AlterNet: Union Card or Master Card -- How a Nation of Workers Became a Nation of Debtors

[marmar]

Union Card or Master Card -- How a Nation of Workers Became a Nation of Debtors

By Frank Joyce, AlterNet. Posted October 23, 2008.

Debt it is an important shaper of political and economic consciousness. The more you are in debt, the less likely you are to rock the boat.



It has been apparent for some time that the 20th Century US social contract is defunct beyond repair. Now the economic system faces the prospect of collapse as well. Not surprisingly, these developments are related. They did not come about overnight.

Looking back, it's easy to see that the system which emerged from the post-Bolshevik revolution, mass industrial production era of the 1920's, 30's and 40's was beginning to unravel by the end of the 1970's.

Union membership provides a helpful lens through which to view the process.

During the 1960's union membership bounced up and down within a narrow range ending the decade slightly higher than it began. But starting in 1970, it began a steady decline. In 1970 union workers were 29.6 percent of the work force. At those numbers, unions were able to exert considerable leverage over the wages, benefits and working conditions of all workers. By 1980 union workers were down to 23.2 percent of the total workforce. By the year 2000, union members represented just 13.5 percent of all workers. Today it is about 12.1 percent.

Conventional wisdom holds that Ronald Reagan caused the decline of unions by busting the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) in 1981. Not so. What Reagan and his advisors understood was that union power was already on the wane. Did they know for certain that they could attack PATCO and get away with it? Probably. But even if they didn't, they deemed it a risk--a "probe," if you will--worth taking.

Either way, they did bust PATCO. Consequently, the message that unions could be beat came through for all to see. Employers got the point and stepped up their already fierce resistance at the bargaining table. And they devoted new and effective resources to defeating organizing efforts by their workers. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/103863/union_card_or_master_card_--_how_a_nation_of_workers_became_a_nation_of_debtors/

[midnight]

1. What a excellent anaysis that never was so visible before.

Another critical variable is this: as the wallets of workers held fewer and fewer union cards, credit cards were filling up those very same wallets. Workers were in effect trading union cards for MasterCard's.

[SmokingJacket]

2. China.

How is it possible for unions to hold on to high paying jobs when it's so easy for companies to outsource?

And with these outsourced jobs depressing wages, the lure of easy credit is almost irresistable.

[demokatgurrl]

3. India too- not union jobs

but professional jobs that don't require physical presence. Such as, lawyers, accountants.

[marmar]

6. Yup....Some newspapers have even outsourced reporting to India....

.... The guy writing about the local zoning board decisions could be making his calls from Mumbai.

[malaise]

4. Excellent article

K & R

[Brewman_Jax]

5. Very true, but not new

remember Tennessee Ernie Ford's 1955 hit song "Sixteen Tons"; the chorus:

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store...

[KG]

7. it's not surprising that the powers that be wanted to bend the US economy this way,

what i still can't fathom why the avg US worker fell for the 'free market' mythology even as they watched their jobs, pensions, and their childrens future vanish into the ether.

[nichomachus]

8. What the article fails to mention -- and an often overlooked point

The fatal blow to the unions came shortly after WW2, with the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act.

Remember, Prescott Bush and his fellow fascists tried to overthrow the government in 1934 to install Bush as a fascist dictator.

Instead of hanging them, FDR let them go, because many of the ringleaders were corporate heads and he needed their help with the New Deal. So, the movement went underground and then further underground with the onset of the war.

After the war, they began to surface again. They showed their hand in the creation of Taft-Hartley. The bill allowed unions, but -- in the midst of our Red Scare -- allowed them only if they purged themselves of any members who had questionable (read: socialist) connections, i.e., the "lefties."

The unions complied. However, these were the backbone of the unions. They were the organizers, the leaders who led from principles, etc. This created a power vacuum, which was eventually filled by opportunists and, in some cases, crooks. Whether this was by design on the part of the fascists or just a happy accident isn't clear.

But this began the downfall of the unions and allowed the fascist propagandists to begin working on the now more affluent workers convincing them that they really didn't need unions because they were doing better.

Reagan, as with so many other things, gets way too much credit (blame?) in this scenario. By the time he came along, unions were pretty much eaten from within, as well as battered from without.

[Blue_Tires]

9. k+r

[machI]

10. Just like the old coal mining communities, the workers owe everything they make to the Company Store

The people of wealth who own the means of production are slowly forcing the workers into enslavement. Workers who have debt beyond that which they cannot pay are basically at the mercy of the powerful who control salaries and the debt.

If we leave the control of the American Government to the Republicans, soon we will all owe our souls to 'Company Store'.