Who will
advocate for workers? The bigger the business, the less connected to the
workers management becomes. And let’s recognize that the goal of a business is
not to take care of workers but the investors (whether public or private); if
that goal comes at the expense of workers, well, there are more workers out
there, right?
On my
way out the door at Hancock, I was informed by the (then) superintendent, “I’ve
got people who can do what you do.” I believe that was shortsighted and, in
fact, inaccurate on more than one level. But then he didn’t really know what I
brought to the party (honestly, it was a lot more than chips and dip, if I do
say so myself) and building management only pretended to stand up for me while
actually throwing me under the proverbial bus. But that seems the attitude of modern management in all fields.
(Note, as disappointing and
hurtful as this was, it turns out they did me a favor, if perhaps not those
students and teachers I might have benefitted by staying. But I landed in a
great place to end (most of) my career, my four fantastic final years at
Schechter/Mirowitz.)
So, in honor of Labor Day, I’m going to share a few paragraphs
from previous articles on the topic:
• Child labor laws
• 40-hour work week
• Overtime
• Workmen's Compensation
• Non-discriminatory hiring practices
• Workplace safety laws
• Unemployment compensation
• Paid vacations
• Retirement pensions
This is just a partial list of gains for workers granted
voluntarily through the generosity of businesses concerned for their employees.
Oh, wait, no, these things that we now define as givens for a good job came as
the result of decades of struggle by organized groups of workers known as
unions.
I’ve previously written about the debt that most
Americans, with the possible exception of those few whose families have always enjoyed
prosperity, owe to labor
unions. The growth of the middle class in the United States clearly
parallels the growth of labor unions. The shrinking number of middle class
households of the last couple decades follows that same trend of declining
union households. While I understand the dangers of equating causation with
correlation, I find the trend disturbing. I also find the charges of class
warfare disingenuous, at best. I find it ironic that those concerns were
nowhere to be found as the middle class shrank and income disparity grew, as
unions were assaulted and vilified while CEOs saw their pay and prestige grow
explosively.
I think our founding fathers were on the
right track when they incorporated a system of checks and balances into our
governance, trying to establish a system whereby no one person, group or branch
was able to accumulate too much power. I further believe that checks and
balances must also apply to our economic system, and that unions are a key
check to the unbridled power of corporations (people though they may be).
Government also has a role, both as a defender of the checkers (both unions and businesses) and as an enforcer/check itself.
