Anti-Unionism is the Date Rape of Corporate Crime
Even most liberals deny anti-union crime is widespread or deny that it's even a serious crime at all and anyways the folks doing it are such swell people, we can't expect us to like treat them like criminals, do you? If unions have been decimated in American workplaces, it's must really be their fault-- they must have been asking for it. You know, when you wear such pretty medical care and pension funds, employers are just being normal, red-blooded capitalists when they wipe out unions to get at them.
If you wonder why I get angry when folks say nice things about corporate criminal union busters like Wal-Mart, maybe you should read the new report by American Rights at Work which details the extent and severity of that corporate crime wave, a crime wave where tens of thousands of workers are victimized each year with stolen jobs and crushed lives.
As this study highlights, a typical union organizing drive starts with a majority of workers signing cards in support of having a union. Yet in the course of the elections, corporations embark on full-scale illegal assault on their workforce:
- 30% of employers fire pro-union workers.
- 49% of employers threaten to close a worksite when workers try to form a union.
- 51% of employers coerce workers into opposing unions with selective bribery or favoritism.
But look, I'm a realist. Most people will hear about the report, say tssk, tssk-- and next week you'll be talking about union leaders inflexibility or other failings as the explanation for the lack of unions in American workplaces, despite the fact that 50% OF WORKERS SAY THEY WANT ONE! [Business Week: "Fully half of all nonunion U.S. workers say they would vote yes if a union election were held at their company today"}
Given this degree of corporate criminality, how are labor folks supposed to take liberals seriously who even discuss Wal-Mart or other big croporate criminals as a "progressive" force? This is a company that shut down a whole store in Canada when it voted to unionize to punish the workers and chill organizing at any of its other stores.
But I understand-- illegal anti-union activity isn't "real crime" so it's okay to debate whether Wal-Mart is a "progressive" force.
There is a lingering distrust of unions left over from the days of the Hoffa-type union bosses. This has been nurtured (subtly) for decades and makes some suspicious of unions. I was involved, once, in a union organizing drive and the employer brought in a law firm which specializes in preventing unionization. They did nothing illegal, but they have honed their arguments so well that they pursuade workers to vote against their own self interests. One of their main points is that the union will collect dues and the workers will get nothing for this. Needless to say the unionization effort failed.
A second point is that with union membership at such a low level, most people no longer have first-hand knowledge of workers with union benefits. So they hear the anti-union remarks fostered by the corporate world in the media, but nothing about how actual members feel about the benefits of being part of a worker organization.
A few months ago I proposed trying to counter this lack of participation by creating worker-based organization that provided secondary support services for the members. This would be modelled on AARP and would offer group insurance and the like as well as developing a sense of community and providing issue education.
You can read my short essay on the idea here:
An AARP-like organization for workers
December 7, 2005 6:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fully half of all nonunion U.S. workers say they would vote yes if a union election were held at their company today.
Half of non-union workers would vote no? To me, that's bleak stat and indicates a need for understanding why that half thinks so little of unions even when given the chance to answer anonymously to a pollster. Are they date rapers too? Or has the culture itself changed? Union jobs used to be something many coveted--ever think that has changed for some reason, that it's not all about fear?
December 7, 2005 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's true that workers can't count on liberals who pontificate without knowing, for instance, one end of an impact wrench from the other.
But: Isn't part of the problem to be found in the corporate-friendly stances of the largest unions, the ones like my UAW which refuse to wage full-strength fights against corporate downsizing and phony bankruptcies, and which accept (even enforce) two-tier wage and benefit structures, and worsening conditions on the job?
Workers aren't exactly inspired to expect much out of unions, the way they conduct their affairs today. So why go through the years of aggravation to organize one?
December 7, 2005 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
rdf wrote:
I was involved, once, in a union organizing drive and the employer brought in a law firm which specializes in preventing unionization. They did nothing illegal,...
No, they did nothing illegal, and that's the problem. I spent a lot of time yesterday fulminating over the fact that corporations can hire companies whose sole purpose in life is to wage war against employees attempting to unionize. Seems to me that there ought to be a law prohibiting corporations from interfering in unionization drives. The war against workers and unions is too ugly to be allowed to continue.
December 7, 2005 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kinda off-topic, but does the UAW know how to handle the problems in the American car industry? Like in this one, is it a question of corporate-friendly attitudes or not knowing how to deal with long-term structural problems period?
December 9, 2005 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
When Nathan Newman cites Business Week as saying, "Fully half of all nonunion U.S. workers say they would vote yes if an election were held at their company today," he doesn't mention that the survey was done by Peter Hart. The Business Week story does mention this but neither mention that it was commissioned by the AFL-CIO. A Zogby poll, commissioned by the Public Service Research Foundation, not a friend of unions by any means, released in June 2005 using an identically worded question found that 56 percent would vote no. This is more consistent with other data.
In 1984 the AFL-CIO commissioned Harris & Associates to study the failure of union organizing. Harris found that 65 percent would vote against a union. The study also found that 72 percent of those who had been represented by a union in a previous employment but were presently working in a nonunion job would vote against organizing. In 1999 the Gallup poll approached the topic from a slightly different angle. It asked whether people who were not union members would personally like to be a member of a labor union. Twenty-one percent said yes. There is no doubt that most businesses don't want a union and will do what they can to oppose it. The unions have their heads in the sand, however, if they think that workers really want them.
January 5, 2006 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink