TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/032690/0326208.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 11.3 KB | 243 lines

                                                                                BUSINESS, Page 56

Labor Draws An Empty Gun


Striking workers at Greyhound and elsewhere learn that those who
walk out may not be welcome back

By JANICE CASTRO -- Reported by Lee Griggs/San Francisco and
S.C. Gwynne/Detroit


    Executives at the Greyhound bus company felt not a moment's
hesitation or doubt. The minute 9,000 of its employees around
the country walked off their jobs three weeks ago, the
Dallas-based company began to hire 700 drivers as permanent
replacements for strikers. Within seven days Greyhound reported
that ridership on its buses was back to 38% of normal levels
and rising. As the company trained additional nonunion
substitutes, dispirited drivers and other striking workers
watched their jobs begin to evaporate. Every day they walked
the picket line, it seemed, fewer would have posts to return
to. By the time Greyhound and its unions resumed talks last
Saturday, management was holding most of the aces. With more
than 1,000 new drivers on the job, and 1,000 more in training,
the company was servicing 42% of its normal routes. Having
played their trump card by striking, the workers were facing
a management that could get along without them.

    Not long ago, Greyhound's ironfisted tactic would have
seemed overly harsh. Just last year, Texas Air chief Frank
Lorenzo faced withering criticism for hiring replacements soon
after Eastern Air Lines machinists went on strike. But in the
past few years the same technique has been used against flight
attendants, printers, papermill employees, restaurant workers
and others -- both in the public and the private sector. In
West Virginia some 15,000 teachers went on strike two weeks ago
in a dispute over pay raises. Last week Governor Gaston
Caperton suggested that county officials should begin firing the
teachers and replacing them with volunteers. On Saturday union
officials urged the teachers to end the strike.

    As more and more employers move quickly to replace striking
workers, some union leaders are beginning to view their biggest
weapon, the refusal to work, as little more than labor suicide.
Says Robert Turcotte of the International Association of
Machinists and Aerospace Workers: "We have nothing to bargain
with now. Labor has an empty gun."

    How could the dread strike have become such an uncertain
instrument? The right of union members to strike without losing
their jobs has long been a cherished tenet of the American
labor movement. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 does
indeed grant them that right. But while the statute prohibits
employers from firing or punishing striking union members,
those same employers can cite a 1938 Supreme Court decision
giving them the right to hire permanent replacements for
workers who are striking for such "economic reasons" as pay
hikes or benefits (as opposed to unfair labor practices). In
other words, the union members cannot be fired, but while
they're on strike, the company can achieve the same end by
giving their jobs away to new employees.

    Until recently the 52-year-old ruling was rarely invoked by
large employers. Companies feared that quality would dip if raw
recruits replaced experienced workers and that customers would
turn to other suppliers. Moreover, throwing down the gauntlet
by replacing strikers might have triggered a wider backlash
from unionized suppliers and consumers, or even provoked
congressional intervention.

    But such concerns have dissipated in recent years.
Deregulation and intensified foreign competition have forced
companies to bear down on costs. At the same time, declining
union influence has lessened the fear of reprisals or sympathy
strikes. Finally, Ronald Reagan's decision in 1981 to fire
striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers
Organization and replace them with nonunion trainees sent a
clear signal that striking workers should not look to the
Government for sympathy or even tolerance. "Other employers,
public and private, interpreted this as a declaration of open
season on unions and went all-out to block, weaken or be rid
of them," says Thomas Donahue, secretary-treasurer of the
AFL-CIO.

    But union power had been slipping long before Reagan slapped
down PATCO. In 1945 union members made up more than 35% of the
nonagricultural work force; by 1980 they had dropped to 22%,
and have fallen considerably since. Many of the nearly 19
million new jobs created during the booming '80s were in
nonorganized service industries and small businesses.
Relentless churning in the job market has also hurt Big Labor,
as job security has begun to take precedence over concerns
about benefits and pay increases. During the '80s, TWA, Phelps
Dodge, Boise Cascade, International Paper and countless other
firms cracked down hard on labor, imposing pay cuts, scaling
back benefits and lengthening the workday, daring unions to
oppose them. In many cases, labor yielded or lost out.

    In Traverse City, Mich., for example, 166 United Auto
Workers employees of Burwood Products were locked out in
December 1988 after eleven months of contract negotiations. Two
months later, when the union workers finally decided to accept
a 21% pay cut, they were told that they were no longer needed.
Burwood, a manufacturer of clocks and other wall accessories,
had replaced its union employees, generally with young workers
who had been earning the minimum wage. Says ex-employee Sharon
Newberry, who is still out of work: "They were just looking for
a way to get rid of the union."

