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MULES, SLOW-MOVING
SIGNS, AND TEAMSTERS
© 1997 Joe Murray
My father has a
team of young mules who aren’t exactly
agreeable to pulling a wagon. Recently, they got
it in their big ugly heads that if they ran as
hard as they could, they might escape the old
wood wagon and its rickety metal wheels. So, with
a flop of their big ugly ears, they took off
running.
No matter how hard
my father pulled on the reins or reasoned with
them, they just kept going. Down through the road
ditch they went. My father’s life flashed
before his eyes as they headed right toward a
power pole.
With a little
divine intervention, they somehow squeezed
between the pole and a thorn tree. Finally, as
they came to a corner where two barbed wire
fences joined, they decided that the barbs were
more offensive than that old wagon and slid to a
stop. The tongue that sticks out in front got
stuck in the fence, and there they sat with
nowhere to go.
Having heard the
noise of old wheels getting faster and louder
than I had ever heard before, I guessed what had
happened and jumped in my car to go help. As I
drove down the road, I noticed the slow-moving
sign that formally hung on the back of the wagon.
It was lying in the middle of the road. I guess
that old sign just knew when it was no longer
needed.
Speaking of things
no longer needed, labor unions are antiques of a
former era and a worn-out, discredited
philosophy. Sometimes, a name can tell you a lot.
Look at the Teamsters Union. Their name comes
from the days when they hauled freight on a wagon
pulled by a team. Times have changed. The labor
movement no longer has any value other than to
represent the lust for greed and power by corrupt
union bosses.
The headlines in
the news the last few weeks were about the
Teamster’s strike against the UPS. Current
Teamster’s President, Ron Carey, claimed
that not only was he standing up for UPS workers,
but also for all working Americans. This sounds
great and has lots of emotional appeal. However,
a look at the facts shows that there is no truth
in these statements. Carey is a liar. He claims
that corporate America is oppressing workers by
turning full-time jobs into low-paying part-time
jobs. Workers are forced to accept part-time jobs
because good-paying full-time jobs are not
available.
The facts are
clear that 80% of all part-time workers work
part-time because they choose to do so out of
their own free will. Furthermore, the percentage
of part-time workers that make up the nation's
work force has declined over the last twenty
years. Unemployment is at a record low, and the
economy has been steadily growing since 1982.
There was a short setback just after the Gulf
War, but it lasted only a few months and was only
a slight decline. At the same time, the number of
people belonging to Unions has steadily declined.
At most, only 15% of the work force now belong to
a Union. At one time, 30-40% of the work force
was comprised of union members.
Let's look more
closely at the UPS situation. The outcome of the
strike resulted in the full-time workers of UPS
losing more than $2,000 in wages. It will take
almost two years, including the wage increase in
the new contract, for them to break even. Over
the five-year life of the contract, the net wage
increase will be lower than the current low rate
of inflation when they include the wage losses.
Thus, in real terms, the full-time workers at UPS
will actually lose money. Carey claimed a great
victory for the Union.
Then, there is the
pension plan. UPS offered a 50% increase for
every employee’s pension fund. In return,
control of the plan would shift to UPS and its
employees rather than the current arrangement
that the Teamsters manage. It forces UPS and
other companies to support people that don’t
work for their company. Mr. Carey fought hard to
keep this from happening. The result?--Carey
retained control of the pension fund, and the UPS
workers got a smaller increase. Yes, Mr. Carey
won a great victory; however, was it for him or
for the UPS workers?
Part-time workers
did get a raise, and UPS has promised to convert
10,000 part-time jobs to full-time status over
five years. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well,
if you look at the reality of the situation, it
isn’t such a great deal. Over the last three
years, UPS created 8,000 new full-time jobs. At
the same rate of growth, UPS would have increased
the amount of full-time workers by more than
13,000 in the next five years. So, the union
actually agreed to a smaller increase than likely
would have happened without a strike. Do you call
this a great victory for the worker?
Also, if UPS loses
only 5% of business from customers who no longer
trust them, UPS will have to lay off 15,000
workers. Last time I knew, ten to fifteen
thousand equals a net loss of five thousand. Was
it worth it, workers? Then, if you convert
part-time jobs to full-time, doesn’t that
mean that fewer people will be needed overall?
