AHC: U.S. unions successful in damage-controlling the 1970s?

[Sam R.]

I think there's an overemphasis on what the labourite tradition call the parliamentary or political wing of the movement. The determinate wing for union strength is industrial. Particularly if it can package industrial militancy as controllable (we're talking unions in capital, not syndicalism, as the aim).

The IWW(Chic) and CIO built out of militancy first. The Spartacists League (ortho trots) show this was possible independently in the 1930s. More over, bad laws were made to be broken. There's more to be said for commos and red diapers sending their children to college instead of the tools than for political dependency theses. Neither the IWW nor CIO were dependent.

Yours,
Sam R.

 

[Francisco Cojuanco]

I think there's an overemphasis on what the labourite tradition call the parliamentary or political wing of the movement. The determinate wing for union strength is industrial. Particularly if it can package industrial militancy as controllable (we're talking unions in capital, not syndicalism, as the aim).

The IWW(Chic) and CIO built out of militancy first. The Spartacists League (ortho trots) show this was possible independently in the 1930s. More over, bad laws were made to be broken. There's more to be said for commos and red diapers sending their children to college instead of the tools than for political dependency theses. Neither the IWW nor CIO were dependent.

Yours,
Sam R.

Maybe a more militant response to Reagan firing striking air traffic controllers in '81? The conclusion of the Strike of '81, even though it was a strike of civil servants, even according to folks like Greenspan led to private sector management dealing with a more compliant labor movement and emboldened forces trying to discourage labor organization. Of course, a more militant approach for PATCO is hard POD-wise, since when they went on sickout in 1970 and the courts enjoined the strikers to go back to work, they did, even though the government was forced to the bargaining table, and they ironically endorsed the Republicans in '81 because of poor labor relations with the Carter Administration. In 1970, the strike-in-all-but-name paralyzed air traffic for days. In 1981 Reagan just sent in scabs and the Army to work the towers. There's a chance that blocking the entrances to the towers would force Reagan to come to terms like Nixon did in 1970 (though there's an equal chance that Reagan forces the scabs through by force - of course, that creates its own dynamic).

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

If I might propose a somewhat simpler solution -- the US passes Universal Health Care. Can be SP Medicare, Nixoncare, what have you, but so long as it's in place before the worst of the economic dislocations of the 1970's come to pass, unionz will be in a much better position to increase disposable income earnings for American workers, rather than having inflating health care costs eating up money spent on labor and taking up their negotiating power.

 

[Nightingale]

If this is what they are going for, then unions might find it easier to just join the Republicans. Unions don't even need a straightforward Populist economic program really, they could be pro free market capitalism on most issues but just push for pro labor and union policies as the exception. Republicans could even compensate business and capital with much lower taxes than OTL if they support unions, effectively combining business, labor, and social conservatism in one party.

But in order to support workers, you need to take away much of the costs of stuff like health care from them. Lower taxes too much and you can't really support unions that much then. Many in business in the US are resistant to that.

Or, maybe you're saying that it's like the Japanese LDP: Social conservatives, big business, small business, agriculture, and professional groups combine. But this time, labor joins them. Japan achieved UHC in 1960, so I guess that can be possible.

So maybe "conservative" in the sense that they're "statist" and not libertarian in economic policy. In this case, the overall impact would be that the Republicans would be developmentalist, like the East Asian conservative parties and the German CDU.

 

[GeographyDude]

If I might propose a somewhat simpler solution -- the US passes Universal Health Care. Can be SP Medicare, Nixoncare, what have you, but so long as it's in place before the worst of the economic dislocations of the 1970's come to pass, . . .

For without this change, company keeps wanting employees to pay a bigger percentage of rising health costs. So, basically you find yourself in the defensive position of negotiating to avoid what are essentially pay cuts.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Back in the 1970s as a young construction laborer & Teamsters member I acquired the opinion the Unions were too focused on wages & neglected a lot of other actions that could have attracted support....

Work place safety.: Pushing that in the public mind, for labor across the board, and for public safety from high risk operations could gain a lot more than what was done.

Health Care: Greater support for universal health care could have gotten the unions a lot of positive press. The US was very close to this in the early 1970s. Perhaps broader Union support could have over come the political games of the moment.

Better job of distancing from organized crime. The association of Unions, true or false with the Mafia & other aspects created a strong negative feeling in the general public.

Pro Education: The Unions base was skilled labor, but a anti education vibe was visible in the 1970s. Associate better in the public mind Unions with job skills, high tech trades, & continuing education.

Prefessional Support: There was a deep division between the labor unions and skilled professional organizations in the 1960s & 70s. Bridge that & make a stronger connection to upward mobility through the trades and professions.

