The incidents were years apart, but I filed two grievances, both good with merit. In both incidents I was told the same thing by my steward, "We are trying to negotiate some sensitive issues with the company. We need to approach the table with no grievances pending, we are asking you to drop your grievance for the good of your union brothers."

I asked them if they went to school to learn this, as it was the same speech that I had heard 15 years earlier.

Froman:

Are you proposing we ban imports and force consumers to pay higher prices for goods? Because that's what it would it take to pay a manufacturing workforce middle class wages. Otherwise, it's simple -- if U.S. companies don't manufacture overseas, they'll go out of business. That means zero jobs here -- in addition to the lost manufacturing jobs.

Yes, theoretically, manufacturing jobs will continue to go where the wages are lowest. We just bought a TV made in Korea, sold by Japanese company. We lost the manufacturing jobs to Japan, they lost them to Korea -- and so it goes. In the U.S., the jobs are gone and will likely never come back.

Part of the responsibly rests with the American people -- as their ideas of middle class lifestyle expanded, they demanded more consumer products at a lower costs, bigger houses, two cars -- more stuff -- and more of a willingness to go into debt to pay for it all. Much of current economic woe -- that burst bubble you mentioned -- was caused by people buying houses they couldn't afford. If you look back to the 1950's, middle class lifestyle was relatively moderate compared to what people expect now. The American people are the ones demanding cheap consumer goods and they perfectly happy to buy them, regardless of where they are manufactured. So we are partly to blame -- don't try to pin it all U.S. corporations.

You started this thread, bemoaning the status of unions and wrapped up your OP with a statement about the widening income gap. I just explained why it's widening -- why the middle class is shrinking, why unions are partly to blame -- and that they don't have anything to do with a solution. Don't shoot the messenger.

The productive economy must regain it's rightful place at the forefront of the global economy. How we go about placing it there is up for debate but that is where it has to be.

Sure. What's the debate exactly? Got any ideas?

I wasn't trying to be hostile. Sorry if it came across that way. I was just being a bit tongue in cheek. I agree with what you are getting at. Consumers are to blame for the majority of the problem and the companies that provide them with cheap goods hold a smaller share of the blame. It's like the relationship between a drug dealer and a drug user, and we are the ones who are utterly addicted to cheap products that we don't really need. I'm all for a re-evaluation of consumer culture in our society, unfortunately I'm not naive enough to believe that this will happen without a nationwide, decades long catastrophe that completely changes the culture in our country. We just barely avoided such a catastrophe in 2008 (thank god, a depression hurts those at the bottom much more than it hurts those at the top). We managed to drag ourselves through the pit with only a few limbs lost in the process.

I'm not anti-consumerism. I don't believe that we should all live in a shack in the woods next to a pond and rant about how much money we've saved on a bag of grain because we chose to carry it five miles through the mud instead of paying to get it sent to us. It's nice to have nice things. Yes, consumerism has gone out of control, but if it is reigned in and its environmental impacts are addressed there is no reason why we should completely shun it. After all, our entire economy is based on it.

Are you proposing we ban imports and force consumers to pay higher prices for goods? Because that's what it would it take to pay a manufacturing workforce middle class wages. Otherwise, it's simple -- if U.S. companies don't manufacture overseas, they'll go out of business. That means zero jobs here -- in addition to the lost manufacturing jobs.

In a word, yes. I believe that the base line problem here is nation-hopping manufacturing and consumers' demand for cheap goods. Nation-hopping manufacturing is incredibly destructive on so many levels (social, economic, environmental, humanitarian, etc.) and it cannot be sustained forever. It has to stop. Consumers demand for cheap products is a cultural problem that could be changed in time. It is mainly driven by advertising, marketing, and mass media. In an ideal world, I would like to see tariffs on imported goods raised to the level that would reflect their true costs, including all externalities, and would stop the need for American manufacturers and businesses to close their doors when their workers decide to organize and demand a fair wage. These actions would fly in the face of free trade agreements that were pushed forward by America, and that's just fine with me. Those agreements were made so that the dealers could stuff their pockets, pushing ever larger quantities of cheap goods into the hands of hopelessly addicted, debt ridden consumers. The WTO is a destructive organization and should be disbanded. The World Bank and the IMF need to be put under the microscope.

When I first saw the title I thought the Confederacy was going to secede again

I have recently been reading Tom Holland's "Forum" about Rome, first century bc and the change from Republic to Empire, it is interesting what happens in a society when the wealth gets large but concentrated into a few hands and the work is done by foreign slaves.

Froman:

No offense, but you seem to want to identify definitive villains in all of this in terms of black and white -- now it’s and advertising and marketing. But they aren’t the culprits either. Advertising and marketing are just part of the sales process. Very little advertising appeals directly to the consumer’s sense of status or keeping up with the Joneses. Companies simply have to make consumers aware of their products and services – and advertising is the means of doing it. And you can’t force or brainwash consumers into buying products they don’t want or need. There are many examples of products that have failed despite massive advertising budgets. Consumers are the drivers – not the companies who advertise. Not sure what you mean by “mass media” – the depiction of certain lifestyle in movies and television? Well, that might have a little something to do with it, I suppose – but I can’t imagine that’s much of a factor.

Anyway, the real problem is, even if we could protect the economy, we will likely never again manufacture TVs in this country. Or produce textiles or toothbrushes or ballpoint pens. The capital to rebuild the manufacturing sector simply doesn’t exist. No one is going to lend or invest the money that would be needed to do it on the scale that would be required to fill even decreased consumer demands, even over a very long period of time. Maybe there will be some new products or services that will fill the hole, but that would require innovation – and we’re losing our edge in science and technology pretty quickly -- so that's less likely to happen.

Americans are already at the point where we’re being forced to downgrade our standard of living, regardless. Jobs will come back, but people are going to have to settle for much lower wages. Unfortunately, protectionism won’t make things better – it’s way too late for that. We might be able to roll back free trade agreements that hurt American manufacturing, but it likely won’t to any good at this point. The manufacturing jobs that provided middle class wages are long gone.

Every dog has its day. We blew it – and now it’s over. The best thing people can do is take individual responsibility, scale back, save, stay out of debt. It would be nice if the federal government would do the same – that would help -- but I’m not holding my breath.

PS -- I didn't think you were being hostile -- it's all good.

Yeah, I guess advertising is there to fill a need for the consumers, although it can go overboard especially when it is focused on children and young adults.

Anyway, I had my job interview yesterday and I'm flying back home today. I thought it went okay. Could have been better, could have been worse. I'll have an answer by Thursday, which is basically going to determine the course of the rest of my life, haha. No pressure right?

Well, good luck, Froman. I really hope it works out for you.

And oh yeah -- I work for an ad agency, so I'm slightly biased.

Cheers.