Labor Pains

God, this is sad.

In an excellent column in today's Inquirer, columnist Jane M. Von Bergen describes how some rank-and-file workers feel about the sparring within the AFL-CIO that is currently taking place. Here is what she wrote:

They say nothing is as American as baseball. Fifty years ago, when the AFL-CIO was founded, one could have said the same thing about labor unions. One in four Americans belonged to a labor union; now, only 12 percent of the nation's workforce is unionized.

Tomorrow in Chicago, the AFL-CIO may split in two, a potentially seminal moment in labor history and one that's been chewed over for months by union leaders, consultants and pundits.

On Wednesday in Camden, the Riversharks pulled out a seventh-inning rally to defeat the Newark Bears, 6-4, at Campbell's Field. It was a pleasant night, with the humidity down and Philadelphia's skyscrapers etched in soft relief against a pink sky.
The AFL-CIO splitting up?

Nobody knew, and not too many cared.

"What's a labor union?" asked Rodney Black, 17, a Camden high school senior who works at the ballfield making funnel cakes.

It was way too serious a topic for Jeff "Beep-Beep" Pennell, a nonunion clown from Maple Shade who was volunteering at the ballpark that night. "I really don't know," he said. "Have fun. Beep. Beep."

In Chicago, the debate is over how to increase union membership. One side wants to spend more of the labor movement's financial resources on grassroots organizing. The other side puts the focus on politics to elect officials who would enact more labor-friendly policies.

At the ballfield, the question was much more personal. Do unions matter?

"I don't think any kind of union matters," said Mount Ephraim's Harry Smith, 34, who attended the game with his son Zachary, 5.

"If your company wants to get rid of you, they are going to find a way to get rid of you - union or not," he said. That's what happened to Smith, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, at his last job.

Now he has another union job, as a maintenance worker in Mount Ephraim's streets department. "The union does fight for you on wages and benefits, like sick days," Smith said. "That's one good thing about the union."

Nonunion paratransit driver Jesse Banks, 49, from Northeast Philadelphia, wishes he were still making the money he earned when he was a Teamster, behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer.

"There are some positives," he said, as he methodically worked his way through a tray of peanuts. "The workers need a voice when they find themselves in a tough situation."

But his feelings are mixed. The trucking company owner told union negotiators he couldn't afford what they sought. No compromise was reached. The company closed, and Banks lost his job. "If the union could have accommodated him, we would be in business now," he said.

Frank Ross' feelings aren't mixed. In the spring, the Collingswood customer-service employee helped his company's management defeat a Teamsters organizing drive designed to unionize many of the 260 employees at Lehigh Press Inc. in Pennsauken.
"I wish every union in this country would shut," he said. "Unions are for the lazy and the weak. I used to work on the docks in Gloucester City, and it was ridiculous. They get paid outrageous wages for nothing."

Lauren Ryan's feelings aren't mixed either. An emergency medical technician from Gloucester City, she has seen first-hand what her father's union - "I think it's the Steelworkers" - did for her family when her brother was killed in Iraq in November.

There was a memorial service on the West Coast, she said, "and they gave us the airfare to fly out there. My dad didn't even have to ask. He just asked for some time off. It was awesome that they did it."

The AFL-CIO's Family Feud

What's going on?Last-minute negotiations to repair a rift in the nation's largest conglomeration of labor unions, the AFL-CIO, are looking increasingly unproductive. The AFL-CIO's convention starts Monday in Chicago.

What's next? Leaders of the some of the largest unions, including the Teamsters, the Service Employees and the United Food and Commercial Workers, may decide tomorrow to leave the AFL-CIO.

Over what?The dissidents want more focus on grassroots organizing and less focus on Democratic-oriented politics.

Then what? If the national unions break up, local branches of the unions will see if they can find a way to work together anyway.

You think I’m going to blame Dubya and the Repugs for this, don’t you?

Well, you’re wrong. The fault for this, as far as I’m concerned, lies primarily with the Democrats, and their capitulation to Repug business interests and the agendas of Beltway insiders, especially during the Clinton years.

For a high-school student to ask “What’s a labor union?,” represents a total failure at the grass roots level to educate people regarding the difference between the agendas of the political parties and defining their core constituencies (the shameful legacy of all of the “me too” Democrats out there, who David Sirota quite rightly rails against so often). It’s also the fault of the public elementary school system in this country for not teaching about this important part of our history, but that’s another story.

The importance of labor unions and their history should be understood by every working person in this country. Also, I think the AFL-CIO faction that wants to do more at the "grass roots" level has the right idea, since I think hoping for the politicians to do the right thing at this point is an exercise in futility.

I don’t have an issue with the people who are saying that unions matter less in this age of globalization, because they’re right unfortunately. These are the people interviewed in Von Bergen’s story and others who are driving tractor trailers, loading freight at our ports, and working in any one of hundreds of other types of jobs.

Also in the business section is an article that analyzes the latest round of layoffs, mentioning, in addition to the layoffs at Hewlett Packard, those at Kodak. This paragraph stood out in particular:

U.S. corporations announced plans in June to cut 110,996 jobs - the highest monthly total in 17 months - and July's toll could turn out to be steeper. Overall job cuts are on the rise in 2005, reaching 538,274 through June, according to Challenger's monthly job-cut analysis.

Here's more from AOL Business News.

This continues the worst economic stewardship under a presidential administration that I can ever recall in my lifetime (yes, I know, the layoffs aren’t entirely Bush’s fault, but, like Herbert Hoover many years ago, he doesn’t have a plan, an answer, or even a clue about what to do about it, or even an inclination since he’s a lame duck anyway).

Oh, and by the way, right below the story about the AFL-CIO appeared an article about how Kimberly-Clark, based in Irving, TX, is cutting 6,000 jobs (hint: globalization). I’m sorry that Frank Ross’s job won’t be one of them.

Update 7/25: The Daily Kos has a great report today on some of the unions that have split off from the AFL-CIO and how, though that isn't a good short-term development, it may be positive in the long run.

Update 7/27: Molly Ivins has a good analysis also.