Protecting Our Little Square of Turf

Trey Smith

In other countries, unions are about more than contracts, and have done a lot better job fighting for broad public benefits, like pensions and health care. Our unions look too much like they’re fighting to defend their own private welfare states and not fighting to expand the public ones. They look like that because they all too often are.
~ from Wisconsin Follow-Up by Doug Henwood ~

In those three sentences, Henwood goes a long way toward explaining WHY the majority of Americans -- even those left of center -- are suspicious of organized labor. Simply put, American labor unions have a great propensity for looking out for #1 -- themselves -- and no one else. They fight to protect their little square of turf and seem completely disinterested if the rest of the turf is engulfed in an inferno!

In my view, the problem is that the American union system is built on the blueprint of feudalism. Each industry is its own fief and these fiefs are further broken down into shires of specific occupations. And so, rather than viewing the issue as one that unites all working people -- the IWW model -- we have all these fiefdoms trying to outmaneuver each other. Instead of working to have the pieces of the pie distributed more fairly, all these fiefs care about is getting as much of the crumbs from the pie to feed themselves!

And yet, American labor unions can't understand WHY too many Americans don't support them! Maybe they should look in the mirror once in a while.