"If you’ve never walked a picket line, you don’t understand shared sacrifice'

By BERRY CRAIG

AFT Local 1360

Donald Trump is demonstrably one of the most anti-union presidents in American history.

Click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

While a majority -- 56 percent -- of union households voted for AFL-CIO-endorsed Democrat Joe Biden, 40 percent voted to give the Republican Trump a second term, according to exit polls published in The New York Times. (In 2016, Hillary Clinton, the AFL-CIO-backed Democrat, won union households 51-43, the Times reported.)

The Times story didn’t explain why union households voted for Biden or Trump. But I wonder. Did at least some of the Trump voters figure their union will always be there? “Yep,” said Kirk Gillenwaters of Louisville, a veteran labor activist. “Oh, they’ve got a contract for now.”

He said that the state’s nearly three-year-old “right to work” law has yet to thin union ranks significantly or trigger a tsunami of decertification elections. “But it will eventually,” he warned.

RTW is one of the oldest union-busting tools around. RTW laws outlaw union security clauses.

Under the Kentucky RTW law, pushed by GOP Gov. Matt Bevin and approved by hefty House and Senate GOP majorities, union security clauses will lapse when current contracts expire.

Afterward, such clauses will be illegal, even if the union and management agree to them.

Under RTW, hourly employees at a unionized workplace can enjoy union-won wages and benefits without joining a union and paying dues or compensating the union to represent them. The idea, of course, is to discourage workers from joining a union. As the union loses members, it naturally loses power at the bargaining table.

The union-haters “are playing the long game,” Gillenwaters said. “They have ‘right to work’ in place now, and sooner or later the unions will fall off.”

Not coincidentally, RTW states are the least unionized states--and the lowest wage states.

I wonder, too. Do Trump-voting households also think they don’t need the union anymore? “A lot of companies have the so-called employee-involvement programs where the employees are told that they are getting what they are getting because the company values them,” Gillenwaters said.

Hence, unions must do a better job of educating members--especially younger ones, he said. Union officials need to do more to emphasize to the rank-and-file that their good wages and benefits come from the union, not company largess, Gillenwaters added. 

“But if you’ve never walked a picket line, you don’t understand shared sacrifice and what it takes to get a contract by hitting the streets and having done without while knowing you’ll never get . . . [your lost wages] back,” Gillenwaters said.

Historically, most employers have fiercely--often violently--resisted unions. They've hired what amounts to private armies. They've called on police, sheriff's deputies, the national guard and even federal troops to break strikes and escort scabs through picket lines.

Most bosses still don’t want unions around. So they spend big bucks bankrolling politicians to do their bidding by passing anti-union legislation, such as RTW laws and measures that repeal PW, slash unemployment benefits and workers compensation programs, and roll back workplace safety and health regulations and enforcement.

Companies, too, know that thanks to anti-union politicians like Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and almost all GOP lawmakers in Frankfort, the law is on their side. For example, using scabs to break strikes is illegal in other democratic countries.

Preying on workers’ fear of losing their jobs, companies rely on the old divide-and-conquer strategy. They are forcing two- or three-tier wage clauses into contracts and are threatening to close the plant or lay off workers if the contract is rejected.

Paying workers different rates for doing the same job is inherently unfair. But to further undermine union solidarity, companies offer large cash bonuses to workers if their local supports the multi-tier wage clauses in contracts.

Liles Taylor, state AFL-CIO legislative coordinator, points out other union-busting tools "like these recent high-tech tactics from Amazon or this employee orientation video from Walmart," he said. "Amazon (Whole Foods) also has their own video."   

Gillenwaters urged union members to wise up and stop going against "their economic self-interest by voting for anti-union politicians  who push for legislation to limit union rights and benefits." 

Here's the bottom line: Bosses vote for anti-union politicians based on their economic self-interest. If more union members don’t vote on their livelihoods, the time will come when the union will be gone, and it will be everyday low wages for everybody.