FROM PAGE NINE “LABOUR MYTHS” The truth is that union-organized work- places are more productive than non-union shops, plants and offices. Because union wages are higher, usually 10-15 percent, there’s lower turnover. Fewer workers quit to improve their pay, and that helps increase productivity. Because job security and promotions are negotiated and fair, there’s more co-opera- tion among workers, and productivity goes up because of that. Two Harvard University professors found that union and non-union firms can com- pete despite the fact that union organized employers pay more because “unionized workers are more productive” — 24 percent more productive. A North Carolina State University econo- mist, Dr. Steven G. Allen, discovered in 1979 that in the construction industry, output per employee “is at least 29 percent greater in unionized establishments.” “Unions,” says Allen, “provide public or collective services benefiting both contractors and workers such as training, job information, and esprit de corps ... If these services are ignored, an unbalanced and inaccurate view of unions results.” 16. Unions care only about them- selves — they’re just another special interest group. No matter where you look, unions are involved in things that make the commun- ity better. Unions have always lobbied to pass on to others the benefits unions won in bargaining. Medicare ... prepaid dental insurance... income when you’re offsick... pensions. In cities around Canada you'll find union- build, non-profit housing. You’ll find unions working with the United Way, providing scholarships for young people to go to university, and promoting sports for youngsters. Unions inspired the civil rights move- ment in Canada and helped found and still support the Canadian Civil Liberties As- sociation. Far from a “special interest,” unions represent the public interest. Unions look ‘greedy’ or ‘selfish’ because they confess their goals publicly in collec- tive bargaining. Says Canadian Senator Carl Goldenberg: “‘Banks don’t have to bargain to raise prices. Workers are the only group in the community that has to bargain in public and take all the consequences of public bargaining.” 1 Te. Unions once were necessary, but now they’ve outlived their useful- ness. Unions will never be out of date so long as some people control the lives of others by determining for someone else how much they earn or work or what kind of job they are entitled to. The idea that unions aren’t useful any more is one of the oldest myths. The New York Commercial Advertiser in 1830 commented that those who joined unions were “lost to society, to earth and to heaven, godless and hopeless, clothed and fed by stealing and blasphemy ... Such is too true a picture in all its parts of some of the leaders of the new movement which is emerging from the slime...” It’s because everyone needs some help sometime and everyone wants a say where they work that unions remain necessary. Doctors, dentists, teachers, firefighters, actors, police officers, architects ... all these people have united to protect their interests. Even well-paid professionals such as sports stars have unions as watchdogs on their employers, the owners of the teams. Says Ed Garvey, executive director of the National Football League Players’ Associa- tion, “Only the totalitarian mind would equate human freedom with salary. It seems to me that no person who works for a wageis really free — or controls his/her own des- tiny.” As change in life speeds up and the struggle for jobs and income becomes more competitive, unions will be important secur- ity to more and more people. 1 8. Nobody wins a strike. It’s assumed that workers have the most to lose when they’re forced to strike or when they’re locked out. After all, since most companies have more than one operation, the company loses some income and profits, but not all its revenue. Research in the U.S. sheds some light on the real costs of strikes. Says the Financial Times of Canada (June 18, 1970), “Employ- ers often wind up being the bigger losers in industrial disputes.” Of course the employer saves money by not paying wages to the strikers. But there are other costs: overtime when the dispute is over, training new workers to replace those who find jobs somewhere else, operating two plants just “so that if one plant is strikebound the other will continue to operate.” At one company with 500 employees a four-week strike cost the firm $3 million — about three times what labour costs would have been in the same period with more than enough to pay all the union’s proposals. What these statistics mean is that strikes aren’t always the fault of the union. Far from it. According to a management consul- tant, Woodruff Imberman, writing in the Harvard Business Review, “Although cor- porate executives commonly assume that lost net earnings represent the true cost of a strike, such figures fail to take account of a strike’s other significant financial effects.” The implications are that management, by not knowing the true cost of a strike, stum- bles into a dispute or arrogantly believes “we can take it and save money.” 