The Nation's Pulse
Rusthoven, Peter J.
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...In this, America's organized working men are no guiltier than many another segment of this society, and indeed, stand out in many ways as a rather attractive portion of the population...
...The current influence of organized labor is not, of course, graven in stone, and may yet be subject to some healthy erosion...
...And more fundamentally, the belief that legislation is the answer to any serious difficulty belongs to a philosophy which reasonable men should reject...
...In the never-ending contest for the allegiance of Senators and Representatives, organized labor far outdistances its competitors, holding an esteemed place in the councils of the majority party...
...Popular irritation with exorbitant wage increases and, in particular, with irresponsible strikes by public employees shows every sign of growing...
...And in Boston, on the eve of its second year of turmoil under a court-ordered busing plan, both police and teachers are contemplating the merits of work stoppages as a means of contributing to the Hub's current difficulties...
...The latter was content to close the incident by grandly announcing, "Foreign policy is too damned important to be left to the Secretary of State...
...The sentiments, moreover, have found practical as well as rhetorical expression: right-to-work laws and the current federal prohibition of secondary boycotts are but minor antagonists in a legislative drama in which the upwardly mobile minimum wage law and the thoroughly pro-union National Labor Relations Act dominate the stage...
...The impact of this power on the American economy has all too often been predictably deleterious...
...Bombastic tirades about the evils of corporate influence are much in vogue these days, but I submit that there is neither a corporation nor even an industry which wields power as regularly or as effectively as the AFL-CIO and its numerous satellites...
...One suspects that Calvin Coolidge—who as Governor of Massachusetts catapulted into national prominence by remarking, during the Boston Police Strike of 1919, that "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time"—would be turning in his grave, were it not that his spirit even now probably recoils from such demonstrativeness...
...It , o A. (.• ---, 111, Organized Labor: Unworthy of Its Hire Recently, the United States had one of its infrequent encounters with that commonplace of European domestic politics, the political strike...
...Productivity in this country has risen some 20% since 1967, a figure which trails far behind the overall pay increases negotiated during the same eight-year period...
...The economic experience of postwar Britain is more than just a word to the wise...
...truckers become distressed, as they did last year, with rising fuel prices, and a "River Rat" Edwards is ushered from his rig to the inner chambers of the White House, a newly anointed spokesman for the working man...
...The most immediately disturbing aspect of American unions is the truly extraordinary power they are able and willing to exercise...
...While the relatively brief walkout by the longshoremen seems a strong candidate for this year's award in the category of collective presumption, it is at bottom but one in a series of events that indicate the increasing truculence of American labor...
...Politicians, intellectuals, and the press do regular, ritualistic homage to the working man, and seem at times a noisy claque for the virtues of unionization...
...In Chicago, a walkout by 27,000 teachers has shut down the city's entire public school system...
...And remarkably, America's unions carry this off with an air of seigniorial right that would arouse the envy and astonishment of a Henry VIII...
...At this writing, disruptive and potentially dangerous strikes literally span the continent...
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...Indeed, it is no longer idle speculation to wonder if George Meany or a successor of equal or greater belligerence will be able before this decade ends to play labor's ultimate trump card by calling a general strike...
...Unless and until this country debunks the philosophy of expectation, that power will no doubt continue to strike out in greedy and irresponsible directions...
...It is the problem of a nation that elevates a book called Getting Yours to the best seller list, of a society whose pundits preach that private retaliation is the proper response to perceived injustice...
...The remonstrances of various civil authorities proved unavailing...
...Intervention in international affairs aside, no other actor in 30 The Alternative: An American Spectator November 1975 the private sector can, on its own volition, bring important sectors of local, state, and national economies to a screeching halt...
...It is in short a problem of selfishness and a corresponding lack of a sense of public virtue...
...Policemen in San Francisco, who at a starting salary of some $17,000 are among the highest paid in the nation, have struck for still higher wages...
...an Albert Shanker tires of negotiations, and classes do not meet in New York City...
...I remember vividly the satisfaction with which one highly effective executive described to me his successful firing of a particularly nonproductive shop steward without causing the union to bring arbitration proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board...
...After apparently concluding that the Administration's decision to allow new sales of wheat to the Russians was a thoroughly unwise policy, the International Longshoremen's Union articulated its disapproval by refusing to load the vessels waiting to transport the grain to the Soviet Union...
...it is a veritable tome of warning about overweening union power which is beginning to be read by this society...
...How many management spokesmen, for example, could contend that "foreign policy is too damned important to be left to the Secretary of State" without evoking the vociferous ire of every enlightened journal from the New York Times to the Village Voice...
...And one even hears occasional rumblings from Washington about subjecting unions to antitrust legislation, a proposal which as recently as five years ago was anathema...
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...While single-cause explanations of inflation (currently running at a heady 8+% annually) are both inadequate and misleading, it is clear that inordinate union wage demands have more than played their part...
...But as with everyone else, constant repetition of the theme that failure to fulfill one's every expectation or desire must mean that "someone is screwing you" has had its effect on them, an effect magnified by the expansive power which they collectively possess...
...At a word from Leonard Woodcock, the automobile industry comes to a standstill...
...While these developments would be welcome, however, their potential contribution toward making organized labor a more limited and responsible force is at best a marginal one...
...New York, already facing bankruptcy as the consequence of years of irresponsible largesse toward its municipal employees, is threatened with strikes by a host of public servants who insist that the city's response to its much ballyhooed financial crisis feature neither cutbacks nor layoffs...
...For our problem here as elsewhere is not one of law but of spirit...
...However, following a hurried White House summit between Gerald Ford, President of the United States, and George Meany, President of the AFL-CIO, the dock workers resumed work at the behest of organized labor's aging Chief Executive...
...But possibly, in this era when police do not patrol, teachers do not educate, and dock workers assume the right to advise and consent to the foreign policy of the United States of America, some thoughts on the dangers organized labor poses to the fabric of this society are in order...
...of teachers, purportedly in the business of educating children to responsible citizenship, cheerfully violating the law in pursuit of a fatter paycheck...
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...Laws prohibiting strikes by public employees, for example, exist in virtually every state but are honored almost exclusively in the breach...
...This achievement had required devotion of considerable time over a two-year period to the task of compiling a detailed, documented record of absenteeism, tardiness, drunkenness, etc., all to make it possible under the laws of the United States to fire an incompetent whom no intelligently run business would retain for a week if able to act freely...
...Criticism of organized labor is an unpopular theme in this country...
...America does not observe a "Management Day," and no doubt never will...
...The nation, in short, is witnessing a sorry spectacle of union-sponsored disruption that up until a few years ago would have been difficult to imagine...
...Similar tales, most often with a pro-union denouement, fill the pages of the NLRB reporter...
...It is a problem of policemen, charged with protecting the public, being willing to use the safety of the city as a bargaining chip for higher wages...
...This story is far from unusual, save perhaps in its result...
...Perhaps more fundamental, however, is the degree to which unions can undermine efficient operation of American industry...
Vol. 9 • November 1975 • No. 2
