This page brings together inspirations and information for workplace reps and union organizers. You can add your own words of wisdom here.
On workplace democracy... Management is far too important to leave to managers.
Paul Cochrane NZ Public Service Association, 2001
Only by fighting for democratic power do (workers) educate themselves up to the level of being able to wield that power. Hal Draper
We still have a lot of work to do when it comes to democracy. We have political democracy but not economic democracy.
Danish worker, unionist and ex-Prime Minister Anker Jørgensen
Workers (now) own... the critical means of production. In a modern company 70 to 80% of what people do is now done by way of their intellects. The critical means of production is small, gray, and weighs around 1.3 kilogrammes. It is the human brain. J Ridderstrale and K Nordstrom, 2003
Partnership is built from below and thus can institutionalise the collective power of workers, rather than being an alternative to that power.
Prof Edmund Heery, UK New Unionism project, 1999
To change
something, build a new model that
makes the existing model obsolete.
Buckminster Fuller
One out of every four working Americans (25%) describes their workplace as a dictatorship, while just 34% of bosses react well to valid criticism.
Workplace Democracy Association/Zogby Interactive poll, 2008
What we call a financial crisis is really at its core a crisis of management, and not just a crisis of management, but a crisis of management culture. ...In other words, what you had is a detachment of people who know the business from people who are running the business.
McGill University Management Studies Professor Henry Mintzberg
The work of unions is to create workplace democracy, and in the larger picture, economic democracy. Lisabeth L. Ryder, AFSCME
Just because we get to vote every now and then, we can call this a democracy, when the economy is anything but? ...There’s not democracy in the workplace. I mean, through most of our daily lives, the idea of democracy is fairly nonexistent. Michael Moore, film maker
The rules of workplace democracy are founded in solidarity and mutual trust. They are at the core of a historic process which promises to introduce a new economy, and thereby a new society, after capitalism. Seymour Melman, US workplace scholar
While the signing of Global Agreements usually leads to better conditions and greater rights for workers at multinationals, we believe that an agreement is only as strong as UNI and the unions’ ability to enforce it... Global agreements are just pieces of paper. What makes them real is our workers on the ground.
Philip Jennings, UNI General Secretary, 2009
It is no longer possible to protect workers' rights in one country, while in the neighbouring countries with whom we trade, workers face exploitation and sweatshop conditions. The fight for workers' rights in one country has to be a fight for workers' rights in every country.
Sharan Burrow, ITUC President, 2007
National unions have dealt with national companies. To deal with international companies you need international unions.
Derek Simpson, Unite
New unionism organizing styles not only increase membership density within multinationals, but also create an incentive for management to deal more honestly with unions on a global basis.
Paul Garver, global union campaign organizer, ex IUF, 2007
...in a global economy, we have no alternative but to build truly global unions. Unions with the ability to confront corporate power wherever it rears its head, whether it's a call center in Bangalore, a shoe factory in Vietnam, or a coal mine in Colombia. Brothers and sisters, the corporate agenda doesn't end at the water's edge -- and neither can ours!’
Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President
Unless unions devote more resources to international
organisation and begin to develop global super-unions – so that
they respond to events as speedily and concertedly as the financial
markets – they will be unable to redress the power imbalance between
labour and capital.
Peter Wilby, writing for the New Statesman
Capital went global; trade went global; finance went global. It's impossible for unions to stay local or regional... 'Workers of the world, unite!' isn't ideological anymore. It's practical.
Andy Stern, SEIU President
Global unionism is the answer to global capitalism. There is no other answer.
Former labor leader and U.S. Under Secretary of Labor Jack Henning
It would appear to be self-evident that if business and capital go global, then... labour should follow suit.
Andreas Breitenfellner; International Labour Review
Friends, global offshoring is a reality. We need Global Union Alliances to ensure rights are respected at home and at the destination.
Philip Jennings, General Secretary UNI
Bargain globally, boycott locally!
Bumper sticker
On union organizing...
The average workplace is made up of about 20% of workers who are angry and alienated, 60% who are generally pretty content, and 20% who are on best behaviour. The challenge for unions is to reach further into the workplace than this first group, and to organize the second. Linda Kelly, a Director at the UK Partnership Institute
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
Son Tzu
...everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 23, Section 4
By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.
Preamble to the IWW constitution, as amended in 1908
The Iron Rule is: never, ever do for anybody what he or she can do for themselves. Saul Alinsky, American community activist, 1909-1972
Don't get angry - get curious! Why are people taking the positions they are? Why are they angry? It's a good first step towards a solution. ACAS motto
If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.
Anon
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear. Mark Twain
Organizing isn't about the boss, it's about workers. It's about their need for some power or influence over their jobs and their lives. So it doesn't matter if the boss is kind or moderate, benevolent, or vicious... It doesn't matter what they say or do; this isn't about them, it's about us. Kris Rondeau, US worker-turned-organizer, HUCTW
Organizing is a fancy word for relationship building.
Ernesto Cortes, co-founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation
No problem is solved via the same paradigm that created it. Albert Einstein, German physicist, 1879-1955
Partnership without strong, effective unions is meaningless, while organising is not an end in itself.
Paul Nowak, TUC National Organiser, 2006
When you find "live wires" put them to work immediately. Find something they can do - any little thing - and get them started and ready to do more. Otherwise you'll lose them for the cause.
Fred Ross Sr (the organizer who trained Cesar Chavez)
Stop worrying about whose name gets in the paper and start doing something about rats, and day care, and low wages ... We must try to take our task more seriously and ourselves more lightly.
Dorothy I. Height, a founding matriarch of the American civil rights movement
Anger is meant to be acted on. It is not meant to be acted out. Anger points the direction. We are meant to use anger as fuel to take the actions we need to move where our anger points us. With a little thought, we can usually translate the message that our anger is sending us. Julia Cameron, novelist, playwright, songwriter and poet
To know and not to do is not to know.
Ancient Chinese Proverb
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. Anais Nin
By organising industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.
from the constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World,
1905
Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. He has not come; he will never come. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out you could be led back again. I would have you make up your own mind that there is nothing you cannot do for yourselves. Eugene Debs
If there is one message from labor history for the future of unions, it is that if unionism manages to recover from the endangered species list it will be through a growth spurt associated with some new form or new mode of operating. Richard B Freeman, Union commentator and Professor of Economics, Harvard University
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another. Emma Goldman, anarchist and dancer
If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything. Will Rogers
After all is said and done, a lot more will be said than done.
Anonymous
On the future of work...
The best way to predict the future is to create it. Peter Drucker
The future is not set. There is no fate but that we make ourselves.
Sarah Connor in Terminator 2
The first step to better times is to imagine them.
Chinese fortune cookie
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change. Charles Darwin
A precondition for a healthy society is to have an articulated image of the 'other future' - that tension between where we are now, and where we could be.
Seattle community planner Milenko Matanovic, 2008
The challenge to unions is to embark on union - management
cooperative ventures with an independent agenda, grounded in the needs of members. Globalization has raised the
stakes for unions in getting the balance between cooperation and conflict just
right. Corliss Olson,
School for Workers, University of Wisconsin, USA
The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the making of them changes both the maker and the destination. John Schaar, futurist, 1999
Why unions?
Workers who belong to trade unions (internationally) earn higher wages, work fewer hours,
receive more training, and have longer job tenure on average, than their non-unionized
counterparts .... At the macroeconomic level, high unionization rates
lead to lower inequality of earnings and can improve economic performance. The World Bank (no friend of unionism!), 2003
...unionized manufacturing plants are 22% more productive than nonunion factories. By
offering superior wages and benefits, unionized employers improve worker retention, thus reducing
the time-consuming and costly process of hiring and training. Additionally, unions provide an
avenue for the open exchange of information and ideas between workers and management. This
communication is vital to fostering productivity and innovation, and it cannot occur in workplaces
where employees fear retribution.
Professor Harley Shaiken, Center for American Progress, 2004
Long ago we stated the reason for labor organizations. We said that a union was essential to give labourers opportunity to deal on an equality with their employers.
US Supreme Court
(US) union workers earn an average of $10.27 more per hour in total compensation than non union workers; that's $33.32 vs $23.15.
US Bureau of Labour Statistics 2005 survey of labour costs
For information regarding other countries see our article on the wage premium here.
On workplace culture...
This is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor, in a sort of life, rather than a Monday-through-Friday sort of dying. Studs Terkel, actor and writer, 1974
Factory managers abuse and harass us because they think it will
increase our productivity. They don't understand that people work better
when they are treated in a way that respects their needs. You should do
research into that.
Worker from a Nike sweatshop, 2002 (name withheld)
If you want people motivated to do a good job, give them a good job to do. Friedrich Herzberg, management guru, 1963
You can tell a company by the people they keep.
Anon
Managers need to remember that most people join organisations, and leave managers. M Buckingham and C Coffman, management theorists, 1999
...the work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine and oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
extract from Circles on the Water by Marge Piercy
Stress has always been around, but now it has hit the elite and is therefore deemed a recent disease. J Ridderstrale and K Nordstrom, 2003
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
Steve Biko
Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay. John Kenneth Galbraith 1908-, US economist
Gallup collected a database of 4.5 million employees in 12 industries in the U.S. and found that fully 60% were "not engaged", while another 20% were "actively disengaged"
Gallup Employee Engagement Index survey, 2003
Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. Albert Einstein, German physicist, 1879-1955
In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it: they must not do too much of it: and they must have a sense of success in it -not a doubtful sense, such as needs some testimony of others for its confirmation, but a sure sense, or rather knowledge, that so much work has been done well, and fruitfully done, whatever the world may say or think about it. W. H. Auden 1907-1973, Anglo-US poet
If you can laugh together, you can work together. Robert Orben
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play. John Cleese 1939-, British comedian, actor, writer
People ask me, "How can I get our employees to be passionate about the company?" Wrong question. Passion for our employer, manager, current job? Irrelevant. Employees shouldn't be sleeping in cubes to prove they're "passionate employees." The company should behave just like a good user interface -- support people in doing what they're trying to do, and stay the hell out of their way.
Kathy Freeman, "chief poobah" of Head First books
alt.words.of.wisdom
The things we admire... kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest: sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest are the traits of success. John Steinbeck, US novelist
It isn't the rebels who cause the troubles of the world.
It's the troubles that cause the rebels. Carl Oglesby, Students for a Democratic Society
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late… Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late".
Martin Luther King
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. Marianne Williamson, US author, lecturer and peace activist (often attributed to Nelson Mandela)
Don't believe everything you think!
Bumper sticker and fave motto of labor cartoonist "Bobbo" Simpson
Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash. Your picture in the paper nor money in the bank, neither. Just refuse to bear them. William Faulkner, U.S. author
Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.
Herman Melville, U.S. author
...the pure market is a fantasy; the examples of the two most traded commodities in the contemporary world, oil and drugs, show how political, social and cartel factors override and distort the workings of supply and demand. Fred Halliday, 2008
Resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies. St. Augustine
There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts of tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us. Walt Kelly, spoken by his cartoon character Pogo
What does it mean to be a revolutionary who is not trying to stage a revolution? It is not necessary to conquer the world. It is sufficient to make it new. Subcomandante "Marcos", masked leader of Mexico's Zapatista National Liberation Army
The movement is lava rumbling under the earth, always there. But sometimes it breaks through, and then anything can happen, and the surface is forever changed. Kim Fellner, US author and co-founder of the National Organisers Alliance
I am only one, but I am still one; I cannot do everything, but still I
can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to
do the something that I can do. Helen Keller
Philosophers have merely interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. Karl Marx
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself
and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care.
... Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his (sic) interests. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
The modern Conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy - that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith, economist
Too many people, assisted by the media bias, extrapolate from a few cases of people hurting others that human nature is bad.
Tal Ben-Shahar, Harvard University lecturer
You say the little efforts that I make will do no good; they never will prevail to tip the hovering scale where justice hangs in balance. I don't think I ever thought they would, but I am prejudiced beyond debate in favour of my right to choose which side shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight. Tommy Douglas, 1960
In an era of reform the demand for revolution becomes a badge of complacency.
Brian Kitchener, a nice guy I met a long time ago
John Chambers of CISCO systems spends 80% of his time in conversation with customers, and requires every executive to spend at least 50% of their time face-to-face with customers.
P B Seybold, customer relations analyst, 2001
It is never too late to be what you might have been. George Eliot
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. Sun Tzu
We economists have a responsibility to think more broadly about what a healthy economy might do for its participants. We need new metrics and new models.
U.S. feminist economist Nancy Folbre, 2008
Technological society has succeeded in multiplying the opportunities for pleasure, but it has had great difficulty in generating joy. Pope Paul VI, 1968
It is not that humans have become more greedy than in the past generation... It is that the avenues to express greed have grown so enormously. Alan Greenspan, former US Federal Reserve Chairman, 2003
We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are. Anais Nin, Novelist, feminist, philosopher, dancer
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. Bishop Desmond Tutu, South African Prelate
...if work were such a splendid thing the rich would have kept more of it for themselves. Bruce Grocott, British Labour politician
When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him whose? Don Marquis 1878-1937, US humorist and journalist
None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. Goethe
Class consciousness is knowing which side of the fence you are on. Class analysis is knowing who is there with you.
Anonymous
In every one of those little stucco boxes there's some poor bastard who's never free except when he's fast asleep and dreaming that he's got the boss down the bottom of a well and is bunging lumps of coal at him. George Orwell 1903-1950, British author, ''Animal Farm''
It is not the impossible which gives cause for despair, but the failure to achieve the possible. Louis Michel, European Commissioner for
Development and Humanitarian Aid
I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern. C.S. Lewis, UK novelist and academic
...the denial of creative involvement at work results in socially significant pathologies with an import far beyond the scope of the job itself.
Melvin Tumin, in
Source Book for Creative Problem Solving
Employees and employers need organizations that solve problems, not create them. In a fast-paced, competitive world... unions need to level the playing field for all employers, not by simply raising the cost of doing business for unionized ones alone. Andy Stern, SEIU President, 2006
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
(Note: the original hand-written text ended on the phrase "the pursuit of property" rather than "the pursuit of Happiness". However the latter phrase has been accepted as replacing this.) US Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776
I do not hesitate one second to state clearly and unmistakably: I belong to the American resistance movement which fights against American imperialism, just as the resistance movement fought against Hitler.
American singer and activist Paul Robeson
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemoller, died in Dachau, 1944
The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today.
African Proverb
The best map in the world will not get you anywhere. Only going will get you there.
Anon
A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias. Oscar Wilde, 1891, Irish playwright, poet and wit
Rare is the person who can weigh the faults of others without putting his thumb on the scales.
Byron J. Langenfeld
The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. Milan Kundera, Czech novelist
The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change. Bill Clinton, US President
All that matters is love and work. Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychoanalyst
Love, work and knowledge are the wellsprings of our life. They should also govern it. Wilhelm Reich, Austrian psychoanalyst
The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. Lily Tomlin
Always remember that you're unique, just like everybody else.
Anonymous
You can get everything you want if you help enough others get what they want. Zig Ziglar
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
Benito Mussolini, fascist
At the extremes of the political spectrum one encounters people who are moved chiefly to find an outlet for the venom that is in them.
D. Sutten
It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees. Emiliano Zapata
The great discovery the modern slaves have made is that they themselves their freedom must achieve. This is the secret of their solidarity, the heart of their hope... Eugene Debs
Every means tends to become an end. To understand the tragedy of human history it is necessary to grasp that fact. Machines which ought to be men's instrument, enslave him, the state enslaves society, the bureaucracy enslaves the state, the church enslaves religion, parliament enslaves democracy, institutions enslave justice, academies enslave art, the army enslaves the nation, the party enslaves the cause, the dictatorship of the proletariat enslaves Socialism. The choice and the control of the instruments of political action are thus at least as important as the choice of the ends themselves, and as time goes on the instruments must be expected to become an end for those who use them. Ignazio Silone, Italian Novelist, 1939
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality. Dante Alighieri
To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius
If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you recognize that your liberation and mine are bound up together, we can walk together.
Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s
The dogmatist within is always worse than the enemy without. Stephen Jay Gould
Market and democracy clash at the fundamental level. Democracy runs on the principle of 'one man (one person), one vote.' The market runs on the principle of 'one dollar, one vote.' Ha-Joon Chang, economist, consultant to the World Bank
We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live.
The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.
I am an organizer, not a union leader. A good organizer has to work hard and long. There are no shortcuts. You just keep talking to people, working with them, sharing, exchanging and they come along.
We are convinced that non-violence is more powerful than violence … If you use violence, you have to sell part of yourself for that violence. Then you are no longer a master of your own struggle.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Often the oppressor goes along unaware of the evil involved in his oppression so long as the oppressed accepts it.
Power is the ability to achieve purpose. Whether it is good or bad depends on the purpose.
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.
One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love... What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic.
Underlying the problems of the IMF and the other international economic institutions is the problem of governance: who decides what they do. The institutions are dominated not just by the wealthiest industrial countries, but by commercial and financial interests in those countries, and the policies of the institutions naturally reflect this.
