These are still tough times in America. Joblessness is rife, growth rates are slow and all sorts of fiscal crises loom in government. The impact of the Great Recession rumbles on and blights the lives of tens of millions of ordinary Americans.
No one should be surprised, then, that America's political system is on the hunt for a scapegoat – some bunch of villains on which to blame the nation's woes. But how odd that the current candidate turns out to be the labour movement in general, and public sector unions in particular.
Across the US, politicians are railing against the terrible abuses of powerful union bosses, especially in state government. Many of those politicians are Republicans. But far from all of them. In New York, the freshly minted Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, has joined the backlash, asking for a wage freeze for all public workers. In many states, new laws are being considered that will trim union rights, such as the ability to get fees from their members or the right to negotiate a union contract or even form a union at all. In Ohio, a new Republican governor wants to ban strikes by public school teachers. In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie's attacks on unions have become a YouTube sensation.
What is perverse about this trend is just how vastly it misunderstands what went wrong with the American economy. No one is denying that this is a time for belt-tightening. Or that some unions have problems. Or that some union contracts look over-generous in austerity America. But the fundamental truth remains: powerful and reckless unions did not cause the Great Recession by rampant speculation. Nor did an out-of-control labour movement cause or burst the housing bubble. It was not union bosses who packaged up complex derivatives to sell in their millions and thus wrecked the economy and put millions out of work. Nor was it union bosses who awarded (and continue to award) themselves salaries worth hundreds of millions of dollars for doing nothing of social value. Neither was it the union movement that was bailed out by the taxpayer and then refused to change its habits.
All that was the work of the finance industry.
Yet, as America continues to search for solutions to its economic problems, it is the labour movement, and not the banking sector, that is getting it in the neck. This is despite the fact that many unions, especially in such cases as the bailout of Detroit's automakers, have proved themselves highly flexible in sacrificing wages and long-held workers' rights in order to preserve jobs. Meanwhile, the finance industry, where true and meaningful reform has failed to happen, still squeals as if President Obama were a raving socialist. Or, in the helpful and moderate words of Blackstone chief executive Stephen Schwarzman, "It's like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939."
No, Mr Schwarzman, it is not like that at all.
In fact, American bankers and big corporations are flush with cash and generous tax breaks and back to most of their old habits (like grotesque bonus payouts, refusing to loan money and offshoring jobs and profits). But in the political world, it is the good union jobs that are suddenly an evil thing, when, in fact, a job that allows someone to afford their house and have good healthcare is a boon to the economy. Certainly, more of a boon than a multimillion dollar bonus to a financier who is already rich. A decent union job is a mini-stimulus package at a time when jobs are scarce and in a country where real wages are all too often stagnant or declining.
Not that the politicians care. Demonising labour has a long and dirty history in America, despite its historical weakness and low rates of union membership. Now, in times of trouble, American politicians have fallen back on the oldest stereotype they know: the evil union. Yet never has demonising the labour movement and the hardworking Americans it represents seemed more out of place.
Comments in chronological order (Total 130 comments)
5 January 2011 11:38PM
These draconian measures and sentiments are the very antithesis of the democratic process - but then again the US gave up on anything resembling that long ago when the corporations took over. How very sad.
5 January 2011 11:40PM
Sadly, the Americans are gullible enough to fall for this....
....it remains to be seen whether the British public is as stupid as our cousins across the pond.
Fightback. Now.
5 January 2011 11:40PM
Powerful unions protecting vastly inflated salaries, out dated work practices and holding back R & D. Yup just what every company needs.
5 January 2011 11:42PM
Paul
Unions in the USA have bussed hundreds of angry mobs into residential neighbourhoods to shout and curse at bank bosses from thier lawns. They have done this while children were inside one of the homes and did it with the conievence of the state police.
Richard Trumka said this week that the Labour union movements first job was not to fight for better rights and pay for it's members, but to fundamentally change society.
And untill very recently they were happily working together with the US communist party to help elect Democrats.
They havesold out themselves and thier members. They fully deserve to be attacked.
5 January 2011 11:45PM
And that’s what they lobbyists and politicians to ensure.
