Oh, How I Miss Being in a Union

What Will It Take to Mobilize American Workers Again?

I am one of many Americans who, over the past few decades, have gone from union to nonunion work. Most are as content with their corporate jobs as I am—except for this one caveat, missing being in a union.

There is an uncertainty in the business world, a dog-eat-dogness about it, that is hard to stomach.

In many American companies, this kind of uncertainty is a given: Some years workers get cost-of-living raises, some years they don't. Sometimes there's a hiring freeze, but managers get hired by the half-dozen. One day there's a letter from HR saying the company is swallowing the health-insurance premium costs, but then a note arrives in the mail from the HMO telling people their co-pays have gone up. To many rank-and-file workers, performance-based promotions may seem to happen on the basis of proximity to bosses' cubicles or who's in what meeting than on the basis of achievement. Enthusiastic up-and-comers may gleefully receive bonuses for volunteering many hours to a special project then decide to volunteer for more special projects—never to receive such a validation of their efforts again.

American businesses are too often dictatorial environments where a clique at the top decides everything, and the majority of employees are powerless against them.

I'll take this moment to slip in a quote from Gene Sharp's "From Dictatorship to Democracy":

Frequently, unquestioning submission to authority figures and rulers has been long inculcated. In extreme cases, the social, political, economic, and even religious institutions of the society—outside of state control—have been deliberately weakened, subordinated, or even replaced by new regimented institutions used by the state or ruling party to control the society. The population has often been atomized (turned into a mass of isolated individuals) unable to work together to achieve freedom, to confide in each other, or even to do much of anything at their own initiative.

Is it going too far to apply this concept to corporations in the United States today?

There are very few companies like Morning Star, a tomato-processing company without any bosses. I can certainly see that workers have become "atomized," "unable to work together to achieve freedom, to confide in each other," as it is this confidence in one another that allows a group movement to succeed at having some input into the decisions made by the powers that be.

 
As a new English/Language Arts teacher (and recent college grad), I led discussions on fate versus free will in The Odyssey and graded essays on the surprise ending of The Grapes of Wrath. There were aspects of the job I was unprepared for: most high-school students' lack of enthusiasm, the lack of cooperation of parents whose kids cheated, and the game of impressing the administrators. But every day, I was getting better at my job.

I made a decent wage for an entry-level worker, and had good benefits. I knew how much I'd be making next year and the year after that. Planned raises based on experience still make sense to me—after all, most of the teachers I admired were ten- or twenty-year veterans and had a ton of knowledge and skill. I had confidence in my professional status in part because I belonged to a union—a group who would help me stand up for myself against the powerful few at the top.

Those that swing right often say that teachers and other unionized public workers (as well as unionized laborers at private companies) don't deserve the higher pay, sick time, vacations, and pensions "the rest of us" lack. But union members are not "lucky" or "selfish," to use their rights to fight for benefits, eight-hour work days, vacation time, job security as they age, pensions, or even a limit to how temps or freelancers are used. I agree with those who say the unions must evolve with the times and make compromises when necessary. If a company is going bankrupt and the union is pushing back too hard or not negotiating in good faith, they will undermine their very existence (remember the fight over The Boston Globe?) But usually, the story goes the other way, with school boards and bosses refusing to sit down at the table.



Ultimately, the confidence of the people is what will determine their rights, and at the moment, most Americans are too afraid of losing their jobs (if they have them) or too desperate for cash (if they lack them) to unionize in the face of corporate power. This fact does not reflect an ineffectiveness of unions, though many pundits see the decline of unions as proof of their opinion that unions block efficiency or that we are in the midst of some kind of Hegelian march of progress.

To simplify: It's those with hiring and firing power against those without it. There is a "habit of obedience" (Sharp again) that pervades the American workplace nowadays; it will take some form of outrage to break loose of it.

Photo: My dad, uncles, and some other kids on a slide in 1950.