The discontent with globalization arises not just from economics seeming to be pushed over everything else, but because a particular view of economics - market fundamentalism - is pushed over all other views... This notion flies in rhea face both of economics, which emphasizes the importance of trade-offs, and of ordinary common sense.
It has become increasingly clear, not to just ordinary citizens but to policy makers as well... that globalization has not lived up to what its advocates promised... In many cases commercial interests and values have superceded concern for the environment, democracy, human rights, and social justice.
US Presidents
If I went to work in a factory the first thing I'd do is join a union. Franklin D. Roosevelt (The sculpture to the left is from the Roosevelt Memorial).
When the workers are paid in return for their labor only as much money as will buy the necessaries of life, their condition is identical with that of the slave. John Adams, Second President of the USA
If a man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar! Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor
had not first existed. Abraham Lincoln
The American labor movement has consistently demonstrated its devotion to the public interest. It is, and has been, good for all America. John F. Kennedy
Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of the right to join the union of their choice. Dwight D. Eisenhower
America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. ... We ought to be proud of it! (vice President) Hubert Humphrey
The AFL-CIO has done more good for more people than any (other) group in America in its legislative efforts. It doesn’t just try to do something about wages and hours for its own people. No group in the country works harder in the interests of everyone. Lyndon Johnson
Every advance in this half-century: Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education... one after another- came with the support and leadership of American Labor. Jimmy Carter
We're ready to take the offense for organized labor. It's time we had a President who didn't choke saying the word "union" I don’t see organized labor as part of the problem. To me, it’s part of the solution; and:
...much of what we take for granted--the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, health insurance, paid leave, pensions, Social Security, Medicare--they all bear the union label... So even if you're not a union member, every American owes something to America's labor movement. Barack Obama
Some management views
Probably for the first time since the industrial revolution, you can’t build a company that’s fit for the future unless you build a company that’s fit for human beings. And let’s just admit it; management as it has been practiced over the last 100 years has not been very human-friendly. We’re going to have to change that. Yes, for the benefit of performance; yes, for the benefit of shareholders; but most of all we have to change it for the benefit of people who show up every day and devote more of their life to work than anything else. If you can build a company that’s fit for those people, that gets the best out of them… then you will build a company that can thrive in the world ahead. Gary Hamel, whom the Wall St Journal called "the world’s leading expert on business strategy".
Such a thing as democracy in industry, love in industry, is possible -- and it is good business. George F. Johnson, US industrialist, 1857-1948
We could build up a great enterprise by making our workers comfortable, free of worry, whether in the factory or in their homes, by thinking of them as human beings, not machines to be run 'til they broke down and had to be scrapped; to make them as contented as we could within reason. George F. Johnson, US industrialist
We simply do not believe our employees have an interest in coming in late, leaving early, and doing as little as possible for as much money as their union can wheedle out of us... They are adults. We trust them... We get out of their way and let them do their jobs... We recognise the renewing power of unions and the importance of not becoming ostriches... The era of using people as production tools is coming to an end. Participation is infinitely more complex to practice than conventional corporate unilateralism, just as democracy is much more cumbersome than dictatorship. But there will be few companies that can afford to ignore either of them. Ricardo Semler, Brazilian CEO (see the inspiring SEMCO story here)
One's own employees ought to be one's own best customers... Paying high wages is behind the prosperity of this country. Henry Ford 1863-1947, Founder of Ford Motor Company
The fundamental purpose of a business is not to make money. Rather, it is to achieve sustained, profitable growth. To achieve growth, we must have innovation; we need to do things differently. And innovation is a bottom up process... coming from the people closest to the work.
Praveen Gupta, management consultant and author
I believe that the future of successful workplace design can be defined as how you treat your employees — in other words, the overall employee experience... I believe that the future of work is ALL about design, and more specifically democratic design. Yves Behar, CEO of fuseproject
The US retailer Nordstrom has an employee handbook that consists of only one rule: “Use your good judgment in all situations – there will be no additional rules.”
This battle
(excerpted from a poem by Emma Rosenthal)
this battle implores
we understand the complexion of wealth
the essense of water
the sanctity of land
the wall between neighbors
this battle requires
a fight with open hands
and broken heart
i am not afraid to show you my wounds
nor tend to yours
nor am i afraid of connection
or honest deliberation
this battle commands
diligent study
patient instruction
honors life through righteous living
requires that i do not avert my eyes
that i insist you look at mine
In 2006 hedge-fund manager James Simons took home $1.7 billion. Two other hedge fund managers made more than $1 billion. The top 25 combined made $14 billion. NY Times, April 2007
From then until 2008, average executive pay in Britain, as in America, rose sharply. see The Economist, September 2009.
In Africa 174 children out of 1000 still fail to reach the age of five.
J. Micklethwait and A Wooldridge, writers on globalisation, 2000
A quarter of the children who live in the developing world are malnourished. About 120 million work full-time. 5,000 die every day from drinking dirty water. Eleven million under the age of five die each year, mostly from preventable and treatable diseases. That's one every three seconds.
Click here for a note on sources
The U.S. financial bailout of 2008 cost more than the Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, moonshot, Korean War, New Deal, Iraq war, Vietnam war and NASA's lifetime budget combined. Details
The cost of eradicating poverty has been estimated at a mere one per cent of global
income. That’s about $80 billion. In 1995 the world spent $800 billion – ten times that
amount – on the military.
From the United Nations Human Development Report 1997 (UNDP)
With the advent of globalized markets... the South now exports capital to the North, at a skyrocketing rate. According to the United Nations, in 2006 the net transfer of capital from poorer countries to rich ones was $784 billion, up from $229 billion in 2002. (In 1997, the balance was even.) Even the poorest countries, like those in sub-Saharan Africa, are now money exporters. New York Times, p. 16, March 25, 2007
In the late 19th century, rich countries had incomes about 10 times greater than the poorest ones. Today’s ratio is about 50 to 1.
Lant Pritchett, ex World Bank, “Let Their People Come.”
