Labor Unions and Corporate Associations

Labor Unions and Corporate Associations

 

 

A reply to a friend who believes Labor Unions have become too corrupt to be allowed to continue.

    You are partially correct my Friend.  Yes,in some cases members indifference toward their Labor Unions             allowed them to be taken over by Organized Crime.  However efforts to link unions with communist cells were never proven to be anything other than smear tactics by opponents of organized labor. 

Certainly some of the blame for corruption in unions must fall on the shoulders of the union members for not maintaining eternal vigilance, nonetheless Wall Street and Madison Avenue did all they could to discredit, weaken and destroy labor unions.  But it must be remembered that the corporate and company bosses had their own cooperatives and associations in order to join forces and maintain a balance of power.  So it was not that they were opposed to Unions.  They were opposed to the Workers Unions.  Of course the establishment usually had the upper hand in that balance of power, since they owned the factories, the banks, the money and the poloticians. 

But as long as the workers could stop production, they could hold their own with the establishment. 

It is this balance of power that Scott Walker and other governors are attempting to destroy.  By loading enough conditions on the backs of unions, they turn them into toothless Tigers. 

This month is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Building Fire in New York City.  Go back and read reports of working conditions in 1911 when the business bosses held all the cards. 

When poloticians like Walker are bought and paid for by industrialists like the Koch brothers, their loyalties are not with the people.  They will put the interests of the industrialists first.  And they will lie and tell you, while looking you straight in the eye, that they are not swayed by their contributors big bucks. 

Frankly, I do not want to see the balance swing back to 1911.  Some reform of both the Labor Unions as well as the whole process in which we now conduct our political campaigns and elections, is very much in order.  But the solution is not to destroy one or the other.  We need one another. 

It is not greedy workers that have driven factories overseas.  They were making more money than they could figure out how to spend with their factories right here.  But greed did play a major role in the desecration of our great manufacturing might. 

A good example was the comments by Phil Knight, CEO of Nike.  He said that his goal was to build the best shoe factory in the world.  When asked if it bothered him to know that 12 year old girls were working in his factory, he said that was a lie, they hired no one under the age of 14.  When asked if it bothered him to see 14 year old girls working in his factory, he said, "No!"  In fact, Knight admitted that he'd never visited his overseas factory.  His only information was second hand.  It was the bottom line that interested him. 

Think of it my friend, you are the CEO of a very successful company.  You have become a Billionaire and are living on top of the world.  You are so rich that you can never spend it all if you live to be 250 years old.  History teaches us that you will not change that which is working so well for you.  Your employees are making poverty wages and working long hours for it.  They come to you one by one asking for relief from the grinding poverty and hard working conditions.  You explain that you must keep your product competetive and cannot pay more than the other companies making similar items. 

At the same time you contribute to several key poloticians who support "Right to Work" legislation.  You have a bank of attorneys who comb the laws of the land and find loopholes that keep your taxes to vertually nothing.  You move your excess money to off shore banks.  You buy national ads on TV pointing with pride to all that you do and all of the charities that you support.  And you continue to pay the people who are making you your wealth, crap for wages. 

You tell them that you created jobs for them and they should be grateful and loyal.  But if times get tough, or they finally get enough balls to organize despite your best efforts, you show your loyalty to them by pulling up your factory and heading for China, or Mexico or any place that allows you to pay next to nothing in wages. 

What do you say to those long suffering, loyal workers?  Do you say, "you shouldn't be as greedy as your boss?" 

I view any corporation that had its start here in America and then takes its money and factories to Third World countries, as Un-American.  They leave behind desolution.  The very people who labored for them and paid extra taxes to provide them with cheap power and other tax breaks, those very people are left to live in slums. 

Those are my people.  I was born into a working class family.  That's where my roots are, and always will be.  The Ruling Class are people who do not share.  They use other people to do their bidding and earn them their wealth while looking down their noses at them and calling them useless and lazy. 

They own the government and make different rules to govern the poor than the ones for themselves.  They take your and my labor and then tell us that they have the right to live better than we do. 

I neither want to be among them nor have them rule my life.  They are focused on dollars while my people are focused on caring and sharing. 

But back to the difference between your fringe benefits and mine.  Any of us hire onto a job with a mutual agreement.  Usually called a contract.  The one Cathy and I now are signed onto provides nothing but a flat amount of money each month as repayment for documented production.  The state draws up the contract.  And the state is every bit as tight as any corporate lawyer in the private sector.  The contract protects the state and passes responsibility, liability and all operational costs to us.  We pay our medical other than my Medicare, any vacation time, all work expenses like gas and client equipment, all fees to the state and if we had one, our retirement program.  This is a far cry from the contract I worked under when I was a state employee.  Because of years of labor union negotiations state employees had some better benefits than those men and women who worked for the state 100 years ago.  Back in 1911 state employees contracts resembled the one that is used today for contract workers.  There are those in the Ruling Class who want to see this sort of contract reintroduced.  They mistakenly believe that it will save them and the state millions of dollars.  My sources tell me that following the lead of Wisconsin, Washington State will soon compare itself to Mississippi. 

When I was a state employee my benefits were part of a package worked out between the state and the employees union.  I received part of my pay each month in a lump sum.  Part of my pay was set aside to pay my share of my health program.  Part of my pay was held for my annual leave and sick leave.  And part of it went into my state pension.  I might have received this all as a lump sum and divided it myself.  But it was a great help to have it divided out by the fiscal office.  But when the state wants me to pay a greater share of my health costs, it's asking the impossible.  I'm already upholding my end of the contract we agreed upon.  Do you think that the state would be happy if employees suddenly said that they were taking an extra weeks vacation with pay?  The state would never stand for it.  Yet Walker wants to renig on the employees contract without negotiating changes with them. 

I look at my current contract and compare it to the one I worked under at the Department and I ask myself, "Which contract do I want my children and grand children to sign?"  My folks fought for a  better life for me and my sisters.  I want the same for my children. 

I'll shut up after one more thought. 

We are told by our president and our governor and our bosses that we must all make sacrifices in these hard times.  And so we do.  But tell me, what sacrifices have you seen Bill Clinton make, or George Bush?  How many millionaires are finding their budget cramped because gas and food prices have risen?  How many millionaires have had their homes foreclosed?  Lost their jobs?  Been laid off? 

My house is worth nearly 80 thousand dollars less today than just two years ago.  My youngest daughter's house lost 70 thousand dollars.  That was the money they put down on it.  They can't afford to sell.  Another down turn and they'll owe more than the house is worth.  Has George Bush or Bill Clinton jumped up and offered to bail us out?  Or Obama?  He can't even decide if the fast rising gasoline prices are an emergency or not.  Why do you suppose that is?  Who pays for his gas?  Let these people come live in your house or mine for a few years and learn what sacrifice is all about. 

But you and I will probably never agree, because we relate to different people. 

 

Curious Carl