The
Conservatism of Unionization
July 2002
The American labor movement is to be praised – not only for
its contributions to economic and social equality but for helping the Democrats
fall a tree across the highway of unbridled capitalist excess that led to the
great depression.
But labor’s success helped create the conditions for its
demise. It grew too big, and thus often corrupt and fundamentally undemocratic.
Now unions often stand in the way of new and progressive
opportunities for workplace democracy based on holistic, human scale relationships.
I cannot speak specifically to the health care situation in
Often they create a whole new set of problems.
The worst of these is an increasing litigiousness,
which feeds off the adversarial atmosphere that the formalization of conflict between groups inevitably produces.
More and more details of a worker’s life become bargaining
chips at the negotiating table. Stakes are raised to ridiculous proportions in
a dance of deceit that is time consuming, depressing and expensive. Egos become
increasingly involved and the adversarial character of workplace relationships
is escalated to still higher levels.
The potential for commonsense, compassion and cooperation is
replaced by the reality of controversy, contentiousness and conflict.
I see this happening at the
Workplace conditions will not improve. How can human
relationships improve when human beings are set apart from one another – locked
into roles that are inherently divisive?
With every E-mail I get from the union I am more and more
convinced it wants me to believe that the management at UVM is unfair,
unresponsive and fundamentally uncaring about the faculty.
Baloney.
Nor do I believe one of the arguments by union organizers last
year. “All faculty members at the
Baloney.
Could I use a little more money in my paycheck?
You bet.
But not at the cost of eating
baloney.
This is Frank Bryan in Starksboro.