Michigan Votes Forum

The dictionary defines a unionist as someone who supports or believes in unions or belongs to one.  I use the term to refer strictly to those who support unionism.  I've met a good many union members who were not unionists in my book as they did not trust or support unions but felt forced to belong to one. Too often their experience of being a union member actually made them anti-union.  As a matter of fact, the most virulent anti-unionists I've met were all former active union members, myself included, not members of management who seldom grasp the true dark nature of contemporary Big Labor.

I've also known a good number of unionists who were never members of a union but support unionism in the abstract -- they like the concept of a union the same way they like the concept of socialism or demilitarization without any first hand knowledge of how a union actually functions in the real world.  I've also known a few union staffers, here's a special breed, that actually fought unionization of their own workplace while out preaching unionism to others.  They did not truly believe in unions but talked the talk because a union president signed their paycheck.  

I've also interacted with a good number of unionists or union defenders who knew about as much about unions as they did about life on Mars, but because the posters on the Daily Kos and Huffington Post told them they are supposed to support unions they do. Unionism is part of the progressive litmus test.

Of course I've met a good number of sincere unionists who were or are union members who have worked and genuinely sacrificed for the labor movement because they deeply passionately and yet pragmatically believe in unionism.  In my experience these are people you can have an in-depth honest discussion with on the pros and cons of unionism because their beliefs are rooted in deeper soil.  These are folks who are already putting in the time to realize the union dream and are thus willing to honestly look at the dark side, not just blow AFL-CIO sunshine up your fanny.  They are capable of separating the hype from the realities and would, for example, never refer to a union as "the collective voice of the workers" because they certainly know better.  

 Then I've met a good number of "unionists of convienience" who defend union ideology because they are living on a fat union pension or under a union healthcare plan and thus, because a union got them theirs and they feel dependent on one, they don't want unions (and their union pension) to disappear.  These people need to believe unions are good for everyone and the perfect solution to everything wrong with this country and won't entertain one shred of evidence to the contrary.  To these people everything must be kept neatly black and white because they cannot see a inch beyond their own self interests.   These are union members who rarely if ever lifted a finger for a union effort beyond, perhaps, bringing a dish to pass or knocking doors for fifteen minutes once fifteen years ago. They never took one genuine risk in speaking out for their union or placed themselves in jeopardy organizing one (as I have several times).  Often they are current or former public employees who signed the card and started cashing in without a thought to those who paid the bills or ever dealing with a truly anti-union management campaign. They like to pontificate about the struggles and sacrifices made building the labor movement and cripe and moan about the decline of union membership while they themselves have not devoted one dam day to rebuilding the labor movement.  They have done nothing but benefit from the labor movement while contributing little more than their dues and hot air and yet, even still, for some sick reason they feel smugly superior to others for their union affiliation.  It's clear I have nothing but disdain for these people.

As for the rest of it I'm willing to accept you will never grasp my posts, either because I can't do an adequate job of explaining these ideas to someone like you or you are incapable of understanding them.  Either explanation is fine with me.

Quite a bit of psycho analyzing you've done there Barbara. Apparently you've figured out every person you've ever met, and even some that you haven't. You've delved into their minds to understand their inner most believes and thoughts. You know what motivates them, what they really think, and what they really want. You have them categorized, labeled, and branded with names to set them apart from one another, making it easier when writing about them I presume. You must have done tons of research to know all about what they've done, and why. I am in admiration of your abilities. Were I so fortunate to have such talent I could figure out why you think like you do, and hold the opinions you do. But low, I am merely left to ponder your extreme anti union rhetoric. I must agree with your conclusion that I am incapable of understanding you, since I am lacking your powers to know what others are thinking, why they are thinking it, and what life events have formed their opinions.

gypsy:

Quite a bit of psycho analyzing you've done there Barbara. Apparently you've figured out every person you've ever met, and even some that you haven't. You've delved into their minds to understand their inner most believes and thoughts. You know what motivates them, what they really think, and what they really want. You have them categorized, labeled, and branded with names to set them apart from one another, making it easier when writing about them I presume. You must have done tons of research to know all about what they've done, and why. I am in admiration of your abilities. Were I so fortunate to have such talent I could figure out why you think like you do, and hold the opinions you do. But low, I am merely left to ponder your extreme anti union rhetoric. I must agree with your conclusion that I am incapable of understanding you, since I am lacking your powers to know what others are thinking, why they are thinking it, and what life events have formed their opinions.

