Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/107396
4A Daily News – Saturday, February 2, 2013 Opinion Why union membership is declining DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes letters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submitted will be considered for publication. Letters will be edited. 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How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 Would you want to work for an employer who ignores your contributions? What about one who only promotes on seniority? The answer to these questions explains why union membership keeps falling: unions have not adapted to the modern workplace. Collective bargaining means one contract covers everyone. Such contracts do not reflect individual contributions. Instead unionized companies typically base promotions and raises on seniority, not merit. Unions designed this system for the industrial economy of the 1930s. Today's knowledge economy looks quite different. Machines and computers automated many of the rote tasks of the industrial age. Most employers today value employees for their skills and abilities _ "human resources" _ instead of seeing them as interchangeable cogs on the assembly line. Employees also expect to be rewarded for what they bring to the table. Collective contracts make that challenging, especially when unions fight against individual recognition. In 2011 Giant Eagle grocery stores gave several employees in Edinboro, Pa., raises. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23 promptly sued, arguing their contract prevented the company from awarding individual pay increases. The courts agreed and ordered Giant Eagle to rescind the raises. Local 23 wanted everyone to make the same amount, no matter how good they were at their job. Many unions share this attitude. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., introduced legislation to allow unionized employers to give performance-based raises. These pay increases would come on top of union wages. Unions nonetheless denounced the proposal. SEIU President Mary Kay Henry objected that the bill would allow "arbitrary" wage increases. The Teamsters derided it as a "bosses' pet" bill. This attitude alienates many potential union members. In the past unions offset such concerns by negotiating higher pay for everyone. In today's competitive economy, they no longer can. If unions raise labor costs, consumers can shop elsewhere. Unions that insist on uncompetitive wages wind up like Hostess's Bakery Union _ with unemployed union members. Consequently, studies find unions do not raise pay at most newly organized companies. Without being able to offer higher pay, unions have to sell workers on the value of collective bargaining itself. But that has proven difficult. The government already requires employers to provide employment protections like safety standards protections and overtime rates. Polls show that most workers feel their employer respects them. Unsurprisingly, polls also show that only one in 10 non- union workers want to join a union. This makes it difficult for unions to organize enough new members to replace those lost to bankruptcy. Union membership has steadily declined over the past two generations. Today just strongly support higher taxes and 11.2 percent of employees more government spending _ they directly benefit belong to unions, from bigger governfewer than when Presiment. It is hardly surdent Roosevelt signed prising that government the National Labor unions organize rallies Relations Act in 1935. like the one they hosted The private sector figin Springfield, Illinois. ures are even lower _ There government just one in 15 private employees protested employees hold union outside the state capitol cards. chanting "Raise my Unions only remain taxes! Raise my taxes! strong in the one sector Raise my taxes!" of the economy that James Few workers outside faces no competition: government feel that the government. Govway. ernment unions do not The union movehave to organize new members to replace those lost in ment needs to adapt to the 21st bankruptcy. The government century workplace. That means replacing their one-size-fits-all does not go out of business. Unions do not need to per- collective bargaining model with suade new government employ- a focus on creating value for ees to unionize either. Once employees and employers. A new union movement formed, unions remain certified indefinitely without standing for could offer workers needed serre-election. New employees vices like job training, networkhired afterward are compelled to ing opportunities, and advice on managing 401(k)'s. Instead of an accept union representation. Consider New York Public adversarial relationship unions schools. No one currently teach- could help employers tailor ing in New York voted in the compensation packages and 1961 union organizing election. work hours to their employees' Yet the United Federation of needs. Such unions would attract far Teachers represents every teacher more support than ones which go in the district to this day. This dynamic keeps unions to court to block pay increases strong in government even as for their members. If unions want they faded elsewhere. Today, to reverse their membership most union members work in decline, they need to become relgovernment. The U.S. Post evant to today's employees. Office employs twice as many James Sherk is a senior policy union members as the domestic analyst in labor economics at The auto industry. This explains why unions so Heritage Foundation. Sherk Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Dan Logue, 1550 Humboldt Road, Ste. 4, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR — Jim Nielsen, 280 Hemsted Dr., Ste. 110, Redding, CA 96002, 530-223-6300, Fax: 530-223-6737, senator.nielsen@senate.ca.gov GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; Email: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Doug LaMalfa 506 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-2253076. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393-0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Commentary Common sense and common ground A recent President said: "There are large numbers of people who simply don't have the values and vision necessary to be part of an inter-dependent world. They think their differences -- whether religious, political, tribal or ethnic -are more important than our common humanity. They believe the truth they have justifies their imposition of that truth on other people, even if it takes them to the death of innocents." Much has been made about the Redding City Council's decision to try to "protect" the area around the Redding library from "unreasonable" pamphleteering and the like. The city finally gave up the legal battle against those who challenged their ordinance, and the Council has agreed to pay legal fees to the plaintiffs challenging their action. They had the choice of that agreement or spending even more money defending their ordinance at a higher judiciary level. The Redding City Council has agreed to pay the legal fees for the plaintiffs of $285,000. Most of the comments have been about the foolishness of the Council's actions, the squandering of funds that could have helped the city with its budgetary problems, and the restriction on First Amendment rights. While it is easy to be critical about city councils and their decisions, it seems to me there is another lesson we might learn from this incident. That lesson is based on the two entities who challenged the City Council in Redding: the American Civil Liberties Union and The Tea Party! These may seem like unlike- ly allies, but I believe they have more in common than most might imagine. Let's look for a minute at what these two groups have in common. Each is concerned about individual rights; the ACLU has a strong history of defending our right to free speech, our access to the vote (actually not a defined right in the Constitution), and openness in governmental decisions. This has made them unpopular at times when they defended less socially acceptable groups, like Neo-Nazi marchers in the Midwest. The Tea Party is also concerned with individual rights; some may have accused its members of merely preaching a rugged individualism, but the local members of the Tea Party seem to be very interested in making sure they understand how government works, assuring governmental decisions are made in the open, and defending individual rights among other things. I would imagine that most Americans would stand behind these common principles. When I was working I was trained in interest based negotiations (IBN). The principle behind IBN "is that parties are much more likely to come to a mutually satisfactory outcome when their respective interests are met than they are when one position wins over the other." Another kind of negotiations is called principle based negotiations (PBN). This is a more traditional form of negotiation, "characterized by the assertion of opposing positions by the parties". Much of the blather, I mean rhetoric, we hear in Washington is this kind of wastes, exhausts, and murders approach. PBN "tends to view the itself. There is never a democracy pie as fixed, such that a greater that did not commit suicide." That share for one means a lesser share iconoclast, Oscar Wilde once said, for the other; as they say, it is a "Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the peo"zero-sum game" with ple by the people for the the total score for both people." sides a constant. Perhaps Wilde was IBN, by focusing on just trying to shock, but interests to be satisfied John Adams was fearful rather than positions to and pessimistic; certainbe won, seeks to "expand ly Adams could not have the pie," giving each side seen the America we more, thereby producing have today. There are a "win-win." Though a over 300 million of us. cliché, "win-win" does We have a diversity describe what IBN and, never imagined when by extension, mediation our Constitution was attempt to do. The mediJoe drafted. We stretch from ator's challenge is to "shore to shore". We are guide the parties from the all entitled to vote, natural inclination to including women and engage in PBN to the descendents of former IBN style. Although you would never have slaves. We are viewed as the known it by reading our local paper world's leader. There are problems, of course, which made no mention of the inauguration until page six of the but coarse language, posturing, third section on the day after, our labeling, and rancor will not help President did give an inaugural us. We do live in an interdependent address in which he stressed our world. Our country only works if commonality and our traditionally we acknowledge our own interdepragmatic approach to solving pendence, if we understand we problems; he told us we should need to work together to make it continue our quest to expand the work, and if we each participate. American dream so that it would Perhaps we can take a look at the include all of our widely diverse parties who came together in Redding and see where we can draw on population. President Obama is being opti- our commonality and create an mistic, but not all observers of even better future for us. democracy have been so positive. Joe Harrop is a retired Our second President, John Adams said "Democracy... while it lasts is educator with more than 30 more bloody than either [aristocra- years of service to the North cy or monarchy]. Remember, State. He can be reached at democracy never lasts long. It soon DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. Harrop