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You get the impression, listening to afternoon AM radio talk, that many Americans, if not most, think of Union men and women as a crazy, wacko hybrid – half mafia thug, half commie-jack-booted thug – and totally outside of what is wholesome, hardworking and good-intended in America.
Needless to say, I hate that and would like to offer a rebuttal. From my point of view, America’s Labor Movement, and those of us who participate through our membership in the NALC, are not descended from American gangster movies or 1950 B movies, but from those noble Americans who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the list of grievances therein. In fact, am I nuts to think of that document as being this nation’s first class action grievance?
“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government; ”
Given that, the writers go on to list their grievances, some 27 of them, at least, against the King: “He has made judges dependent on his Will alone . . . He has erected a multitude of New Offices . . . He has kept amongst us, in time of peace, standing Armies without the Consent of our legislature . . . He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.” They accused the King of “imposing taxes on us without our Consent;” of “depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by jury;” of “transporting large armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely parallel in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.” Totally! And that ‘s not even the half of what they were mad about.
They went on to say, “In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humblest terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injuries.” Sound familiar?
It’s not a great distance from the ideas in this document to what unions and contracts accomplished in the workplace, especially in the late 19th and early 20th century. Workers had “injuries” and grievances that needed to be addressed. They assembled and debated and wrote up their grievances in formal documents. Employers blew them off and the workers had no alternative, finally, but to strike - often times violently. Strikes were settled, agreements made, laws passed and the legitimacy of unions, living wages, safe working conditions and contracts in the workplace were established in this country.
This is where we come in, locally, today. Like those fifty-seven Americans in 1776, and like those who followed in the great labor struggles later, we assemble, we debate, we write, we list our employer’s “abuses and injuries” and demand redress. Our contract, like the U.S. Constitution, guarantees as much. We have everything in common with Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and Hancock. We have nothing in common with waterfront thugs and Commie connivers. So the next time some uninformed AM radio voice (insert a name here, please) starts dissing “union guys” for whatever it is they hate us for that particular day, remember where you came from – a place as American as Independence Hall and as long lasting as the document signed in 1776.
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