Unions need to fight back

As we read in the NY times workers are having it tough. But as we can see in a case study by the AFL-CIO, executives are doing pretty well, and as the article points out, many companies that are actually growing, making profits, are cutting pay and/or laying people off to make a bigger profit. Now I’m not going to take these facts and start preaching about evil corporations or how bad these CEOs are, because it has nothing to do with morality it has to do with function and role. As a CEO of a company it is your job to maximize profits, your job is to have higher returns this quarter than last quarter, if you can’t do that, you failed as an executive. It’s also in the executives’ interest to take as much money out of a company as they possibly can, why wouldn’t they? Its business.

Part of that means class warfare, i.e. how to get the most out of workers while giving the least back, and making the conditions easier to do that. A CEO’s job is not to be reasonable, its not to compensate for actual value, its not to figure out what people have actually earned, its to maximize profits and get as much as they can out of the workers and the company. So this news shouldn’t shock us, this is the way Capitalism works. That being said, workers, and those who support workers interests need to stop playing by the business class rules. The business class is expected to work in their self-interest, they are expected to take as much as they can, its acceptable for them to wage class warfare against workers, but whenever workers want to fight back you always hear “Oh be reasonable” or “Don’t you get enough benefits and pay?” or “be happy with what you have,” why the double standard? Business is Business.

Unions that follow the Obama doctrine of ask nicely, and unilaterally disarm are going to keep loosing. If you put down your sword and say “let’s talk” the other side will kick you down, put his sword to your throat, and then say “ok, let’s talk.” Which way do you think the conversation is going to go? Unions need to stop allowing lay offs, pay cuts, unpaid leaves, and loss of benefits or pensions to be an option, right now they are the first option. The way unions can stop hurting the workers from being an option is by becoming militant, strike first, and then negotiate. Unions need to start to pay attention to the Haywood doctrine (i.e. Bill Haywood the Union organizer in the early 1900s) (rather than the Obama doctrine) which I would say is “The aims and objects of this organization shall be to put the working-class in possession of the economic power,” the objective should be economic power, not making things the best way for management, labor should negotiate from a position of power, not weakness.

CEOs should not have the option of squeezing more profit and more executive compensation out of the workers. If the executive wants more compensation, without the companies actual turnaround being higher, the profit is going to have to go down. If he wants the profit to go up without a higher turnaround he’s going to have to take a pay cut or less of Bonus. If he wants both, well then he better do his job and make a higher turnaround in the company, and if that happens the workers should demand a part of that money as well.

The right wing loves to accuse the left of inciting class warfare, but the fact is, whether or not the workers engage in class warfare its happening no matter what, management and the business class is waging class warfare, and in the words of Warren Buffet, in a moment of honesty “There’s class warfare, all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” So Unions and workers need to stop taking it laying down, they need to stop accepting the notion that they are the only ones that need to suffer when things go down, and they are never the ones to profit when things go up, they need to start fighting back, and seriously fighting back. In American history, or for that matter world history, working people only improved their stake when they fought for it and took it, it was never given to them by the business leaders, all the gains working people have had, the right to organize, the 8 hour workday, weekends, anything has been things that were fought for, and things that the business class gave up because they were afraid of a revolution. Its time for workers to fight back and take what is theirs rather than just asking nicely.