10 Reasons You Should Thank A UNION
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- LABOR DAY: 24 HOURS WHEN WORKERS ARE HUMAN - By Leo Gerard, Sept. 3, 2018.
"Business schools and the corporate executives they spit out, have lumped workers together with robots and raw materials as 'inputs,' as if laborers aren't human. That makes it easier for CEOs in ungodly profitable corporations to deny workers raises."
Labor Day recognizes the humanity of workers. It commemorates their year-long efforts with time off dedicated relaxation, family, friends, and barbeques. There’s no holiday for robots, raw materials, or the energy that animates the machines of manufacturing. Because, of course, they’re not human..
Republicans gave corporations a massive tax break this year with the promise that executives would share those gains with workers, to the tune of $4,000 to $9,000 raises each. The U.S. Commerce Department reported last week that after-tax corporate profits rose 16.1 percent in the second quarter, the largest year-over-year rise in six years. But corporations didn’t use that money for raises. Instead they bought back record amounts of their own stock, boosting the market to all-time highs, making the rich richer, while workers’ wages actually declined when inflation was factored in. This has been going on for decades, with workers’ wages flat since 1973.
What this means to workers in the richest country in the world was illustrated in an Urban Institute survey released last week. It found that 23% of American households struggled to feed family members at some point last year. In a Fed survey released in May, a quarter of Americans said they didn’t think they were doing “at least OK”, and more than a fifth said they were unable to pay their current month’s bills in full. This is because CEOs and rich shareholders have stiffed the “inputs.”
This system does not work for the vast majority, very much like the monarch system did not work for the vast majority of American colonists..Self-determination within the U.S. corporate structure would go a long way toward restoring workers’ humanity and reinstating the days when pay rose in tandem with productivity.
Worker self-determination is more common in countries with lower income inequality. In other words, when workers have more of a say, the profits their hands and minds produce are better apportioned. Germany and Scandinavian countries like Finland and Norway are examples. But it’s also true next door in Canada. There, legislation provides more protections for unions, enlarging numbers and giving labor organizations more impact. Nearly 30% of Canadian workers belong to unions. In Denmark, Sweden and Finland, it’s more than 60%.
In the US, the number of workers in unions is 10.7 %, near the bottom among developed nations- despite a survey released last week that found 62% of Americans approve of unions. The difference between those two numbers shows how much U.S. legislation obstructs unionization.
Germany, one of the world’s most successful capitalist nations, and some other European countries have embraced a democratized corporate model in which workers are routinely and systematically engaged in governance through works councils and membership on corporate boards of directors. Germany has required since 1976 that workers elect half of the members of the boards of directors of corporations with more than 2,000 employees. In this model of corporate co-determination, workers are partners, not inputs..
This system works well for German workers. They make about $10 an hour more than their U.S. counterparts. Government debt and income inequality both are lower there than in the US. Manufacturing has thrived in Germany while it has waned here. And German workers don’t have to worry about health insurance because they were the first to launch what would become universal health care. Life expectancy is longer in Germany. As might be expected with corporate boards populated by workers, German CEOs are paid less than American CEOs, and German companies place less weight on short-term profits and more on worker concerns like job security.
If Congress required half of the boards of directors of large American companies to be elected by workers, it might spare those corporations some trouble. Wells Fargo is an example. The bank got itself in hot water in 2016 when it was revealed that for years Wells Fargo had opened millions of unauthorized accounts, and then, to make matters worse, the bank charged fees to its unsuspecting customers on some of them. The bank fired 5,300 workers, including its CEO, paid a $185 million fine and suffered a damaged reputation.
The dismissed Wells Fargo front-line workers told of a toxic, high-sales-pressure culture in which bank managers set unrealistic quotas and then threatened to demote or fire workers if those targets weren’t met. The workers left with nothing but bad feelings toward the bank. But the fired CEO, John Stumpf, who oversaw the operation, left with a big cushion- $100 million plus..If half the Wells board were workers, they’ve have reported, condemned and stopped that high-pressure sales culture that led to fake accounts, unnecessary car insurance and a badly tarnished Wells Fargo name.
>U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has proposed legislation requiring 40% of large corporations’ boards be elected by workers. It’s called the *Accountable Capitalism Act*. She sees workers as valuable human partners in corporate enterprises, not as inputs. For Congress members to pass this bill would be a far better way to honor workers on Labor Day than a speech and parade.
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*LEO GERARD, is the International President of the United Steelworkers (USW) union and is the second Canadian to head the union. He is also a vice president of the AFL-CIO. Gerard is co-chairman of the BlueGreen Alliance and on the boards of Campaign for America’s Future and the Economic Policy Institute.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/09/03/labor-day-24-hours-when-workers-are-human
- Workers bending chair backs at Tell City Chair Factory, Indiana, in May 1940.
LOOK!:
*NPR, '50 Years of Shrinking Union Membership in One Map,' Feb. 23, 2015.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/23/385843576/50-years-of-shrinking-union-membership-in-one-map
I KNOW that the union benefited ALL employees, even the teachers that were against the unions (that really bugged me). Thank you NEA, CTA and SDEA (local, state and national). 
That must have been very tough to have anti-union co-workers! 