In the UK it’s all the fault of the disabled and unemployed, the US it’s the Unions all backed up by corporate media outlets.
5 January 2011 11:45PM
@GermanicusRex
Powerful corporations protecting vastly inflated salaries, out dated work practices and holding back R & D. Yup just what every worker needs.
I hope you won't mind, I think you made a couple of mistakes in your orginal post, so I've corrected it for you :-)
5 January 2011 11:46PM
The US Unions are so corrupt they make the bankers look like saints. They bank roll the Mafia and Aryan Brotherhood
5 January 2011 11:49PM
The real villains Banks, Corporations, Fox News etc are utilising propaganda that seems to be catching on over here. We must be on our guard for dissembling of information and the usual mantra that manipulates people to believe that there is no alternative!!
5 January 2011 11:49PM
Thats curious have you any proof?
5 January 2011 11:52PM
jesus, the TeaBaggers are out on this one....
5 January 2011 11:53PM
Living here in canada,many here few the US as a powder keg,i wonder why.
5 January 2011 11:54PM
According to the Guardianistas, anyone not working for a weekly salary must be a banker. So when the middle classes suffer they're silent but when the 'workers' are hit, then it's a real tragedy.
A dose of realism amongst the bloated public sector may get them to realize that they aren't quite as indispensable as they thought they were. I'm all for working people but those millions working in non jobs both here and the U.S. would be far better off employed emptying bins. Just last month some council jobsworth walked, uninvited, off the street into a packing and distribution warehouse I own, to 'discover' if we had implemented an equal rights for minorities policy; not that he asked the management of course, he interviewed my employees without permission, without thought for H&S, trespass, security or my insurance cover.
I would take some pleasure seeing him on the dole queue.
5 January 2011 11:58PM
Living here in canada,many here few the US as a powder keg,i wonder why.
5 January 2011 11:58PM
Your quite right red rag to the bullshit.
5 January 2011 11:58PM
And by the way, ALL my waged employees are members of a union and my relations with their union is excellent because their shop steward and area manager think EXACTLY the same as me.
6 January 2011 12:01AM
The death knell for unions in the US dates back to Ronald Reagan. His defeat of the air controllers' union marked the beginning of a calculated plan to destroy unions in the short run and destroy the working class in the long run.
Today, less than 12 percent of American workers are union members. The power of unions has been completely marginalized, with sever penalties for strikes by government workers in any field.
The contributions of unions to candidates for public office is a tiny fraction of the amount dished out by the corporations that control the country. Corporate media continue to use unions as scapegoats, just as they blame the poor who receive social services as leeches on the economy. They never, ever, have held the criminal financial institutions responsible for the destruction of the economy in the US and the rest of the world. Predatory capitalists are raking it in again, and the unemployed continue to stand on food lines without health insurance.
6 January 2011 12:01AM
ngg74 says of the unions:
While Dogtastic says:
Two experts obviously. Perhaps you should meet and try to get your story straight.
6 January 2011 12:04AM
Much as it may seem radical, but the very crisis we are in is because of free-trade, deregulation, and a lack of involvement of employees in the say of their employers operations.
"The right to manage" was the mantra of the 80's, and in the UK, union rights were demolished, entire industries closed down and off shored, whilst the entire counry was propped up on a property debt pyramid.
Of course this was going to work fine all the time that people could be placated with fake property values underpinning mortgage debt and their frivolous spending on cheap goods formerly made by themselves, made from an unlimited supply of commodities.
But high oil prices soon pricked that bubble in 2007, the toxic debt floated to the surface like an unflushable feaces.
Why?
Because big government regulating finance is apparently bad government.
Because workers wanting to protect their industries by being involved in unions and the management process are bad workers.
Yet these are the very principles which underpin the Germany, enshrined in their constitution when WW2 was over, to prevent the sorts of crisis that started WW2.
Well there is never a better start on the path of fascism than bashing unions.
6 January 2011 12:05AM
spot on article. here in spain we've seen a "socialist" government introduce martial law to bring the air traffic controllers to heel. a small, highly paid clique, they're holding the country to ransom...
