Posted on 02/09/2022 5:04:16 AM PST by Kaslin
Washington, DC. – Joe Biden likes to talk about how “unions built this country.” And, up to a point, he’s right. From FDR to Nixon, the American labor movement held considerable sway over the nation’s economic destiny.
Since the 70s, a decade marked by economic extremes Biden’s policies are causing us to revisit, unions have been in decline. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports participation in the labor movement to be down across the board. Unionized private sector workers represent just 6.1 percent of the labor force, an all-time low, while the total number of those in unions dropped last year by almost a quarter of a million.
The labor movement has lost a lot of its clout. What remains comes because the rank and file are held captive by the union bosses who extract political contributions from them to what remains of its political influence. To put it another way, it’s the number of dollars they provide to the politicians, not the number of members who can vote that account for what influence remains.
The union bosses would have you believe membership is down because it’s too hard to organize. They want the politicians who are still in their hip pockets to let them boost their numbers by resetting the clock to the days when people had to join a union as a condition of their employment whether they wanted to or not.
It’s an interesting theory but it doesn’t fit the facts. America’s workers no longer need union representation as they once did. Employers in the post-industrial era are smarter, offer better pay and benefits, greater flexibility on the job site, and more input into operations than many union shops allow.
The unions, of course, would argue against this. But what do they have to show in the way of success? The high-profile 2021 effort to organize workers at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama failed when then voted against 2 to 1.
The federal government gave the unions a do-over on that vote, but we’ll see if it changes the outcome. It’s not likely. The continuing decline is evident. Even strikes are becoming problematic as in Colorado, where members of a United Food and Commercial Workers local found themselves betrayed by their president, Kim Cordova, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Throughout the month of January, negotiations over a new contract between the King Soopers supermarket chain and UFCW Local 7 became tense amid a strike that restricted access to food and dealt a devastating blow to area residents. All this on top of a Biden economy that has inflation is eating away at rising wages like it hasn’t in decades.
Hours before the strike began, the union rejected an offer by King Soopers to bring the minimum starting wage up to $16 per hour and pay increases of up to $4.50 per hour for its members. For ten days, members of the union sat at home or marched on a picket line while Local 7 President Kim Cordova continued to collect her $200,000+ annual salary while promising she would get a better deal.
The offer eventually a majority of Local 7 members accepted appears to include many of the same proposals Cordova called “concessionary” days earlier according to theWorld Socialist Web Site. That same week, Senator Bernie Sanders hosted a virtual panel that amounted to little more than “damage control for the union” and praised Cordova’s efforts to get a deal that probably could have been had before the strike. If this doesn’t seem fair, it isn’t. Yet it’s happening repeatedly as union bosses like Cordova choose what’s good for the union and its officials over what’s good for the rank-and-file.
We’ve seen this before. In the 1960s, the New York City newspaper unions let several prominent but marginally profitable dailies shut down rather than make concessions that would have kept them open and their members on the job. During the Obama-led reorganization of General Motors, the unions killed an effort by a private sector entrepreneur who wanted to run the Saturn brand as an independent, non-union company. The union survived. The workers didn’t.
Politicians like Biden and Sanders who say the labor movement is dying need to face up to the fact union leaders like Cordova are killing it. It’s not murder. It’s suicide.
Massed produced goods are cheap regardless of where they are manufactured.
You don’t get out much that logic sounds like someone who lives in a bubble like the D.C. mafia.
If that was true there would be such a massive price gap between manufactures at least 30%.
The point is that taxes, regulation and prod costs like labor are spread out over the ENTIRE PRODUCTION RUN. This makes that almost insignificant to me as the consumer but as a US citizen I want my stuff made here by Americans. I do not want to import poverty and export wealth overseas so guys like you, aka free traitors, can make a quick buck off of labor arbitrage. EVERY FOUNDING FATHER WOULD BE ON MY SIDE.
I want my stuff made here by Americans.
Have lower taxes (never get that with democrats)
Less regulations (see above)
Lower energy costs (see above)
More often than not unions put them self out of work (see history)
Trump had it all right and the idiots voted democrat enjoy.
Agree. All good. But until then we need REALLY HIGH PROTECTIVE IMPORT TARIFFS. Then fight for those things. Fight for meaningful tariffs with equal vigor.
The "more often" term would mean > half? Right? Wrong ace. You are way off. Even at the height of "unionism", in the 1950's, over 70% of manufacturing was done by NON union workers.
Commie Teamsters stand with white liberal ‘elites’ against working class truckers. Disgusting.
Well, of course that would have worked.
And if unions had campaigned on a program of opposing H1-B visas, they would have signed up enough workers to settle that question and scuttle the H1-B system permanently.
But they didn't do that campaign. And they are still avoiding the issue today. Which is one reason of many why they are no longer relevant.
I want to see your pitch to the Doctors and Nurses coming from actual union officials as part of a recruiting campaign. It might still work if done with a bit of style and a a professional flair.
The idea of Unions began, I assume, with good intentions.
But, slowly and deliberately they each...Steel...Auto...Government and finally Teachers have become the worst possible kind of mob rule. A Union takes away any semblance of individualism, which I feel is the best way for one to develop low self-esteem.
There is nothing good that I can think of that a Union does.
Maybe some here have good experiences.
Being a teacher can be a thankless job.
Many years ago a friend of mine told me of an incident in class where he was jumped and beaten up by some students.
You are probably familiar with the “Broken Window” theory where when a window is broken...it portends bad future things.
There have been signals for years.
But somehow, teachers have evolved into people don’t care about what product they produce. No feeling of accomplishment when you shape a young person’s life. That’s kind of hokey in today’s education system.
NautiNurse, are you mimicking me?
I love your hurricane threads.
Thank you and regards.
You may want to check you list of companies that moved off shore and never came back.
The body count is very high
keep dreaming if it helps you
But 80% of them were non union to begin with ace.
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