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8/31/03 Labor Day: The Rest of the Story A majority, or at least a plurality, of the columnists' ink spilled in the 8/31/03 edition of The Sunday Denver Post Perspective section (and I would imagine this is typical of other major newspapers on that date) made unionization the central theme of this Labor Day weekend. My first observation is that it seems a little odd that non-union workers, who represent most of the economy, were little but an afterthought. If mentioned at all, they were the (often ungrateful) beneficiaries of the unions' long struggle to make the universe friendly to labor. All of the ink was friendly to unions (much of it was written by union lobbyists, some by a pro-union academic). The writers attributed many current labor institutions, workplace laws and regulations, and benefits of employment to the labor movement of the late 19th and early 20th century. The labor movement did, indeed, push for such things, and deserves some credit. It does not necessarily follow that many or most of them would not already exist if it were not for the labor movement. Liberal, pro-labor analyses fail to take into account the importance of market forces, as well as the evils that were committed along the way. It is worth pointing out that, in fighting robber barons, the unions committed evils at least as grave as any committed by their opponents, and that many of these evils were directed against innocents (whom the labor movement calls "scabs"). The "Ludlow Massacre" One of the watershed moments in the history of labor relations is what has come to be known as the Ludlow Massacre, perhaps the single most concentrated quasi-military confrontation between striking workers and their families on the one hand and state-sanctioned militias on the other. The most detailed account I have found comes from the Santa Fe Trail Scenic and Historic Byway web site. It supplies some details notably glossed over or suppressed by pro-labor versions of the events, but at the same time its general tone is sympathetic to the miners and hostile to the companies and government agencies involved in the suppression of the strike; it offers no significant contradiction of any of the versions of events found on pro-labor web sites. For these reasons, I am inclined to trust it. (It is, however, worth pointing out that, just as with similar events like the infamous Sand Creek Massacre of Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians in 1863, where eyewitness accounts are sketchy, contradictory, and tainted by partisanship, the whole truth may never be known with certainty. SoothSeeker views the "Ludlow Massacre" as worthy of further study, and will revise the opinions stated here if such study turns up any better evidence.) According to the Sante Fe Trail Scenic and Historic Byway version, in 1913 Colorado coal miners, under the umbrella of the Union of Mining Workers, which had no official sanction to represent employees in Colorado, presented Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I), and others, with a list of demands, the last of which, recognition of the union to represent all employees of the companies, the companies refused to fulfill. On Sept. 15, 1913 the union "voted to strike" on Sept. 23 if their demands were not met. They walked out, and were evicted from their company-owned housing, taking up residence in "tent colonies" constructed on leased public land. The strikers tried to prevent "strikebreakers" from gaining access to the mines, engaging in violence and intimidation. CF&I called on the Governor of Colorado, who ordered the National Guard to restore order and give the company access to its property. There was apparently some disarmament of the miners, but they still had weapons with which to fight on the day of the massacre. When the miners realized the National Guard was giving "strikebreakers" access, they stepped up their violent attacks, provoking numerous confrontations with the troops. On April 20, 1914, troops stationed themselves on a strategic point overlooking the tents, and the miners armed themselves and either took up positions facing the troops or sought cover. Shots rang out from somewhere (no one knew then or knows today who fired first) and the situation degenerated into an exchange of fire and eventually an invasion of the tents by the troops. Some women and children took refuge in "cellars" they had (apparently previously) dug under their tents for just such a contingency. A fire broke out and began to spread. In the end 11 children and two women tragically died in one of those "cellars," asphyxiated by the fire above them. Otherwise some four of the troops, five strikers, and "two other youngsters" were killed in the firefight (although more pro-labor sources tend to put the total casualties between 20 and 40). Having laid out the facts, we can now move on to discuss the philosophical issues involved. The most significant consideration that militates against the pro-union position is that the strikers had as much legal right to prevent access to the mines as squatter have a right to keep you out of your own house. Just as you would call the police to evict the squatters and restore access to your house, the company called on the state to bring order and restore access to the mine at Ludlow. The situation is described as a massacre only because of the 13 who died of asphyxiation, and there is no reason to think they were killed deliberately in that fashion. Where does the ultimate responsibility for the disaster lie? Pro-labor pundits say that it was the company that was responsible: it was not complying with existing law, and seemed