Men fight for liberty and win it with hard-knocks.
Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their
grandchildren are once more slaves. -D.H. Lawrence
Those who support unions and those who are
anti-union often look at one another in bewilderment, scratching their heads in
wonder at how the other could honestly hold their beliefs. This situation does
beg some consideration.
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in[2]
But besides resentment and interpretations of
success on a relative scale, there’s likely another reason for the support of
non-union workers for anti-union policies. Politicians against organized labour
have gone to great lengths to cast unions in a negative light, presenting union
members as villains bent on destroying the economy before escaping in their
golden parachutes. A sterling example of this kind of political rhetoric is
found in the following statement by Mitt Romney when speaking of Obama:
"he wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more
government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more
teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did.
It's time for us to cut back on government and help the American people."[3]
The take home message here seems to be that
public sector workers are far too plentiful already and eliminating their jobs
will help the “people”. But what if the opposite is true? What if hiring more
public sector workers and expanding the membership of public sector unions
would lead to improved wages and benefits for more workers, to more dignity and
self-respect and to a generally happier society? What if reducing public sector
union jobs will lead to lower wages and prolong economic woes?
Politicians like Mitt Romney and Tim Hudak
would be loath to entertain such ideas. Instead they spin and do their best to
foster the resentment of non-union workers toward union workers, blaming the
organized workers for the ills of society. And when a segment of the working
population is already predisposed to resent unions, convincing people that
unions are to blame for such broad problems as economic woes is an easy sell. Unions
which have always fought for the rights of working men and women have, in a
cruel twist, been presented as an out of touch elite group of workers which
work to harm the “common man” or the “people”. If this lie is told convincingly
enough and often enough, the resentment naturally follows.
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