Labor Day is one of those pivotal points on the calendar. Summer is ending; school is starting; the political season is warming; the weather is cooling. It’s a good time to take stock and take a deep breath before plunging full speed into the next busy season.
But Labor Day isn’t all about that last road trip or the seasonal wardrobe changeover. It’s a day that has deep roots and deep significance in the American experience, especially in Connecticut where organized labor remains a powerful force.
The holiday’s origins reach to the 1880s, when it was conceived as a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.” That quote is from Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, and it captures the mood of its day.
It was a time of the Pullman strike and the Haymarket riot, when eight police dispersing a crowd at a strike rally were killed by a bomb. Samuel Gompers was organizing the AFL and testing the power of collective bargaining to raise living standards of workers. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the National Labor Relations Act were still a generation in the future.
In historic hindsight, there can be little doubt that the labor movement changed the balance of power in America for the better. Despite the cyclical vagaries of the Great Depression and the Great Recession, America has built the most prosperous, innovative and productive economic model the planet has ever seen. And labor has been a positive force.
But the view today — from the bottom of one of those economic troughs — is quite different.
Certainly there remain causes worth fighting for — issues like gender equality in pay, expansion of paid sick time benefits, workplace safety. But by in large, the pendulum has swung, perhaps too far, as is too often the case in America, and labor’s role has changed.
Rather than using its muscle to win a fair share of the pie for its members, labor is increasingly using its muscle in a desperate attempt to hold on to the status quo, to bounties it won in a different economic climate. And in doing so, it’s threatening the health of a wide range of companies and even the health of the nation’s economy.
Whether it’s the auto industry or Connecticut state government, the saga is similar. During good times, unions pressed their advantage over weak managers and won a host of ill-advised goodies like lifetime job guarantees and cradle-to-grave benefits. Never mind that innovation and the emerging global economy were turning many of the skilled crafts into endangered species. There are far too many examples of unmet promises and closed plants right here in Connecticut.
The fight between Pratt & Whitney and its unions over jobs at the Cheshire plant offers a glimpse into the future. The union makes a rational case that as long as there is abundant overtime, there’s no reason for layoffs. But when the cost of benefits are factored in, working a smaller crew longer hours can be cost effective. And that’s a tribute to the lavish benefits the union negotiated.
The parties can send their lawyers off to war and forestall change. Or they can work together to find a workable resolution. But in the end, the economic equivalent of gravity will win out. Pratt & Whitney will put the jobs where they can be done well at the lowest cost. If that isn’t here, we need to look in the mirror.
A similar drama must play out next year as the state comes face to face with a multi-billion-dollar hole in its budget. Cost can be cut, with labor’s cooperation. Jobs can be cut without labor’s cooperation. Lawyers may be able to forestall the inevitable but something’s got to give.
We’re in a period of diminished realities and we all need to adjust our expectations accordingly. The sooner we recognize that, the more there’ll be to celebrate next Labor Day.