unwilling to comply with workers' other demands. But that did not make it right to intimidate or kill workers who, by their action of trying to work even during the stoppage, made it clear they did not agree with the position of the majority of the miners. Every worker had a right not to work if the conditions of employment did not suit him. But he had no right to stop anyone else from working. The ends do not justify the means. The end, achieving better working conditions, is noble if the conditions desired are equitable for everyone involved. The means, killing and intimidating people who just wanted to earn a living, was wicked. There is a suitable analogy in vivisection performed by unethical medical doctors over the centuries: the end of improving health care is noble, but the means, vivisection of convicted criminals or especially innocent Jews was irredeemably wicked. The response of the company and the state to the wicked and illegal acts of the strikers was proportional: in the attempt to restore order and stop the killings, they met deadly force with deadly force, and therefore people died on both sides. Many of us nowadays benefit indirectly from the killings committed by strikers like those at Ludlow, just as we benefit indirectly from the wicked work of vivisectionists. But that does not make the murderous thugs of the union movement more to be admired than the Josef Mengele's of the world. Whom Do the Unions Really Protect? As for the claims of some that unionized workers are really out for the good of consumers, that just isn't so. Union contracts tend to diminish rewards for productivity in favor of rewards for longevity, and serve to make it difficult to get rid of unproductive workers. They press for increasing benefits for decreasing work. None of this is ultimately good for consumers. In the real world we live in, the unions in most industries are destroying themselves because if a company finds workers overseas who will work for less, they must go overseas if they hope to compete with other companies who are already exploiting that market. It boils down to the same thing they did by trying to block access to the "strikebreakers" of the past. They stand before the mine entrance preventing less fortunate people from doing the same difficult work for less money, as though, by virtue of having been the first at the trough, they have some special right both to set the price for their own labor and impose that price on everyone else in the world. And they dress up the position with rhetoric that paints them as guardians of workers all across the world. But their argument ends at safety: you can have a safe factory in Indonesia and the people will still work for pennies on the dollar compared to unionized workers in this country, because those pennies buy a lot more in Indonesia than dollars buy here. In short, they are saying to Indonesian workers: "you don't really want to be exploited by working for pennies! Better for you to be unemployed in a third-world backwater and for me to run a pneumatic screwdriver for a weekly wage that would buy a mansion in Indonesia." Indeed, that would be a sweet deal for the American worker, but not much solace for the poor unemployed Indonesian. And they will ultimately lose that argument. Beyond Unions The unions are dying because they have outlived their usefulness. Sweatshops are gone, child labor has been eradicated, and the relatively leisurely pace of a 40-hour workweek has been imposed on everyone. They've even succeeded in raising the minimum wage to the point where there are a lot of jobs that no one in his right mind would ever pay anyone to do (this is where the illegal workers often step in to take up the slack, because they will take the wages that people are actually willing to pay). All they exist to do now is to negotiate sweeter and sweeter deals using the shield of collective bargaining to keep market forces out of the equation, driving many a corporation into bankruptcy (or worse) by preventing them from remaining competitive in changing times. They served their purpose, and insofar as they did so within the bounds of reasonable and ethical behavior, they are to be applauded. But it is time to move on and let us all negotiate our own deals with our employers. If our skills are in demand and our expectations in line with others who can offer similar skills, we will have jobs with good benefits and working conditions. If our skills are a-dime-a-dozen and we expect to be paid as if they were highly sought-after, we will be disappointed because someone will take the job for lesser benefits than we demand, and we will be left jobless. And that will not be any fun for us. But a little pain in the short run guarantees that in the long run our economy will always tend toward a healthy balance. Those skill sets that are in demand (because they are in short supply) will tend to grow, while those that are a-dime-a-dozen (because they are rudimentary or in abundant supply) will tend to shrink. We will prepare ourselves, by and large, to do what is needed, and avoid the situation perpetually encountered by centralized economies, which produce stagnation and shortages. Unions as they currently operate are an obstacle to that natural process, resisting the shrinkage of any skill set, obsolete or not, because they never want their own membership numbers to shrink. It is therefore time to dispense with them and move on. This Labor Day should be as much about a future without unions as it is about the past when unions were, at best, a positive force for change, and, at worst, a necessary evil. Updated: 09/10/2004 |
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