Labor Day

I am in the office alone today. The rest of my team is off enjoying labor day. I wonder what it means to them other than a paid day off. What is the state of labor in America? In my industry there are few dirtier words than "union". The populist brain trust of the construction industry will complain about a lack of skilled craftsmen in the same breath that they cuss the unions. Silly as this may seem, it is not entirely the product of narrow thinking.

Early on I was going to set an example and unionize my own shop. The carpenters union was not at all interested in a single tiny shop in Brazos County. Where is the example of a well trained workforce?

As narrow minded as the construction industry is, so too are most "liberals," myself included. We talk about labor in the USA as if it is not connected in the world market. Furthermore we seem to prefer polarization to common ground with conservatives when it comes to the idea of preserving American jobs. We have failed to connect the dots of high wages in this country with jobs going to lower wage markets. We have failed to make the point of a need for labor and environmental laws in other countries. Instead we have ceded this argument to a simplistic blaming everything on the unions who drove the cost of labor up and drove jobs overseas.

Unions tend to be sacred liberal icons. The place where questioning skepticism is quieted. They are protected by a fence built entirely of the examples of corporate abuse. I'm sorry but that is a frail fence that has lent itself to the failure of American unions. Let there be no doubt that unions have been fine champions accomplishing great things for well deserving workers. But let's face it, they are, to a large degree, a mirror image response to the abusive corporations that they have stood up to. The problem with both large companies and large unions is that they are not proportioned to a human scale. The workforce has changed but unions were to big and fat to change with it.

The world seeks holistic populist reform. I do not see American unions as being a part of these changes. While corporations were becoming multinational, unions insisted on being provincially isolationist, protecting American jobs without consideration for workers elsewhere. If any narrow thinking liberals are paying attention to this they are likely to point out the feeble attempts that some unions have made to influence national policy in these regards without recognizing that those efforts came late and were only aimed at providing cover for American jobs rather than sincerely seeking to expand the benefits of an empowered workforce.

That is the weak link of capitalism. Just as corporations have the singular goal of maximizing profits for their shareholders, unions have the singular goal of representing, not the ideas of democracy in the workplace, but of their dues paying members. This inevitably creates a competitive rather than collaborative environment. In the parlance of the 90's it is not win/win. In the parlance of today it cannot be sustainable.

One way to introduce at least the possibility of a better integrated economy is to keep it local. Local businesses tend to have a broader interest than the profit of distant shareholders. They recognize the needs of their community. Even if not entirely altruistic, they are more inextricably tied to the well being of the community that they are in. The quality of schools, streets and life all come into play.

Of course some well funded industries operate on the sort of short cycle keeps them from a longer term perspective. As we look to the November election to fill the vacant council seat, which candidates are representing all of the citizens of College Station and which are reporting to donations being made from a single industry. We are fortunate in College Station to now have campaign finance reports published on the city's web site so we can see where this funding is coming from. Unfortunately, we still lack the sort of campaign laws that would prevent donations during the last two weeks of the campaign so that we could go to the polls with full disclosure of donations.

So what are your thoughts of the modern state of labor?