On Why Unions are to Blame for Wisconsin

When I was 16 years old I read the Communist Manifesto and it forever changed my outlook on the world. Before, I knew things were made, but it never occurred to me to think about how they were made, by whom, and to who’s benefit. It never occurred to me to consider labor a commodity, and while I always was sympathetic to the working poor, I guess I just assumed that they always had been and always would be. Marx’s words opened my eyes to the possibility that something could be done about it, real change could be made, real people could have a better future. I searched for people who saw things as I did, and found them ... in dusty old books, and no where else.
When I was 18 years old I went to college and discovered the proverbial pot at the end of the rainbow. There was an organization there call the Student Labor Action Coalition (hereafter SLAC). I had discovered Poe’s el Dorado, I was a student and labor action was a passion that I had been waiting to unleash for two long years. I gleefully joined and went to the first meeting ... I sat quietly and listened, at first in apprehension expecting to hear wisdom and bravery and big plans and big action, then in horror as I sat and listened to bickering and nonsense and inane plans to boycott Disney and picket the local Disney store in solidarity to Costa Rican factory workers making Aladdin pajamas.
When I was 19 years old I was the President of SLAC, for the first time I would be manning the helm, there were 12 dedicated soldiers in my SLAC army and I knew that we would march on to triumphant victory ... I reversed course and set out to do meaningful things. At our first meeting I announced that we would not be involved in any more boycotts nor would we participate in the “Free Tibet” rally, instead we would be moving to organize the cafeteria workers and the cleaning service employees of the college. We would be getting them full time status and health benefits and actually improve actual people’s lives. The announcement was not met with the passionate excitement that I had expected, I looked out to the blank stares of the 12 soon to be ex coalition members. It was the last SLAC meeting.
When I was 20 I met Joe. Joe was an organizer for the AFL-CIO ... he had no address, he rode an old motorcycle, he wore a leather jacket and jeans and a t-shirt. I wanted to BE him and settled to know him. Between stints riding his motorcycle off into the sunset to deliver equality and a living wage to the working poor all over our great nation he would come to town and tell me what was going on out there. We would drink coffee on a little terrace and he would chain smoke Drum that he rolled himself and I would ask rapid fire questions, just soaking the poetic romance of it all.  When the time came for him to ride off again I would go back to studying International Labor Relations and Statistics and Calculus and I would stare out the window imagining Joe walking through the fields of a Georgia peanut farm, workers gathered around, giving speeches that would fit perfectly into a John Steinbeck novel. That spring I was beyond words when I was invited to come to South Carolina to help organize the resort workers of Hilton Head , golf caddies and valets and bell boys, room maids, laundry workers, waiters and bartenders. To my utter dismay we did not ride off into the sunset on matching motorcycles but instead in some weird guy’s Dodge Caravan, the two young rabble rousers, the old weirdo and the lingering odor of a dead wet dog that seemed to get worse the further south we drove. The third day of handing out fliers I was approached by a newly organized union member with a minor, legitimate, complaint. He had already gone to his rep and was ignored and wanted to know if I could help. “Of course I can” I knew I could, I knew people, real union people, people who were as passionate as I was. That evening I went to my contact at the AFL-CIO with the young man’s issue, I was sure that it would be resolved and I fantasized that the lazy rep would be reprimanded or maybe fired ... instead I was told to “forget that non-sense” and worry about getting more people to sign up instead. I won’t repeat all that was said because in my heart I still hope that he was only speaking for himself, even if in my head I think that he wasn’t. The next morning I took the bus back north, I never saw Joe again.
When I was 21 and working in a bakery in Atlanta I was standing next to a young, pregnant, Mexican (legal) co worker when a pan that was just out of the oven slid off of a rack towards her and she instinctually caught it with both arms, giving her 3rd degree burns. After the boss told her she had not worked there long enough to qualify for worker’s comp and sent her home, about an hour later, I was fired for telling her the truth, giving her the number to call, sending her to the clinic and then telling the boss what I thought of him and what he had tried to do.
For the past 10 years I have worked for one of the largest corporations in the world, day in and day out, with skilled labor. Never, in my entire life, have I seen anyone as concerned with the well being of workers health, safety and treatment as the faceless multinational corporation I work for. Managers who neglect their workers education and development are chastised and disciplined for it, the workers receive annual reminders of their benefits and options, they are encouraged to invest in the matched 401k, the company offers scholarships for their children and God help the manager who oversees workers who are hurt at work. No, it’s not benevolent ... the faceless corporation knows that these people are valuable assets in need of protection, thru experience they have found that treating workers right and paying them a living wage is the best way to keep them working, productive. Over the past decade as the workers benefits have improved, management’s have been slowly stripped away. We no longer have a pension waiting for us at the end, it became too expensive to fund it any more. Our health insurance covers less and less every year while it costs more and more ... and we’re not special, so it goes at most companies all across our nation.  The American people have lost hope in retirement, private pension have gone the way of the dodo, and the ponzi scheme of social security has shown its ugly face, unsustainable, not long for this world.  Tonight, as the sun sets, workers all over the country will go to be well cared for with no hope of a pension and with the understanding that with each year that passes their remaining benefits will cost them more that the year before.
Except union workers. Their pension are contractual and will be paid until the pension funds go bankrupt ... which will happen. Except government workers, for them the pension fund is tax revenue and they will collect until our nation goes bankrupt.
Unions have spent 100 years fighting for wages and benefits for their members, making production so expensive that it is now cheaper to make things in China/Costa Rica/Burma/anywhere, then ship them here, even with the tariffs designed to discourage companies from outsourcing. American cars are built in Canada and Mexico, Korean cars in Alabama, Japanese cars in Tennessee, German cars in South Carolina, but the UAW is looking around confused, telling its members, the laid off, foreclosed upon masses, that it’s the greedy companies’ fault.
So now the government workers benefits are under assault and there are no cries of support form the country at large, the rest of the country is watching in scorn as the protesters march because they’re only being asked to do what we were asked to do a long time ago, work harder, produce more, and get less in return. Frankly, we’re sick of paying for it, sick of paying for something that we will never have, the unions missed the boat, because when it was happening to us, they were fighting to get their people more, as economic forces have cost me half my pay and forced 14 million Americans into unemployment and made my benefits more expensive the government workers have gotten cost of living raises ... where was the AFL-CIO and SEIU when my pension was canceled, the same place they are now that it’s their turn. The unions have turned their back on America by ignoring reality, by enforcing sweetheart contracts through their friends in government, by refusing to allow for the fact that the world had changed. When unemployment and foreclosure and property tax default soared years ago, the writing was on the wall, cuts were coming and the unions did not act. No suggestions, no plan ... just get what we can while we can, full speed ahead.
In Wisconsin the governor had choices to make and he proposed an end to the collective bargaining rights of unions or layoffs to close the budget gap, and the union shouted NEITHER! NO! America is not outraged on the union’s behalf just as they were not outraged on our behalf, it is high time that the medicine be taken. So, although I dearly love teachers (both those who taught me, and my friends and family who teach) and I dearly love police and firemen (friends and family who serve their communities) and I dearly love those who work in government (my Aunt) .... if the money is not there, then the money is not there. In 2010 I made half of what I made in 2005 and my benefits now cost double what they did then, I work the same 60 hour work week and have the exact same job ... and I know I am among the lucky ones who have a job. Public union members, be glad that you are only being asked to pay a bit more, that you are only being asked to give up a little, the rest of us have had to give up much, much more. Now, put your signs down and get back to work.