CounterPunch
June 17, 2008

Unions and Management Aren't on the Same Team
Adversarial Relationship
By DAVID MACARAY

During the mid-1980s, America’s labor unions made a critical and momentous error in judgement. Their error was trusting management. Specifically, it was buying into management’s version of the so-called New Culture—the narrative declaring that labor relations were no longer “adversarial” in nature, that union and management had finally come to their senses, that the “bad old days” of head-butting and mutual acrimony were over.

.... it’s not a coincidence that the moment management sucked unions into believing that “both sides wanted the same thing” was the exact moment when corporate earnings began to soar, when CEO salaries began spiraling wildly upward, and when workers’ wages and benefits began their precipitous downward slide, a decline that continues to this day. Union resistance was the last hurdle to clear; getting the unions to capitulate was the last jewel in the crown.

What labor did by joining the “team” was grease the skids for management, make things infinitely easier for them. Getting the unions off their back must have seemed like a dream come true, something no one, not even the wildest optimist, would have thought possible in the 1970s. Being neutered is bad enough; being persuaded to do the snipping yourself is a whole other humiliation.

The lesson for organized labor is simple: Stay united, stay focused on core principles, don’t trust anything that comes out of management’s mouth. Above all, don’t let anyone pretend that union-management relations aren’t adversarial in nature, because it’s not true. The two sides don’t want the same thing. They never have and never will.

Read the entire article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/macaray06172008.html

That's what I've been saying for a long time. The gains of Labor have been mostly through struggle, Not through partnership and appleasement. Even the goals of Management and labor are different. Thats why we have contracts.

I always wondered why we had a contract.

hmmm? i remember a guy named ron carey.....he was very skilled at self-neutering.

Want a partnership with management? If you are employed in any of the union trades, you already have one. It's called your CONTRACT. Real simple! When you and management Honor that contract, you have a "partnership". This is all the Partnership you will ever need with management. End of story!

The problem is management doesn't honor union contracts. If they did, we wouldn't need a grievance procedure for employer contract violations!

So the bottom line is that "labor-management partnership" is a myth. Corporate America has never accepted the existence of labor unions. They only tolerate unions when they have no other choice. Now that doesn't mean we don't have union officials who engage in a sweetheart relationship with management at the expense of union workers.

Just when I had almost forgotten about corrupt carey the heisler brings him up.

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well you were on the money my friend but you forgot one thing what if your local is on the same page as the campany, and the well being of it's people in the local are-not?????????????

Exactly! That's the point I was trying to make. I would be very suspicious of those who want something more of you than what's in your contract.

F management! The Teamsters need to take everyone every time or we will live each day asking for some more gruel.