(US) union workers earn an average of $10.27 more per hour in total compensation than non union workers; that's $33.32 vs $23.15.
US Bureau of Labour Statistics 2005 survey of labour costs
The IMF estimates that the cumulative losses from the current financial crisis will total $3,400bn between 2007 and 2010. The ILO predicts unemployment will increase by up to 60 million.
Each year, an estimated 2.2 million people die from work-related accidents and diseases around the world.
ILO 2008
Between 1960 and 1997 the gap between the poorest fifth and the richest fifth of the
world's population more than doubled. ChristianAid, 2001
The combined assets of the world's three leading billionaires exceed the combined GDP of all the least developed countries in the world, including 600 million people.
J. Micklethwait and A Wooldridge, writers on globalisation, 2000
The total collective net worth of the world's four billion poorest went down for the twentieth year running in 2007, to an all-time low of just under $US35. The net worth of the world's 946 billionaires increased massively from 2006, to a total of $3.5 trillion!
Figures taken from the Forbes 400 Richest List, 2007
A meager 1.5% of the worldwide labour force works outside its home country. In the EU the equivalent number is 2%.
G Mulgan, Harvard Business School, 1997
The labour and environmental side-agreements tacked on to the North American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico have a spectacularly poor track record. Today, 75% of Mexico's population lives in poverty, up from 49% in 1981.
Naomi Klein, writer on globalisation and corporate culture, 2001
Likened by some to a plague of locusts, private equity funds now control more overseas assets, and employ more workers, than the traditionally ranked leading TNCs. Trillions of dollars in recent years have gone into acquiring, restructuring and disposing of companies, often with a catastrophic impact on employment and working conditions. International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) Secretariat, 2007 (see www.buyoutwatch.info)
The amount returned to developing countries by expatriate workers, at more than $160 billion (£82bn), is far higher than the total aid budget spent by the developed world on developing countries, which runs at around $100 billion (£51bn) a year. International Organisation for Migration 2005
(In the USA) a one-percent rise in unemployment has been linked to an increase of 4.1 percent in suicides, 5.7 percent in homicides, 1.9 percent in stress-related illnesses, and 4.3 percent in admissions to mental hospitals. Dr. M. Harvey Brenner, sociologist at Johns Hopkins University
Developing countries lose an estimated £250 billion every year as a direct result of corporate tax dodging – money which could be used to reach the UN’s Millennium Development Goals several times over. Tax avoidance and capital flight cost Africa five times what it receives in aid in each year. War on Want, 2007
Twenty years ago the salary difference between a US CEO and a factory worker was 40:1. A few years ago it was more than 400:1.
J. Micklethwait and A Wooldridge, writers on globalisation, 2000
A person living in a poor country is 79 times more likely to be hit by a climate change-related disaster than someone from a rich country. United Nations Development Program 2009
At least 2.4 million people are victims of trafficking for the purpose of forced labour around the world, generating an estimated US$32 billion in annual profits. ILO: Combating human trafficking and forced labour, 2007
Almost 2.2 million people die in accidents or due to illnesses related to their work each year. Over 270 million workers are injured at
work and almost 160 million suffer from illness caused by their jobs.
These figures do nothing to convey the impact such events have on workers and their families, but it is an impact which effects us all: the estimated cost is 4% of the world's gross
domestic product, or 20 times total development aid.
Figures issued by the ILO
The world labour force has been growing at least 3% per year, which means that it has more than doubled between 1970 and 2000. (Over the same period the percentage of women in the labour force) has risen from 33% in 1970 to 40% in 2000.
J. Harrod and R. O'Brien, labour analysts, 2002
USA, Japan, Brazil and China account for 40% of the world's workforce.
J. Harrod and R. O'Brien, labour analysts, 2002
Some 57 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could. Peter D. Hart Research Associates, December 2006
During the 1960s, U.S. fathers on average talked 45 minutes per day with their kids. Today, the equivalent figure is six minutes.
T Peters, Liberation Management, 1992
25% of the U.S. workforce has no right to form a union under federal, state or local law.
See this GAO report and this ARAW summary
Between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of U.S. employees who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95% to 39%; the number voicing trust in them fell from 79% to 22%.
Centre for Work-Life Policy (more)
The service sector, comprising finance, banking and tourism, but also much
lesser-paid jobs in retail and food services, overtook agriculture as the
largest source of employment last year (2006). U.N. Commission for Social Development
During the 1990s more than 80% of all new jobs in Latin America and 93% in Africa were within the informal economy. ILO - Your Voice at Work report, 2000
Most Americans today know that Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, but fewer know why he was there. King went to Memphis to support African American garbage workers, who were on strike to protest unsafe conditions, abusive white supervisors, and low wages -- and to gain recognition for their union. Peter Dreier, writing for American Prospect 2007
Around 65,000 multinationals between them employ more than 90 million people today, or one in 20 of the global workforce. ILO, 2007
More than 57 million workers - or 42% of the U.S. workforce - do not receive any paid sick leave to take care of themselves or family members. Nearly 23 million are women. Internationally, 168 countries provide some sort of paid leave for new mothers and 145 countries provide paid sick time for short- or long-term illness. 102 countries guarantee one month or more of paid sick leave.
Alison Trinidad, reporting for the New-Union Times
Globally, at any given time, at least 12.3 million people are working in forced labour conditions. More than 2.4 million of these victims have been trafficked. International Trade Union Confederation 2007
At $4.6165 trillion and counting, the 2008 Credit Crisis bailout represents the largest outlay in history. Adjusting for inflation, it has cost more than the Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, Race to the Moon, Savings & Loan Bailout, Korean War, New Deal, Iraq War, Vietnam War and NASA's lifetime budget combined. more» Barry Ritholtz November 2008, in research for Bailout Nation
World's 5 biggest employers
People’s Liberation Army of China
2,260,000
Wal-Mart
2,100,000
National Health Service, UK
1,560,000
Indian Railways
1,410,000
Indian Army
1,130,000
Source: Financial Times 23 June 09 from ONS and Labour Force Survey data
Surrealities
A senior aide to President Bush made this chillingly Orwellian remark to journalist and author Ron Suskind: "We're an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." How do sociopaths wind down after a hard day?
