The Beatings Will Continue (Until You Decertify)

With GM and Chrysler taking union bashing to new heights, it is incumbent to examine exactly why.  Especially since Air Canada is circling the drain again and will start mooing and beeping about union contracts.

First off, by way of disclosure, I have been a dues-paying union member in the past, specifically CUPE and NABET in previous careers, but I have also been a small business owner.  Yes, I am a capitalist.  Yes I believe that profit is good.  Damn good.  And yes, I have seen how unions work.  Calm down and take a few deep breaths ok?

The reason unions first came into being was because employers treated their cattle better than they treated their employees.  Only a few generations ago, being killed on the job was considered normal.  The employer would cuss and say “You shiftless buggers cost this company a half-days’ production so you could remove what was left of McGarry’s remains from the machinery.  What the hell does he need a Christian burial for now?  We’re taking the cost of repairs out of his last day’s wages.  No, his wife can’t have the day off for the funeral.  Back to work!”   

Only a generation or two ago, being shot or beaten for mentioning the word ‘union’ or ‘collective bargaining’ was common.  Many industries had company police who made sure that organizers got their heads cracked on a regular basis.  Go ask any old-time mine worker (if there’s any left alive now) about the old days.

The old joke is is “What did a union ever do for us?”  The five-day work week.  Pensions.  Health Care.  Maternity Leave.  Occupational Health and Safety Standards.  Limits on hours of work.  Standards of Employment. Employment Equity and Fairness.  Minimum Wage.  Employment Insurance. These are all things that unions fought to get and still fight for.    

An aside:  The obvious reason a business gets a union is because they have a history of treating their people like crap.  Well-treated, engaged, fairly-compensated employees rarely form unions.  It isn’t complicated:  Treat the employees with respect, even in tough times and they tend not to go union. 

Unionization adds a layer of complexity, but simplifies things at the same time.  Both sides get a set of written rules to play by in the form of a contract:  You do this, we do this and this is the way we settle problems.

To be fair and balanced, unions have also crossed the line a few times.  One situation I know about was a company called Taggart Transport.  The owner was a former driver who made it big, owned his own fleet and understood the people working for him.  The owner paid more than the union contract and treated his people well.  Consequently he has a successful medium-large size, profitable, business.   

Any time a particular union (the name you could guess) tried to organize Taggart, the Taggart drivers would shrug and say no thanks.  Why sign up for less money per hour and have to pay dues on top of it?  There was more than one occasion when bad things would happen.  The true finesse move was tying a length of rope to a concrete block and making sure it was at windshield height on the opposite side of an overpass. 

If a Taggart rig was whistling down the then-new 401 expressway, for some reason, that tethered concrete block would fall off the overpass and wind up in front of the truck.  Of course the physics involved in a 30 pound concrete block hitting the windshield of a truck doing 60 miles an hour would be quite the attention grabber.  One could call it a unique form of communications, the message being “Sign a union card, or die.”  It didn’t help the union to recruit any new members.

In Canada, unions have generally been level-headed.  The British union mindset of walking off the job for six weeks because someone moved a lunch box never really played out here.  The Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) has very much been a partner with GM, Ford and Chrysler, in holding down wages and increasing productivity, as well as cutting benefits for retired workers, rolling back hours and doing everything rational and reasonable to help the auto makers stay in business. 

Reality doesn’t actually matter in the court of Pubic Relations, as the bottom falls out of GM and Chrysler.  All that matters is someone else is to blame for the crap products and unions are as handy a target as any.  At least this time the Big Three are not screaming about the Yellow Peril of Japanese imports.

Which leads us to the future of unions.  For many the simple act of having a job is a good thing these days.  Even if you are treated like a piece of dirt by an employer whose definition of being supportive is to demand more unpaid overtime and threaten to fire you if you don’t agree, you shut up and keep working.

In that kind of nasty corporate culture, the only people who get anything are the workplace consultants.  The company wakes up one day and figures that morale is low.  So they hire a consultant who gives out $1 coffee mugs with “Teamwork” emblazoned on the side and demands that the company run ‘quality circles’ to improve productivity and morale. 

The consultant pockets big fees, the employer gets to feel like he’s done something and the folks who do the work look for another job; not caring if the company lives, dies, or engages in a form or matrimony with a barnyard animal.  That kind of company will go under, the owner complaining about how disloyal his people were and how crippling labour costs can be.

I call Bullshit.  Management is where the mistakes are made.  The union folks at GM didn’t design the Pontiac Aztek, winner of the Most Hideous Car for four years running.

Nobody from the CAW decided to give Celine Dion a zillion bucks to be the spokesmeat for the Chrysler Pacifica.  Do you know anyone who actually owns a Chrysler Pacifica?  FEMA bought the last of them and uses them as temporary housing in New Orleans now that the trailers have rotted out. 

Nobody with a union card insisted that GM import the Daewoo Douchebag (a car that even Koreans laugh at) and rebadge it as the Chevy Sphincter.

Nobody in a union at Ford could have engineered the Ford Aerostar, Windstar and Freestar that badly, even as a gag, while drunk.  Listen closely and you can hear them rust away on a damp day.   

But we’re going to punish the unions just the same.