Buffalo News (New York), September 1, 2005, Thursday

Copyright 2005 The Buffalo News
Buffalo News (New York)

September 1, 2005 Thursday
FINAL EDITION

SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. B1

HEADLINE: Corporations have unions on defensive

BYLINE: By Rod Watson

BODY:
As it prepares to celebrate its annual holiday, the labor movement's most laborious job is defending itself.
The percentage of the work force belonging to unions continues a steady decline. Defections have splintered the AFL-CIO. And local government unions are in the crosshairs of taxpayers, as everyone from Buffalo school officials to the city control board and the county executive target their contracts.
It's enough to make talk at Monday's picnics turn to a fundamental question: When did unions get to be "the enemy"?
It probably started somewhere in the transition that saw unions' dominance in the private sector dwindle while their strength in the public sector grew. In the 1950s, about 30 percent of workers were unionized -- almost 40 percent in the private sector and 12 percent in the public sector -- according to the Public Service Research Foundation.
By last year, the proportion of workers in unions had dwindled to only 12.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More tellingly, there was a role reversal as nearly 36 percent of workers in government were unionized, compared to only about 8 percent in the private sector.
Critics say unions lost ground because most workers simply don't want them. But others point to employer tactics like firing workers who try to organize.
The Economic Policy Institute's Lawrence Mishel notes government workers are subjected to less of that type of intimidation, and government doesn't threaten to move offshore. The resulting degree of unionization in the public sector "gives you an indication that many people in the private sector want them, too," Mishel said.
And why not? In an EPI analysis of previous studies, Mishel and a colleague found union workers make 15 percent to 20 percent more than comparable non-union workers, and even more when benefits are included. And they noted that unions traditionally set the pattern for wages and benefits that helped lift non-union workers, too.
At least until recently.
As Erie County unions field a request for givebacks, Buffalo workers labor under the control board's wage freeze and school unions mull single-provider health insurance, non-union workers -- read "taxpayers" -- now ask why their government counterparts should have it so good.
It's a testament to the power of corporate America that no one seems to frame the question the other way around: Why do other workers have it so bad? Cosmetic surgery aside, shouldn't all workers have good health coverage, pensions and the like?
Yet critics use the miserly compensation given non-union employees to go after unionized workers until all workers have been dragged down to the same low level. It's a domestic version of the international "race to the bottom."
Meanwhile, public trials expose the excesses of businessmen like the Rigases and Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski, even as CEOs and stockholders continue to widen the compensation gap between themselves and average workers.
"Public sector workers are not particularly privileged. They work extremely hard. They're the ones out there serving unorganized workers," says Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University. "It's not the wealthy that are in the Buffalo public schools."
Yet private and public sector workers are so busy battling each other that they lose sight of that and of what should be the real goal.
The question when it comes to public sector compensation shouldn't be: Is this something no worker should have?
The real question should be: Is it something every worker should have?
e-mail: rwatson@buffnews.com