Thanks to Paul Wratten for this surreal gem.
You know those people who tell you something has to be done a certain way "because it's always been done that way", well here's a tale you might tell them. I think the punch line suggests itself: The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.
That is an exceptionally odd number.
Why was that gauge used?
Because that's the way they built them in England, and the U.S. railroads were built by English expatriates.
Why did the English build them that way?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
Why did they use that gauge?
Because the people that built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
So why did the wagons have that particularly odd spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So, who built those old rutted roads?
The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads? The ruts in the roads, which everyone had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels, were first formed by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
The U.S. standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches drives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
Specifications and bureaucracies live forever.
The Imperial Roman war chariots were made wide enough to accommodate the back end of two war horses. Thus we have the answer to the original question.
But we're not finished yet.
When we see a space shuttle sitting on its launching pad, there are two booster rockets attached to the side of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol, at their factory in Utah. The engineers, who designed the SRBs, might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train, from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is... you guessed it... about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, the major design feature of what is arguably the worlds' most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago, by the width of a horse's ass!
O Angela, we shared your pain!
Old New Unionism
There have been two main periods in labor history known as "New Unionism", and it would seem they are closely linked. The first began in the mid-1880s, as craft-based structures gave way to industrial unions. The new leaders argued that unions must become more open, visionary and inclusive.
In 1988 women at the Bryant & May match factory in London began what might well be the most significant strike in history*: and their success ushered in a new era of expansion in union membership, social ambition and influence. A year later came the London dockers' strike, and within twelve months membership of the UK's Trade Union Congress had increased from 670,000 to 1,593,000.
Although produced a little later, this poster from the U.S. IWW (aka "the Wobblies") captures the spirit and goals of that first movement wonderfully.
It was a period in which unions went beyond reacting to imposed agendas and started developing their own social goals. Labor historian R.A. Leeson described the shift thus:
"Two conflicting views of the trade-union movement strove for ascendancy in the nineteenth century: one the defensive-restrictive gild-craft tradition passed down through journeymen's clubs and friendly societies,... the other the aggressive-expansionist drive to unite all 'labouring men and women' for a 'different order of things'..."
Speaking in 1892, W.G. Spence, made the following comments on "The Ethics of New Unionism":
"In the old days labor looked askance at the employer and felt a hatred for him. New Unionism is today looking beyond the employer and fixing its hatred upon the system, which is bad not alone for the worker, but for the employer - which forces the employer to act unjustly even if (they do) not wish to do so."
He continued:
"...there was spreading amongst unionists this idea... that they could not affect the improvement they desired
by dealing only with the mere question of hours and wages. And so comes
what has been termed the "new unionism" - a unionism wide and broad
in its aim, and one which will certainly be far-reaching in its effects...
We are aiming now at securing an improvement by social and political reforms
- and by that means alone a revolution will undoubtedly be effected in time. When I use the word
revolution do not misunderstand me - I mean a quiet one. It will be a change from one condition to another."
Revolution? So where does this fit in with early communism, and Marx and Lenin and all that? Because of its deeper social agenda, New Unionism was described at the time as "labor socialism", or "evolutionary socialism". Karl Marx was a champion of the New Unionists:
"The old Unions preserve the traditions of the time when they were founded, and look upon the wages system as a once-for-all established, final fact, which they at best can modify in the interest of their members. The new Unions were founded at a time when the faith in the eternity of the wages system was severely shaken... And thus we see now these new Unions taking the lead of the working-class movement generally, and more and more taking in tow the rich and proud, old Unions. ...glad and proud I am to have lived to see it."
However World War One interrupted New Unionism's evolution. When it was over, leaving many of the traditional power relations shattered, three contending ideologies (soviet, anti-communist and Christian social-democrat) began vying for control of the movement. The first casualty was union democracy.
The Great Split In 1920 there was a huge split in the labour movement. At the Second Congress of the Comintern, V.I. Lenin proposed “Twenty One Conditions” which must be met in order for communists and socialists to work together (more). In effect, the communists demanded allegiance to the Soviet order. Those who agreed pledged themselves to struggle against any force which was working to reform capitalism.
The same year saw a secondary split, with the formation of the "International Federation of Christian Trade Unions" - designed to provide an alternative to the anti-religious trade unions in Europe at the time. World War Two papered over these divisions for a while, but as soon as it was over the primary dispute - often described in terms of "reform vs revolution" - resurfaced.
Within a few years the Cold War had set the split in concrete, and Russian and US-dominated forces were battling in every imaginable way to control the direction of unionism. It was a fracas in which the workers' voice was generally drowned out. The effects of 1920 lasted beyond the end of the century. In fact it might be argued that vestiges of the era's top-down ideologically-based controls are still evident in some unions today.
However the splits are becoming increasingly irrelevant as the Cold War recedes. In 2006 the original Christian federation (changed and renamed) joined together with the originally anti-communist federation to establish a new international body called the ITUC. The remaining international group, the WFTU (which had pushed the soviet line) has lost more than half of its membership, and is struggling to find a new way forward.
With the effects of these three ideologies subsiding, the drive for social change is again emerging from below. New Unionism is again finding its expression within organised labour, which faces a whole new set of problems: environmental catastrophe, institutionalised conflicts, globalised economics and an increasingly borderless labor market.