Actually no I have not figured out most let alone all the people I've met!  I only wish starting with my kids and my ex-husband! My conclusions/opinions above are, for the most part, based on what I've been told in the course of my work, not pure conjecture.  For example, just last month a worker told me "I used to belong to a union but all they did was take my dues and not answer my phone calls so I chose this job specifically because it didn't have to deal with those union bas*****." 

I admit to having met an inordinate number of persons in a union context because for the past twenty five years it's been my job to interview people on their feelings about unions in one context or another.  So in that sense I guess you could say I've researched the union phenomenon rather extensively through first hand observation but also through reading, course work, interviews and discussions with other labor professionals.  Even still, I wouldn't categorize the post above as authoritative or scientific, only my personal opinions and impressions after a couple decades of being eyeball deep in union work from both sides of the fence with all kinds of unions and unionists.

I can say that unions look entirely different depending on the perspective -- I've met very few members who have any sense of how a union looks and operates as a business from the staff side.   I'm surprised how few members realize their union probably doesn't even allow members into the backside of the union's office yet alone access to files and information stored there.  From that side of the counter one can clearly see a union is indeed a business and the members are in fact customers.  

And I've met very few staffers who understand how it feels to be a union member!  Far too many union staffer have never worked a "real" job in their life, yet alone the job of the people they are paid to organize and represent.  

Management, in my opinion, simply doesn't understand any of it unless they were union members themselves once.  And I don't mean managers can't see the good in a union, I mean managers don't see how workers can be coerced and manipulated into signing cards and supporting a union drive.  Managers still believe the fairy tale of the disgruntled worker ( or "bad apple") and are first now coming to accept the notion of the aggressive union that targets their workforce. 

At the end of the day if I had to offer one overarching conclusion from my years in the field it would be this -- the misinformation and empty rhetoric surrounding unionism on both sides is stunning. I would guess there are probably less than ten thousand professionals out there, if that, who truly understand how the system works -- high level union staffers and officials, some politicians and political operatives, labor attorneys, Board agents, labor consultants, some labor studies educators and some HR professionals.  The pros understand how contracts really get negotiated and signed in the private and pubic sector, how new organizing drives are started and constructed, how a union impacts the operation of a business, how unionism impacts productivity and job satisfaction, how unions leverage a business and politicians, how dues dollars are actually spent.  Sadly, most people writing on unions, even academics, are passing along empty uninformed rhetoric and propaganda from both sides lifted straight from either the AFL-CIO website or RedState.  

The subject is complex, there are exceptions to every generalization and it's often next to impossible to justify what amounts to common knowledge among professionals.  

And therein lies our differences. You see only the machinery of a union, see it's weaknesses and shortcomings, and occasional corruption, such as any organization composed of humans is prone to. I see those too, and have seen them in my career, but I also see the underlying reason such an organization as a union was created. I have seen the good they have done, and the lives they have improved.(And notwithstanding your psychoanalytic powers, I didn't get that from any website, I got it from life experience.) On the scale of justice, I have concluded unions weigh much more heavily to the good side. Of course, I am not a professional union basher, or promoter. Just a person who has either been in or dealt with unions my entire working life.

You have come to the opposite conclusion, conceding the need for unions in the past, but arguing they are not needed now, since modern business has seen the error of their robber baron days and can be trusted to have the interest of their employees at heart, rather than just profits. Real life paints a much different picture, at least the real life I am aware of. Like the real life in the mines, and the real life on the oil rigs, and many more examples of corporate profits being put above consideration for workers. I see the counter balance of unions to business as quite healthy for our economy, and essential for maintaining social justice based on morals rather than profits.

