How Far We’ve Fallen

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/06/how-far-weve-fallen/

How many stockbrokers, lawyers, bankers, accountants, aluminum siding salesmen, rodeo clowns, etc, would turn down a big, fat pay raise if it came with strings attached? What if accepting that pay raise was contingent upon all future new-hires being denied the opportunity to earn those same wages? Would they make a personal sacrifice for these future employees—reject a pay raise as a matter of principle—or would they take the money and never give it a second thought? My guess is that most would accept the money.

And yet we hear the pejorative term “sell-out” applied to union negotiators who agree to two-tier structures. Under a two-tier wage/benefit schedule, new-hires can never receive the same compensation as those employees already on the payroll. We hear “sell-out” applied to the UAW. And, unfortunately, we hear it applied with little or no understanding of how ferociously the union resisted it, or how forcefully the two-tier configuration was crammed down their throats.

Look at the record. First of all, no one but organized labor categorically opposes the two-tier system. That’s because no one but organized labor has the ideological and institutional solidarity to generate that opposition. Second, the record will show that many union locals have risked their own economic well-being by designating the two-tier as a “strike issue.” And third, even a cursory look at the history of collective bargaining will show that those unions who’ve accepted two-tier arrangements have been dragged to that decision, pissing and moaning, kicking and screaming.

I’ve sat at the bargaining table when the two-tier was broached. It’s an insidious negotiating device. To begin with, the company comes at you with a steamroller. They paint a dreadful economic picture, one colored with dire scenarios of massive takeaways, lay-offs, even plant closures. In the case of the UAW, the companies’ woes were already public knowledge. Everyone knew Detroit was getting creamed by Japan, and that the UAW had lost over a million members, reducing it to a shell of its former self.

More at the link --

[Odin2005]

1. 2-tier is generational divide and conquer.

It sets older workers (mainly Boomers) against younger workers who come to hate unions because they come to associate them with the 2-tier crap and come to believe the older workers have a "I've got mine, fuck all you young people" attitude. I;ve noticed that this is why many Gen-Xers hate unions.

[WinkyDink]

2. Hmmm. In public schools, it has been my experience that unions fight for larger $$ % for newbies.