Unions face interesting conundrum

For years the standard, if caustic, view of American labor-management relations was that management existed to generate as much profit from its line of business as it could, while sharing as little of that as possible with employees. Organized labor’s role was to grab as much in the way of wages and benefits to its members as it could, using the threat of the strike if necessary to achieve those aims.

Revenues and profits, daily operations and long-term strategy were management’s portfolio, not labor’s.

But even the most ardent of unionists felt some ambivalence over such a stark separation of interests and responsibilities. Samuel Gompers, the father of the modern American labor movement, has been quoted as saying “it is impossible for capitalists and laborers to have common interests.” But he also is credited with the quote that “the worst crime against working people is a company that fails to operate at a profit.”

In the face of plunging revenues, massive losses, layoffs, corporate bankruptcies and failed companies, unionized employees are thinking even harder these days about how to balance working to further the company’s financial performance, and by extension their own interests, against the dangers of sacrificing their own interests in measures that only reward the businesses’ owners.

As vexing as that question is, union members are wrestling with an even more challenging conundrum: What happens when they, even if inadvertently, seem to have a better idea of what’s in the best interests of the company than management does?

Such ruminations are prompted by two recent news stories, one involving two building-trade unions, the other the continuing saga of Boeing and its unions.

The Pacific Northwest Council of Regional Carpenters and three locals (two in Washington) of the International Union of Operating Engineers announced in mid-August they have pulled out of the Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council to form a regional council of the National Construction Alliance II.

That organized labor finds itself in an internal dispute is not the big news here. Internecine conflict has been around in labor at least as long as there’s been a labor movement. The clunky acronym AFL-CIO (and the clunkier agglomeration of organizational names that acronym represents) condenses several chapters of splitting and regrouping. More recently the AFL-CIO saw multiple dissident unions head off to form their own Change to Win coalition.

Usually those rifts are driven by disputes over internal philosophical matters like organizing, political strategy, membership jurisdiction and union structure.

But at least on the surface, the carpenters and operating engineers say they’re more interested in an external philosophical issue: Relations between construction and building trade unions and the contractors they work for.

Becoming a part of the National Construction Alliance is “the manifestation of the desire to continue our member union’s progress toward more productive relationships with our contractors and away from the adversarial and sometimes antagonistic posture that some labor organizations maintain,” says Northwest Carpenters Union executive secretary treasurer Doug Tweedy in a press release.

“We want what our contractors want,” adds Ernie Evans, business manager of Operator Engineers Local 612 in that release. “We are committed to providing a highly skilled workforce enabling contractors to finish projects on time and within budget. Our goal is to ensure harmony on every project and value to every contractor.”

(David Johnson, executive secretary of the Olympia-based Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council, says he believes member unions “have great relations with our contractors” and “state of the art” apprenticeship programs to develop the skilled workforce contractors need.)

Labor enters such partnerships with some trepidation. Union leaders (who often attain their positions through a political process) are always wary of being branded a sell-out to management, or worse, actually being left out in the cold when it comes time for employers to share the financial benefits of cooperation with employees.

But if the choice is between that risk, and the risk of continuing an adversarial relationship that leaves both sides wrestling over shares of nothing (while losing out to non-union competition), some leaders and rank-and-file union members figure the odds of success for the first approach are worth the gamble.

Such an approach does depend on two crucial assumptions of trust on the part of labor. First, that management will reward workers’ assistance and cooperation. Two, that management knows what it’s doing in operating its business.

Neither of those elements is in place in the long-running and contentious standoff between Boeing and the unions representing machinists and engineering and technical employees.

In mulling over not just whether to establish a second 787 line in Everett or outside the state but whether to give up building jets in the Puget Sound region entirely, Boeing cites its less-than-warm relations with both unions and the recent history of strikes it contends have interrupted plane deliveries. Improved labor relations are key to Boeing staying, management says; one signal of improved relations would be for the unions to give up the right to strike.

Not surprisingly, that suggestion hasn’t played well with Boeing labor, for the two reasons listed. First, Boeing employees question whether the company will share financial success with them or use the removal of the strike threat to seek still more concessions (we’ll leave for another day the unresolvable debate over who is being more unrealistic and greedy over compensation and benefit levels).

Second, Boeing employees – not to mention many investors and customers – don’t trust company management to make wise use of a more cordial labor climate.

Labor has been warning for years of the risks of increased outsourcing by Boeing of both engineering and production. Yes, they did so out of self-interest. But it also happens those warnings were right, and the bill for ignoring the warnings increases by the day.

The effort by the carpenters and operating engineers may succeed, it may flop, it may fade over time. But everyone in business is having to rethink how they operate these days, and that includes labor. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that unions are asking questions beyond “where’s ours?” Questions like, “What can we do to help?” and, on occasion, “Do you guys in management know what you’re doing?”

Bill Virgin’s column on business and economics appears Sundays in The News Tribune. He is editor and publisher of Washington Manufacturing Alert and Pacific Northwest Rail News. He can be reached at bill.virgin@yahoo.com.