Modern Union Busting

OPINION Modern Union Busting, and the Decline of the Middle Class

BY LARRY J. SCHWEIGER - PITTSBURGH CURRENT COLUMNIST INFO@PITTSBURGH CURRENT.COM

12 | MAY 5, 2020 | PITTSBURGH CURRENT W orkers in slaugh- terhouses, frontline bus drivers, transit operators, and essential grocery store clerks did their jobs during this past month. Many faithful- ly showed up to work despite not having proper protection measures, adequate health- care coverage, or decent living wages. Far too many are now paying the price. "Workers of every stripe are supporting the sick, the isolated, and the vul- nerable. Even in the face of this emergency, working people are showing no crisis is too great, and no task is too small." AFLCIO President Richard Trumka recently spoke on a March 19 Facebook telecast: "Our values are needed more today and more than ever before." Once the immediate pandemic crisis has run its course, Trumka said, "We can rebuild America.

In response to widespread COVID-19 outbreaks at thirteen meat-producing operations, Trump invoked the Defense Pro- duction Act, and ordered slaugh- terhouse workers, sick or not, back on the job while relieving the meat-producing corporations from liability. More concerned with his re-election than the health of workers, Trump has also been encouraging gover- nors who are ignoring CDC benchmarks to reopen prema- turely. Trump and many gov- ernors are forcing workers off unemployment compensation back to work with inadequate safeguards, including masks, gloves, testing, and contact trac- ing. He has refused to use the same Defense Production Law that gives government sweeping powers to dramatically ramp up the manufacturing capacity of masks, swabs, and test kits to be able to produce widespread and timely testing because he does not want voters to know how bad things are. Economist Rob- ert Reich explained “Trump’s actions regarding re-opening the national economy to a chilling four-point plan: Remove in- come support, so people have no choice but to return to work; hide the facts; pretend it’s about “freedom”; and shield business- es against lawsuits for spreading the infection.” The coronavi- rus did not cause a myriad of workplace injustices; it merely brought them into sharp focus. Just after the first Earth Day when millions of Americans protested and demanded cor- porations stop polluting the air and waters, Milton Friedman in apparent response to the public demands, published an article in the New York Times on Sep- tember 13, 1970, asserting the sole purpose of a firm is to make money for its shareholders. Full stop. Friedman's article claimed executives who pursued any goal other than making money (like caring for workers' health and safety or addressing pollu- tion) were "unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades." He said they were guilty of "analytical looseness and lack of rigor," turning themselves into "unelected government offi- cials" who were illegally taxing employers and customers. For this economic drivel, Friedman won a Nobel Prize in Econom- ics in 1976. More importantly, his economic theory found a home on Wall Street. Corporate culture has shifted to become la- ser-focused on quarterly returns

and stock prices as the com- pensation measure for rewarding CEO's.

Oligopolistic behemoths see organized labor as a serious threat to their profits and have successfully attacked labor with crippling state laws and through conservative courts decisions. Increasing corporate profits by keeping workers down, and wages low has been vital ele- ment of corporate strategy in recent decades following Fried- man’s admonition.

Historically, organized labor has been a vital force for numer- ous progressive changes and has been a driving force building a vibrant middleclass. The Amer- ican labor movement has been systematically targeted, and as a result, it has dramatically con- tracted in recent decades. Now, unions struggle to be relevant as wages have flattened, and healthcare and pensions disap- peared. More than ever, labor unions must be well-resourced to be able stand up for workers in the face of the rapid corpora- tization of America.

In recent years, monopolistic practices of buying up competi- tion have been great for execu- tives, and shareholders, and very bad for almost everyone else, including our struggling cap- italistic system. They have an outsized influence in elections aimed at keeping regulations down, and to promote self-serv- ing policies like a flat tax that disproportionately advantaged the wealthy. David Leonhardt wrote a piece on November 25, 2018, New York Times entitled "The Monopolization of Amer- ica" explains: "In one industry after another, big companies have become more dominant (in their markets) over the past 15 years, new data show ... They hold down wages because where else are workers going to go? They use their resources to sway government policy. Many of our economic ills—like income stagnation and a decline in entrepreneurship—stem part- ly from corporate gigantism." Sooner or later, crony capitalists and monopolistic corporations will jack prices as we have seen in the pharmaceutical and airline industries

