One of the Hollister Free Lance Water Cooler panelists was quoted in the paper as saying “Unions, which were a god send to working people in the past have become too powerful today.”
Well, back when they were a “god send”, let’s say in the 1930’s to 1960’s union membership peaked at about a third of the workforce. More than a million auto workers and about that many steelworkers were union, and they were strong enough to negotiate good contracts for their members. That was a time when one worker could expect to earn enough to buy a house, support a family, send kids to college, and retire with a reasonable pension. We are putting money and effort into building an educational system which was the pride of the world, available and affordable to more and more people.
Now union membership is down to about 12-13% of the workforce, 5-7% in the private sector. And it now takes at least two breadwinners per household to provide what one could fifty years ago. For most of our people real income hasn’t improved in 30 to 40 years. A third of the population has has lost ground. Even after the collapse of home prices it still takes two or more paychecks to buy a house. A college education is less and less affordable. Public colleges and universities are losing their funding and turning away students. Is that because unions are too powerful?
The only place where workers are more organized than they were back then is public employment. And it’s no coincidence that public employees have done better at maintaining their real income and benefits. So now we have an intense campaign not to raise incomes and benefits for all those workers who have been left behind, but to bring public employees down to where they were fifty years ago.
Where are unions too powerful? At Walmart or Target or Kmart? At McDonald’s or Burger King? In the trucking industry? In Silicon Valley? In construction work?
No, I think you can make a very good case that unions are not powerful enough. We’ve seen what a lack of union power had done to the status of working people in this country. And I don’t believe that corporations or (sadly) government are showing much concern for workers.
Franz M. Schneider is a San Benito County resident.
