|
Why Unions? Ever
walk into your local chain department store and ask to see the president?
Or into your local telephone office and ask for an appointment with
the chairman of the board?
Or maybe you are a high school student or one of the millions of
college student in America. How many times have you talked with
the principal or president of the college or university? For that
matter, how many times have you personally talked to your professor
in that large auditorium-packed lecture course, "Humanities
1," or something similar?
Now suppose you are out in the world working for a living as an
engineer or technician or administrative and clerical worker in
an aerospace, electronics, or insurance firm. Or in one of the big
companies in the basic industries such as steel, auto, or food processing.
Or as a skilled building trades worker. You need a day off to move
to a new home, or to look after things at home because your spouse
is ill. Or maybe you unexpectedly come down with sickness.
Do you call your supervisor or department head and ask for time
off ? What if the supervisor says "No?" What do you do
then? Go to the chairman of the board?
Or maybe you’ve been a loyal productive worker for the past year
or two. You know the company is doing well and making money. So
you want a raise and figure you’re worth more than you’re earning.
Do you ask your boss? What if the boss says "No" or offers
a few
pennies?
What do you do then?
Or assume you’ve been a loyal dedicated employee for 17 years. You’ve
got a husband or wife, kids in high school hoping to go to college,
equity in the house and stature in the community. You are over 40
but retirement is a long way off yet. Then one day your company
is merged with or acquired by another one. New management moves
in and decides you’re through. They want younger employees; it’s
new company policy. Or they want more efficient production and are
installing some new automated equipment that eliminates the need
for your job -- and you.
What do you do then and who do you talk to about finding a new job
or taking another job in the same company through job retraining?
How are you going to pull up roots in your community?
In each of these cases, what can you as an individual do to protect
yourself and your livelihood? Who has the final word if you disagree
with your employer’s decision?
Now consider that there are millions of other wage and salary earners,
just like you, working for a living in organizations or firms that
are apt to be very large, fluid and impersonal.
Some people say you can’t fight city hall or buck the boss. In a
democracy, this isn’t true. You can. And this is what union’s are
for. To establish industrial democracy in our private enterprise
and corporate-oriented economy. To represent the individual’s interest
when the company’s interest conflicts with it or fails, even, to
consider it. To represent public or government employees as they
seek to apply industrial democracy to their jobs and working conditions.
Look at it this way. Without collective bargaining, the individual
employee has no voice, but is subject to every arbitrary decision
the employer makes. Some minimum legal standards excepted, the employer
sets hours of work, level of wages and salaries, and determines
job assignments and production quotas. When promotions are involved,
the boss can reward favorites and ignore qualified workers of longer
service. The employer can lay off or fire any worker -- for any
reason or even for no reason. The boss can manipulate the organization
chart and demote or shunt aside.
The employer can, in fact, be a dictator, answerable to no one.
Neither democracy nor human dignity has any place in this scheme
of things.
In a nation, the benevolent dictator, trying to look out for the
best interests of the people, is no substitute for democratic government.
And a paternalistic employer is no substitute for democratically
structured employee organizations and collective bargaining.
Where there is collective bargaining in industry, the individual
worker has a voice and is not subject to arbitrary decisions. That
worker shares with other employees and with the employer the responsibility
for establishing orderly procedures for determining wages, hours
of work rates of production, promotion and layoff policies, and
just penalties for the violation of necessary work rules. As part
of a union, you have the strength that comes from numbers and, through
your union, the ability to hire able staff people -- negotiators,
lawyers, research specialists, and others who are skilled in the
arts of collective bargaining.
Only as a part of a group do you have the economic strength that
permits bargaining with the employer on a basis approaching equality.
You may not find all the answers to your job problems by becoming
a union member. But you will be free to present your problems and
have them considered. This is the function of shop and department
stewards, grievance committees and business agents. If you don’t
like the job they’re doing, you have an opportunity to do something
about. They’re not appointed. They’re elected -- by you and your
fellow employees. The same goes for the other union officers. They’re
democratically elected and the members do the nominating.
The policies and conduct of the union are determined by its constitution
and by-laws and these, too, are subject to amendment and change
by the membership.
More workers are forming or joining unions. And it is easy to see
why. In this day and age of high speed technological change, multinational
corporations and conglomerates, if we didn’t have unions for the
people who work in them, then we’d probably have to invent them.
This is why teachers, fire fighters, government employees, engineers
and technicians, newspaper reporters, college professors and actors
and actresses have formed unions just as steel workers, rubber workers
and construction workers have.
The trade union is one of our oldest economic institutions. It is
a good deal older than the business corporation.
|
