Unions Eat Their Own

A letter to the editor of In These Times magazine, a favorite Chicago lefty rag, asserts that ITT misrepresented Illinois SEIU (a union of state employees) in an article last month. What's the problem, you say? Did the supposedly labor-friendly ITT writer slag the union with some backhanded compliment? Did he point out that most unions are corrupt at the highest levels of leadership? Did he, perhaps, swallow hook, line, and sinker some administration/NLRB bullshit about the vanishing need for collective bargaining in the age of globalism? Huh? Huh? Inquiring minds want to know!

No, the problem seems to be that the author, David Moberg, stated that in an election between AFSCME (the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) and SEIU both unions had gotten (paraphrasing) approximately 10,000 cards signed. The guy writing to ITT, the self-styled "point person" (we must remember to be PC at all times, 'chirrun) for the SEIU, one Bill Perkins, angrily retorts that AFSCME had "only" 8,000 cards, while the SEIU had 10,000.

Dear Sir: If I may point you to the dictionary and the definition of the word "approximately"...?

That, of course, isn't the actual problem. I was at a union conference last month (did I mention that I'm the president of a union local?) and I came away tremendously impressed by the sheer wasted efforts of so many petty, backbiting wankers. Most of our time, in fact, was occupied with stories about the "old days"--presumably glorious--when our union used to "raid" other unions for members. The glee with which the tales were told led me to conclude that no one would mind returning to those heady times.

Except, of course, that those were the 90's, when unions were sprouting everywhere (comparative to the 80's) and many groups felt the need to branch out, or at least defend their favorite pissing-patch. Subsequently, the UAW went into competition with the AFT, which turned on UPI, which fought SEIU and AFSCME. In the fields, FLOC fought LIUNA fought UFW; and so on. See, for example, Leon Fink's incredibly respectful account of union dunderheadedness in his Maya of Morganton, in which LIUNA attempts to drive off better-established, locally-based unions trying to organize chicken processing workers. Why? Not because LIUNA can get them a contract, certainly. But rather because if it does not cannibalize other unions' rightful members, it will cease to exist (one might say that, if you can't get members on your own perhaps your union shouldn't exist, but that's another topic).

It is disgusting to see labor squabble with itself. The word "solidarity" is a fucking mockery, and that fact cannot be blamed on the White House or decades of union-busting by management; it can only be laid at the feet of unions. Do they savage each other because, like street gangs whose actions bring small glory and a blind eye from the police, they are denied power and access in the larger society and so they figure that fratricide is the only way they can win--an internal struggle that ultimately delegitimizes the movement?

They eat their own, you know. And it might go a long way towards reestablishing the power of unions in this country if they wouldn't. Allowing more than one union to court a potential membership at once is the free market solution to collective bargaining. A union is not, actually, an insurance company. It isn't a mortgage broker, either. You don't want them fiercely competing over you, because the result is that the potential unit becomes split into factions and, judging from the tales told, differences quickly become irreconcilable. Rather than fighting exploitation from without, the unions fight themselves and, the more savvy members will note, the leadership of the union (whose fault nothing is) soon begin to fight the membership--exploitation under another name.

I imagine the White House and its owners will have a good laugh years from now when they get together to swap stories of the "good old days."