Strikes: My Fancy

By Sir Charles

There is strength in the union of even very sorry men.
-- Homer

Historically speaking, the past few months have been unusual in that a couple of strikes by labor unions not only generated headlines, but also, for a moment at least, permeated the consciousness of the country.  Or perhaps more accurately, that of the mass media, which serves as its stand in.  Strikes by the United Auto Workers over the summer against General Motors and Chrysler and by the Writers Guild of America in recent weeks had a sort of glowing nostalgia about them, vestiges of the past (proud or otherwise) that they are.

As someone who represents unions for a living and has done so for more years than I care to count, this raises large philosophical questions and concrete day-to-day issues alike.  What does it say about the times in which we live that the very notion of a strike has become anachronistic, if not obsolete?  What is lost in such a world?  And, beyond economics, what are the political ramifications of this phenomenon?

I've been involved in only a handful of strikes over the course of more than twenty years of working in a practice that's almost exclusively devoted to representing unions.  At least half of those strikes were deliberately provoked by management in an attempt to abnegate relationships with unions.  In other words, few cases could be described as workers asserting themselves to better their lot – rather, the strikes were essentially defensive and reactive in nature.

Concrete statistics bear this out more profoundly than do my impressions and anecdotal experience.  Since 1990, the United States, in sum, experienced fewer than fifty strikes each year.  And after George W. Bush took office, that statistic fell even lower--to just over twenty strikes per year, with only 545,000 workers involved collectively in the period from January 1, 2001 through December 31, 2005.  By contrast, if one looks at the data for years prior to 1981 (when a certain B movie actor became president), the norm was to have in excess of 200 strikes per year; in many years, double that amount.  It was par for the course to have over a million workers strike in a typical year during the period 1947 to 1981, and in several years, there were twice that many Americans on strike.

My heartfelt conviction is that the threatened, nearly-extinct status of the strike is a bad thing--in terms of its implications for working people, of course, but a bad thing, too, for the culture writ large.  Strikes, in purely economic terms and from a cost benefit perspective, are often unsuccessful.  It takes a long time to make up for the earnings lost, especially when work stoppage is prolonged.  But a strike represents a collective No to the excesses of ownership, to the commodification of labor, to the tyranny of capital.  It is the cri de couer of employees everywhere, asserting that they’ve taken all they can stand, and they can’t stand no more.  The strike is, in a word, an assertion of a very democratic ideal: the fundamental notion that I surrender my freedom for eight or so hours a day--but just to a limited extent--and that I can be pushed only so far.

Part of what I hope to explore and express in this blog is my sense that as a culture, as a society, we need to rediscover this powerful, collective No; that it is an essential part of our common humanity; and that the idolic worshipping of the market that has taken hold of our consciousness over the last quarter-century is inimical to the notions of true democracy and a happy citizenry.

So let’s have at it, shall we?

Comments

[Emma Anne]

Union guy huh? I have a question then. I have been reading a bit about the writers' strike, and several times it has been mentioned that they are doing a good job in getting the public on their side. This is considered to be a strategic good, but I'm not sure why. Of course it is always nicer to be seen as the good guys. More pleasant and all that. But I am not seeing the mechanism by which it helps them win. Can you explain this?

Regarding strikes - my memory form my long ago labor law class is that it is very important who is on the NLRB (meaning it is very important who is president). If someone like GWB is president, the most eggregious of union busting is going to be condoned. So I figure, another reason to vote Dem. I don't know what else to do, really.

[Sir Charles]

Emma,

I think it is always important to have the public on your side, if only for morale of the troops. However, in this case it may be of limited efficacy. It is going to take a sufficient loss of revenue and a sense of threat to the long term audience to bring the studios to heel.

The NLRB tends to be slightly more important in the organizing context than in strike situations. The Bush Board is predictably abysmal in all arenas and has really outdone itself in recent months. Even a good NLRB has a limited impact, however, because the law that they administer has little teeth and employers frequently make the calculation that violating it will be cost effective.

[Emma Anne]

Thanks Sir C.

[CParis]

While the WGA may have public opinion on their side, most of the viewing public probably isn't really concerned with the strike. With endless amounts of crap reality shows, sports and reruns, viewers probably will find stuff on TV to occupy their time.