I must admit, I see your views as petty and narrow, not being able to see the forest for the trees. Of course, that's just an uneducated opinion I developed from reading liberal blogs, which have been around all my life ;)

gypsy:

And therein lies our differences. You see only the machinery of a union, see it's weaknesses and shortcomings, and occasional corruption, such as any organization composed of humans is prone to. I see those too, and have seen them in my career, but I also see the underlying reason such an organization as a union was created. I have seen the good they have done, and the lives they have improved.(And notwithstanding your psychoanalytic powers, I didn't get that from any website, I got it from life experience.) On the scale of justice, I have concluded unions weigh much more heavily to the good side. Of course, I am not a professional union basher, or promoter. Just a person who has either been in or dealt with unions my entire working life.

You have come to the opposite conclusion, conceding the need for unions in the past, but arguing they are not needed now, since modern business has seen the error of their robber baron days and can be trusted to have the interest of their employees at heart, rather than just profits. Real life paints a much different picture, at least the real life I am aware of. Like the real life in the mines, and the real life on the oil rigs, and many more examples of corporate profits being put above consideration for workers. I see the counter balance of unions to business as quite healthy for our economy, and essential for maintaining social justice based on morals rather than profits.

I must admit, I see your views as petty and narrow, not being able to see the forest for the trees. Of course, that's just an uneducated opinion I developed from reading liberal blogs, which have been around all my life ;)

Oddly no.  I was once quite the passionate union idealist and counted myself as uniquely blessed for having actually experienced true Solidarity.  I suffered a number of crises of idealism to arrive at my current point of view and the most painful were those experiences where I watched more than a few union's leadership, time and again, defile everything unions were supposed to stand for.  Like I wrote earlier, your most determined anti-unionists were most often once passionate believers. 

My experiences are both personal and broad and that might be the difference -- I've been priviledged to work with unionized workers in a range of professions, public and private, from maids and nursing homes aides to college professors and RNs,  and from dozens of internationals and locals all across the country.  I recognize how certain unions like the UAW, the skilled trades and public employee unions have often benefited their members.  But I've also seen how the unions of low wage and unskilled workers brutally exploit their members in some cases far worse than their employers and those are the unions most aggressively organizing out there right now.

 As for corruption, well, there's big ticket corruption, embezellment and thuggery, and maybe that's not all that common, I can't judge an acceptable level of criminality.  But then there's the petty corruption, the everyday common practice corruption going on in unions of all kinds every day that never gets closely examined -- the rigged elections, the irresponsibility with the member's dues, the twisting of facts and manufacturing of data in corporate campaigns to smear a good company's name, the freezing out of dissenting voices and the exploitation of union staff that would make the worst corporate employer blush.

For all I know, in their idealized form, unions are indeed what's best for workers and this country.  What I know from experience is such democratic member owned and driven unions exist only rarely and those unions don't need more government protection to survive and thrive.  And I've seen unions again and again sell out their members in ways that leave me convinced labor leaders should not be trusted to serve as the moral pushback on anything.  

You belabor your point, and I belabor mine. You have made an overall judgment on the effects unions have on our society and economy based on your experiences, and come to the conclusion unions are intrinsically evil. I of course have not had the same life experiences you have. Based on my own experiences and associations with unions and business, I have come to a completely different conclusion. I see a need for balance in the dynamic relationship labor and business have, and unions provide that balance. I have history on my side. Workers have organized as a group to improve their lot since the building of the pyramids. Unions are a natural outcome of capital needing workers to build or produce a product. Finding corruption and malfeasance in a union, IMO, is not reason enough to condemn the concept, and the same goes for business. It's like finding a sinner in the church pew and condemning the whole congregation.

BarbaraBrown:

For all I know, in their idealized form, unions are indeed what's best for workers and this country.

Those in unions need to keep the ideal as their goal, as those in business must. But both will fail occasionally, with terrible results. That doesn't make the ideals wrong, just hard to achieve. I believe they can be achieved, with perseverance and scrutiny, from both within and outside labor and business. This bill is to require employers who's workers have formed or joined a union to bargain with them. I see that within the realm of keeping the balance I mentioned.