This newspaper never has been known as the voice of labor. But just so you know, I used to carry a union card.
I paid dues to the Retail Clerks International Association. And I was grateful. Thanks to that card, I got paid $4.50 an hour to stock shelves at the A&P. With time-and-a-half on Sundays, I saved almost enough to pay for my first year of college. My buddies in high school who worked at Jewel Foods weren`t so lucky; they belonged to one of those ”company” unions and were paid only $3 an hour.
That was 25 years ago, but I`ve never lost a basic sympathy for what unions have accomplished-and still try to accomplish-for the American worker. Besides, the home in which I grew up was more blue-collar than white. My father, the screw machine engineer, wasn`t a union member. But Mac never had any illusions about why his company gave its employees paid vacations, health insurance and weekends off. The unions won those things. Maybe management would have seen the light eventually and provided them. Then again, maybe not.
I bring this up because a lot of people in my business come from white-collar or professional backgrounds. Many are quick to dismiss organized labor and Big Labor`s cause. They think unions are an anachronism. A few even equate them with organized crime. I never bought that line.
So much for the personal preamble. The point I want to make is that organized labor is making its defenders look bad.
Big Labor is screwed up. Doesn`t have a clue. Couldn`t find the door with a flashlight.
My change of attitude is based only partially on this year`s strike by the United Auto Workers against Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc. Check out the front-page series in this week`s Tribune and ask yourself whether organized labor will ever smell the coffee.
The UAW might have learned an important lesson in Peoria. It might have learned that if manufacturing is going to have a future in this country, manufacturers will need to get-and stay-competitive in a global marketplace. And it`s not just the products that must compete. Labor also must. American workers need to become as cost-effective as those in Tijuana and Taiwan.
If they want to get paid more than workers in those places, they will have to add more value to what they make. That means our workers must go high- tech, constantly learning how to run the most sophisticated machinery and processes.
This also presumes that our corporations will continually upgrade plants and equipment. They`ll have to resist the temptation to put yesterday`s technology in the hands of the cheapest labor they can find.
All of this will require unprecedented amounts of cooperation between labor and management.
And that`s why I`m really down about organized labor on this Labor Day weekend.
I`ve been reading about the so-called ”Apache” attacks that the UAW has been staging against General Motors Corp. A well-placed strike here, a cleverly timed slowdown there, all to get GM to stop ”outsourcing” work to non-union suppliers.
Hit `em where it hurts, the theory goes . . . like the stamping plant in Ohio that supplies critical parts to GM`s Saturn plant in Spring Hill, Tenn. Saturn, of course, is GM`s hottest-selling model, its best hope of retaking market share from those Japanese Hondas, Toyotas and Nissans. By week`s end, the walkout at that one Ohio plant had succeeded in idling 42,900 workers at nine GM factories. Analysts figure this Apache raid-launched to protect 240 jobs in Ohio-is costing the company $30 million a day.
GM had just begun to earn a profit again after losing $7 billion last year. It has shaken up the front office, reorganized its divisions and slapped a freeze on executive bonuses. It has even started to design cars, such as the Saturn, that people want to buy.
But it also has announced plans to cut its unionized work force by 50,000-and that`s what is behind the Apache raids. The head of the union`s GM division, Stephen Yokich, wants to send the company a message about next year`s contract renewal. He also wants to show the membership how tough he is. He hopes they`ll elect him to succeed Owen Bieber as president of the union.
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So instead of offering cooperation, the UAW offers Apache raids. Instead of sending up a long-term strategy to protect jobs by getting the company back on its feet, the UAW shuts down its biggest money-maker.
Such is the mind of organized labor on Labor Day 1992. Stick with the tried and true. Talk tough. Shut `em down when you need to.
No wonder union membership is down to 11 percent of the work force.
And come to think of it, there aren`t any more A&P`s around here, either.