With Labor Day 2016 recently upon us, hopefully you’ve enjoyed the “unofficial last day of summer” – even with the recent threat of a tropical storm fizzling out beach activities and barbecues and, now, back with summer temperatures.
The Labor Day holiday has a pretty well documented history. Although there are some who believe that it was developed because “a holiday was needed between 4th of July and Thanksgiving”, I can’t find anything to support that theory other than a mini-snippet in the History Channel video below.
However, the history of Labor Day as described by the US Department of Labor , it has a beginning with the labor unions in the 19th century. Many of the unions in New York joined together into one Central Labor Union that was made up of members from many local unions. On May 14, 1882, a proposal was made at the Central Labor Union meeting that all workers should join together for a “monster labor festival” in early September. Several states began to recognize Labor Day as a legal holiday in their state, with the Federal government finally making Labor Day a legal holiday on the first Monday of September each year. It was approved on June 28, 1894.
DC37, NYC’s largest municipal labor union, will be marching in the NYC Labor Day parade scheduled for September 10th, 2016 along with other unions like the SUNY United University Professors , The NewsGuild of New York , and 300 other local unions representing 1.3 million workers from every trade and occupation in the New York City.
Notwithstanding the larger politics, the I’ve been a longtime supporter of the basic operation of unions : to negotiate wages and working condition terms, regulate relations between workers (its members) and the employer, take collective action to enforce the terms of collective bargaining, raise new demands on behalf of its members, and help settle their grievances.
The usual arguments exist on the pro’s and con’s. Some think tanks like the American Action Forum and the Competitive Enterprise Institute present positions that unions overall reduce a worker’s average income and undermine upward mobility. They also suggest that union workers have transitioned to include white-collar workers as well as traditional blue-collar workers. I would tend to agree regarding the increase of white-collar union members. However, the same fundamental issues exist with both groups of workers. Discrepancies in pay structures and inconsistent adherence to policies, among other things, affect both sets of workers. It also isn’t very clear that unions have a reduction in income and mobility. The Economic Policy Institute suggests that union workers actually promote increased compensation because “Strong unions set pay and benefits standards that nonunion employers follow.”
The Information Technology sector, in which I work, does have trouble in attracting talent because the pay structure has trouble in keeping up with similar job titles in private industry.
Most relevant city titles just can’t just increase the salary to attract candidates. Nor would it be fair to just increase the salary for new hires but keep the lower salary in place for the existing employees presently doing the job. You want to talk about a morale destructor; I’ve had that happen a few times in private industry. The boss hires some “hero” that has all kinds of “qualifications”. In one case a guy was hired at about 30% higher rate than me, I got to train him, and he ultimately performed poorly and was “let go”. I got the honor of cleaning up his errors too.
In some cases, if a particular discipline is desperately needed, the job is handled through the use of consultants, contractors, or vendors. But sooner or later the contract expires, no renewal is forthcoming, or there is a fiscal cutback. For the individual contractor or consultant, especially those with mortgages or rent and/or kids, the security of working for the city, with the regular paycheck and benefits, becomes especially appealing.
So, light up your union manufactured Kingsford Charcoal in your union manufactured Weber grill while sucking down a few union made Bud’s and think about how unions – generally – support better pay and benefits for both their constituents and the non-union workforce.
Questions and Comments welcomed below.
