But it wasn’t the bill itself that killed the unions. Nor was it the Koch-controlled, reactionary puppet Gov. Walker that is totally at total fault. Not even the Federal government, with its subservience to international bankers and corporations can fully be blamed. Unfortunately, much of the blame lies with the Unions themselves.
To be fair, American labor unions are far weaker now than they have ever been. Thus, their bargaining power has been significantly diminished. According to Webster G. Tarpley, out of the entire US working population, only 9% are union workers. In the private sector, less than 8% are unionized.
Compare this with the fact that, in 1945 when living standards and economic growth were both much greater, around 36% of the workforce was unionized. Since 1970, a number of serious attacks were launched against American workers (and unions in particular) and, as a result, US standards of living have declined by up to two-thirds.
As Tarpley points out, the one bright spot in these statistics is that, currently, around 37% of the public sector workforce are members of unions. This is largely due to the fact that public sector jobs are much more difficult to outsource as compared to the private sector. This is, essentially, their only advantage.
Ever since union leadership began to be gradually bought off by the companies and corporations they were supposed to be fighting, the successive years of anti-union legislation and rhetoric, and a public easily brainwashed by television and charismatic pundits, the American labor movement has been fractured into many different pieces.
Although one could argue that separate unions should not involve themselves in the fights of their counterparts (so long as business owners show the same restraint), an attack made by the government, whether it be Federal or State, is clearly a just reason for coming together under a common cause. It is precisely this solidarity which has been lacking in the labor movement for over 40-50 years.
Like indigenous populations throughout history, allowing oneself to be divided by petty differences and the false belief that if you yourself are left alone, you should just “stay out of it” will always result in your own subjugation. Inevitably, they will come for you once they are finished with your neighbors. At that point, the time to call for unity has passed.
It is for these reasons that the unions have failed the American worker. Unions, ironically, even after merging, have become even more disjointed and almost completely fractured. They exist merely as a formality and act more as an attenuated political third party than a radical defender of worker’s rights.
Indeed, workers themselves have allowed their unions, which are supposed to be a UNION of WORKERS, to become a wing of big business that serves mainly to soak up union dues and put forth the pretense of whatever is passing as workers’ populism at the time. Modern strikes, when they happen, are usually isolated and non-productive.
The American people, after allowing our government to ship American jobs oversees and outside our own borders, have unfortunately made sure that unions now find themselves with their backs against the wall in virtually every bargaining process.
Read more:
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/03/eulogy-for-unions.html#more
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