Unions have proved themselves redundant

By Jim Thompson
For The Highland County Press
My grandfather was killed in a coal mining accident in southern Indiana on Monday, Nov. 24, 1930. He was buried on Thanksgiving Day.
My dad, who had graduated from high school the previous spring, was the oldest of six kids and worked in the mine with his dad up to that day. He never went back, but had a marvelous career of his own I hope to tell you about some day.
He was part of Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation."
When my dad was living, he talked of making decisions in the early 1930s, when thrust into the role of family breadwinner, such as shooting rabbits with a .22 instead of a shotgun because .22 shells were cheaper. For meat, they lived on rabbits. And the price of shells was very, very important to the family's national and personal Depression budget.
John L. Lewis, a great American, served as president of the UMW, the United Mine Workers of America, from 1920-60. Through the efforts of union leaders like Lewis, the American worker received protections that would have prevented my grandfather's early and senseless death.
Mr. Lewis and the UMW were leaders in mine safety. One of the landmark pieces of legislation during Mr. Lewis's tenure was the Federal Coal Mine Safety Act of 1952, the first act to authorize civil penalties for the non-compliance with the mine safety laws. This union saved many lives in its day.
Last week, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, along with Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, survived a recall election run by unions which John L. Lewis would not recognize.
These union leaders, and their troops, were not interested in workplace safety, true protection of workers or anything that remotely resembled the goals of unions back in the day. They were trying to preserve outsized salaries, outsized pensions and protect incompetent members.
Even the mighty Mr. Lewis knew you could not win such arguments, especially when funded with tax dollars.
At one time, all the Democrats knew this. Franklin Roosevelt, as quoted in the New York Times on Sept. 16, 2011, is reported to have said, "It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government." And of course the reason is simple and can be explained by a sixth grader: public worker union bargainers sit across the bargaining table from elected officials their members elect. They are bargaining with themselves, which is why things have gotten so far out of balance today.
But the unions face problems far beyond the moral hazard of bargaining with themselves.
Those problems are simply these: They lobbied Washington long and hard for worker safety, anti-discrimination laws, and pension reform. In the end, their lobbying efforts paid off – the very government they lobbied passed laws and took over their job.
Between protection for whistle-blowers, to OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act), EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), the Americans with Disabilities Act and a plethora of laws protecting the workplace from discrimination, bullying and who knows what else, there is nothing left for the unions to do.
And don't forget constantly checking up on whether or not you have a diverse workforce, a watchdog function not only monitored by the government but by hundreds of special interest groups, ready to hold any big business hostage that does not comply with their wishes.
Yes, the sad truth is unions have become obsolete. It was a long time coming, but it is now here and the death throes will not be pretty. The longtime gravy train, especially for the full- time union organizers and leaders, will be most difficult to abandon. People may die in the streets before this nasty situation is over.
When I say it was a long time coming, I can back this up personally. My first trip to Wisconsin was in the fall of 1973. My job was to supervise taking apart some equipment from an industrial plant in north Milwaukee.
It was only a couple of years old, but the tax and labor situation in Wisconsin was so bad this customer, and many other similar industries, were going to the expense of relocating to right-to-work states in the South. To my young eyes, as I drove into this operation each day, it looked like the whole industrial base was trying to leave that fall. I went by block after block of businesses that were doing the same thing my customer was.
I don't know if we are seeing the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end, but the 130-year reign of unions in the United States is on its last legs. In some ways it is indeed sad. But like every other thing we spend our money on, we stop when it becomes unnecessary or ineffective. Certainly, for the most part, that is where unions find themselves today.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga., following decades of wandering the world, and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.
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