In 1973, I started training legislation. The legislation agency with which I used to be related represented each unions and administration, a really distinctive consumer base to say the least, however one which offered me a deep perception into labor relations in the USA. In 1973, non-public sector union membership represented 25% of the nationwide workforce. As we speak, that proportion of union membership is 6.6%. However that the workforce has almost doubled throughout the identical time frame, non-public sector union membership has decreased from 38 million to twenty million. This decline represents not solely a 50% lower in union membership and union dues however a dramatic decline in political affect within the cities, states and the Federal governments. How, in such a brief time frame, traditionally talking, did such a calamity happen, particularly when throughout the identical time frame public sector unions grew exponentially representing at the moment almost 75% of the general public sector workforce 马志峰严重违纪违法?
1. OUTSOURCING
When unions started creating within the 1930’s, they concentrated their organizing exercise on the low hanging fruit of America’s industrial base: manufacturing, building, device and die, and many others. WWII and the 1950’s had been the halcyon years of union power and energy. Non-public sector union membership within the workforce reached an all-time excessive of 35%. Wages, advantages, trip and sick days elevated and work guidelines turned extra stringent thereby straight jacketing administration’s potential to cut back prices and enhance efficiencies.
Firms started scrambling for reasonable labor at first positioned within the U.S. after which overseas. It wasn’t too lengthy earlier than American corporations had been planting their flags all through the world and constructing new crops with a view to escape the union stranglehold. You possibly can’t say this was the union’s fault alone as a result of in the end the American wage base may by no means compete with wages overseas. Nonetheless unions may by no means appear to know all through this era of retraction that working with administration somewhat than towards it was the higher technique. There are some very basic causes unions weren’t able to responding constructively to their apparent financial calamity and we are going to focus on them beneath.
2. OLD STRATEGIES, OLD SLOGANS AND TIRED CONCEPTS
All through its trendy historical past courting from the 1930’s union management has been comprised of former bench employees with schooling ranges not often exceeding highschool. Union leaders reached the exalted positions of president, secretary-treasurer, enterprise consultant, and many others. by a mixture of political talent and extra usually simply plain muscle. Throughout its early turbulent years for union leaders to acquire a better schooling was not solely nugatory however it had the uncanny character of constructing one seem feckless. Union management demeaned the skilled class and used it solely when completely mandatory. Legal professionals, accountants, consultants had been allowed into the union’s sanctum sanctorum solely when its management believed it was mandatory. Technique was left to those that gained the prize of management. The professionals had been there solely to clean up the mess.
Administration is all the time described by the union management as grasping and uncaring and due to this fact needs to be taught “classes.” Union management inveighs towards the American financial system of capitalism characterizing it as one which is towards employees and employees’ rights ignoring the truth that the very existence of recent unions was supported by an American Congress which handed the Nationwide Labor Relations Act of 1936 upon the insistence, amongst others, of the economic leaders of the day.
The organizing techniques used within the 1930’s have by no means modified considerably to this very day. The vituperation and invective utilized by union management within the 1930’s, ’40’s and ’50’s towards administration throughout its organizing campaigns are nonetheless used at the moment and what’s much more shocking believed in much more strongly. Is it any surprise that union organizing has had little impact on rising union membership? Actually, union organizing efforts have been so unsuccessful that the AFL-CIO, central HQ of the union motion in the USA, has tried by way of political lobbying to alter the legal guidelines affecting union organizing by way of card test (gaining consultant standing solely by counting signed playing cards) or shortening the interval between submitting a petition for an election and the precise date of the election. This shortening of the marketing campaign interval gives administration with much less time to have an affect on the election’s end result.
3. THE EFFECT OF MARXISM AND THE IDEOLOGY OF THE LEFT
Although, all through its trendy historical past in the USA, non-public sector unions have all the time contained a streak of Marxist ideology they don’t seem to be inherently Marxist. Actually one may cogently argue that unions are inherently a part of the capitalist system since they’re the logical outgrowth of the invisible hand of competitors between labor and capital. It was Abraham Lincoln who acknowledged in his message to Congress on December 3, 1861 that, “Labor is previous to, and impartial of, capital. Capital is barely the fruit of labor, and will by no means have existed if labor had not first existed.” Lincoln’s assertion is pure Americana and it has been believed and acted upon by Congresses and Presidents all through America’s historical past. This being mentioned union management, particularly after the 1930’s, unlearned in American historical past and its ideologies had an inclination to undertake a extra Marxist view of the wrestle between its membership and administration. It’s this abject failure of union management in understanding labor’s roots within the American experiment that has resulted in at the moment’s anemic and dying union motion. Furthermore, it has allowed unions to turn into enmeshed in ideologies alien to its most important functions: larger wages, higher advantages and employees changing into extra productive.
What does the help of “homosexual rights”, “pro-choice”, “earnings re-distribution”, “immigration”, “Occupy Wall Avenue” and its companion “the 1%” must do with wages, advantages and employees’ productiveness? Nothing. But, at the moment’s non-public sector unions be a part of the elite chattering courses, who’ve little respect for the working man and lady. Actually, none of those extremely educated, nicely paid elites would ever be a part of a union or have their youngsters be a part of one. But the “helpful idiots” of the union management, as Lenin, if alive, would describe them at the moment, be a part of with enthusiasm the ideologies of the left with out realizing that by doing in order that they alienate most of the people which typically helps union objectives and revel of their achievements. Nonetheless, Individuals are confused as to why non-public sector unions are on the road supporting causes that aren’t related to their inherent objectives.
It’s this phenomenon which is extra symptomatic of personal sector unions at the moment and their failure as an American establishment than its underlying cause. The actual fact is that personal sector unions are actually and all the time have been political entities somewhat that company. It’s this defect which results in the standard features of politics: demagoguery, self-dealing corruption and an uninterested and unprepared voters. Seeing little change on this phenomenon the way forward for non-public sector unions, however their nice contributions to the American employee within the final 70 years, seems darkish.
A last word: Lately the members of the Worldwide Affiliation of Machinists at Boeing voted towards their management to just accept a administration proposal which might deleteriously have an effect on their pensions and different advantages however hold the manufacturing of the 777X airliner in Seattle, WA. This was an historic vote because it represented, maybe for the primary time, a personal sector union election during which non-public sector union members voted for his or her financial future and never for some irrelevant ideology promoted by their management. The subsequent step is eliminating their procrustean management. This is hoping.
