Today is the
25th anniversary of President Reagan's firing of the Air Traffic Controllers who went on strike to seek benefits and wages comparable to their colleagues in other counties. Ironically, the PATCO union was one of the few that had broken ranks to support the election of President Reagan a few years earlier.
I was in high school and didn't care.
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Over the next 25 years, a lot of automobile and steel manufacturing jobs were lost to other countries with less costly salaries and benefits to maintain for their workers.
I was in college and noticed the job losses, but didn't care. In fact, I was jealous of the high wages and benefits that the union workers were getting compared to my entry level salary after going through the effort of getting a college degree. I didn't challenge the Republican message that the job losses were a result of union greed. I didn't care.
After making a pretty good living in High Tech, launching new products from our labs to our local factory, my company hit on hard times when the Internet bubble burst. We all took pay cuts to prevent layoffs. Then the company had to layoff anyhow. We all took on extra work to get us through the bad times, and we made it. Then we started closing factories in the US, and expanding our operations in Malaysia. I worked closely with a lot of folks in Malaysia and was impressed with their dedication. I think they are nice people, but I was sad to see so many of my neighbors lose their jobs. But we all accepted the transfers as necessary to compete in the Global economy. I cared, but there was nothing I could do.
After several years of really hard work and wage freezes, we turned the company around. But it wasn't enough. Many of my new product budgets were cut and I was told that we were closing a design division in Washington as soon as their part of the project was completed. I was to take over my colleague's work and finish the rest of the project so we could put it to market.
The entire site in Washington was disillusioned. Usually we work hard on a project, and it isn't until after it has shipped to customers that we start seeing the benefits of profit-sharing and other results. So these guys worked extremely long hours for the good of a company that no longer had a use for them. And I was keeping my job only for the luck of geography. My colleague and I did the same work and had the same skills. He could have been me. We all cared, but there was nothing we could do.
After we had been profitable a while and management had gotten some raises, I started to wonder if I would ever get a raise. Unfortunately, I was told that there were too many people looking for work with my job skills and our salaries were competitive with the market. I didn't get a raise even though my costs of living had gone up over the last 3 years, and a lot of our benefits were cut. I cared, but there was nothing I could do.
Management then told us to increase profits they were going to close even more production lines in the US, and outsource our warehouse operations to a third-party. We didn't really like this idea. A lot of my colleagues had gotten their start in the warehouse, and then worked their way up to procurement and materials. A lot of our best design engineers started out as technicians and production engineers in the factory. They were good because they knew our instruments inside and out. We didn't understand where the next generation of good engineers would hone their skills. We cared, but there was nothing we could do.
Because of the extra work we had taken on, a third of my department including myself started suffering from repetitive stress injuries. I used to think that folks who complained about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome were whiners. I learned the hard way that it truly sucks. Now every word I type is painful, and sometimes I have to ice my wrists at night because I am woken by the throbbing. I am able to keep it under control by stretching often, but I am reminded every second that my life has changed because of the extra work I took on for my company.
I started to wonder who was to blame for the job losses, and realized that I was one of the few non-supervisors who was in daily phone calls with Malaysia. Although I was just following orders, I was enabling the job losses. I knew that management had a duty to maximize profits for the shareholders, and that to keep jobs in America for community and patriotic interests would have not held up their fiduciary duty. So I did the only thing I could. I suggested that the US employees form a union, to give management the justification they needed to keep jobs and moderate profits from the US factory.
Management wasn't pleased. They refused to let me use our electronic newsletter to organize an employee association to look at the pros and cons of unions. They said that although softball teams, bowling leagues, and other non-work groups were allowed to advertise, they wouldn't let a group organize for mutual benefit. I was forced to bring charges with the National Labor Relations Board. The case wasn't decided for over a year, after which I had grown tired of the harassment from my boss and poor job reviews. I resigned rather than continue to enable the job transfers.
I'm not fond of unions or any bureaucracy, but I think Americans deserve a viable choice to organize to protect their working conditions. I support Labor rights, and wish that more Americans cared. Labor has grown weak and our Democratic leaders and candidates rarely speak out in support of labor rights. Meanwhile, Republicans win elections because the union vote is no longer powerful enough to carry Democrats.
You and I are the only ones who can make a difference. We have to spread the word, because the unions are almost dead, and the Democrats are not focused on labor. Here are two actions that we need to take. Every American who cares about the quality of the country we give our children should go to these links and personally support labor rights. No one will do this for us, and our children are too young to care.
Please support the bipartisan Employee Free Choice Act!
Protest Kentucky River decision at NLRB