Attacks Continue against Unions in Effort to Divide and Conquer !!! - Editorial Comment

In the May 2009 editorial of the Electrical Union World we highlighted the attack upon the standards of municipal workers by the Bloomberg Administration which was attempting to garner public support from taxpayers to undermine the benefits city workers are entitled to. It is using the financial crisis presently being experienced throughout the world as a means to pit worker against worker. They are attempting to have taxpayers align themselves to the concerns of the City — not to their fellow workers. As pensions in the private sector have shifted from defined pensions to 401(k) Plans, the administration decries that public sector workers continue to enjoy the security defined pensions provide. They pose the question, why should public servants have it better than you? They seek a fifth pension tier with reduced benefits for new employees. It raises the question of whether or not today’s workers have the right to negotiate away issues of future workers for their own benefit!
Loss of union membership in the private sector has resulted in an assault on the standards of union workers in both the private and public sectors.
On Wednesday, May 26, 2010, The New York Post continued the assault on workers – not just municipal but all workers. In an article by Hope Cohen, she belittles work-rules in place at the MTA that have been agreed to by both management and union through the collective bargaining process. Her perspective is that they are all union-initiated rules when they are agreed-to rules. Unions have no ability to impose workplace conditions that have not been agreed to through the collective bargaining process.
She goes on to demean the need of “oilers” at construction sites to maintain cranes, stating, “…unlike the steam-driven equipment of old, modern cranes don’t need constant lubrication.” Her conclusion is one of a “lay-person’ perspective.” She does not indicate she has any in-depth knowledge of the needs of modern-day equipment.
She then disparages the use of elevator operators on construction sites; the use of electricians to connect equipment; collective action by union employees against the head of a rival union that undercuts their standards and blames the failure of Tavern on the Green to reopen upon the Hotel Motel Trades Council instead of the new management who is intransigent on issues that are reasonable and agreed to by prior managers of the establishment.
She concludes, “New Yorkers need to wake up and realize how often unions now fight to protect unfair pay and other privileges…”.
She is correct on one item, unions do fight to protect members from the effects of unfettered capitalism. She says the pay is unfair! By whose standards? Does she attack the ungodly salaries and bonuses of the financial, banking and Wall Street industries? Does she attack the unreasonable demands of management upon workers who have no leverage to combat management abuse? NO! But that is what unions do!!!
We fight these systemic effects of unbridled management, not at the expense of others, but on behalf of all workers. Organized labor is the only voice of working Americans in the halls of government and in the workplace.
Don’t fall for the arguments of the enemies of labor. Recognize their arguments are indicative of their own selfish self- interest.
Remember!
Samuel Gompers, the first president of the AFL, has often been quoted as stating, “An injury to one is an injury to all.”
The adage is a founding principal of the trade union movement. Workers across America know that the undermining of the wages, benefits and standards of any worker is a clarion call for all workers to be vigilant or lose what they have achieved.
Do not be fooled. Do not be hoodwinked by such rhetoric emanating from City Hall and its minions! Remember labor’s adage, “AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL” and act accordingly.