One person will do more work. Therefore, the net
total of employees will go down. Plus, the
contract calls for an end to the practice of work
being passed on to independent contractors.
Don’t these people have to eat?
Nevertheless, I suppose Mr. Carey would think
they deserve to go hungry because they dare not
bow down to him and join the Teamsters.
How about the 85%
who don’t belong to unions? UPS lost 500
million dollars in revenue during the strike. UPS
handles 80% of all parcels shipped in the
country. This amounts to 5% of the Gross Domestic
Product. People were delayed in getting their
packages. Several small packaging companies went
out of business, and it will likely lead to
higher shipping rates. It wasn’t a terrible
setback for most of us, but it sure wasn’t a
benefit for the vast majority of Americans. If
the strike had lasted for much longer, it could
have hurt the overall economy and might have been
the thing that stopped our long period of
economic growth. Do you still believe Mr. Carey
is acting in the interest of most Americans?
Well, if you still
believe in the union, comrades, then let me
remind you of the last two strikes that gained
the attention of the entire nation. Do you
remember the American Airline pilots' strike?
Many pilots were making more than 100 thousand
dollars a year, which put them among the highest
earners of the country. Can anyone really say
that these people were the poor, oppressed,
average working-stiff just trying to struggle to
put food on the table? I don’t begrudge
anyone for trying to earn the most they can, but
it is absurd to hold the rest of us hostage so
that they can have a few more bucks or benefits.
It is all about power and greed.
Still not
convinced? Remember the baseball strike? A little
more than 600 men, who all make more than
$100,000 a year for six months of work, went on
strike. The average salary for the players is in
the millions. Those of us who are baseball fans
missed the final two months of the season and an
American institution known as the World Series.
Just recently, the union was mad at two of its
best players for signing new contracts with their
team instead of testing the free agent market.
One of these men, Greg Maddux, signed a deal that
will pay him twelve million dollars a year. That
isn’t enough for the union to be satisfied
that he got a fair deal?
Yes, the labor
movement is no longer useful. Why, then, does the
85% of the work force that is free continue to
tolerate this obsolete and often destructive
fringe movement, holding us hostage to their
ideas and interests? The simple answer is that
they still have a tremendous amount of power.
This manifests itself in four areas.
First, federal
laws and many state laws are written to provide
tremendous special favors to the unions and
discriminate against the majority of citizens who
do not belong to a union. Along with this, the
union bosses use the workers' dues to keep the
pressure on politicians to continue to protect
their special interests in Washington. In the
1996 election, the AFL-CIO alone spent at least
thirty-five million on a political propaganda
effort to defeat candidates they opposed. At the
same time, 40% of union members supported the
candidates the union was opposing and voted
against union wishes. Although it is possible for
a union member to stop his money from being used
this way, most don’t--out of fear of
retaliation from the union.
This brings us to
the next reason that people continue to allow
themselves to be oppressed by the unions. With
good reason, most people fear for their personal
safety if they cross a union. Volumes of books
could be written about the murder, arson,
assault, battery and terrorism of the labor
movement. I will leave that to someone else. You
don’t have to go any farther than to ask
yourself, "Where is Jimmy Hoffa?"
There are too many
people in this country who base their decisions
on emotion rather than facts. They fall victim to
the flowery appeal of the union propaganda. When
a "Mr. Carey" says business is
replacing full-time workers with part-timers they
say, "how terrible," instead of looking
to the facts. When Carey talks of helping the
poor working people, they say, "how
nice," instead of realizing that the only
person he cares about is himself.
We don’t
hitch up the horses to go to work anymore. The
teamsters don’t haul freight with horses
because there is now a better way. Today, unions
oppress freedom and, most of the time, hurt more
people than they help. It is time for the
majority of people in this country to stand up to
these thugs and put them "out to
pasture." John Kelley, the CEO of UPS,
started working for the company over 30 years ago
as a driver and rose through the ranks until he
got to the top. Isn’t this the type of role
model we want our children to grow up to be?
Would you rather they believe they are dependent
on a hand-out from some greedy power-monger like
Ron Carey who, in return, asks that you surrender
your freedom of action and thought in order to
blindly follow where he tells you to go?
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