Labor Pains in Wisconsin

Is it union-busting or responsible fiscal management?

It’s been really interesting to me to watch as the Wisconsin labor issues have been unfolding this week. It’s become a battle between wage-earners and those with all the power and money, and who knows how it will lay when its all unfolded.

My formative years growing up were spent in a blue-collar neighborhood. My buddies when I was growing up had dads who were carpenters and truck-drivers. Most were part of a union – at least the lucky ones were. While in my house and around the dinner table, unions were something spoken of in negative tones, it was a very different picture I got from the kids I hung out with.

It wasn’t that my dad was harshly anti-union, it’s just that his perspective was that the unions had too much power, and could influence the running of a company to a degree he didn’t like. I think that as the years went by, he became more anti-union.

Intellectually, all the arguments I was armed with were anti-union. The focus was on the corruption and greed. That’s the side of organized labor that I saw. This came to a head in my mid-20’s, when I had a job as a truck driver in a union shop. It was a good job, but after a short initial period, it would require that I join the union. Once I joined the union, then union dues would start coming from my paycheck, and I felt like I might fall off the dark side of an issue.

Then, one morning, I was headed to a job with one of the senior drivers. While he wasn’t the shop steward, he was clearly a senior member of the crew. I could tell that it was his intent this morning to make sure I understood that I’d need to go down and join the union, and he was looking to find out where I stood on things.

Bill Shelley was his name, (spelled like the poet, I recall him telling me), and I can remember the conversation like it was yesterday. Bill was a big burly fella. On our drive, I spoke honestly to him about my problem with unions as a whole, and my discomfort with the fact that I now would need to join one. Bill’s response floored me. While I expected a harsh confrontation from this big burly guy, what I got was a sensitive and understanding response.

He understood clearly how I could feel this way. He understood that the press painted organized labor in a negative light, so it would be pretty hard for anyone to feel positive without first-hand experience. There was no option for me to continue to work there without joining the union, but there was great understanding on Bill’s part regarding how I might feel like I did.

Bill talked a lot that morning about how organized labor in general had benefited his family, and most of the folks that he lived and worked around. He had some truly inspiring first-hand stories that he shared with me. It was one of those moments when my world-view was shifting dramatically – I was being forced to see things from a different perspective than I’d seen them before.

Bill helped me see that the only reason decent blue-collar neighborhoods existed was because organized labor kept wages high enough to allow a middle class to exist. Take that away, destroy the blue-collar working class in this country who makes enough to live a decent life, and how long can the country last without beginning to look like the feudal economies our forefathers ran from when they built this country?

“Class” is a concept Bill was comfortable talking about. He had no problem with the idea that “class” was alive and well in the country. In fact, it was a person’s ability to identify strongly with a “class” that was a critical component to a healthy society in his opinion. He was proud to be part of a “working class”, and was willing to fight to make sure that his working class didn’t get pushed into the sewers by those with all the power and money.

Corruption? Sure there was corruption in organized labor. There’s corruption in any large organization. It’s part and parcel to the human condition. There’s nothing unique to the concept of organized labor that makes it any more or less corrupt than AIG, Enron, or Congress to use examples from today. Does the media attack the concept of government or the concept of “corporate america” as bad ideas just because corruption exists within their walls?

Fast-forward.

Everything Bill talked about has come to pass. The press has continued for decades to paint organized labor in a negative light. Those with the power and money have continued to bust unions and weaken organized labor for 30 years. The watershed event was when Reagan busted the Air Traffic Controller’s union, signaling a brand new era when it’s OK to bust labor, because the press will support you.

As Bill predicted, wages in America have plummeted as organized labor has diminished. In the late 70’s, I was an independent businessman who hired casual labor. Generally, I paid about $10/hr for casual labor. Sometimes I could get by for $8/hr. Today, I’m an independent businessman who hires casual labor. I still pay about $10/hr for casual labor. With inflation, that’s probably about equal to paying $3/hr or so back when Bill Shelley and I were having our conversations.

Sure I like that my labor cost is low. But keeping that labor cost low in this country has resulted in the loss of a viable and strong working middle class. The folks I hired back in the 70’s had families, and they supported those families with their hard work. The folks I hire today couldn’t possible support a family on wages. Moms and dads work multiple jobs just to try and pay the rent. Discretionary money for “nice things” is a myth they’ve heard about.

While all this has been happening, the wealthy classes in America have Congress bought and paid for. Firmly in their pocket, they’ve assured that we’ve lowered their taxes, regardless of the fact that doing so has driven the nation to the brink of bankruptcy. Unlike the average American family, Congress seems to believe that you can cut your revenue without reducing expense, and there will be no consequence to pay.

The result? We’re broke. We didn’t just dig this hole this year or last year – we’ve been digging it for 30 years. The hole we dug happened because we took money from our budget, and gave it to the taxpayers. Sure everyone benefited from those lower taxes, but those who benefited the most were those with the most money. I’m a taxpayer – I like paying lower taxes. But the cost of those lower taxes has been this deep financial hole we’ve dug for ourselves.

I’ve know folks who’ve learned how to manage money from Congress. They go out and spend lots of money on things they want, and just charge it to the credit card. I watch it happen, knowing full well where it leads. It takes a while, but eventually the chickens come home to roost, and they wake up in bankruptcy. They rarely understand how they really got there – they always want to blame some recent event – look for something that caused this to happen to them. They hardly ever take real accountability and make the lifestyle changes required to dig out of the hole – a hole that will probably take them a lifetime to dig back out of.

That’s where we are right now. We’ve spent 30 years digging this hole by spending more money than we take in. As a behavioral scientist would predict, we’re not taking accountability for our actions – accepting that all those tax cuts we bought year after year on the credit card is what’s put us in a place where we can barely service our debt. Instead, we’re looking for someone to blame for our problems.

And in Wisconsin, the governor has found someone he wants to blame. Working folks. He figures that the media has done such a great job of denigrating organized labor that there just won’t be many folks who’ll sympathize with them, and that in the end, this is his chance to bust the unions. Apparently he’s said as much on a phone call.

There aren’t many bastions of organized labor left in our nation. There’s no doubt that busting this union will save the state some money, and there’s no doubt that this is a great time to attack organized labor if that’s what you want to do. But, I suspect that there’s been no real and genuine attempt to take the money first from all the places that need it less than working men and women.

Trying to balance budgets on the backs of working men and women might reap some short-term gains for folks with power and money, but in the long run, it’s bad policy for the nation. Keep taking away from that big middle of America, and who’s left to buy all the crap we want to import from China and sell from the shelves of Walmart?

Bill Shelley was right-on. I feel fortunate to have gotten some insight from him 35 years ago. I only wish his wisdom could be heard over the din of the media elite.

I want to point out that there’s no mention of Democrat or Republican in this post. This isn’t an issue of Democrats or Republicans, Left or Right, Conservative or Liberal. This is an issue of supporting working men and women in our country, and looking for ways to strengthen our economy. Our economy gets strong again when we revitalize that vast working middle class in the country. Slashing wages and the ability of those workers to organize does the opposite – it continues down the path of destruction of our vital working class.