BAD Reads
Labor Day
Landismom, a regular here and the author of the fabulous blog Bumblebee and Sweet Potato asked for people to write blog entries about what Labor Day means to them, so here goes with what I am afraid is one of the more cynical entries she will receive:
I come from union people. My paternal grandpa worked in the garment industry and benefitted from the union. My great-uncle was a typesetter with the NY Times, and when they went electronic, thanks to the union he and his fellow employees left with a severance package that let him live in comfort for the rest of his life.
My mom's family were not union workers, but they were liberal/radicals and believed in the unions with all their heart and soul. I grew up on songs like Pete Seeger's "Talking Union", the story of the Triangle Shirt Factory fire, and other such stuff.
So I grew up believing that unions were great and good things.
Then I went to work for the NY Public Library and became a union member. And found that my union dues were getting me a paid prescription plan and not much more.
The union didn't seem to be too concerned with getting us a medical plan that actually covered me for anything, or regular pay raises that would have enabled me to live affordably in New York City. Instead their main concerns seemed to be human rights in Central America (this was the 80s) and the union softball games.
Every few years a new contract would be negotiated. The cops and firemen's unions would get their share first, followed by the sanitation workers and then the teachers. And as Berke Breathed so aptly put it in Bloom County:
The librarians and the rest of the municipal employees' union came after the teachers. If they had a grape, we had a raisin......
When I moved to my present job, my income went up $10,000 a year INSTANTLY. And I get annual cost of living raises. Usually I get a yearly merit raise as well. I have health insurance that covers me--when the girls were born, the only thing we paid for was the private room!
There's no union. The police, the fire department and everyone else except the teachers come under the same basic salary scale. Yes, the police and fire get more, but it's all part of the same package. Negotiations are for ALL city workers.
The unions did a tremendous lot of good for the working people of this country. But once they got to a certain point they stopped. They got drunk on political power and left the people who were their rank and file behind.
As a result, union power has diminished. And companies like Walmart can come in and get away with a lot because the unions aren't strong enough to make them treat their workers fairly, and labor laws have become lax.
I don't know if unions will ever become strong again. I sincerely wish they would because I can see a lot of things they could be doing.
We need better conditions for working parents--we need a REAL Family Medical Leave Act. Governmental support of QUALITY day care so that parents can work and so that their children can thrive.
We need better educational opportunities for laid off workers from industries that can't compete with foreign companies. A lot of these folks thought they were set for life despite minimal education and now they're finding it hard to make it in our increasingly high tech world.
And we need universal health insurance that covers ALL workers and their families--insurance that travels with them even if their jobs change!
I know that there are a lot of dedicated union workers out there. But they are below the top layers, where political games are played and the ideals the unions were founded on are little more than pretty words spoken at union conventions and political rallies.
And down at the bottom are the people the union is REALLY about. The teachers. The factory workers. The grocery store clerks. The municipal employees. All the people who do the jobs that keep our world running and want a fair share for themselves and their children.
When the unions start being about those folks again, I'll be sorry I have a non-union job.
But until then, Labor Day is just another paid holiday for me.....................