We have set up this network to show that the second wave of New Unionism, like its 19th century predecessor, is democratic, rather than bureaucratic, and takes lessons from creative practice (including mistakes!) rather than from ideology. The people involved are those closest to the issues: trade unionists, workers and those labor academics who are engaged in practical research. You'll find most of them listed here»
So where to now? The movement is still defining itself, and it will be for some years to come. But this time it is happening from the bottom up, rather than the top down. There never was any other way. As the leader of Mexico's Zapatistas put it: "It is not necessary to conquer the world. It is sufficient to make it new".
If you'd like to stay in the loop as this movement develops, then one place you might start is by subscribing to the New Unionism network's free newsletters. You can do this here»
Harvard economist and New Unionism founding member Richard B. Freeman (pictured) is the world's leading authority on the representation gap: the difference between those who would like join a union and those who actually do.
According to a recent survey by Freeman more U.S. workers want to join a union today than at any other time in the past generation.
In 1984 about a third of non-union workers wanted a union to represent them, while two-thirds said they would definitely or probably vote against one. By 2005 nearly the opposite was true: 53% of non-union workers wanted a union and only a little more than a third said they would vote against a union. "If workers were provided the union representation they desired in 2005, then the unionization rate would be about 58%" — that's almost eight times higher than the actual rate of 7.4%. more»
What about other countries? Is the representation gap a U.S. anomaly? In an earlier United Kingdom study (again involving Freeman) the TUC found that somewhere between 5 and 8 million workers would be likely to join a union if they were approached. This would double the size of the movement. download»
In looking at five other countries Freeman has found:
• In Canada 25% of non-unionised workers would prefer to belong to a union. This would almost double the size of the movement.
• In the United Kingdom 10% of non-unionised workers would be “very likely” and a further 26% “quite likely” to join a union. It is hard to say how “soft” this latter figure is, but we might guess a total of 20% . This would more than double the size of the movement.
• In Ireland A staggering 64% would be likely to join if management supported unions. This is reduced to 28% if management opposes. If we apply only the latter figure, this would increase the movement’s size by about 75%.
• In Australia 17% would be very likely to join and another 22% fairly likely to join. Shall we say that this would amount to a 27% increase? If so, the movement more than doubles. Since then a 2007 study has confirmed the trend, showing that an extra 820,000 workers wish to become union members.
• In New Zealand 11% would be “very likely” to join and 21% fairly likely. This would almost double the size of the movement.
Countless academics have sought to measure the tangible benefits of being a union member. The difference between union and non-union wages, often referred to as the "union premium", can be calculated in many different ways. It's a profoundly complex field... here's a classic example of the poop one has to wade through in search of enlightenment:
"If heteroscedasticity is present and affects the coefficient estimates, the quantile regression estimation suggests that the rate of change of the unobservables is different at different quantiles for males but it is not the case for females."
Rightho, then.
Strangely, international data on the union premium has never, to our knowledge, been assembled in an easily-accessible form. The most that we found was a list of 19 countries. No doubt there are good reasons for this, probably involving heteroscedasticity. Anyway, let's start with a sample of five countries and then consider some of the issues.
Country
Premium
Year
Source
Canada
7.7%
2002
Japan
8%
2003
Turkey
>100%
2001
United Kingdom
17.1%
2004
United States
20%
2003
(Note: these figures are not necessarily comparable, as different methodologies and definitions may have been used).
And here's some more recent data from the U.S. prepared by the AFL-CIO:
Before we go any further though, let's stop and ask ourselves if a high union premium is necessarily a good thing for workers? At first this may seem an odd question, but
as the Canadian Labour Congress has pointed out:
"The union wage premium has been found to be lowest in countries where union density is high, and highest where union density is low.
Thus it is much higher in the US than in Sweden. This is surprising on the surface, but it reflects the fact that non-union employers will be more likely to be forced to match union wages where unions are very strong...
The goal is to improve the working conditions of all workers rather than raising the wages of a union elite. A very high union wage premium and low union density is likely to promote strong employer resistance to unions, as in the US. On the other hand, widespread unionization, as in Sweden, is likely to promote much less strong employer opposition, at least once high density has been established. That is because, in highly unionized environments, wages are effectively ‘taken out of competition’... Employers must then compete with each other on the basis of non-wage costs, productivity and quality."
Employers would do well to reflect on this.
Does it really make sense to pay workers extra so that they won't unionize, on the basis that the company can then compete on wage costs?? Reducing the union premium in this way is common practice in many developed countries, but savings are seldom compared against the costs of employee alienation, angry organising campaigns, anti-union consultants, ongoing legal costs, and the commercial risk of a public relations melt down.
Sadly, the majority of countries do allow businesses to compete on wages. Such competition leads to an endless pressure on wages, and of course workers have no choice but to resist. By and large, as we can see above, this resistance pays off well.
"Unions in other countries, such as Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal and Spain, are also able to raise wages by significant amounts."
Changes over time in union relative wage effects in the UK and the US Revisited, December 2002, by David Blanchflower and Alex Bryson
In Germany "...works councils are associated with higher earnings. The wage premium is around 11 percent (and is higher under collective bargaining)."
In South Africa "...We estimate union premia on the order of 20 percent for African workers and 10 percent for white workers."
In the U.S. "The standard estimate of the average union premium (union vs. non-union wage gap) of 15% might be incorrect due to two forms of measurement that create an error bias in the data... These procedural errors lead to a downward bias, indicating that the average union premium could be as high as 24%".
Reconsidering Wage Effects: Surveying New Evidence on an Old Topic, Journal of Labor Research, Spring 2004, by Barry T. Hirsch
An interesting result of this battle is that a unionised workforce also tends to
reshape the economic landscape as they struggle over wages.
"An almost universal finding is that union/non-union wage differentials are larger for lower-skilled than for higher-skilled workers."
In the U.S. "When one compares workers whose experience, education, region, industry, occupation and marital status are comparable, those covered by a union agreement (are also):
-- 28.2% more likely to have employer-provided health insurance
-- 53.9% more likely to have pension coverage
-- 14.3% more paid time off.