As it was in the 1970s the Unions were to often associated among my peers with corruption, anti education, wage greedy, and strictly blue collar images. Move past all that as the 1950s fade & the Unions have a chance at broad relevancy to the larger US population.

 

[big-click]

Lots of good ideas in here. I do think that the PoD would have to be sometime in the 30s, 40s or 50s - no Taft-Hartley and no anticommunist purges would be incredibly helpful in building union power both on the shop floor and in Congress. But if we want to be utopian here...

During the 70s, the social transformations of the 60s entered the labor movement as well - you had young members of the United Mine Workers standing up against the corrupt and murderous Boyle administration, female clerical workers (9to5) and Latina garment workers in Texas and black textile workers in the South all organizing, and the famous multiracial and counterculture-shaded Lordstown auto strike. Jefferson Cowie opens his book Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class by portraying all these hopeful signs for a more diverse and robust labor movement. He then spends the rest of the book showing how Nixon's kulturkampf strategies and the neoliberalism of the Carterite/post-Watergate Democrats strangled that potential.

In a TL where the labor movement was never hampered by the right-wing backlash of the late 40s and early 50s, and labor came to control the Democratic Party, Nixon's and Carter's projects would never have worked. Perhaps labor would have been dominant enough through the 1970s that those social movements could unfold within it uninterrupted - cementing a racially- and gender-diverse, blue- and white-collar labor movement as a backbone of American life.

 

[Francisco Cojuanco]

Back in the 1970s as a young construction laborer & Teamsters member I acquired the opinion the Unions were too focused on wages & neglected a lot of other actions that could have attracted support....

Work place safety.: Pushing that in the public mind, for labor across the board, and for public safety from high risk operations could gain a lot more than what was done.

Health Care: Greater support for universal health care could have gotten the unions a lot of positive press. The US was very close to this in the early 1970s. Perhaps broader Union support could have over come the political games of the moment.

Better job of distancing from organized crime. The association of Unions, true or false with the Mafia & other aspects created a strong negative feeling in the general public.

Pro Education: The Unions base was skilled labor, but a anti education vibe was visible in the 1970s. Associate better in the public mind Unions with job skills, high tech trades, & continuing education.

Prefessional Support: There was a deep division between the labor unions and skilled professional organizations in the 1960s & 70s. Bridge that & make a stronger connection to upward mobility through the trades and professions.

As it was in the 1970s the Unions were to often associated among my peers with corruption, anti education, wage greedy, and strictly blue collar images. Move past all that as the 1950s fade & the Unions have a chance at broad relevancy to the larger US population.

A lot of this though comes up against the attempts of the cultural and economic elite, including those notionally pro-worker, finding ways to trash labor unions in the 60s to 90s. You have to convince people that the raison d'etre of unions isn't obviated by postwar prosperity, in an environment when the media and the tastemakers really want that assertion to be true.

 

[Sol Zagato]

You need a POD where unions are less often a dead weight dragging their companies down, as happened in the US. But it seems inherent to a system where one side sticks up for the worker and the other for profits, and there's so much antagonism to start with. How do you avoid it?

 

[Analytical Engine]

You need a POD where unions are less often a dead weight dragging their companies down, as happened in the US.

They were in the UK for a long time as well, but they are still here.

However, the UK has a significant left-wing party, whereas the US...does not.

But it seems inherent to a system where one side sticks up for the worker and the other for profits, and there's so much antagonism to start with. How do you avoid it?

Germany's managed pretty well so far.

 

[SOAWWIISoldier]

There is a book I'm reading that points out that the CIO pushed for Universal Healthcare in the late 1930s.

Racial Realightment
Eric Schickler

 

[Sol Zagato]

Germany's managed pretty well so far.

I was specifically thinking of Germany as having better union-company relations. However, what was the key policy that made it happen?

I mean, really, was it just the law?

 

[Analytical Engine]

I was specifically thinking of Germany as having better union-company relations. However, what was the key policy that made it happen?

I mean, really, was it just the law?

Well, they have also have (a) a centre-left party, and (b) a more interventionist-minded centre-right party. So I'd say political culture helps as well.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

I was specifically thinking of Germany as having better union-company relations. However, what was the key policy that made it happen?

I mean, really, was it just the law?

