[lbo-talk] Solidarity for Sale: UNITE'S Garment Gulag

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Fri Mar 10 09:23:04 PST 2006


Yoshie:


> I have not finished reading Robert Fitch's Solidarity for
> Sale yet (I have one more chapter to read), but one thing
> that the book makes clear to me is that it is NOT true that
> even bad unions are always better than no unions. Really bad
> union shops, especially ones that are controlled by the mobs,
> are demonstrably worse than non-union shops. Why?
> Mob-controlled locals take bribes from employers to not
> enforce "contracts," and yet workers get dues taken out of
> their already meager paychecks just the same in return for no
> service or even DISSERVICE from the union. This point
> becomes clear in the chapter entitled "UNITE's Garment
> Gulag," where Fitch compares union sweatshops in New York
> (where workers' wages rarely rose to the federal minimum
> wage) and non-union shops in California (e.g., American
> Apparel Co.) that pay much higher wages ($13.00 an hour plus
> benefits on average in the case of American Apparel Co.) than them.
> In 1997, UNITE Local 23-25 members held protests against the
> union's complicity in sweatshop conditions (pp. 193, 202-3).

It is pretty damning, is not it? One may wonder how widely spread it is, but that is just damage control. I am still struggling to answer the question why do "we" (the working class, the Left, etc.) such unions?

Nathan's argument that unions have the resources which they can fork over to the DNC in exchange for in consideration of pro-labor policies may have some merits, but it is not very powerful or convincing. It is easy counter it by saying that the opportunity cost of such situation is higher than any gain that results from it, that is to say, if the workers used ther union dues in a different manner (e.g. by dunding PACs) they might be getting much more than they get from the status quo. Of course, that may or may not be true, but we have no way of knowing without trying.

I used to quote the BLS data showing that union workers earn higher wages than non0union workers (both by industry and by occupation), but these data do not show what causes what. It might be that unions cause higher wages by bargaining, but it may be also the case that higher wages cause unioninzation i.e. union drives tend to concentrate in higher wages areas (either geographically, e.g. north/south, or or that the firms that do well and pay more are also more open to unionization, whereas firms not doing so well ar emore resistant).

So while I am convinced that organized labor is genrally a good thing, after reading Fitch's book I am not sure if that holds for the form of union organization in the US. In fact. Fitch is quit explicit that the problem is structural, rooted in outdated organizational forms, rather in a few corrupt individulas.

His penultimate chapter (on reorganization of SEIU) actually gives some hope that reform is possible if localism is replaced with centralization - which I would wholeheartedly support - but Fitch also doubts that the SEIU model is applicable elsewhere.

Another possible option, which Fitch did not address, is to use the model of professional organization. Professional organizations do not represent only members but th entire profession, as well as public interest by claiming to high standards of professional practice. Transorming unions into "occupational associations" that do not do collective bargaining but represent broadly defined occupational and public interests has several advantages:

(i) it eliminates structural problems that are the root cause of union corruption (i.e. control of the access to good jobs);

(ii) it eliminates the employer oppostion to unionization and makes it easier to join, which may expand membership; if the union becomes an association rather than a collective bargaining unit, employers have less incentive to oppose it, and are on much shakier legal grounds if they interfere with workers rights to join an association;

(iii) it has a much broader appeal beyond low skill and blue collar workers - it can actually attract professiojnal workers, thus bridging the gap between blue collar and white collar occupations;

(iv) unions can take the "high road" by claiming to represent broad public interests instead of being just a wage cartel, which would make it easier to defend them politically.

Im short, alternatives are possible, so why not explore them and question the status quo a bit?

Wojtek



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