Mega-wealthy libertarians like Koch have enjoyed an unprece- dented upward spiral in wealth. To maintain status, they invest in efforts aimed at crippling unions. Corporate elites also enlisted conservative politicians, and conservative talking heads to carry out a coordinated strat- agem to suppress labor unions. The nature of a strike can at times include some drama. Russ Limbaugh labeled protestors "union thugs." (Not surprising- ly, Limbaugh has been silent about the armed and masked terrorists who raided the Mich- igan State Capitol to overthrow stay-at-home-orders intended to control the pandemic.) Lim- baugh and the other right-wing talking heads have long been breeding discontent and skepti- cism among truckers and other blue-collar workers, and they have aimed at more conservative union members, focusing on coal miners, steelworkers, and other workers whose jobs will change with the climate crisis and clean energy policies.

In 2016, corporate PACs and other political investments yield- ed six times the amount donated by labor. Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, warned that labor is "so overshadowed by corpo- ration's and billionaire's mon- ey. The labor stuff is pathetic in comparison." The intensity of efforts to undermine labor unions has dramatically expand- ed with much success. Since 2009 for the first time, Ameri- cans now increasingly see labor in a more negative light.

David Madland and Karla Walter prepared a paper for July 2010 for the Center of American

OPINION

PITTSBURGH CURRENT | MAY 5, 2020 | 13 Progress Action Fund entitled, "Why Is the Public Suddenly Down on Unions? Labor unions, like any other institution led by humans, may have had their share of issues over the years. Despite failings, they have his- torically been the most influen- tial counterweight to the heavy hand of corporate money. Cur- rently, 117 million private-sector workers and 21 million public sector workers are under severe pressure. The number of union- ized workers has dramatically contracted in recent decades with a concurrent decline of the middleclass. Organized labor has fallen from about 25% of the private workforce to about 6.5%. Now the private and public sector unions are nearly identical in size with 7.6 million members versus 7.2 million. For labor, and for much of the disappearing middle class, the stakes in this struggle are high. No one should be surprised that the wealthy are getting wealthier while workers receive crumbs.

As a recent example of their strategy, anti-union groups set their sights on home-healthcare workers as one of the fast- est-growing professions in the country, but also one of the low- est-paid jobs. A Michigan law banned paycheck deductions from home-healthcare workers. Trump followed with a Depart- ment of Health and Human Ser- vices rule banning union dues deduction from home-healthcare workers' Medicaid-funded pay- checks. The SEIU Healthcare Michigan experienced an 84 percent drop in membership and a 74 percent drop in revenue. Influenced by Trump’s hot rhetoric and empty promises, far too many low-informa- tion workers voted for Trump in 2016 despite his long and well-documented history of abusing workers on job sites. Trump has consistently opposed their interests as a private-sector employer repeatedly braking contracts and abandoning prom- ises. Despite Trump's corporate practices that were hostile to labor, many workers have naive- ly supported Trump. Some have even supported "right to work" laws to avoid paying union dues.

Since 1981, a well-coordi- nated state-by-state effort has undermined unions through so-called "Right to Work" laws. These laws diminish union revenues and prevent them from being an effective counter-cur- rent to the dominant corporate politics aimed at keeping wages and benefits low. Labor's influ- ence has been declining as "right to work for less" laws are now in force in 26 states, including Michigan of all places. Arizona went so far as to add "right to work" to its Constitution. Such laws strip unions of the right to collect dues from all workers even in shops where workers voted to require dues payments. Senator Rand Paul has intro- duced the National Right to Work Act to make paying union dues optional. Senator Paul does not care that forty percent of Americans make less than $15 an hour, and essential workers cannot afford even a $400 bill for medicine during a pandemic.

Richard Trumka is right. We must rebuild America. Once again, organized labor needs to be at the forefront of a pro- gressive movement to create safe working environments, fair wages, health care, and retire- ment benefits. Ending unjust "Right to Work" laws can be an essential step towards address- ing the enormous inequities of a run-away capitalistic system laid bare by the pandemic. By fusing environmental, labor, faith, and other forward-mind- ed organizations in common cause, we must take steps to correct a system that has bent not towards justice as Martin Luther King Jr. had hoped, but to toward extreme greed of the one percent.