Shaping policy for the nation's future

Shaping Policy for the Nation's Future

I am delighted to find myself among so many union and management representatives who are talking with each other, rather than merely at or about each other. No doubt we have, and always will have, issues on which we disagree. It is precisely to deal with those issues that we created the fairest and most effective problem-solving system yet devised in our society--the institution of collective bargaining.

Those who see the bargaining table as a theater of conflict are mistaken. It is a forum for resolving conflicts, in ways that are just and fair to both sides. Collective bargaining contemplates no "final solutions.' It seeks no more than a mutual agreement that both parties can live with for a fixed period of time. Then they re-examine their goals, readjust their agreement, and look ahead to the next round.

There's nothing easy or automatic about this process. It's a two-handed tool that won't work unless both parties want it to work. It's a tool for reasonable people who set achievable goals and who concede that their side is not the only one that has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So it seems to me axiomatic that at this point in our country's economic and social history--when vast changes in technology, markets and trading patterns are disrupting the economy as never before--we need more and better collective bargaining, not less.

That's why it is unfortunate that some misguided members of the business community have elected kick over the bargaining table in the delusion that labormanagement affairs are better conducted as a monologue. Present company excepted, of course, too many employers are seeking first to silence their employees by destroying their unions as an effective force in the workplace and in the community.

Too many, individually and through their trade associations, have proclaimed their determination to oppose by every means--fair and foul--the efforts of their employees to form and to join unions. They have demonstrated bitter opposition to any change in the nation's basic labor law that would make it responsive to the needs and desires of workers. They have applauded and taken full advantage of the Reagan Administration's systematic weakening of the government agencies created to protect the moral and statutory right of free association, the cornerstone of democratic freedom.

At the same time, they proclaim a warm desire for labor-management "cooperation in order to increase productivity,' as if productivity were no more than increased exertion and lower expectations on the part of workers. That kind of cooperation simply means acquiescence in management's definition of the problem, management's formulation of the goal, and management's choice of objectives, strategies and solutions. We are, of course, unable and unwilling to oblige.

The labor movement has been around for a long time, and it is not going away. It is built for the long haul, and even its most immediate goals are by no means narrow and exclusive. Behind the question of how to improve our economic condition is the larger question of to what end human economic activity ought to be directed.

Trade unionists on Labor Day 1984 remain loyal to the goals that Samuel Gompers spelled out before the first Labor Day in 1894 when he responded to the question: "What does labor want?'

There is an old canard that his reply was simply "more,' which has comforted many whose own selfishness has been justified, in their own eyes, by that spurious text.

What Gompers said was this:

"What does labor want? We want the earth and the fullness thereof. There is nothing too precious, there is nothing too beautiful, too lofty, too ennobling, unless it is within the scope and comprehension of labor's aspirations and wants.

"We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge. In fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.'

With that as our credo, we have sought, first, to improve the wages and working conditions of our members and to insure respect for their individual dignity and security on the job. This we do through collective bargaining.

Second, we seek to make life better for all the members of our democratic society. This we do through legislative activity and political activism.

We insist that economic activity cannot be regarded as an end in itself, defined by abstract numbers on individual corporate balance sheets. We say it should be a tool to advance the whole human enterprise, to bring about a fairer sharing of the nation's wealth and a broader participation in its social, educational and cultural life. It should be a means toward providing every citizen with a chance to develop to his or her maximum potential.

To bring about such a world requires the fullest cooperation of labor, management and, yes, government-- which alone has the means to establish and coordinate the social and economic policies needed to guide America into the next century.

Do the people of Pennsylvania and the people of the United States need a steel industry, an auto industry, a garment industry, an electronics industry? Do companies need profits and workers need paychecks? Can we get along without any of these things, and if so, for how long?

Every successful industrial nation except the United States has asked these questions and answered them in ways that profoundly affect the life of every American. Every such nation but our own has put in place a coherent national industrial policy designed to advance, promote, preserve and protect particular industries or groups of industries --new and old, sunset and sunrise--in its own national interest. These national policies are augmented by well-conceived, complementary trade policies, often with the United States as the targeted market.

What America has, by comparison, is a collection of mini-policies that never add up to a maximum national effort. Thus, we have policies that encourage the flight of American capital overseas, hiding from U.S. taxes, wage rates, and work, health and safety standards. Our specialty has been to export capital to those places in this world where workers are docile, hungry and willing to work for pennies per hour. There is no end to that supply.

Yes, we have a trade policy--it operates only on the inbound shipping lanes. We have an administration that brags of a strong dollar, a dollar so strong that it can attract goods from every corner of the earth and prevent sales of U.S. goods in foreign markets.

At home, we encourage what can only be described as corporate cannibalism, an orgy of leveraged buyouts, asset-stripping, factory-closing, paper-exchanging, and profiteering that takes no account of the interests of workers or customers, communities or the nation as a whole.

The same economic wizards who invented the oneway trade policy resist the concept of a coherent national industrial policy. Hands off, they declare; let the markets function. But they blink at the various ad hoc sectoral policies already in place to protect and preserve the most politically-sensitive areas of our economy.

Do the bankers make foolish loans to tin-horn dictators of the right and left? Never fear, the banks will be bailed out by an array of agencies designed just for the purpose. There is a national policy to support the housing industry, although the Reagan Administration is allowing it to wither on the vine. There is no bigger federal program of sectoral support than the collection of agencies designed to foster and protect American farming.

When the Continental Bank of Chicago went bust, a handful of government officials were able to put together a fast rescue operation that makes the United States the major owner of the bank. But when Chrysler nearly went belly-up, and hundreds of thousands of jobs were at stake, it took an act of Congress and some mighty heavy legislative lobbying to provide only guarantees for new loans to save the company. The government and all investors profited handsomely from that deal.

America still has a choice. We can establish a senisble industrial policy, coordinated with a rational trade policy, whose first priority is the creation of new, well-paid jobs and the securing of a broad middle-class of working men and women. Or, we can let other industrial trading nations and the less-developed world dictate our economic future, a future in which working Americans will see their incomes and living standards decline.

We can easily become a nation of paper-shufflers, launderers, and fast-food dispensers, dominated by a small group of very rich financial institutions which owe their loyalty only to making bigger profits.

Faced with that prospect, labor believes we have a legitimate claim on the goodwill and cooperation of every management able to see beyond next year's earnings report.

We, for our part, are prepared to clasp any hand that is extended to us from the business quarter in the interest of protecting American jobs and security, building America's industrial future, and strengthening the collective bargaining process.

We await any takers.

COPYRIGHT 1984 AFL-CIO
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group