Are unions alienating themselves from the workplace or do workers see no value in them?

 If there ever was an opportune time to organize a union, now is the perfect time.  More and more companies are hiring temporary workers to avoid having to pay employee benefits.  They work them for short periods of time and then lay them off and hire a new round of temps to replace them. Numerous wage and safety violations occur every day in practically every industry because there are no employee advocates to protect them. The problem is most unions in the public and private sectors are complacent and are only concerned about holding onto their current membership.  Union membership in the private sector declined from 35.7% in 1935 to 6.6% in 2012. Part of the reason is that they have done very little to increase their presence within the work place where they have collective bargaining agreements.   In addition, where public employee unions are concerned, they make very little effort to instill political awareness within its membership rank and file.  In addition, they fail to create effective community awareness on issues that concern them most; job security and contracting out of public services.

While it’s true unions spend billions of dollars on political campaigns supporting candidates, they have done very little to align themselves with other community groups, such as churches, seniors, minority groups, and civic organizations.  During the heyday of union activity in the 1930s-1970s unions were effective in winning many bread and butter issues like limiting the work day to eight hours, overtime pay, sick leave, vacation, holidays, workplace safety, and other important causes. The point is, they didn’t do it alone. They had the community behind them.

Hubert Humphrey once said, “The history of the labor movement needs to be taught in every school in this land . . . America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life . . We ought to be proud of it!”

Recently, the City of Fresno’s blue collar unit represented by the Operating Engineers, Local 39 fought the city and won. This was a classic case of a Mayor and a city council majority who supported the idea of privatizing the city’s solid waste division to help balance its deficit ridden budget. In order to do this, they targeted areas where there was least resistance. Had it not been for an effective political campaign by Local 39 and its ally employee associations representing the city’s white collar workers and the police force, over 170 solid waste employees would have eventually become unemployed.  However, this whole dilemma could have been avoided if the union had a strong presence in the workplace. This wasn’t the first time the contracting out of city services had been proposed in Fresno, and it won’t be the last. Without a strong union presence in the workplace, decisions to contract out union services are inevitable.

Over 200 Arrested

Fresno Municipal Strike 1974

In 1974, the City of Fresno had a strong city manager form of government.  There existed a great animosity between the union and management. At that time, the city’s same blue collar workers were represented by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Local 2051. The relationship between the union and then City Manager Ralph Handley was immature to say the least. It took a municipal strike of over 500 city blue-collar employees from the city’s solid waste division, sanitation, street, parks, mechanic shops, and other departments to come to terms in contract negotiations over wages, hours, and working conditions.  Over 207 city workers, friends, and family members were arrested on the 3^rd day of the strike and hauled away to jail in municipal buses. There weren’t enough paddy wagons to transport them all. Community support from members of La Raza Unida, the United Farm Workers, and other groups supported the union during the strike. The strike lasted seven days and arrests were made every day. Although the city did recognize the union as the representative of its blue collar workers, it did not take

them seriously until the after the strike. In the end, the union won wage increases, job security, and most of all respect. The relationship between the City of Fresno and the union matured in the years following the strike. In July of 1979, the same union went on a week-long strike in the City of Clovis and won wage increases, increased contributions toward employee health premiums, and job security. The city had proposed contracting out its solid waste division as well.

Organized labor should stop taking the easy approach to organizing new workers and go back to the basics. They seem to forget that workers must actually want to be represented by a union, not be drafted into one. That means they must take the necessary steps to approach these workers on a one-on-one basis or have meetings with them to assess their priorities.  In addition, they should help them develop an effective shop steward system at their places of employment. Such an approach only enhances the relationship between the union and its members.  Union members must take ownership of their union and participate in solving its own problems. Taking legal action or boycotting companies that are not already unionized only has a tendency to alienate workers like a new stepfather does to children in a broken marriage.

 It’s not true that workers simply do not want to join a union if they had the choice.  Workers have plenty of reasons to join a union in today’s economic environment.  Companies are placing more emphasis on profits and the gap between the rich and the poor has practically eliminated the middle class.

As more states are adopting right to work legislation that allow workers to opt out of mandatory unionization, its time organized labor re-create itself into the type of organization that workers were once able to control.  They've given up huge concessions to management both in wages and benefits only to see the political tides falling against them.  Have they forgotten that there’s strength in numbers?