19. Unions protect employees who should be fired. No union contract requires an employer to keep a worker who is lazy, incompetent or constantly absent or tardy. What the union does is make sure dismissals are for ‘just cause’, for real reasons, not personality clashes between supervisors and employees. Research into decisions by neutral arbi- trators who reinstated workers, deemed wrongly fired, shows that most of those workers were still on the job a year later. They got a second chance to keep their jobs, thanks to their union. That’s what a union contract is, job insurance for good employees. If you can’t do the job, you can’t keep it. Yes, some older employees can’t be fired as they once were when they’re considered not as useful to their employer. Women who have a union can’t suffer discrimination from their boss. In that way, unions do protect people’s jobs. That’s the purpose of a union. Some management people understand this and support it. Says the chairman of The Continental Group, Robert S. Hatfield, one of the world’s biggest firms: “When I first started working in a factory in 1936... The whim of the boss could make the difference, and sometimes that meant swal- lowing a lot of abuse, with no way to talk back ... It came home to me then, as never before, that human dignity is very precious ... Now when I think of the humanity and dignity that underpins the relationships today of all working people ... I know that our unions have a lot to be proud of, because it was the union movement that spear- headed the effort and made it happen.” 20. Unions don’t really represent their members’ interests. Far from being undemocratic, unions suffer sometimes from too much democracy. Leaders are elected by their union conven- tion or by mail-back ballots. Ifunion leaders don’t reflect their members’ interests, they are in trouble. Ottawa newspaper columnist Richard Gwyn, a former advisor to cabinet mini: ters, says, “Just consider the alternatives @ corporations, professional associations; political parties, government bureaucracies, universities — and it becomes plain that unions, are the most democratic of the lot.” There’s more proof. For years in Ontario union members have been permitted by law — even encouraged — to complain to the Labour Relations Board if they felt their union was ‘arbitrary’ or ‘discriminatory’ or didn’t fight hard enough for their griev- ances or defend their interests. Of more than 4,000 local unions in the province only two were found to have failed to represent their members fairly in 1979. A pretty good record. W hy do labour myths still exist? The ancients made up myths to explain phenomena that were too complex or fright- ening. Natural disasters were caused by gods making war. The existence of darkness and the change of seasons were explained as the action of the gods of the harvest or sunshine. In the same way, myths about unions are attempts by people who don’t have real information to explain things they cannot — or will not try to — understand. The growth of unions is a world-wide effort by employees to control their lives. When the workers in Poland started a general strike in 1980, their demands were for unions that truly represented them. They wanted collective bargaining in much the same sense as most workers have in this country. Unions must do their part to remain responsive and to communicate more effec- tively so that more people support union goals. Too many people think unions just want “more,” and too many believe that “more” was the desire of the first president of the American Federation of Labour, Samuel Gompers. His reply when asked what labour wants wasn’t selfish, but altruistic. Here’s what Gompers really said, in 1893. “What does labour want? We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge, in fact more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures ...” Perhaps unions have “image” problem: because they are exploding myths by mak- ing people face unpleasant reality. There really is unfairness in the workplace. Many people don’t earn enough money to live on. The famous American lawyer Clarence Darrow defended many unionists who were jailed and wrongly accused of sinister plots at the turn of the century. Darrow’s words are reminders of why unionism will remain relevant for a long, long time. He said in 1904, in a pamphlet supporting the idea of the union shop (where everyone getting the benefits of the contract must pay dues), “No one claims that all trade union- ists are wise or even honest ... Neither is trade unionism an ideal institution. It was evolved to serve a purpose and to perform duty in the upward march of thehuman x ..- It’s mission is to protect the weak agains the strong ... But when its work is done, and class struggles are at an end, trade union- ism will be no more. Then all men will be brothers, and the highest good of all will be the fond desire of each.” CUPE The Public Employee 10/Lumber Worker/January, ,1981