Blacklegs and Unions

2004-11-01 at 9:25 p.m.

Its strange, the attitudes we grow up with. As I understand it, America's unions do not have high memberships (and consequently, do not have much power either) and there seems to be a certain amount of dislike or disapproval of the concept of unionisation. As I got from online:

"Unions represent only about one-sixth of all those employed. The relocation of factories to Sun Belt states and to foreign countries, fewer factory jobs, the apparent disinterest in unions among young workers, and the antiunion stance of the federal government (as reflected in the 1981 breakup of the air-traffic controllers strike and in subsequent decisions by the National Labor Relations Board) are some of the problems."
Labor Unions in the United States, Encarta article

Now this is very strange to me. I come from a working-class family in England. Most of the men of my family are in skilled trades - i.e. ones you have to go through an apprenticeship to get, which require extra training and which therefore give much higher wages. Like mining, carpentry, and similar. All of the men in my family are union members and have been since the start of unions in the UK.

The way I was brought up, you join the union. The idea of not joining the relevant union for my trade is inconceivable to me. It was presented to me as a moral obligation. The idea being that if you do not join the union then you let your class down (you become a class traitor), a tool of the bosses for the oppression of the workers. Excuse me sounding like a marxist here, but it was not communism I was exposed to. People joined and join the unions for their own protection - because as we continue to see, big business is interested in making money, not in the rights of its workers, and as far as the bosses are concerned, they would rather pay themselves a big bonus than increase the wages or benefits of their staff. Unless they have to. Which is where the unions come in.

Not that the unions are our knights in shining armour, they make plenty of mistakes. I can remember the unions calling strikes for the most ridiculous of reasons in the company in which most of my family work. Once all the men went out because a man from a neighbouring and disliked town had been employed. On another occasion they went on strike on the day that the managing director came round to see whether it was worthwhile to keep that part of the company going. Sometimes the unions are shortsighted and, generally, the shop stewards have either been acting on their own or simply haven't been listened to. On some occasions the unions have made things rather worse - as in the Miners' Strike, where they went out for the right reasons but Scargill ruined the miners by his bad leadership.

But I think the reason I was brought up to join the unions is that we all recognise that no union can have any power, for good or for bad, unless people actually join. If everyone is unionised - as they are in the company my family works for, where you can only be employed if you are a union member - then the unions have power indeed. Good working agreements can be worked out. Strikes can be kept to a minimum - because they are or should be a last resort.

I don't understand hostility to unionisation. I don't see it so much here, where almost everyone I know has at least a similar (if perhaps not quite so extreme) background as I have myself. It can produce good things for workers - and good employers should not begrudge their workers wanting good wages, for instance. Its not always a standoff situation, but a negotiation. Which is as it should be and it is only a pity that industries like hotels, with the lowest-paid workers, are not represented by the unions.

As an example of the hostility to non-union members that I to some extent grew up with, I found a song. Its called The Blackleg Miners. A "blackleg" is a non-union member, only slightly better thought of than a scab (a strike-breaker). Not that I'm advocating the sort of attitude this song presents, but it is something I feel strongly about, just because if you don't join the union, and your boss mistreats you...what can you do? It will be a bit late by then, after all.

Oh, early in the evenin', just after dark,
The blackleg miners creep te wark,
Wi' their moleskin trousers an' dorty short,
There go the backleg miners !

They take their picks an' doon they go
Te dig the coal that lies belaw,
An' there's not a woman in this toon-aw
Will look at a blackleg miner.

Oh, Delaval is a terrible place.
They rub wet clay in a blackleg's face,
An' roond the pit-heaps they run a foot
Wi' the dorty blackleg miners.

Now, don't go near the Seghill mine.
Across the way they stretch a line,
Te catch the throat an' break the spine
O' the dorty backleg miners.

They'll take your tools an' duds as well,
An' hoy them doon the pit o' hell.
It's doon ye go, an' fare ye well,
Ye dorty blackleg miners !

Se join the union while ye may.
Don't wait till your dyin' day,
For that may not be far away,
Ye dorty blackleg miners !
(for more)

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