Economics: US Labor 5 Big Unions representing 40% US union members to break from AFL-CIO

William Glanz reports in a major article in The Washington Times (WaT) that a mega-rift is opening in the AFL-CIO's heavy bureaucratic structure. Five major unions - Service Employees International Union (I was once a member and shop steward of SEIU in Toronto - the worst union experience imaginable! the downtown headquarters reps impressed me at the time as a bunch of self-serving crooks, I say in the interest of complete disclosure - Owlb); United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCWIU); Unite Here; Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA), and the Teamsters.

The AFL-CIO from which the Big Five would split off, now has 13 million members, but is in serious decline. 5 into 13 = 2.6 / 2 X 2.6 = 4 + 1.2 = 5.2 million members carved off into the new "union central", as it would be called in Europe; while 13 million - 5.2 million = 7.8 million remaining in the AFL-CIO.

I adhere to a very extensively-articulated Christian philosophy which, in its contiguous societal philosophy embraces a theory of the specificity of societal spheres and their consequent universality as well (sorry for the deployment of technical terms). This social philosophy believes labour unions to be an integral and necessary part of post-modern hi-tech hi-ly differentiated work institutions and work relations, and a societal necessity, as well as a personal ethical responsiblity for all workers. We see the labour union as, first of all, an ethical bond within the work-community, and in the special relations that must obtain between the workforce and managerial workers in authority, as well as the owners and/or invetors (among whom may be some of the wage-earners in the company's workforce itself, but not necessarily). There are a number of differences between an ethically idea-ed work-community and the ideas that best articulate the end-all and be-all of secularist, "neutral" labour movements.

Without going into all that, I just want to remark here that the idea of a labour union in my take on this Christian philosophy conceives of all "union centrals" active within a given sector, industry, and/or company as bound to cooperate with one another in achieving results fair to the workers, respectful and cooperative longterm with management and ownership, and contributive to stablity of industrial relations. This approach is widespread in Europe and tends to lead to higher-level bargaining than is typical in the USA. Most important, again, it allows members of different unions, based on different first principles, to function alongside one another with appropriate representation of each member by that particular union among the options in that company or industry that articulates the specific members work-ethical values. [See the list of Christian unions on refWrite's right-hand margin].

The new unionism emerging in the US may not stem the tide of workers who abandon the notion of union altogether, but that general process of shrinkage of national statistics of union membmershp overall does not in itself either help or hinder the idea of a national Christian union central with diverse industry-specific affiliates of a like commitment based on a philosophy of an ethic of work relations suitable to an advanced industrial, informatic society of rapid financial interaction. We need such, in the USA, Canada, and Mexico - a Christian union which is welcoming to "all sorts and conditions" of people, a union committed to its religious particularity (not narrowly drawn) and to its philosophical distinctness (not a Church-down magisterial determination, but a sphere-sovereign independent outlook) regarding work relations. And, on that basis, a form of unionization open to all who can make a commitment to these work values in order to join - a diverse body, interracial, women and men, of many ethnic origins, without religious or sexual-preference discriminaton, and willing to advance new ways of cooperation and stablilization of workforces with safe working conditions, fair pay, and rights to association. We disagree with the movements in the US that stress the right to disassociation, but a provision must be made for those who don't want to join any union and don't want any responsiblity for making work relations better thru a pluralist framework of several cooperating unions on a large shop floor in the auto industry, say, in Detroit and Oshawa. - Owlb