Rosalea Barker: That 70s stuff

Golly! I haven’t felt this wanted since I was robbing stage coaches on their way out of Dodge City.

The small union to which I pay a Fair Share Fee has suffered an internal revolt on the part of its full-dues-paying members, who are seeking to have it decertified and taken over by the US equivalent of NZ’s Public Service Association. Employees are disgruntled at the union’s agreement late last year to participate in Governor Schwarzenegger’s pay cuts for people who work for the state. Not to be outflanked, Small Union is now holding a vote hoping that the membership will agree instead to joining the biggest union in the world. Sensing an opportunity for itself as well, a third union is now bombarding me with emails suggesting IT would better represent my interests.

In the midst of all this kerfuffle, it happened that the Saturday night movie on my local TV station was the movie that Sly Stallone made in between Rocky and Rambo: F.I.S.T. The title’s acronym stands for Federation of Interstate Truckers, and Stallone’s character is kinda like Jimmy Hoffa, who built up the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. You can read an FBI memo about their investigation into that man’s 1975 disappearance here (pdf). Hoffa’s son is the current Teamsters president, and there’s a grassroots move within the union to get rid of him. Since Hoffa Sr’s time, the Teamsters for a Democratic Union have been trying to cleanse IBT of graft and corruption, and Hoffa Jr’s capitulation to business interests, plus giving himself a pay-raise while members are being laid off around the country stick in TDU’s craw.

So, what about the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, whose organizers are busy setting up face-to-face meetings and trying to get us to sign up with them instead? Well, their acronym is impossible to pronounce but I must say I rather like this parody of a public service announcement TV ad made in the ’70s but given a new soundtrack. (Warning, it is full of expletives.) Truth be told, I was (briefly) a PSA union rep in NZ in the early 1970s, but the differences between unions then and there and unions here and now are like the difference between day and night. Although, the union movement in NZ was not without its own share of fractious divisions within its ranks, as this 2007 speech about the Federation of Labour attests.

In the speech, labour historian Peter Franks also describes how big a player the union movement in NZ once was:

The formation of the FOL was followed by the creation of a highly centralised wage fixing system which dominated employment relations from the 1940s until the late 1960s. The FOL had a pivotal role. It negotiated with governments and took cases to the Arbitration Court for across-the-board wage increases. It helped create an egalitarian wage structure which was a key part of the Welfare State. The FOL became an important player in the national economy. …

The FOL’s main aims were the maintenance of living standards and wage bargaining. It relied on centralised wage fixing and compulsory unionism to be able to deliver to workers.

From the late 1960s on, the centralised system started to crumble. The 1970s and 1980s were a see-saw of wage controls, confrontations and compromises between the FOL, employers and governments against a backdrop of growing economic instability with rising inflation and unemployment.

In these days of economic instability and unemployment, unions are once again under pressure. Here in the States, unions are so closely linked to politics—giving large amounts to individual campaigns, issues campaigns, and lobbyists—that it’s hard not to suspect that all this vying to take over our small union’s membership isn’t somehow related to this year’s elections and plans to go on strike to enable a particular candidate to negotiate the strike’s end and look good. (Okay, so my other name is Polly Paranoia.) Given that industry groups also spend large amounts on political activities, I guess I’ll just have to live with the outcome.

Meantime, how about this wonderful UK ode to unions, which was a finalist in a recent AFL-CIO competition I’m guessing it didn’t win because it doesn’t have any cuss words or confrontation in it, but it is such a positive message that it deserves to be widely seen and understood:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLGoKqPAhSk

rosalea.barker@gmail.com

--PEACE—

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