6 January 2011 12:06AM
The attack on unions is decades old. Clinton did nothing to reverse it, and Prez O has little to show he paid back for all the support he got from them in 2008 (oh, employers will have to post a sheet citing the right to organize...what happened to something real and dangerous= CARD CHECK!) . Now, confounding "over- paid" government workers and unions (no accident government work is the most unionized) the powersthatreallybe in the US intend to turn the little guys against each other, scrabbling for scraps, while the Big Guys feast on.
The error in the last election was not focussing the growing anger on the seriously reduced futures of the vast # of Americans on Wall St. and the conspiracy of collapse that has caused the pain...as a for instance, instead of trying to match Beck, why didn't unions call for a march down wall St. on the anniversary (Sept 17) of that 2008 collapse?
Truly, that should still be the focus...but what party is there for the little folk, honestly, anyway here?
6 January 2011 12:06AM
Once again, I ask why some are moderated, and others are left to say unions bus in mobs to shout at bankers and their children, work with the communist party to elect democrats, bank roll the mafia and aryan brotherhood, etc. These are thoughts completely divorced from any semblance of reality, yet here they are on the Guardian. What's up?
6 January 2011 12:20AM
Let's be very clear: US bankers didn't really want to have much to do with the crisis until the Clinton government told them to lend money to people with no jobs or assets. The Bush government bought this policy intact, and loved it.
Banks would lend to who they were told to (by politicians) because this (a) saved worrying about providing social housing, and (b) kept banks happy, and (c) maintained an illusion that your money was safe.
Oops.
But despite the sins of bankers, doing politicians' dirty work, that does not mean America has a get-out-of-jail free card, a reason to ignore its own venal and corrupt politicians.
America is a broken society, close to a failed state. Reason has left the building.
6 January 2011 12:23AM
Does the guardian get published in america or something?
I swear there's always more articles about the US than the UK in this paper.
6 January 2011 12:28AM
What's happening in America will soon be happening in the UK, in fact, it could be argued it's already begun. It's merely the continuation of the 'neo-liberal consensus' which started in the UK circa 1979.
I wonder who will be getting the blame in 20 years time when the Unions have been all but banished
6 January 2011 12:29AM
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6 January 2011 12:30AM
It may just be a problem of imagination: Americans have some trouble picturing themselves participating in the outright theft of millions or billions of dollars, whereas it's not too hard to fantasize a soft government job that doesn't require much in the way of intelligence or skill but stills pay well and offers excellent benefits.
6 January 2011 12:32AM
Can't say much about what is happening in the northern states, but, having worked in Texas for 16 years in a unionized company which employed plumbers and pipefitters and sheet metal workers, I would have to say that they were very much fighting a losing battle. Not only are unionized companies in direct competition with companies which have no hesitation in hiring illegal aliens at a fraction of the cost, they are finding it harder to recruit apprentices to their training programs - because although the payscales are good, unionized trades as a going concern are pretty much washed up.
My previous employer, who has been in business for over 100 years, is a union employer and is going under. It can't compete in the industry and there aren't people coming through the apprenticeship programmes. General Contractors are requiring a foreman/journeyman/apprentice ratio of 1:2:2 and no amount of duct tape can fix that.
6 January 2011 12:35AM
Hammer the unions at your peril.
The anger will still remain.
Do you want that anger moderated?
Or, vented on the streets?
6 January 2011 12:54AM
I still don't understand why the owner(s) of a company has to pay a union steward to stir up trouble, and tell him how to run the company.
As for the public sector unions, we now spend 2.5 times as much in constant dollars to educate a public school pupil than in the 1960's, with nothing to show for it. The teaching unions should accept some responsibility, or a 60% pay cut. Besides, most states just can't afford their public sector workers.
6 January 2011 1:06AM
@CaptainCrash
"Well there is never a better start on the path of fascism than bashing unions."
Quite right... but don't encourage them!
6 January 2011 1:08AM
You should have mentioned Texas, practicaly Union free, low business rates...it's basicaly the Ireland of the U.S states and it's fucked, massively in debt and having to make enormous cuts yet never gets mentioned by the Republicans as it doesn't fit the narrative, funny that.
6 January 2011 1:14AM
This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be deleted.
