The Sickness Of The Unions
Benson, Herman
After years of effort and expense, the Fund for the Republic's Trade Union Project is coming to an end. One of the rare products of this concentration of talent, resources, and contemplation is...
...some unions are "tardy" in lifting racial bars and Negroes are disillusioned...
...This comes to mind in pondering Barkin's long list...
...And people say...
...As Barkin puts it, labor's public image is "sullied...
...This, too, is at the heart of the liberal disenchantment with unions...
...Barkin's work is ample evidence that the liberals' criticism of labor has had its effect...
...Suppose in analyzing the character of a man we wrote: he has been out of work for months and people say he is an embezzler...
...there is jurisdictional squabbling where there should be unity and centralization...
...members are apathetic...
...The author concludes by prescribing solutions for a multitude of big problems...
...In actuality, only "some" proven cases of misconduct were acted upon and that was long ago...
...In the Painters Union in New York City, mass trials of dissidents have just concluded with the expected fines and suspensions...
...He, however, does not...
...That's about it on corruption, hardly an adequate treatment of a wracking problem...
...white-collar and professional employees grow in numbers but remain suspicious of unions...
...his political opinions are primitive...
...That would be the crux of everything...
...most ignore it...
...he smokes, avoids great literature, watches TV incessantly, and irritates the neighbors...
...This concept has now been written into law and has to be fully implemented...
...he drives without a license and passes through red lights and is said to have murdered a friend...
...It is a crisis of moral standing...
...A passing word mentions "scandals that have engulfed some leaders of organized labor...
...But if there are proper grounds for the liberal's dis trust, a deeper operation is required...
...Barkin does not attempt to reply...
...at the most extreme, he becomes a gently chiding, somewhat disappointed but loyal member of the family...
...That said, we hasten to add that his pamphlet is nevertheless welcome...
...because on one of the key issues of our day, democracy, his talents for research and analysis fail...
...one arm is shorter than the other...
...The crisis of unionism is not a crisis of diminished numbers and lessened power...
...some unions are insensitive to the need to organize...
...Barkin has been Research Director of the Textile Workers Union of America for twenty-five years and is not one to rush angrily into headlong criticism of unions...
...But are they right or wrong...
...It appears compounded of so many simultaneous, interlocking, and deeply implanted social, economic, and historical factors that no single generation of mortals could work its way out: union membership has fallen...
...Yet, the AFLCIO has abandoned its crusade against crooked officials and the Ethical Practices Committee is moribund...
...His pamphlet is important as the symptomatic expression of the state of mind of a highly regarded union staff intellectual...
...These are events which "sully...
...some workers will not heed the union call...
...women are slow to join...
...The recent convention of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union staged a sickening Moscow Trial type of demonstration, complete with conspiring Trotskyites, unanimous votes, and public recantations, against FOUR, the little union of staff employees...
...unions must adhere to democratic principles in making their decisions on all issues affecting employees...
...He never tells us how far they are, now, beyond reproach...
...others demur...
...Internal democracy suffers the same neglect...
...Any change inside the labor movement must be spurred on from outside...
...organizing staffs are inadequate...
...the decent, socially enlightened wing of labor seems unable even to raise the issue for renewed action...
...A short paragraph ends "Unions have at times undertaken to uproot proven cases of misconduct and to halt abuses that have been publicly documented...
...That is not the worst of it...
...This is only part of a long list of troubles that Mr...
...It has not been welcomed with unanimous acclaim in the labor movement...
...If the "sullied image" is the product of a misunderstanding, then a campaign of enlightenment and public relations would be adequate...
...his economic philosophy is uninformed...
...There is a cer tain scope to it all...
...Barkin refers to the "misbehavior of individual union leaders...
...He ignores the subject until page 71 where, in one of his briefest prescriptions, he advises...
...Barkin's scrupulous treatment of sensitive subjects that he writes carefully only of "some" leaders when misdeeds take place but neglects that qualifying "some" when praise is distributed...
...labor's "public image" is "sullied...
...Barkin evades these critical issues...
...Simple rights that we take for granted in a democratic political community are customarily suppressed in some of our most powerful unions...
...enemies say he tortures dogs and children...
...The author never faces up to this question, as we can see in two examples: More than any other fact, exposures of corruption have damaged unionism's public standing...
...Taft-Hartley and "Right-to-Work" stand in the way...
...In a fleeting phrase, Mr...
...Yet, in this sweep something vital is missing...
...the remedy for the illnesses is to cure them...
...It is characteristic of Mr...
...To put it bluntly, Mr...
...Otherwise, everything is cluttered together with everything else...
...That raises the question: are liberals justified in that misgiving...
...Mr...
...He maintains the demeanor of an analytical scholar...
...The stewards of the movement must be beyond reproach...
...In the Papermakers Union the Administration is busy cutting down a reform movement which represented half the last convention and elected almost half the International Executive Board...
...his taste in ties is atrocious...
...low-wage workers remain to be organized...
...he misses church...
...Barkin merely notes that some liberals "stressed the need for more internal democracy...
...Barkin sees and he recommends a "drastic overhaul of spirit and structure" in eight pages...
...And yet, as it is sketched here, "the decline of the labor movement" will surely seem overwhelmingly and unmanageable to the reader...
...employers resist fiercely any advance of unionism...
...social discontent is dulled and the spur to unionization blunted...
...That drastic transformation in spirit which Barkin desires, requires the efforts of decentminded labor leaders, liberal intellectuals, and rank-and-file reformers...
...One of the rare products of this concentration of talent, resources, and contemplation is a 75-page booklet by Solomon Barkin, "The Decline of the Labor Movement and What Can Be Done About It...
...just or unjust...
...and that is how it should be read...
...When the author sets out to discuss labor's crisis we need help in determining which facts are actually central to that crisis and which are chronic, long-term, nagging difficulties...
...By helping to continue the public discussion, he helps the liberal world prod the conscience of organized labor...
...jobs disappear in unionized mass production...
...Yet the answer is quintessential...
...Unionism is in trouble not because it is weaker but because the liberal community has come to distrust its power...
...It is not an "official" work but it echoes the sentiments of many alert labor leaders and staff intellectuals...
...some unions have praised it...
...In all this, some qualities might be more significant than others...
Vol. 9 • July 1962 • No. 3