[Nate]

Doesn't the consolidation in Unions also lesson the likely hood of a strike? Years back an employer could try to break a small Union, basically outlast their financial reserves. Now that we have fewer Unions hat are much larger they also have bigger war chest. Employers that might have tried to fight at one time are now resigned to working out a deal and subverting the strike.

Like any war with an equal the likely outcome of a strike now is mutual destruction. The writers are a great example of this, TV was already losing viewers due to poor programming, changing interest, and other reasons, most people outside Hollywood could care less if they are striking or if they ever come back. This strike is only quickening the demise of an already troubled product.

Other industries such as auto peaked and are much closer to the valley of death. In Ohio your third and fourth tear auto suppliers wouldn’t dare force a strike, they are so close to death already even a short strike would put them out of business. Sadly auto workers knew this, took advantage of it, and demanded contracts that put them out of business anyways.

Would you expect the number of workers striking each year to always remain at the same level? Wouldn’t the collective No be headed eventually thus avoiding the need for strikes?

[Delicious Pundit]

At least half of those strikes were deliberately provoked by management in an attempt to abnegate relationships with unions.

Yeah, that's what we're tending to think too -- if the moguls can lock us out of internet revenue, the WGA (and the DGA, and SAG) will wither away. I can't explain their intransigence any other way, because we're really not asking for that much money.

[Sir Charles]

Nate,

Consolidations are not a sign of strength, but of weakness. They reflect the loss of union density in the private sector, a fact that makes strikes far less likely. They by no means bring about a battle of equals.

The number of workers involved in strikes, especially when controlled for growth of the work force, has fallen off a cliff -- from years in the 1940s and 50s where over 2 million workers would hit the bricks to a recent trend of years with scarcely 100,000 strikers. This is not a collective "no" of any magnitude. More like the last gasp of someone being choked to death.

Mutual destruction is rarely the case in strikes. Management usually holds significantly better cards and lives to fight another day.

The Writers Guild is trying to plan for the inevitable changes that will go with internet programming and to look out for its members' long term interests. I think they have a sense of the continuing and inevitable fragmentation of the audience and the move towards web based modes of entertainment. Rather than try and kill their medium, I think they are doing precisely waht a union is supposed to do, planning for the next phase of the market.

[Nate]

"Management usually holds significantly better cards and lives to fight another day."

My personal experience is far different then yours. I have seen hundreds of small auto suppliers put out of business by labor contracts. Even more where forced to give them selves away to larger companies. In Vegas the Culinary Union owns the small casinos, their size also allows them to stand on equal footing with the large casino operators. We seldom have strikes in Vegas because they can't afford them, I don't see how you can possibly label the culinary union weak. In the past casino's dealt with numerous Unions representing defined classes of employees, those are being rolled up.

THe niche you work with must be far different then the Unions I deal with.

[Sir Charles]

Unfortunately, the Culinary Workers in Las Vegas are an exception rather than the rule these days. Their clout and success is the product of some fairly unique circumstances along with capable and aggressive leadership.

Recent events in the automotice industry, including auto parts, do not indicate to me that the UAW retains anywhere near the kind of strength you suggest.

[Nate]

Sir Charles, the events you see are they up the ladder at the big three level and tier one supplier or down a couple notches? My company administers employee benefit plans for employers and Unions, we just lost our last car parts supplier, they filed BK earlier this year. We use to see a large number of small suppliers 25 employees up to 500 or so. They are almost all gone, either BK or gobbeled up by someone. As UAW and other represnting Unions grew the small employers didn't have the clout to fight back. They where fine when the money was good in the late 90s but when things got tight and the Big Three started cutting cost they got pinched. Unions where demanding more money and benefit cost increased and at the same time Big Three where forcing price cuts. They couldn't pass the cost on so they passed on.

This isn't representative of all cases but the retirees' and older worker' demands to retain their high pay scales and rich benefits is what shut those companies down. Ironically most ended up losing all retiree health benefits or received one time payment of a couple thousand dollars, hardly compreable to what the employer offered. Most of their pensions survived but they drove off a tone of jobs. Obviously the cases we say are quit the contrast to what you have been seeing.