6 January 2011 1:21AM
Isn't union-bashing what made America great?
6 January 2011 1:24AM
Unions didn't cause the crash, they're just one of the beneficiaries, particularly the public unions.
The rest of the economy has been put on much more reasonable, self-financing, 401K plans, while public unions continue to enjoy relatively lavish defined benefit packages.
Add to that the fact that government employment actually went up during this recession, and had been growing (at least the civil sector) without halt for 20 years, and you have a wave of under-funded pension programs about to hit in up to 30 states. Wages in the public sector are now above those in the private sector.
On the private sector union front, UAW pension liabilties were traded dollar for dollar for stock, while white collar pensions at the automakers got the back of the court's hand. Add a unique and favorable tax ruling ginned up by Treasury, and you have GM getting a $45 billion windfall over the next ten years.
But wait, there's more. Sen Casey is introducing a bill to put the federal govt on the hook for failed pensions, since the pensions haven't been putting sufficient contributions into the pension insurance fund to cover the coming collapses.
Each dollar in extra wages that a UAW union member gets is one more dollar out of the pocket of, say, a farmer, who doesn't enjoy union wages. Why exactly is that species a justice?
6 January 2011 1:33AM
You know who have an opt out on Obamacare
1. Bricklayers Local 1 of MD, VA and DC
2. International Brotherhood of Trade Unions Health and Welfare Fund - Local 713
3. Local 1102 Amalgamated Welfare Fund
4. Local 1102 Health & Benefit Fund
5. Local 1102 Welfare Fund– Lerner Employees
6. Local 338 Affiliated Benefit Funds
7. Operating Engineers Local 835 Health and Welfare Fund
8. Retail, Wholesale & Dept. Store Union Local 1034 Welfare Fund
9. United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Mount Laurel, New Jersey
10. Indiana Teamsters Health Benefits Fund
11. Service Employees International Union Local 1 Cleveland Welfare Fund
12. Southern CA Pipe Trades Trust Fund
13. Teamsters Local 522 Welfare Fund Roofers Division
14. Texas Carpenters and Millwrights Health and Welfare Fund
15. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1445 New Hampshire
16. Amalgamated National Health Fund
17. Plumbers and Pipefitters Local No. 630 Welfare Fund
18. United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1000
19. 1199SEIU Greater New York Benefit Fund
20. Cleveland Bakers Teamsters
21. DC Cement Masons Welfare Fund
22. Indiana Teamsters Health Benefits Fund
23. Laundry and Dry Cleaning Workers Local No. 52
24. Social Service Employees Union Local 371
25. United Food and Commercial Workers Union (Mount Laurel, NJ)
26. United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1459
27. United Food and Commercial Workers and Participating Employers Interstate Health and Welfare Fund
28. Laborers’ International Union of North America Local Union No. 616 Health and Welfare Plan
29. Service Employees Benefit Fund
30. UFCW Allied Trade Health & Welfare Trust
31. United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1995
32. IBEW No.915
33. Asbestos Workers Local 53 Welfare Fund
34. Florida Trowel Trades
35. Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 123 Welfare Fund
36. UFCW Local 227
37. UFCW Maximus Local 455
38. Local 25 SEIU
39. UFCW Local 1262
40. Local 802 Musicians Health Fund
41. Greater Metropolitan Hotel
42. Local 17 Hospitality Benefit Fund
43. GS-ILA
44. Health and Welfare Benefit System
45. I.U.P.A.T.
46. Transport Workers
47. UFT Welfare Fund
48. PMPS-ILA
49. PS-ILA
Approved Applications for Waiver of the Annual Limits Requirements of the PHS Act Section 2711 as of December 3, 2010
http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/approved_applications_for_waiver.html
6 January 2011 1:41AM
A lot of us enjoy seeing the people who make comments like the ones you mention reveal themselves, and the whole swath of the political and moral spectrum they seek to represent, as ignorant, unpleasant, self-deluding tossers. Think of them as comic relief.
6 January 2011 1:43AM
It seems to me that the ruling class, along with the middle class is determined to destroy the working class and bring on the revolution. Of course they will blame the unions for that also.
