December 4, 2011
Are labor unions good or bad?
Early in my career I worked for two years as a member of the Teamsters Union at a warehouse for a major grocery chain. The day I started that job two things became immediately apparent; 1. I was making more money than I had the day before as a non-union employee in the same facility's mail room. 2. I was now working in an environment in which employees had an adversarial relationship with management. My union representative’s job seemed to be to make sure that I did no more than the minimum required by the work agreement signed by management and the union. My boss’s job seemed to be to make sure I did no less. During this time I do not remember my bosses ever addressing me by my first name. I was "Tower"...as in "Tower did you get xyz done yet?” I was making more money but it became clear that I was simply a human machine at the union and company’s disposal. I remember once coming up with an idea that could have improved efficiency and reduced operating costs. I naively brought the idea to my union representative, who very quickly informed me that I was not paid to think…just work. I never did bring another idea forward, even though it was in my nature to always look for improvement ideas. One day all union workers were asked to come in early to attend a meeting in which we were informed that some folks with stop watches and clip boards would be observing us for the next week. This was being done, we were told, to prove to the union that we were over-staffed. We were instructed to slow down as much as possible to make sure that this study did not result in any jobs being lost. We all did exactly as asked, and one month later, after the study results were finished, the company was required to actually add staff! In my entire career this was the least enjoyable job I had even though I made decent money and sure didn’t have to stress out by doing any thinking. I have two friends who have spent their entire careers working as UAW members in auto assembly and parts fabrication plants. Both have been paid well, but told me that they felt as if they had traded their souls for dollars. They also both reported that they were treated more like machines than valued humans. They describe a work environment in which the unions and their members and the company's management are adversaries every single day. I spent the next thirty years of my career working for Eli Lilly and Company. This organization never had a labor union in its history, and management prided itself on human resource practices that always demonstrated that employees really were the company’s most valued asset. I started in that company in the lowest pay rated job they had. I soon became aware of the company's suggestion box system in which ideas for productivity or cost improvements would share with the suggestor a portion of the economic benefits to the company. In my early years, before becoming a member of management, along with hundreds of other employees each year, I submitted several ideas that improved both the company’s and my earnings. In my entire career with Lilly I was always treated as a valued resource. I look back at the time when I worked in the Teamster’s Union job and shudder to think of the work career I might have ended up with.
Unions primarily came into existence because of the actions of some greedy industrialists who were simply too unenlightened to understand and trust in the immense power that can accrue by allowing and encouraging employees to give their best efforts by rewarding them individually and appropriately for doing so. In my experience people are almost all pretty smart, even if not formally educated, and if encouraged and rewarded for looking for improvements in the work they are asked to perform, will offer incredibly valuable ideas that can truly benefit their organization. To maintain a union vs. management adversarial relationship system in which management and union leadership believes the leaders for each must do all the thinking and workers must just do the work assigned is simply missing the opportunities for performance enhancements and job satisfaction that can be incredibly mutually beneficial. This has resulted in immense losses in human potential that many members of unions and their employers ought to look back on with regret. One is left to ponder the lost enjoyment of the work for the workers, the missed ideas for improvement from the folks actually doing the work, and the lost opportunities for gained revenues for the employers. To the headline’s question; Are unions good or bad…my opinion is they have been both, but more bad than good. Management and labor leaders must equally share the blame. The workers…they were simply stuck between warring leadership factions whose least important goal was the worker’s or even the organizations true long term best interests. Sounds a lot like our situation in Washington
These are my opinions. What do you think?
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