May 17, 1978

New Generation Building With Less Unionism

The U.S. Senate this week will attempt to prime the Fountain of Youth constructed for labor unions last Fall by the House of Representatives.  Father Time is not impressed.

Rejuvenation supposedly will come from the Labor Reform Act already whisked through the lower chamber 257 to 163.  If the title suggests that certain abuses of labor are to be corrected then you don't understand the upside down world of liberal politics.

To be "reformed" is the despicable tendency of small industries - particularly in the South - to resist unionization.

The bill, you see, was drafted largely by the AFL-CIO as a weapon it can use to organize the Sun Belt workers who yawn when they are hustled.

There are a couple of provisions that would silence employers from talking to their own employees about unions except on paid time equally shared by labor organizers.  Also, "unfair labor practices" would be toughened for employers.

The real zinger, however, is the power to be given to the National Labor Relations Board to order a wage increase if the government agency decided an employer was not bargaining "in good faith."  To make sure there is an unwavering majority in favor of the unions, the present five-man NLRB would be packed with two additional members appointed by President Carter.

While Americans fret over the possibility of price and wage controls by Big Daddy, the power of government to nationalize private industry by grass-hopper nibbles is already half way there..

Whether the intent is conscious or not, the result is collusion between Democrats and labor to perpetuate an obsolete politico-economic partnership.

The fact is that unions are in decline.  Slipping with it is the old knee-jerk liberalism that dominated American life for more than four decades.

A whole new life system is being put together by young workers who are not motivated by Great Depression fears or labor-management hatreds.  It is ironic that the unions which tried to buy the government have succeeded in creating a Frankenstein monster that destroys its master.

Now that all practical power has been centralized in Washington, D.C.  - and that power has embraced the duty of protecting us against all hardships - there is no need for allies.

It should be no surprise that the new workers feel no allegiance to either the unions or the companies.  Who needs them when the government is all in all?

As a consequence, union membership has plummeted from a peak 40 percent of the labor force 30 years ago to 25 percent today, and a large part of that figure consists of government workers.  AFL-CIO officials privately predict that by 1990 union membership in the private sector will be back to its pre-1930 level of about one-eighth of the work force.

This waning interest has labor leaders spooked.  They are leery of bargaining elections.  In the last five years they have lost two out of every three organizing efforts.  A study of 37 such elections by Professors Julius Getman of Yale and Jeanne Herman of Northwestern indicates that rhetoric by both, unions and management is ignored by employees.  Only 13 percent of the workers were influenced by arguments.  Personal decisions were made on the basis of previously held attitudes, and these generally were negative toward unions.

The Roper Organization, which regularly measures public confidence in leaders, found last year that labor officials rank lowest in their polls.  Nearly four persons in 10 see top labor leaders as ruthless.  A scant four percent think they are of "high moral caliber."  Only 39 percent call organized labor "basically sound," down from 52 percent two years ago.

Meantime, public confidence in business leaders has risen 10 points in the last two years, to 72 percent.

Workers in the Deep South have been particularly resistant to union organizing efforts.  That region has been underdeveloped since the Civil War.  Just now it is obtaining access to jobs and a piece of the economic action.  Instinctively southern workers refuse to import the coercive, high-cost tactics that helped drive industry from the North into their arms.

And with good reason.  There are still hungrier workers in Japan, Germany, Taiwan, and South America waiting for American workers in the South to price themselves out of the market too.

The new life style which the labor unions fought so hard to build has trampled on the old order.  The work ethic is gone.  The garment workers, the shoe builders, the steel puddlers are an anachronism.  Their unions mount slick advertising campaigns to "Buy American."  Yet, the truth is that these workers are an ageing lot that is not being replaced by younger people.

If back-breaking piece-work jobs were available, Americans would not accept them.  Even craft jobs - plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics - are going begging.

The hard work of the world increasingly will go to the developing nations.  Americans will have to make do with service jobs, farming by a sophisticated few, government work, and highly skilled technical employment.  All of these have little need for blue-collar unions.

The labor union was a necessary corollary of the Industrial Revolution.  That revolution is nearly over.  The era of electronics and space is upon us.

Some of us old bucks would like a swig of elixir that would carry us with vigor into the new age.  But Father Time is indifferent to words scratched on paper by mortal men even though they be titled S.B. 1883.

Author: Lindsey Williams