6 January 2011 1:43AM
I guess I find Americans more commonly grate more than great, tbh. The country is a smorgasbord of dysfunction and is in steep imperial decline.
The Americans Unions were/are an intrinsic part of the hyper-nationalist culture than has made America sick.
We should not lament their demise. It might, like the looming impoverishment due to indebtedness, be a first step on the road to recovery.
6 January 2011 1:44AM
I wish Unions would do a bit more boss bashing and remind people what the hell they're for.
6 January 2011 1:51AM
Aleatico has posted numerous faux facts:
Unions didn't cause the crash, they're just one of the beneficiaries, particularly the public unions.
chart showing federal government workers holding steady since 1968
http://aleksandreia.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/government-employees-how-many/
federal government workers went up in the recession to carry out the census.
federal government workers have more education then private sector workers. Compare those qualities, and the salary discrepancies disappear.
Last but not least, we have the plutocrats, who were given lavish taxpayer bailouts to crash the economy, walking away from their crimes scot free. Aleatico doesn't mention that once.
6 January 2011 2:04AM
Sounds horribly familiar Mr. Harris. The same thing is happening in Britain. Blame anyone else - the unions, the unemployed, the poor, just don't blame those who caused this disaster or ask them to do anything to help resolve it or - heaven forbid - tighten their own diamond-studded 24-carat platinum belts.
6 January 2011 2:17AM
American unions had their rough edges but we had a far fairer country when they were sgtronger and able to challenge managment effectively.
Man, we are so fucked.
6 January 2011 2:24AM
Yes we are, Lefthalfback. And its going to be a lot worse when they finish destroying the middle class.
6 January 2011 2:27AM
This is one of those rare instances when i side with the conservatives, as far as public sector unions go. My state is held hostage by public sector unions. We pay a large percentage of their health insurance and pensions via taxes, so that they can retire after 28 years, in their early 50's, while we don't have our pensions and medicare kick in until our mid to late 60's. My state's contribution from taxes goes up 18% this year.
6 January 2011 2:40AM
Rip, my brother in law, an HR booking clerk, retired from the US Air Force at 41, we'll be on the hook for his pension for many years to come. I don't mind some adjustments, but I do mind this attempt to destroy unions.
Robert Reich is on HPost refuting many of the above arguments here.
6 January 2011 2:47AM
Ridiculous claims, and easily dismissed, much like your equally hysterical:
These draconian measures and sentiments are the very antithesis of the democratic process - but then again the US gave up on anything resembling that long ago when the corporations took over. How very sad.
Oh, get a grip, ffs.
6 January 2011 2:51AM
What is a union, after all? It's a group of people who join together to advance their common interests and show common cause in negotiating within their place of employment. What on earth is a chamber of commerce other than a union for business? Advance common interests? Check. Show common cause? Check.
For those who stutter "...But it's not the same...", yes, it is. The place of employment of business owners is within the general market. Unless you assume, that there is something inherently different between people who sit in a boardroom and people who clean a bathroom. That they do not share the same freedom of association. Perhaps that, when you are an employee, you are no longer a private citizen. Perhaps that you are somehow "owned" by your employer.
I can understand those who work in the boardroom believing that there should be a difference. I can understand the desire of the more venal among them to try to make that difference real. For the vast majority of us who work for a living, anyone among us who would willingly do the same deserves nothing but contempt.
6 January 2011 2:53AM
@adult
The problem is here in my state, they won't give an inch. If they don't want to be destroyed, then they're going to have to get realistic. Or as least accept some responsibility for performance, in the teachers' case.
6 January 2011 3:10AM
Well they will have to Rip. I'm from british Columbia, which I assure you was and is a union province, but they've become very very flexible and out for the long term goal here.
6 January 2011 3:48AM
bedebyes
5 January 2011 11:58PM
Uh oh! Sounds like the working class can kick my ass, I've got the shop stewards job at last. Buddy, if the shop stewards thinking is the same as yours something is seriously wrong with that union judging by your previously expressed welcoming attitude toward public inspection. Or does your and your cozy shop steward's thinking believe that equal opportunity laws shouldn't be enforced.
I suppose you give all 'your workers' a turkey at Christmas too. Tukey.