"Reaganomics? First, Bust the Unions!"

After years of concessions being steadily written into Union labor agreements across the board, it is now apparent that for so long as there exists an able, yet desperately unemployed American who will "work for food," or a poverty stricken waif abroad, or perhaps an abused prisoner somewhere in the world "willing" to perform similar labor at little or no cost, then we American workers apparently must expect a downward tilt to our recompense for labor offered until it is finally equal to that of the lowest common denominator to be found. We must be competitive, after all, right?

This seems to be the expectation of our corporate "citizens" and the GOP Senators who serve them to the exclusion of the interests of the majority of Americans in the middle class. But those of us who earn a paycheck for our labors must now stand firm against these insults and threats. We must at last strongly oppose these efforts to further accelerate the downward slide of the American workers' standard of living which has been challenged so ruthlessly these last number of years.

I have worked as a truck driver in this economy for over thirty years. I started out as a member of the Teamsters Union, and I worked for a company where I presumed I would stay until I retired. In the early '80's, however, the company chose to bust the Union and presented its workers with a unilateral demand that its workers accept a 30% reduction in pay accompanied by a severe cut in benefits. Many of us declined the "offer" with all the respect it warranted, inviting the company to "Kiss my ass!" while moving on to other employment.

After all, the company offered no reasoned explanation for the need of such wage reductions. Was the company cash-strapped, you might ask, or did it find itself otherwise unable to make a reasonable profit? No. The owner of the privately held company joined the Fortune 500 list of wealthiest Americans soon after reducing his workers' wages. Was the company hindered in its growth for having to honor collective bargaining agreements with its workers?  No. The company had in fact grown to become the largest less-than-truckload fleet in the country, while its turnover rate and accident rate and customer satisfaction rate were all the most favorable of any in the industry.

Why, then, did the company bust the Union? Why would it rob its workers of family-supporting jobs and replace them with other offers of employment doing the same thing, but at a pay rate so poorly regarded that its employee turnover rate soon exceeded 100% per annum - a rate, incidentally, that has continued for all these years?

The answer is that the company's owner busted the Union simply because he could. Ronald Reagan had shown the way in 1980 when he refused to negotiate with the Air Traffic Controllers and instead simply replaced them with cheaper labor. The company I worked for took notes, and was subsequently only one of many such companies that seized the opportunity offered by "Reaganomics" to simply walk away from labor agreements and unilaterally grab a bigger share of the profits for themselves.

Workers in America were not always treated with such disrespect. When I entered the workforce in the early '70's, there was a common understanding that labor agreements - and the collective bargaining rights of the workers who negotiated same - were to be honored in a belief that the workingman's (and woman's!) contribution to the burgeoning consumer economy was equally as important as that of the managers/owners for whom they worked. The investor/owners received a return on their investments sufficient to encourage continued growth of the industrial plants that made the products consumers desired. Laborers, for their part, were awarded wages and benefits sufficient to place them firmly in a middle class that would achieve a standard of living able to support the purchase of the consumer products being manufactured.

Henry Ford had been among the first proponents of this economic system that served everyone's interests. In assuring that the fruits of production would be distributed among both labor and management, the system provided a sensibly elegant, closed circle method of making the economy work to the benefit of all of society. In this way, both owners and laborers worked as partners to achieve an ever improving lifestyle for all Americans as a consequence of all the efforts and investments rendered.

Corporate greed - attended by increased corporate ownership of our elected officials - has now all but trashed the system. The result has been a nearly obscene increase in short term profits for the "investment" class of owners. Yet the long-term cost will undoubtedly be disastrous, for the ruthless greed run rampant has all but eliminated the ability of the working class to participate in this economy as consumers.

Left unchecked, the day of reckoning will soon arise wherein these corporate powers will come to understand that there is indeed no limit to the virtual slave labor they can find to manufacture their products. But there will be great concern expressed by these same corporate moguls when they subsequently realize that there are no longer any consumers available to purchase the products they make.

I'd rather not simply find satisfaction in being able to say "See? I told you so!" at some incredibly painful point in the not-too-distant future when the economy totally grinds to a halt. The ramifications of this short-sighted pursuit of greed are simply too threatening to the stability of this Republic to allow it to continue.

Instead, the time has come for the grown-ups to take charge and once again establish democracy within our economy and therefore assure that it always continues to serve the interests of all Americans.

Next Up -

CLASS WAR: "Say, Don't You Remember? You Called Me Al!"

CLASS WAR: "I Ain't Your Human Resource!"