unions

in the wake of the recent supreme court decision putting yet another nail in organized labor's coffin i read an article that pinned the blame for the loses in membership on unions themselves...while unions are far from perfect ( and we will get into some firsthand examples from my decades as a union member down the road here...with some important distinctions...all unions are not equal ) and may have some responsibility in their problems, they have surely been aided and abetted in those losses by politicians...new deal or no new deal, unions have never been very popular with the business ( and hence government ) elite...and they were opposed to them despite the fact that they never represented a majority of american workers...even so they have been perceived as a threat to the status quo and active opposition to them goes well back beyond reagan and patco...part of organized labor's problem is who union leadership supports...the deomocratic party receives the majority of union pac's funds....something like 90% last time i looked which engenders a two fold problem...first the deomcrats, like all politicians, are cavalier with both campaign promises and the truth..they are unreliable at best in terms of attempting to maintain even a status quo in the labor/management power structures...they are of the elite and class interests will overcome campaign promises without even a struggle...compounding this, in an effort to minimize what they perceived as the dangers of an "interested and overbearing majority" [madison] the framers of the constitution created a government for and by special interests that subverted the individuals political will to that of a more readily predictable, and so controllable, group...energy that may have been directed towards a direct conflict with the government or employers on the part of individuals is expended inside the confines of an interest group as policy is debated and decided...the government increases the predictability of the individual by addressing only issues brought forth by interest groups, forcing individuals into pre-labeled pigeon holes...there is yet a deeper division among workers who are not only defined as deomcrats or republican...but find themselves further divided by issues such as pro choice/pro life, nra/gun control, pro-regulation/laisses faire...creating another layer of contention that diffuses solidarity...the rollback of unions began with their legal recognition under the wagner act of 1935...unions ( and by the way the courts later interpreted the wagner act as guaranteeing the rights of unions, not of workers )gained legal recognition and in so doing became part of the department of labor subject to rules laid down by the national labor relations board...in effect unions were taken "into the system" and left with fewer and fewer options as regulation mounted...the nlrb is controlled by the department of labor and the department of labor is controlled by the government..and the government is controlled by...well..not labor...and one thing not labor loathes is an organized work force with effective methods of protest and leverage in bargaining...so as unions evolved effective strategies such as the uaw's seizure of the fisher body works in flint michigan in late 1936 and early 1937 which forced general motors to negotiate a fair contract the nlrb moved to make sit-down strikes illegal...which they still remain...sympathy strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary site picketing were all made illegal or heavily regulated to the point of being ineffectual...all unions were guilty of in this was seeking legal recognition...the rest they had help with...on a personal level i was a member of a union for more than three decades and found pluses and minuses...the biggest plus was health coverage which came through the union...it was efficient and well run for the most part ( every system has issues ) and i can't fault them in this...the underlying theory of their unionism was a huge sticking point...for myself and more than a few others...we were members of the industrial arm of an old american federation of labor craft union that was mired in business unionism...they were in the business of selling industrial peace in three year bites...and it was a business...they had more in common with management than the bargaining unit and were more like a secondary set of bosses than advocates...when i was in the steelworkers union many years ago we had "grievers" as union reps...in this union the "advocates" were call "business agents"...the focus was clear from the institutional structures...an aversion to taking grievances to arbitration meant that workers' rights were not on the table in any way..we were "semi-skilled", not the skilled "craftsmen" they actually represented...small wonder that when indiana passed a "right to work " law many members opted out of paying dues and became free riders...there was not even a pretense of representation...only union journals and the odd t-shirt or baseball cap in exchange for dues...unions have not done themselves any favors by their behaviors...perceived as a special interest group ( which they are by government fiat ) representing a labor "elite" they have no sympathy among the unrepresented from whom they have been effectively isolated by behavior and government intent...we were dinosaurs...a resurgence may be possible...but not from inside the system.