Half of corporate boards by law had to be seated with union reps and rotated every year IIRC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany
Since they could make sure that corporations weren't screwing them or spending money against them in propaganda like in the US, they never lost their influence in society. Also German unions didn't have a history of screwing over their people, as their leadership was rotated too and certain issues like UHC were already decided (unions came out against it in the US repeatedly until recently, because quality health insurance was soemthing they could deliver in contracts). Beyond that corporations have a lot less political influence and power thanks to German election law and the way their parliamentary system works and was structured after WW2 (everyone wanted to make sure German corporations couldn't push another Hitler). It's a hole bunch of issues, but having a rotating union leadership, much more activated and cohesive labor base, and of course power on corporate boards among other things is huge. Learning about the modern German labor system really shows how screwed over American workers are and how ungodly powerful American business is politically and socially.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

You need a POD where unions are less often a dead weight dragging their companies down, as happened in the US. But it seems inherent to a system where one side sticks up for the worker and the other for profits, and there's so much antagonism to start with. How do you avoid it?

Thats why I brought up the point about education & skills. To repeat my opinion from the 1970s the US unions had become to focused on wages & job security through contracts, vs guaranteeing a skilled labor service for the employer in exchange for the higher compensation. In the late 1970s & early 80s I was working on the quality control side of the construction industry. that experience made it clear the superiority of high skilled labor vs lower & semiskilled. The customers who paid for high standards & getting tasks done correctly the first time round forced the contractors to use the higher skilled/higher wage labor, which was usually union. Customers who selected by price point got contractors who were using less skilled labor, at all levels including management. The result was a higher amount of rework, delays, failed inspections, and failing product post acceptance. During my occasional forays into manufacturing the same was visible. Strictly price pointing labor & balancing low skill labor with increased supervision is not a dependable strategy. In my own business since the mid 1990s I've operated both ways, taking on low skilled labor to keep that cost down. It worked for specific situations, usually short term, but the extra supervisory and training cost made it a money loser as a primary strategy. Currently my operation is very small, but I refuse to cut costs on the labor side. Less than 20% of my labor cost is towards low or semiskilled labor. By using labor needing minimal supervision I can concentrate my own time on true management issues like sorting out customer specs, materials selection, operations scheduling. I don't waste much time discussing quality failures and corrections with employees, coaching techniques, trouble shooting tools, ect...

 

[Oldbill]

I have to second what Carl said. Additionally, Unions all too often kept people in that should have been put out. Job security is good, but keeping an employee who has intentionally hazarded others is unacceptable, and I've seen things like that happen all too often. That practice alone gave us quite a black eye.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

If I might propose a somewhat simpler solution -- the US passes Universal Health Care. Can be SP Medicare, Nixoncare, what have you, but so long as it's in place before the worst of the economic dislocations of the 1970's come to pass, unionz will be in a much better position to increase disposable income earnings for American workers, rather than having inflating health care costs eating up money spent on labor and taking up their negotiating power.

Problem was the unions fought UHC because they wanted to be able to negotiate for something in contracts.
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/a-brief-history-universal-health-care-efforts-in-the-us

After WWII, other private insurance systems expanded and provided enough protection for groups that held influence in American to prevent any great agitation for national health insurance in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Union-negotiated health care benefits also served to cushion workers from the impact of health care costs and undermined the movement for a government program.

For the next several years, not much happened in terms of national health insurance initiatives. The nation focussed more on unions as a vehicle for health insurance, the Hill-Burton Act of 1946 related to hospital expansion, medical research and vaccines, the creation of national institutes of health, and advances in psychiatry.

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . Job security is good, but keeping an employee who has intentionally hazarded others is unacceptable, and I've seen things like that happen all too often. . .

Holy Shit.

I'm going to assume it's like the bad old days of a Catholic priest sexually abusing someone and the hierarchy assumes some half-measure like sending the priest to counseling is going to be enough. Or, the way we used to handle domestic violence with ineffectual half-measures like the police just talking to the husband.

That is, the person way misjudges the seriousness of the situation, maybe in part because he or she doesn't want to admit that they don't know how to handle it.

And then you have stupid after-the-fact justifications, and that's the real galling part and where institutions really go astray.

 

[marathag]

But it seems inherent to a system where one side sticks up for the worker and the other for profits, and there's so much antagonism to start with. How do you avoid it?

Germany's managed pretty well so far.

German style Worker's Councils are expressly banned by FDR's NRLB. He wanted at purely antagonistic system, and got it, rather than getting both sides to work together

For example, IG Metall would never stand up for workers doing shoddy work, absenteeism and being drunk on the job like UAW has. The US Labor/Management is just too toxic, for too long

 

[Nightingale]

German style Worker's Councils are expressly banned by FDR's NRLB. He wanted at purely antagonistic system, and got it, rather than getting both sides to work together

For example, IG Metall would never stand up for workers doing shoddy work, absenteeism and being drunk on the job like UAW has. The US Labor/Management is just too toxic, for too long

How do you prevent that?