{"id":113,"date":"2011-09-05T07:17:10","date_gmt":"2011-09-05T14:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/morningnewsinverse.com\/?p=113"},"modified":"2011-09-05T07:17:10","modified_gmt":"2011-09-05T14:17:10","slug":"im-laboring-over-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=113","title":{"rendered":"I’M LABORING OVER UNIONS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: On holidays, and other occasions as they strike us, we will divert from our normal rhyme and post opinion pieces. \u00a0Think of it as our two cents.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Monday, September 5th<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n

This year marks the 100th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York.\u00a0 For those of you who have never heard of it, 146 women either died in the fire or jumped to their deaths because they had no means of escape when the fire started.\u00a0 You see, the managers had locked all of the stairwells and exits so the women were trapped in their workroom.\u00a0 This incident, appalling even in the day of railroad barons and cigar-smoking tycoons, helped spawn the growth of the International Ladies\u2019 Garment Workers Union, or ILGWU, as it is known.\u00a0 If ever a situation warranted a union, this was it.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

In 1932 my father graduated from high school and, because of the Depression, felt grateful to land his dream job \u2013 working for a newspaper.\u00a0 The price of admission?\u00a0 Joining the International Typographical Union.\u00a0 He did so reluctantly, as he was not a big believer in unions, but a job was a job in those days and he could ill afford to turn it down.\u00a0 Over the next 40 years, even when he was a newspaper owner and thus considered \u201cmanagement\u201d, he paid his ITU dues.\u00a0\u00a0 When he decided to retire in the early 70\u2019s he contacted the ITU to claim his retirement pension, only to be told that the pension funds had been \u201cpoorly invested\u201d.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t take a genius to interpret their actions \u2013 the ITU had stolen my dad\u2019s pension.\u00a0\u00a0 After all his years of contributions, his monthly annuity was a meager $75.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Fortunately, beginning in the mid-70\u2019s federal and state employment laws began to emerge to protect workers.\u00a0 Regulations were passed regarding everything from the minimum wage and pension reform to gender and race discrimination and equal access for those with disabilities.\u00a0 The EEOC developed into a powerful and influential government agency. To some extent, labor unions were at the heart of getting these baseline entitlements passed and as a result, the workplace became a much fairer, albeit legal, environment.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

At the same time, most American companies were defining their culture and values which invariably covered how employees were to be viewed and treated within the organization. \u00a0Were there still some rogue managers who treated people poorly?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 But now there were clear-cut procedures for employees to follow within their own company to seek resolution.\u00a0 For those companies that practiced unfair or abusive treatment, employees could seek assistance in another venue – the American justice system.\u00a0 And the EEOC assured protection from any sort of retaliation for doing just that.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

So what is the role of unions today? \u00a0To gain better wage and benefit packages?\u00a0 If so, one might say that they have overshot their target.\u00a0 Companies with unionized workers state that union contracts have caused the price of products to skyrocket and have resulted in them becoming uncompetitive.\u00a0 Auto manufacturers, once the bread and butter of the U.S. economy, cite that the union compensation packages result in an increased cost of $1500 per car.\u00a0 In many of our traditional industries, we are seeing massive layoffs due to the complete closure of manufacturing plants and an increase in the number of companies moving jobs offshore.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

If their role is to provide job security, they haven\u2019t been terribly effective.\u00a0 The fact of the matter is they can do nothing to stop corporations from moving factories and call centers to other countries.\u00a0 This is partially due to a U.S. tax code that effectively rewards companies to move jobs offshore.\u00a0 And partly we are now in a world where we have to compete with other countries that target some of our time-honored manufacturing bases.\u00a0 That is globalization, whether we like it or not.\u00a0 For those of us who have been stuck in a circular conversation with someone working in a call center in India, I acknowledge that it isn\u2019t always a pleasant reality.\u00a0 But it IS reality.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

In the final analysis, unions have failed to recognize that the U.S. economy has changed and the skills needed for today\u2019s workplace along with it.\u00a0 The jobs that have been shipped overseas are most likely not coming back.\u00a0 There ARE jobs available in the U.S., but they require a different skill set than in the past.\u00a0 Are unions ready, willing and able to re-train their members so they can better assimilate into this new work environment?\u00a0 Or have unions outlived their usefulness?<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

\n

Finally, for those of you old enough to remember, the ILGWU used to have a catchy commercial on TV requesting us to \u201clook for the union label\u201d.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve never seen that label, it\u2019s because all of our clothes are now made offshore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

If you\u2019d like a personalized poem or tribute, visit our website at:<\/strong>www.redposey.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: On holidays, and other occasions as they strike us, we will divert from our normal rhyme and post opinion pieces. \u00a0Think of it as our two cents. Monday, September 5th This year marks the 100th\u00a0anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist … read more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[282,335,353,406,534,566,584,749],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holiday-observations","tag-globalization","tag-ilgw","tag-itu","tag-labor-unions","tag-outsourcing","tag-plant-closures","tag-re-training","tag-unemployment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31aN0-1P","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}