The union wage premium varies by race, ethnicity and gender, but is large for every group:
-- Whites - 13.1%
-- Blacks - 20.3%
-- Hispanics - 21.9%
-- Asians - 16.7%
...Unions also lessen inequality because they are more successful at raising the wages of those in the bottom 60% of the wage pool.
Lawrence Mishel, President of the Economic Policy Institute Committee on Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, 2007
By now you're getting the picture... and it's complicated stuff.
Unions are good for working people, as a whole, but the financial benefits of unionism do not simply bounce back to the sole benefit of those who pay the fees.
Various studies have shown that unions tend to make pay fairer (ie across society), rather than just higher (ie for members only). But do fee-paying members get a good return on their investment? Sadly we can't prove this. The necessary data just isn't available. In fact the move towards private employment contracts and fluid working arrangements means we may never again see proper comparative figures. The best we can do for you is to break our own rule, and include data from the 1990s.
Country
Premium
Year(s)
Australia12%
1994, 8, 9
Austria15%
1994, 5, 8, 9
Brazil34%
1999
Canada8%
1997-9
Chile16%
1998-9
Cyprus14%
1996-8
Denmark16%
1997-8
France3%
1996-8
Germany4%
1994-9
Italy0%
1994 & 8
Japan26%
1994-6, 8, 9
Netherlands0%
1994 & 5
New Zealand 10%
1994-9
Norway7%
1994-9
Portugal18%
1998-9
South Africa20%
2006
Spain7%
1995, 7-9
Sweden0%
1994-9
United Kingdom 10%
1993-2002
United States 17%
1973-2002
Unless otherwise stated (see below) this data comes from The Effect of Trade Unions on Wages by Alex Bryson, Reflets et Perspectives de la Vie Economique, 2007. This article can be purchased for 5 Euro here.
When looking at the figures for Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden, don't assume that the unions there aren't doing their jobs! As Bryson points out: "this is primarily due to the fact that unions are also able to control wage outcomes in the non-union sector". The same holds true, to a lesser extent, for France and Germany. Although our figures are dated, it looks pretty clear that being a union member pays off. In fact when one compares union fees against wage/salary gains, there would be very few investments in the world which pay such handsome dividends.
And yet this financial incentive is clearly not the sole reason people join/fail to join. Why are there so few members in the US, where the rewards are so high? And why would a worker in Italy, the Netherlands or Sweden join? There seems to be no simple link between union density and the union wage premium. None at all. Yes, union membership pays a high dividend to members. But it also generates benefits for others, some of whom are not members.
It seems that the cost-benefit ratio of unionism cannot be calculated in any normal way. Investing in values. Solidarity. Social justice. This is the kind of maths that modern economists simply can't figure. It's a pity, because there seems to be an awful lot of it going around.
To download a list of further readings on this subject click here
The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack.
former union-buster Martin Jay Levitt, 1993
It seems that class war is alive and well and living in the U.S.A. Oddly enough, its prime exponent these days is the private sector employer, generally backed (under Republican governments, at least) by public officials. At a time where workers are seeking democracy in the workplace, "union-busters" are resorting to every cloak-and-dagger trick imaginable to undermine basic workplace rights.
"...I would call it class management."
Dr Charles Hughes, psychologist & anti-union consultant
Ever since the Pinkerton agency started hiring agents as strikebreakers in the 1890s, the U.S. has been a hothouse for experiments in union-busting. By the 1980s it had become a multi-million dollar industry (more). Since then turnover is believed to have grown to about $4bn per year.
It has become extremely profitable for these people to create and to promote industrial discord. It is a phenomenon which is now going global. As a result, in 2008 the largest national union federations in the U.S. and the UK's signed
a protocol for co-operation. This was in response to union busters setting up "union avoidance" operations in the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Belgium, France and Germany.
This a story which will loom large during the Obama Presidency.
The rights-busters stand to make a fortune out of the panic they generate. As the headlines come and go, remember:
12% of U.S. workers have a union in their workplace, but 53% would like one;
Every 23 minutes a worker in the US is fired or discriminated against for supporting a union. 30% of employers illegally fire pro-union workers during organizing drives;
91% of employers force employees to attend one-on-one anti-union meetings with their supervisors during union organizing drives;
92% of companies involved in union organizing drives mail anti-union materials to employees' homes;
79% of U.S. workers feel they would be “very” or “somewhat” likely to be fired for trying to organize a union;
49% of employers openly threaten to close a worksite when workers try to form a union
36% of workers who vote against union representation say their vote was a response to employer pressure;
4.6% of workers reported feeling pressured by union organizers to sign up.
AFL-CIO data, 2007
In the film clip below ex union-buster Martin Jay Levitt identifies several strategies which were used successfully against him, including:
• Inoculation: Thoroughly preparing the workforce for the campaign. Let them know what's coming and leave it to them to defend the union.
• Exposure: Get copies of contractual arrangements between the company and the consultant. Check company returns, public documents and previous campaign records. Let workers see for themselves how underhand these campaigns are, and how outrageous the fees.
You can add your own favourite quote or fact by clicking "add to this page" below. Your message will appear, allowing any other network member to respond and/or add their own. We reserve the right to delete responses if they're rude or silly (unless of course they're also really funny!).
Management is far too important to leave to managers.
But we're not finished yet.
When we see a space shuttle sitting on its launching pad, there are two booster rockets attached to the side of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol, at their factory in Utah. The engineers, who designed the SRBs, might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train, from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is... you guessed it... about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, the major design feature of what is arguably the worlds' most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago, by the width of a horse's ass! 
"In the old days labor looked askance at the employer and felt a hatred for him. New Unionism is today looking beyond the employer and fixing its hatred upon the system, which is bad not alone for the worker, but for the employer - which forces the employer to act unjustly even if (they do) not wish to do so."
The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack.