Labor Day
(This is a very rough draft. Part of my union story. I am tired. I know it is too long and will edit it for clarification later. I just want to get it out on Labor Day.)
Many know the history of the labor movement in the US. It has been a bloody, gut-wrenching, soul-sucking struggle. Like all things modern, its decline was not. I have only been around for the last 50 years of it. It might be amazing to think today, but there was a time when 45% of all work done in America was by organized labor. The unions had real power. Both on the day-to-day life of the family of a union worker and on the political stage.
What I want to talk about is the decline and the possible renewal of a real labor movement. What killed it and how we might go about reinventing it. This will have to be a brief overview. Many books have been written, many more to come. I want to personalize it, tell some of my story as an illustration. Perhaps to dream a little for a future that we might together build. I want to acknowledge up front that many unions were not saints nor bastions of democracy and justice. This is a fact.
I got a BS in physics at the age of 19 and had several offers of graduate schools. I decided to take a year off to bum around. It was 1969, and things were happening. But I also knew I did not want to be an academic. I wanted to play with the big toys (things that might go boom). So my options were few. Sometime in this trip, I ran out of money and took a job in a printshop. This led to finding out the truth. Graduate school physics paid very badly. Blue-collar work paid very well. I had the opportunity to join the union as an apprentice.
It was great working 4 hours a day, and 3 hours in class. This was a craft, a skill, and I fell in love with the work. In those days, everything was done by hand. Until you got to these massive multicolor offset presses. Huge machines that were more works of art than machines. But all the other skills were hand and eye. Pre-press was basically photography, with analog to digital conversation done with photons. Anyway, I soaked it all up. Got a Journeyman card in two years.
Then I took 3 years off to travel and study Buddhism. My other great passion. But when I returned, I immediately found work doing high-end art and magazine production. The union had changed its name and structure. But it was still a fairly small, very strong union. Here is the bottom line: I was 26 and taking home around 700 dollars a week, in 1977 dollars. It was amazing, and I knew it. I could go almost anywhere in the States and in 3 days or so find work.
What made this all possible? Well, the work was high-skilled, took a long time to be good at it. So the workers were not fungible. The owners knew that we could not be easily replaced. Plus, we were organized. We negotiated with each plant separately, rather than industry-wide. The union took on the responsibility of hiring and firing. But most of all, we were ubiquitous. In the late early 70’s, almost any place that did high-end offset printing was a union shop.
All that slowly changed. So slowly that a lot of union officials were caught off guard. Yes, the union was undemocratic, filled with petty corruption, and mostly seniority-based. This was a major fault, but not fatal. The fatal flaw was greed. There was a very large amount of money sloshing around in the union pension fund. To say it was mishandled was an understatement. But that story didn’t come to light for a long time.
The big shock was Ronald Reagan and the end of PATCO. This was an atomic bomb going off in the heart of the labor movement. 1981 and suddenly everything changed. The fucking Federal government became openly hostile to unions. If the feds could do it, then newspapers, magazines, and any industry could. So they got together and did just that. Now the tension between owners and workers has always been heated, always filled with propaganda and lies. Even extreme violence. But since WWII, the feds had an uneasy truce with labor. They needed labor’s vote.
What happened in my union, not much. The leadership thought they were invincible. Sure, there were petty fights around healthcare, shorter contracts, and work rules. But mostly around job security. The industry was rapidly changing. What used to take a crew of 6, now took 3. The leadership, all old guys, decided to stake their union fight on the idea of full employment. So by 81 when the bomb fell. You could walk into any printing outfit, newspaper, magazines, or job shop, and see guys just standing around. Not actually working. But getting a very good wage and benefits.
This royally pissed off management. (And I agreed.) By this time, I had been a shop steward, even going to national conferences, sitting on committees, and other crap. I spoke up about this. My guys wanted more time off, better healthcare, and better work rules. But no, the leadership, (all old farts on the union dole), thought differently. The new contracts would not include layoffs or adjustments to the workforce. You can see where this is going.
It started in newspapers. When I came back to the union, every single daily and weekly newspaper in the country was union-printed. Today, none. When I started to get good at high-end pre-press, every magazine in the country was union-printed. Today, none. In fact, no high-end magazines are printed in the US at all. All overseas, (another story).
Starting in the 80's. Newspapers went on a big merger and acquisition spree. Funded by Wall Street (in today’s world, hedge funds and venture capital). Take for instance the "merger" of the SF Chronicle and the Examiner. What was that all about? Unions. The Chronicle was a strong union shop and losing money. The Examiner was trying desperately to bust the union. The Examiner bought out the Chronicle and said they would build a new printing plant to modernize. They did. But guess what? It was in the suburbs and union-free. They even refused to hire any pressman that once belonged to the union.
By this time, I was working in a shop that exclusively did art reproduction. Very profitable. Quality was of the highest importance. So, all the latest tech and processes. But increasingly, my union marginalized me and my fellow workers. The union was bleeding out, and contracts were just evaporating. But we were just specialty shops and had no voice with leadership. I tried. We tried.
Then the hammer fell. Yep, this is where the greed happens. All that money sloshing around never comes to good. My union had changed its name quite a few times, reorganizing and restructuring, which meant money moved from one pocket to another. Somebody noticed: Wall Street. What they did was literally bribe and lie to the leadership that if they (the geniuses of Wall Street) were in complete control of the pension fund, all would be unicorns and profit.
Of course, it all fell to ruin. Fees had to be made, investments went bust. Actual fraud happened. Suddenly, the union was broke. No money to do organizing, no money to fight for contracts. In the space of fifteen years, a once very strong guild-based union was no more. It all went poof. Yep, there is still a tiny vestigial remnant left, now part of the Teamsters. But for all intents and purposes, it is dead.
I got less than 20 cents on the dollar from my pension fund payout, and I was lucky to get that. Many got nothing after years of work.
.....
So what can we do better? What sessions can we learn? Is there a future in the labor movement?
(This is a very rough draft. Part of my union story. I am tired. I know it is too long and will edit it for clarification later. I just want to get it out on Labor Day.)
Many know the history of the labor movement in the US. It has been a bloody, gut-wrenching, soul-sucking struggle. Like all things modern, its decline was not. I have only been around for the last 50 years of it. It might be amazing to think today, but there was a time when 45% of all work done in America was by organized labor. The unions had real power. Both on the day-to-day life of the family of a union worker and on the political stage.
What I want to talk about is the decline and the possible renewal of a real labor movement. What killed it and how we might go about reinventing it. This will have to be a brief overview. Many books have been written, many more to come. I want to personalize it, tell some of my story as an illustration. Perhaps to dream a little for a future that we might together build. I want to acknowledge up front that many unions were not saints nor bastions of democracy and justice. This is a fact.
I got a BS in physics at the age of 19 and had several offers of graduate schools. I decided to take a year off to bum around. It was 1969, and things were happening. But I also knew I did not want to be an academic. I wanted to play with the big toys (things that might go boom). So my options were few. Sometime in this trip, I ran out of money and took a job in a printshop. This led to finding out the truth. Graduate school physics paid very badly. Blue-collar work paid very well. I had the opportunity to join the union as an apprentice.
It was great working 4 hours a day, and 3 hours in class. This was a craft, a skill, and I fell in love with the work. In those days, everything was done by hand. Until you got to these massive multicolor offset presses. Huge machines that were more works of art than machines. But all the other skills were hand and eye. Pre-press was basically photography, with analog to digital conversation done with photons. Anyway, I soaked it all up. Got a Journeyman card in two years.
Then I took 3 years off to travel and study Buddhism. My other great passion. But when I returned, I immediately found work doing high-end art and magazine production. The union had changed its name and structure. But it was still a fairly small, very strong union. Here is the bottom line: I was 26 and taking home around 700 dollars a week, in 1977 dollars. It was amazing, and I knew it. I could go almost anywhere in the States and in 3 days or so find work.
What made this all possible? Well, the work was high-skilled, took a long time to be good at it. So the workers were not fungible. The owners knew that we could not be easily replaced. Plus, we were organized. We negotiated with each plant separately, rather than industry-wide. The union took on the responsibility of hiring and firing. But most of all, we were ubiquitous. In the late early 70’s, almost any place that did high-end offset printing was a union shop.
All that slowly changed. So slowly that a lot of union officials were caught off guard. Yes, the union was undemocratic, filled with petty corruption, and mostly seniority-based. This was a major fault, but not fatal. The fatal flaw was greed. There was a very large amount of money sloshing around in the union pension fund. To say it was mishandled was an understatement. But that story didn’t come to light for a long time.
The big shock was Ronald Reagan and the end of PATCO. This was an atomic bomb going off in the heart of the labor movement. 1981 and suddenly everything changed. The fucking Federal government became openly hostile to unions. If the feds could do it, then newspapers, magazines, and any industry could. So they got together and did just that. Now the tension between owners and workers has always been heated, always filled with propaganda and lies. Even extreme violence. But since WWII, the feds had an uneasy truce with labor. They needed labor’s vote.
What happened in my union, not much. The leadership thought they were invincible. Sure, there were petty fights around healthcare, shorter contracts, and work rules. But mostly around job security. The industry was rapidly changing. What used to take a crew of 6, now took 3. The leadership, all old guys, decided to stake their union fight on the idea of full employment. So by 81 when the bomb fell. You could walk into any printing outfit, newspaper, magazines, or job shop, and see guys just standing around. Not actually working. But getting a very good wage and benefits.
This royally pissed off management. (And I agreed.) By this time, I had been a shop steward, even going to national conferences, sitting on committees, and other crap. I spoke up about this. My guys wanted more time off, better healthcare, and better work rules. But no, the leadership, (all old farts on the union dole), thought differently. The new contracts would not include layoffs or adjustments to the workforce. You can see where this is going.
It started in newspapers. When I came back to the union, every single daily and weekly newspaper in the country was union-printed. Today, none. When I started to get good at high-end pre-press, every magazine in the country was union-printed. Today, none. In fact, no high-end magazines are printed in the US at all. All overseas, (another story).
Starting in the 80's. Newspapers went on a big merger and acquisition spree. Funded by Wall Street (in today’s world, hedge funds and venture capital). Take for instance the "merger" of the SF Chronicle and the Examiner. What was that all about? Unions. The Chronicle was a strong union shop and losing money. The Examiner was trying desperately to bust the union. The Examiner bought out the Chronicle and said they would build a new printing plant to modernize. They did. But guess what? It was in the suburbs and union-free. They even refused to hire any pressman that once belonged to the union.
By this time, I was working in a shop that exclusively did art reproduction. Very profitable. Quality was of the highest importance. So, all the latest tech and processes. But increasingly, my union marginalized me and my fellow workers. The union was bleeding out, and contracts were just evaporating. But we were just specialty shops and had no voice with leadership. I tried. We tried.
Then the hammer fell. Yep, this is where the greed happens. All that money sloshing around never comes to good. My union had changed its name quite a few times, reorganizing and restructuring, which meant money moved from one pocket to another. Somebody noticed: Wall Street. What they did was literally bribe and lie to the leadership that if they (the geniuses of Wall Street) were in complete control of the pension fund, all would be unicorns and profit.
Of course, it all fell to ruin. Fees had to be made, investments went bust. Actual fraud happened. Suddenly, the union was broke. No money to do organizing, no money to fight for contracts. In the space of fifteen years, a once very strong guild-based union was no more. It all went poof. Yep, there is still a tiny vestigial remnant left, now part of the Teamsters. But for all intents and purposes, it is dead.
I got less than 20 cents on the dollar from my pension fund payout, and I was lucky to get that. Many got nothing after years of work.
.....
So what can we do better? What sessions can we learn? Is there a future in the labor movement?