    She may have a point. Labor experts say many employers may
actually welcome strikes as an opportunity to shatter union
power. With the use of permanent replacement workers, observed
Peter Laarman, a spokesman for the United Auto Workers, "labor
disputes often are not really about wages or benefits or
working conditions, but rather about getting rid of the union
altogether." That may become even easier if the Supreme Court
rules in favor of Curtin Matheson Scientific in its case
against the National Labor Relations Board. The Houston company
is seeking to establish that an employer can reasonably assume
that nonunion replacement workers, hired during a strike,
oppose union representation. If the court agrees, companies may
begin to kick out the unions as soon as replacement workers
arrive.

    Aware of the risks that strikers now face, some labor
leaders are advising unions to think twice about striking and
broaden their tactics. Chief among their recommendations is the
so-called corporate campaign, in which union workers seek to
bring pressure on customers, outside corporate directors and
political leaders. Example: at Midland Steel Products in
Cleveland, where striking U.A.W. workers were replaced last
June, union members are visiting plants operated by such
customers as General Motors and Navistar to argue that the
quality of Midland products has deteriorated. It is not clear
whether such tactics will be effective.

    As workers fight to retain some clout, there are signs that
public apathy -- or even antipathy -- is giving way to a
greater sympathy for labor. In a TIME/CNN poll of 500 adults
conducted last week by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, 73% of those
surveyed said American workers still need labor unions. Asked
about Greyhound, only 22% said they were sympathetic toward
management's position (though 25% refused to take sides).
Finally, 59% said they would not take the job of a striking
worker.

    Labor leaders point to other signs that the worst days may
be over. In 1989, for the first time since 1981, major
collective-bargaining settlements provided larger wage
increases than those in the contracts they replaced -- in most
cases without strikes. In addition, striking workers won
generous settlements at Boeing and the four "Baby Bells," and
prevailed in a bitter ten-month walkout at Pittston Coal after
a federal mediator was appointed. Says AFL-CIO President Lane
Kirkland: "We have been tempered by a period of fire, and it
has strengthened us."

    As management turns up the pressure, some labor disputes are
sparking deep bitterness and a return to old-fashioned
bareknuckle violence. Sabotage has been a major problem at Owl
Rock Products, a California-based construction-materials
supplier, ever since 150 members of the International Union of
Operating Engineers walked out last September. Though the union
denies responsibility, the vandalism at Owl plants intensified
after the company hired replacement workers: acid has been
splashed on machinery control panels, sand poured into diesel
engines, and conveyor belts have been sliced.

    Since the Greyhound strike began three weeks ago, snipers
have fired upon buses in nine states. In one Florida shooting,
seven passengers were injured by flying shrapnel. The violence
escalated after a striking 30-year veteran Greyhound driver in
Redding, Calif., was accidentally crushed to death by a bus
driven by a newly hired replacement driver. While union leaders
have generally disavowed the shootings, one striking driver,
Roger Cawthra, was arrested last week in Connecticut and
charged with firing a semiautomatic gun at a Boston-bound
Greyhound bus. To protect passengers, police now monitor
Greyhound buses in some states.

    When strikes deteriorate into shoot-outs and slugfests,
little hope for rational compromise remains. Even as he
prepared to resume talks with Greyhound's unions over the
weekend, company Chairman Fred Currey accused them of
"violence, terrorism and intimidation" and said he expected
little progress. Bitter face-offs between management and labor
are increasingly frequent, with good faith in ever shorter
supply. And for more and more workers, the time-honored concept
of labor unity means sharing the pain without the gains.


____________________________________________________________
STRIKE ACTIONS


    GREYHOUND: Angry picketers trying to disrupt the company's
operations were restrained by police at the Port Authority Bus
Terminal in New York City.

    TEACHERS: Educators rallied at the state capitol in
Charleston as state officials threatened to fire them if they
did not end their walkout.

    MACHINISTS: Eastern Air Lines workers demonstrated in Miami
as the walkout began last March; the airline has replaced most
of the machinists with nonunion workers.


____________________________________________________________
LABOR POLL


    Do you think labor unions today have too much power?

         Too much power                40%          Not enough
power             22%          Right amount
33%

    Do you think American workers still need labor unions?

         Still need them               73%          No longer
necessary          22%

    Should private-sector workers have the right to strike
without losing their jobs or is this the chance they take?

         Have the right to strike      47%          It's the
chance they take    50%

    After the strike, should Greyhound be required to rehire the
striking workers?

          Yes                          57%           No
                    31%


[From a telephone poll of 500 adult Americans taken for TIME/CNN
on March 14 by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman. Sampling error plus
or minus 4.5%.]