The death of the American labor movement

[Wezil]

From the DanS article:

Anna Burger, chair of the coalition of rebel unions called Change to Win, added: “We have different strategies, but we are not into competition, we are going after the 87 per cent of the workforce that wants a union but does not have one.”

Gotta love the true believers.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Wezil
Gotta love the true believers.

We wuv you too, Wezil.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Dr Zoidberg
Your seven weeks of vacation is thanks the the strong unions you despise so much. if it weren´t for those you´d have to work 12 hour days, 6 days a week and have (maybe) 2 weeks of unpaid vacation...

That's 7 days a week and noooo vacation.

[DanS]

But what have the unions done for us lately? Let's say, in the last 60 years?

Squat.

[Wezil]

I would surmise their dropping membership has more to do with progressive legislation than anything else. Laws and regs govern most aspects of the workplace today.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by DanS
But what have the unions done for us lately? Let's say, in the last 60 years?

Squat.

Well, in my courthouse alone...

Got the employees cost-of-living raises after nine years without any raise at all.

Got me "regular" status after being employed for a decade as a "temporary" worker.

Two years ago, when the court was going to close down & not pay its employees for eight days, it was the union which discovered the million of dollars in managerial waste to keep it operating.

We are currently undergoing a "reclassification" plan, which should bring out salaries up to market value.

We forced a manager to quit after he threatened to beat up his employees.

We got an "open meeting law" passed for all government entities, not just executive agencies.

Statewide, we successfully battled to save our pensions and to protect the death and disablity benefits of police officers and firefighters.

[Wezil]

So how do you explain dropping union membership? It is by no means a recent trend.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Wezil
So how do you explain dropping union membership? It is by no means a recent trend.

The two main ones are: aggressive anti-union activity on the part of corporations and declining manufacturing jobs. If the plant shuts down and moves to Mexico, hundreds or even thousands of union jobs may be lost. In addition, most growth has been in low wage, high turn over sectors, which are notoriously difficult to unionize.

It certainly has nothing to do with the pittance of social welfare our government drops from the table. Europe and Canada both have far more substantitve social walfer systems, and also have much larger union movements.

[Wezil]

So you ascribe no blame to the unions themselves?

Agressive anti-union tactics? Yeah, like that is new.

Declining manufacturing base - I'll give you that one but why then have unions been unable to move into service sector positions?

The only unions I ever belonged to (one service sector, one manufacturing) were worse than useless. They took dues regularly but offered absolutely no benefit I was not entitled to under law. Both of these unions are no more.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Wezil
So you ascribe no blame to the unions themselves?

Agressive anti-union tactics? Yeah, like that is new.

I mentioned the problems of the unions earlier, in another post. They are too busy trying to restore the old labor-management accord that they've basically refused to fight back for the last 25 years.

As for aggressive anti-union tactics, in the old days they would simply crack heads, fire people, kill them, etc. They are much more sophistocated these days.

[Wezil]

You'd have to employ pretty damn sophisticated tactics to have a greater effect than you would cracking heads, firing, and killing people.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by DanS
But what have the unions done for us lately? Let's say, in the last 60 years?

Squat.

Well the decline of the unions has been tough on a lot of people, and we would certainly be better off with more union power. Union work pays better. I think that's a pretty well established fact.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Wezil
You'd have to employ pretty damn sophisticated tactics to have a greater effect than you would cracking heads, firing, and killing people.

Well, those methods are illegal now (though firing is still pretty common, and frequently gotten away with). Now they do things like, for example, tell the employees if the union comes in, they'll have to fire the current employees to bring in the union people with more seniority, how unions bring strife to the work place, etc. I've gone through union organizing training, and seen some of the stuff union busters pull.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Dr Zoidberg


Your seven weeks of vacation is thanks the the strong unions you despise so much. if it weren´t for those you´d have to work 12 hour days, 6 days a week and have (maybe) 2 weeks of unpaid vacation...

Ehrm, no. That is thanks to the fact that I got 13 days of last years vacation moved to current year,

Further, you may have a reading disability - I support them wich my postings say, I just don't think that they should be involved in crime .. oups, politics.

[Ghidorah]

Originally posted by Wezil
You'd have to employ pretty damn sophisticated tactics to have a greater effect than you would cracking heads, firing, and killing people.

But the thing is that these are emotive tactics. Seeing this sort of thing only makes people angrier and more dedicated and garners sympathy for the union's cause from the general public. It's not good PR for a company, and history has shown that it's not a good way for the ruling class to win a long-term victory against the workers.

They've been considerably more successful in waging the propaganda war - demonising unions in the eyes of workers and the general public. It's been so successful that there's a huge reservoir of anti-union sentiment even amongst the very people who would benefit most from unionism. And I think that a large factor in the weakness of many of the large unions these days is that they've acted in response to this by saying "hey, we're actually okay, we're modern and progressive and we don't do anything as vulgar as actually striking and whathaveyou".

And without a more general pro-union sentiment, getting a united workplace all out on strike is more difficult, getting in scabs is much easier, and plenty of people are willing to commit what was once rightly considered a grievous sin and cross a picket line.
Not to mention that scabbing has been elevated to a sickening artform, and there are actually professional scabbing companies whose entire occupation is bussing around and doing the work of striking workers.

I'll be the first to admit that the unions have brought a fair bit of their bad image and ineffectiveness on themselves, but the union-busting tactics of companies and right-wing governments are a far greater contributor.