It may seem wrong-headed that my blog post on Labor Day is
bashing workers, but that is what it is. We all recognize the widening gap
between individual worker income and corporate profits, which translated into
executive income; hence, give rise to the expression income disparity. Of
course, there is much more than income when we include working conditions and
other nefarious manipulations of labor laws; definition of work week,
limitations on vacation time, permissible hours of labor, pension reforms, etc.
I am referring to such things as truck drivers being paid by the mile verses by
the hour behind the wheel; the number of children in teachers a class; overtime
pay for health workers, and work hours permissible on a holiday or even work on
holidays. We, the workers, set back and blame the corporations, the Republican Party,
or my favorite target, the economic elite. It is always some on else’s fault. I
ma here to tell you it is our own fault.
Teacher’s unions have a bad name among parents, who
themselves happen to be workers, because union leaders protect incompetent teachers
from disciplinary action. Teachers unions would threaten strikes if this or
that teacher lost his or her job; school boards, etc gave in to the unions. The
result was a spiraling decline of the education. This serves as an example of
union bashing because suddenly we have the awkward situation where the people the
unions are fighting are the parents of the schoolchildren and not some remote
executive setting in a remote elaborate office. Threatening a strike is mild
compared to the physical violence against “scabs”, workers who would take jobs
of striking laborers when union leaders—the Jimmy Hoffa types—were thugs often
pictured on the streets fist fighting. This tough guy image for labor leaders was
idealized in those long gone days but the image still stays with us; we see it
when labor leaders are interviewed on TV; they have it in their head that union
members want their jobs protected, which they do. The problem is most workers
do not define what the purpose of a modern union is or erroneously demand
unions fight to earn excessive wages; everyone is greedy but there is a limit.
Living in the plantation south where unions are anathema to
workers because of shifting political sentiments, it is clear that a skilled
labor can easily be hired that is not skilled. In the North, the problem is solved by just
asking for evidence of union membership. In the past, if the person says he or
she is a carpenter, pipe fitter, elevator mechanic, etc and is a union member
that person is skilled. However, as the teacher example discussed above illustrated,
more and more this is becoming less and less true. Whose fault is that? By what
stretch of the imagination can we blame company executives for that.
We know that as union membership decline so do wages. We know
when taxes are cut there is less money for schools, universities,
infrastructure, policed, and fire fighters and all the other public employees we
need so badly for society to function. We know that when government increases utility
prices on workers families but not on industry, we will need more of the money
we earn, while we are working against union membership, which lowers wages. We
see massive campaigns to attract industry to our areas side-by-side with union
bashing advertisements. We support both because we seem unable to connect the
two. In fact, we often join in the fight by voting for people who bash unions
because they are attracting jobs.
When we throw all of this up and let it be winnowed by the
winds, what falls out is that we must demand that our union leaders for get about
protecting incompetent workers, must guarantee that works in their unions are
as skilled as they possible can be. In addition, they must work to maintain wages
at living levels, and that unions dues go to support political candidates who
support them.
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