Solidarity: Preserving Dignity for American Workers

By Julie Taylor

            Not only does America still need labor unions, it needs them more than ever.  They are our only hope of continuing the American tradition of every worker getting a fair shake and everyone having the chance to succeed through hard work and perseverance.
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            In today’s political climate, where capitalism is revered as “God’s will” and CEOs are the new high priests, the rights and dignity of the workingman are eroding daily.  It seems that every time you open a newspaper there is another example of faith being broken with the worker.  Benefits are cut, salaries are frozen and even long-standing pension agreements are revoked.  This news is hard enough to swallow, but when combined with the knowledge that top corporate officials’ salaries and benefit packages are skyrocketing, it is like rubbing salt into the wound. 
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            According to the AFL-CIO web site, Executive PayWatch, CEO greed is a great threat to working families’ and their retirement security.  The web site lists incredible examples of corporate greed in salaries, and benefit and retirement packages. The CEO with perhaps the most outrageous retirement package is Henry McKinnell, CEO of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which has a non-unionized work force and who leads the Business Roundtable—a major backer of efforts to privatize Social Security.  With a $6.5 million annual retirement deal, he will not have to depend on Social Security when he retires.

            PayWatch points out that in 2005, the average CEO of a Standard & Poor’s 500 top companies received $11.75 million in total compensation and there’s little if any connection between CEO pay and CEO performance. A good example is Pfizer’s McKinnell.  Pfizer’s stock price has dropped nearly 45 percent in the six years he has been in charge.

            PayWatch has a database of 1,500 CEOs and is searchable by company name, ticker symbol, industry or total compensation.  Here it becomes obvious how the gap between the working man and top executives, who reap the benefits of their labor, is widening at an unprecedented rate. We are now at the point where thousand of workers could get health or retirement coverage for what companies pay many CEOs.

            America still needs labor unions because of human nature.  People are able to justify their actions and someone who is getting six million a year will soon believe they deserve seven million.  And that same person can justify the elimination of pension plans claiming it is for the health of the company. 

            To see the good our labor unions do for all in this country and the need for them in the future, all you have to do is look at their history and everything they have made possible.  Unions have been instrumental in American history from the very beginning.  Workers have always been the backbone of this nation. Workers formed primitive unions, or guilds, in many cities in colonial America.  They played a significant role in the struggle for independence.  In 1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed in Carpenters Hall in Philadelphia and the very words spoken there validated union ideals. In "pursuit of happiness" through higher pay and shorter hours, printers were the first to go on strike, in New York in 1794; cabinet makers struck in 1796; carpenters in Philadelphia in 1797; cordwainers in 1799.  From the beginning of our nations history unions have tried to improve the workers' conditions, through either negotiation or strike action.

                Worker’s rights, which seem to be eroding, are not just rights we assume through common sense, they are legislated legal rights. In 1914 Congress passed The Clayton Act which stated that "the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce".  This was a big step because it made workers not subject to Sherman Act provisions.  The Sherman Act had been the legal basis for injunctions against union organization. The Clayton Act legalized strikes and boycotts and peaceful picketing.  It dramatically limited the use of injunctions in labor disputes. It was the "magna carta" of labor law and the doorway to all the advances made since.  However, in today’s political climate, due to powerful corporate lobbying, injunctions are being more frequently used as politicians interfere in labor disputes.  Therefore, labor unions are needed, and they need to be strong, to fight this trend, or all the advances made over the last 200 years will be lost.

            A civilization is judged by the health, wellbeing and rights of the common man.  It doesn’t matter what the gross national product of a nation is if that wealth is only distributed among the top one percent of its citizens.  The whole concept of our America is that everyone’s well-being is important.  One person’s rights can not be over ruled by the masses and the common man’s rights can not be over ruled by the powerful few.  Labor unions may be the single most powerful influence in America in championing and protecting these rights.   Therefore, America still needs labor unions because the prosperity and happiness of a nation can be measured in the prosperity and happiness of its workers.