Unions-Underpinning The Middle Class

Unions in America and elsewhere have helped workers escape total domination by employers by giving workers some say about their working conditions, pay, and benefits. By achieving significant improvement in all of these things, unions have helped non union workers advance too, as they have provided a floor, a foundation, for workers in many jobs by setting standards. Sadly, in more recent times, unions have diminished, and elements of American society want to move in for the kill. Without unions to protect workers, ALL workers are at risk, not just unionized workers. Once the standards go, LOOK OUT! It is not a coincidence that as unions have declined, so has the middle class. It is not a coincidence that as unions have declined, the percentage of income going to the very top of the American income scale has increased tremendously. The opponents of unions will do just about anything to stamp out the remaining elements of American labor to gain total domination. Folks, we cannot let this happen.

I grew up in a neighborhood where unions were seen as the means (see Word History below) to help workers have a better life. I've never forgotten where I came from, although I never belonged to a union. In fact, for many years I was in small business, a neighborhood "blue collar" bar, as they were often called back then. I had Teamsters, Steelworkers, Ironworkers, chemical workers, United Mine Workers, Postal Workers, bakers, tobacco workers, meat cutters and many more. My father was a Steelworker for about the last 14 years of his working life. Of course, many, if not most, of my former customers have now passed on, but I still think of them as certain things trigger a return to those times and to some of the individuals, in my mind.The past is nice to visit, but you have to leave it. With the Labor Day holiday here, it is nice to remember those workers even long before my time who gave so much to help themselves and other workers have a chance to move up in life and have rights and dignity. It wasn't easy, as conservative big business interests fought them every step of the way, sometimes hiring "security" personnel to beat the hell out of protesting workers. Now I'm not claiming that workers have always been innocent in the history of the American labor movement, but let's also not forget, the forces and financial resources arrayed against workers have usually been far greater than workers could ever muster for their own side. And while violent labor-management disputes make headlines, many disagreements are settled with minimal disruption of anyone's life.

In my neighborhood there was a large furniture store. The deliverymen were all Teamsters. The owners and the workers naturally had their differences, but they usually ironed things out. There was an occasional strike, but such strikes were never violent or very long lasting, as I recall. In fact, I was a customer of that store and had an account there.* One time, during a brief strike, my bill was due, and the Teamsters who patronized my bar told me to just mail in the payment, because I would NEVER have crossed a picket line, even to pay a bill for things that were bought before the strike. But this just shows there was no great animosity toward  the company by the workers. One of my Teamster friends, neighbors, and strong union man who worked there was Norman. His brother was also a Teamster for another company, and if memory serves me right, he became an officer of some kind in the Teamsters (small level). Norman was a big man with a booming laugh who was liked by everyone. The main owner of the furniture store liked him too. Norman was a great kidder, and one time he went into the office at the store and started tapping keys on their register. It turned out he hit enough numbers that rang up a sale for something like $250,000!!! The owner laughed, but told him that she'd have to figure out how to explain to the IRS that this huge sale was an error.

All the furniture lifting caused hernia troubles for Norman, but strong union man though he was, the owner arranged for him to work in the warehouse organizing the orders to go out every day, although he could have been let go for being unable to lift things. It just showed the lack of hatred on either side.** I'm a little reluctant to tell this next story, because the man involved may still be alive, although well up in years (this happened in the mid 1970s), but I won't use his name or too many details. Briefly, this guy also worked for this same store. He was fired for drinking on the job, after several warnings. The other Teamsters liked him, but they had also tried to talk sense into him, but they failed. When he was fired, he naturally expected the Teamster local to go to bat for him, which they did, but without much passion. Even Norman, a strong union man and good friend of his, just couldn't go all out for him. I knew the local representative, who talked to me and said the union decided to do what they were expected to do to help another Teamster, but that was it, they would not press matters. I remember to this day his telling me, "This is not a bad company to work for.  Yes, we have occasional issues, but they are basically reasonable and they gave the guy more warnings than required by our contract. I wish all of the companies we deal with were like this one." I tell this story only because I've heard in more recent times people say how unreasonable unions are, as if they're always trying to undermine companies. That's not true. Unions have an obligation to represent their workers, who, after all, pay dues. They fulfilled that obligation in this case, by making the company document the reasons for the guy's firing and whatever the other technicalities were. I remember too, a retired Teamster, and good union man, for a rival furniture store saying about the guy, "You can't endanger everyone's job over someone who just didn't heed the warnings." Norman was VERY outspoken, and though he was a close friend of the guy, he really got him one day in my bar, as he tried to get the guy to straighten out his life. We've all needed a little "telling" at times in our lives, including one Randy.

Well, I hope today's workers look back on their predecessors and gain strength from what those folks did to overcome adversity, because they're going to need it in the well-funded anti-union environment in part of today's America. I just hope Americans come to their senses before it's too late, because the loss of unions will mean the underpinnings of the middle class are gone. Gee, I sure wish Norman were still around to shake some sense into Americans.

* Unlike today, many stores of various types had their own charge account plans for customers. 

** Norman passed away in late 1981, only about a year and a half after his retirement.

WORD HISTORY:
Middle-This word goes back to Indo European "medhyos" (from the root, "medhi"), which had the notion of "among, in the midst;" thus, "middle." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "medjo," with the same meaning, which spawned West Germanic "midjila, which gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "middel," which also came to be spelled "myddle," before the modern version. The adjectival form gave rise to the noun in Anglo-Saxon times. The other Germanic languages have forms too, usually adjective and noun, but I'll only give one form for each here. Understand, the general meaning of "middle" is also present in the other Germanic words, but often also that of "a means of conveyance." This comes from the notion of a person in the middle, in between or medium way between sides, conveying something to the other side.^ German has "mittel," Low German Saxon, West Frisian, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish have "middel," Icelandic has "methal," and Swedish has "medel."


^ German makes great use of "mittel" in compounds too numerous to mention, among which is, for example, "Lebensmittel;" literally, "life's means;" that is, "food." English uses the borrowed word "medium" from Latin, and related to "middle," as it is from the same Indo European source, for the idea of "means of conveyance;" thus we have "media," a plural firm, a term for conveying information. Also "medium" for a person who conducts a "seance;" not that I believe in such stuff, since... ah, what's that voice I hear? Hm, it's in Oberhessisch too. Wow! My great, great, great, great grandfather in Emsdorf, Germany!  Note: Emsdorf, in Oberhessen (Upper Hesse) was the site of a somewhat famous battle during the "Seven Year's War." In America the war came to be called "the French and Indian War."