Follow up article to Nona's "In Labor" article on the situation of American employees vs. the employer, and also to Carolyn D's "Outed Unions". Read them first.

By

Ralph Wiggum's Astrologer

Greedy Unions?

"LOUSY UNIONS"

What is the one tool that an ordinary blue-collar worker has, that will allow him to voice his opinions and beliefs, that will allow him to stand up for what he feels is owed to him, that will make management step back and take notice? I'll give you a hint: it isn't a suggestion box.

The New York transit strike inconvenienced a whole bunch of Christmas shoppers. It was responsible for people having to walk home from work. Miserable, MISERABLE public sector workers! How dare they! Why should they deserve more money for putting up with drunks, crackheads, moms looking for Furbys, and, the horror, Wall Street financiers.

I can't argue with you about Reagan. I can't argue with you about economics. (Well, I could, but I'd lose, and badly). Reagan, for me, was the husband of the lady who said Just Say No on Different Strokes (Todd Bridges will forever thank her). I think he may have also been sampled on a Def Leppard album. Keynes is a name that rings a very faint bell, but micro- and macro-economics classes were places I went to catch up on sleep.

The transit strike was illegal, yes. All public employee strikes in New York are illegal. The reason? The Taylor Law. Brought into effect in 1967, it prohibits job action by notoriously greedy types like policemen, firefighters, and yes, transit workers. Public employees are still allowed to unionize, but they are not allowed to strike. Instead, contract disputes and money issues must be settled by a mediation process, involving an independent arbitrator if need be. Sounds good right. Right? Maybe. The MTA is made up of a lot of very wealthy people. Some of them billionaire wealthy. Not the type of people who spend their lives worrying about bus drivers and subway engineers.

The strike affected a lot of people in a very negative way. People whose only involvement with the transit union is a reliance on their passengers and their spending money. Certainly, that is unfortunate. But, in a way it is like the teachers strikes; nobody would notice if the teachers walked off the job in the summertime. I would imagine the union knew ahead of time that they wouldn't be off the job for long. Illegal strikes are not uncommon, and the usual way that the government stops them is by levying huge fines. The union's executive would have been well aware of this.

So what did they gain? Wage increases and medical coverage are the big-ticket items. Disability coverage, increased death benefits and assault pay were also considered wins by the union. I don't think they are going to become independently wealthy from their jobs, but they are better off. Three days. That's all it took. I'm sure that a lot of the Christmas money that the shop-keepers lost during those three days, was earned in the three days after the strike was over.

"UNIONS SERVE NO PURPOSE"

I have a real hard time when people say unions are done. "They are ruining the country, Those union employees are greedy. Unions and their members are out for nobody but themselves". I belong to a union. I don't buy into union propaganda 100%. (I don't even capitalize the word "union", which some of my "brothers" would consider blasphemy).

I volunteer for my union as a health and safety advocate. I'm not alone. Thousands of people across this continent volunteer for their unions. Some of these people are good, some are bad. Just like any other part of society.

I'll give you an example of the greedy things I do with the backing of my union:

Somebody I never knew passed away a couple of years ago. He was 53 years old. For three years prior he was off work due to illness. The doctors weren't sure why. His lungs were shot, that was about all they knew. He went through cat-scans, biopsies, and finally an autopsy. He was a smoker. The final diagnosis was Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. Something not really associated with smoking. It happens if you inhale large amounts of herbicides or toner from a printer cartridge. It's caused by other things as well, but its one of those diseases that not much is known about.

While he was still alive, my area's government agency responsible for occupational injuries got involved. Lung specialists were consulted. An authority on asbestos was brought in. It was determined that the evidence obtained through examinations and through scientific literature was insufficient to show that this man suffered from any sort of occupational disease. He was never compensated.

I spent four months of my life (my own time, not paid) studying, writing submissions, and arguing for a co-worker who died at 53 years of age. I pored over stacks and stacks of documents from agencies as diverse as the American Lung Association and the Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. I cut into a huge portion of my beer-drinking time! You know what I found out? The doctors were wrong. This government agency was wrong. This man died of an asbestos-related disorder. From the jobsite. I spent a great deal of my spare time for no other reason than to try and give this man's widow some closure. And you know what? I won! Months of arguments and submissions trying to prove the doctors wrong, all to get one final hearing. And you know what? I won that motherfucker! I won I won I won!!!

That's how I felt at the time. In reality, I didn't win fuck all except for a bit of satisfaction. The widow was the only one who won anything; some piece of mind, and a bit of closure, which is a lot more than she would have won if her husband hadn't belonged to a union.

As a union member, I apologize for being greedy. I apologize for ruining this country (and maybe yours as well... I'm not American). I will also take it upon myself to apologize for all those unions, and their memberships, who are willing to make sacrifices of their time and money to help each other out and to try and maintain and improve a standard of living.

We should be ashamed.

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