Evidence that things are far worse than we ever dreamed can be seen in John Q. Public's increasing resentment of labor unions. Twenty-five years ago people who argued with me (and I had these arguments every single day) about the contributions of organized labor used to maintain that unions were "bad" because they were either (1) too anti-democratic and dictatorial, or (2) too "corrupt" (i.e., mobbed up or otherwise "crooked").
But back then, few workers suggested that unions weren't beneficial, or that they weren't devoted to the interests of working people or, considering the stark alternatives, that they weren't, in fact, "necessary." Rather, their gripes were confined to the "procedural," to the way unions were run. Or to be more accurate, to the way they perceived unions to be run (because, in truth, people often confused "corruption" with simple laziness and inefficiency).
Unfortunately, that's changed radically. While you still hear noises about "corrupt union bosses," what people complain about today it that labor unions are "elitist." It's true. Shocking as it may be, America's working people actually use the E-word when referring to other working people -- to people who, by virtue of a union contract, have managed to stay above water, who've managed to retain decent wages and benefits, and haven't fallen victim to the biggest money grab since the Gilded Age.
At first this attitude seemed more a manifestation of petty jealousy or schadenfreude. But the more you hear, the more it appears the public believes that working people who feel they're entitled to decent wages and benefits somehow regard themselves as being "above the rest of us," and should, therefore, be knocked down a peg or two. Instead of a union contract serving as a goal to attain, they see it as an insult, a humiliation.
When you try to explain that without unions to prop up our wages and benefits, we'd all be subject to the inevitable downward pull of market forces, which, given the surplus of labor, means that many of the middle and lower-middle class would not only remain stagnated but would slide inexorably toward the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour (which, incidentally, many Republicans find too generous and wish to abolish), people bristle.
They bristle because they place an inordinate amount of faith in the motives of corporations and in the curative powers of the so-called Free Market. They honestly believe the rich wouldn't be motivated to exploit the rest of us, because such a thing, somehow, wouldn't "be productive." And they bristle when you use the innocuous phrase "surplus of labor," because, as they remind you, "That's what Karl Marx said!!"
Grim as the prospect is, maybe the one-percent has already won this thing. With the poor now cheering for the rich, the plutocrats' wildest and most ambitious fantasies have been realized. Not only have the rich succeeded in convincing workers to root against labor unions -- the one and only institution dedicated to their welfare -- they've convinced them to fight for the interests of the wealthy rather than the interests of their own tribe.
Holy Mother of Jesus, this makes no sense. And it's not simply politics. This transcends political ideology and voter booth privacy. Rooting for the rich is crazy. It's not only illogical and impractical, it's unnatural. Indeed, it's tantamount to the chicken population of the United States naming Colonel Sanders its "Man of the Year."
David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and author ("It's Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor"), was a former union rep. He can be reached at dmacaray@earthlink.net
All they need is the Supreme Court and the House as they have proven.
The chickens are roosting at Colonel Sanders very comfortably.
I cannot wait for unions to fully implode as they already have started.
Kai
Their influence is now however llargely long gone.
You state, ‘The Unions built the Middle Class.’
Not true at all. Unions like everyone else benefitted from economic growth. It is free-market forces that create the middle class and it is the reason why burgeoning middle classes are developing around the world, even in places with no union activity to speak of. It is a common misperception among liberals, who often confuse correlation for causality, that unions drove the development of the middle class. In reality, the middle class was developing regardless of union growth. Unions at their peak were only 35% of the workforce in the 1950’s and have been in decline ever since and yet the middle class is bigger today, stronger, and better off than it was during that time, albeit the recession has taken its toll. The best jobs in America are non-union, and most of the middle class belong to non-unionized industries and companies.
If anything unions have succeeded in reducing opportunity for the lower middle-class by reducing competiveness in the industries that have traditionally hired them. They have hollowed out the middle class by subverting the economic competiveness of America in many industries.
Kai
Thank you for your response.
You rightly ask, ‘If there's another institution, besides organized labor, dedicated to the welfare of working people.’
(a) Unions do not have the welfare of working people at heart; they have the welfare of their members at heart.
(b) The institutions that have the ‘working people’s’ interests at heart would be entrepreneurs, private equity (Bain), individuals, investors (the 1%), savers, TBTF banks, etc. All these institutions contribute more to creating jobs for the average working person more than unions do.
‘The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-union-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline.’--Milton Friedman
He was right…and now we have stagnation and decline.
You go on, ‘Clearly, it isn't our labor laws or trade laws.’
You continue, ‘As for unions being "anti-worker," I'm assuming you're attempting to be humorous.’
Not at all. They are pro-member, not pro-independent worker (who is their competitor).
‘What is today euphemistically called the right to strike is in fact the right of striking workers, by recourse to violence, to prevent people who want to work from working…If a union succeeds in forcing the employers to pay higher wage rates than those they were prepared to pay under the prevailing state of market conditions, this is not a victory for “labor,” i.e., for all those who are anxious to earn wages. It is a boon only for those workers who will be employed at the new rates. It is a calamity for all those whom it condemns to lasting unemployment.—Ludwig von Mises.
And it doesn't make much difference what we say.....too many ordinary American workers demonize unions and can't see what unions have done for working people.
They can't see what will happen when the one main defender of workers (unions) is neutralized and toothless.
****And the neutralization is almost complete from what I see.
Rather than want to get union wages and benefits, workers want to take it away from those who have them.
With great sadness, I see the 1% is winning and probably will for many years.
The 1% (maybe 1/10th or even 1/100th of 1%) own and run the media.
THEY have had at least 30 years to change the opinions and mindset of the workers and they have succeeded with most.
I find the present day brainwashing.....workers actually going against their own best interests.....sickening.
I have no answers.
I don't know how to get the "blind" to see.
http://www.prosebeforehos.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/american-wealth-distribution1.png
The Working Class, those who trade work for salary or wages
and
The Capitalist Class, those who make a living investing
Two very different worlds, with very different needs and priorities. If your income comes to you primarily from investing money in corporations, you are not of the working class. If on the other hand, your primary source of income comes from wages or salary, you are part of the working class.
The idea of lower, middle and upper classes is based on somewhat arbitrary income levels and quite frankly, exists to serve the needs of the Capitalist class. It's a method of controlling those in the middle and prevent them from attaining more power.
Now, on to unions. I'm guessing the primary reason many people in the working class don't understand unions or have an inaccurate image of them is because most have never seen one. Sure, there are the nurses unions, and the auto workers, and of course the trades, but think of all those millions of people in all those cubicles and offices and all those people in retail or service that are without unifying organization. That is the goal of the capitalist class, to keep those designated as "middle class" isolated from each other and vulnerable.