Monday is Labor Day, occasion for that last big barbecue of the summer and opportunity for pundits to make their annual assessment of the state of labor today. Since I’m something of a low-grade pundit, please indulge me while I jump into the fray.
I can’t say if unions are getting weaker or stronger, but there sure have been a lot of strikes this summer. Autoworkers, communication workers, now pilots
But are strikes the sign of a robust labor movement? Maybe when we see multiple strikes, it means labor has its back to the wall, forced to use its tool of last resort. So by what standard is a healthy union measured? Organization? The United Farm Workers are one of America’s best-organized unions. Thousands of union members and supporters regularly turn out for rallies and marches, but contracts are few. Athletes’ unions have been successful – they’re the only unions I know of that cause publicly visible infighting among management. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have the prerequisites to join those unions.
Dollar for dollar and member for member, the most effective union in the country is a group that refuses to acknowledge that it is a union at all. In fact, almost every member of this union is anti-union. Anti every union but his own. This most effective union is, of course, the United Chief Executive Officers of America. The UCEOA has had another great year. The average salary of chief executive officers rose 35 percent from 1996 to 1997. The CEOs of the top 300 U.S. companies earn an average of $7.8 million a year. Sanford Weill, CEO of the Travelers Group is making $230 million a year. You can complain about athletes’ salaries and the cost of sports tickets, but going to a game is optional. Insurance is – unfortunately – not an option for too many Americans who can’t afford it, thanks to Mr. Weill.
While CEOs’ pay went up 35 percent, profits for those 300 companies went up only five percent and wages for factory workers went up less than three percent. That disparity between the salaries of the CEOs and the rest of us is one of the most alarming developments to rise from the success of the CEOs’ union.
In 1965, the average CEO made 44 times as much as the average worker. In other words, the boss took home every week as much as the worker took home every year. In 1997, the average CEO made 326 times the average worker’s pay, so every day the boss took home as much as the worker took home all year. If the minimum wage had risen as much as CEO salaries, it would today stand at $41 an hour.
And if you think I’m being facetious when I refer to the CEOs as a union, I’m not. Although they are not a declared union, because they act in concert and in solidarity with each other, they are, in effect, a union.
But what does this union stand for? Many trade unions conduct apprenticeship and in-service programs, dedicated to maintaining a high standard of quality in their craft. Other unions are dedicated to a wide range of social justice issues and use their pension fund investments to leverage social change.
But, as I asked, what does the CEOs union stand for? Certainly not for higher standards of performance for a particular industry – too frequently we’ve seen the CEO take another bonus while the stock takes a plunge and the workers take a lay-off.
The CEOs union doesn’t stand for overall corporate health. After 15 years of voodoo economics, of downsizing, profit-taking, of moving overseas to child labor sweatshops, the fruits of the labor of the CEOs’ union may be finally ripening – or perhaps rotting on the vine.
Monday will be a day off, but hardly a day of rest as we all anxiously eye the world economy. It will be a good day to ponder the values embraced by working class labor unions – solidarity, community and mutual support. I have a feeling we’ll need those values in the days ahead.
The Most Effective Union
Monday is Labor Day, occasion for that last big barbecue of the summer and opportunity for pundits to make their annual assessment of the state of labor today. Since I’m something of a low-grade pundit, please indulge me while I jump into the fray.
I can’t say if unions are getting weaker or stronger, but there sure have been a lot of strikes this summer. Autoworkers, communication workers, now pilots
But are strikes the sign of a robust labor movement? Maybe when we see multiple strikes, it means labor has its back to the wall, forced to use its tool of last resort. So by what standard is a healthy union measured? Organization? The United Farm Workers are one of America’s best-organized unions. Thousands of union members and supporters regularly turn out for rallies and marches, but contracts are few. Athletes’ unions have been successful – they’re the only unions I know of that cause publicly visible infighting among management. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have the prerequisites to join those unions.
Dollar for dollar and member for member, the most effective union in the country is a group that refuses to acknowledge that it is a union at all. In fact, almost every member of this union is anti-union. Anti every union but his own. This most effective union is, of course, the United Chief Executive Officers of America. The UCEOA has had another great year. The average salary of chief executive officers rose 35 percent from 1996 to 1997. The CEOs of the top 300 U.S. companies earn an average of $7.8 million a year. Sanford Weill, CEO of the Travelers Group is making $230 million a year. You can complain about athletes’ salaries and the cost of sports tickets, but going to a game is optional. Insurance is – unfortunately – not an option for too many Americans who can’t afford it, thanks to Mr. Weill.
While CEOs’ pay went up 35 percent, profits for those 300 companies went up only five percent and wages for factory workers went up less than three percent. That disparity between the salaries of the CEOs and the rest of us is one of the most alarming developments to rise from the success of the CEOs’ union.
In 1965, the average CEO made 44 times as much as the average worker. In other words, the boss took home every week as much as the worker took home every year. In 1997, the average CEO made 326 times the average worker’s pay, so every day the boss took home as much as the worker took home all year. If the minimum wage had risen as much as CEO salaries, it would today stand at $41 an hour.
And if you think I’m being facetious when I refer to the CEOs as a union, I’m not. Although they are not a declared union, because they act in concert and in solidarity with each other, they are, in effect, a union.
But what does this union stand for? Many trade unions conduct apprenticeship and in-service programs, dedicated to maintaining a high standard of quality in their craft. Other unions are dedicated to a wide range of social justice issues and use their pension fund investments to leverage social change.
But, as I asked, what does the CEOs union stand for? Certainly not for higher standards of performance for a particular industry – too frequently we’ve seen the CEO take another bonus while the stock takes a plunge and the workers take a lay-off.
The CEOs union doesn’t stand for overall corporate health. After 15 years of voodoo economics, of downsizing, profit-taking, of moving overseas to child labor sweatshops, the fruits of the labor of the CEOs’ union may be finally ripening – or perhaps rotting on the vine.
Monday will be a day off, but hardly a day of rest as we all anxiously eye the world economy. It will be a good day to ponder the values embraced by working class labor unions – solidarity, community and mutual support. I have a feeling we’ll need those values in the days ahead.