The Chris Moeller Archives

The hidden cost of anti-unionism

American labor unions have no visible public advocate. Over the last two and a half decades, Corporate America has effectively consolidated power against them within both political parties. And if you think I'm selling the Democrats short, how else do you explain how 10 Senate Democrats could cross the aisle and support President Bush's efforts to establish the Central American Free Trade Agreement, despite opposition from nearly all of the core Democratic voting groups, from organized labor to environmental organizations to civil and human rights groups to progressive farm groups? (Thanks to the Democratic defection, CAFTA passed the Senate 55-45.)

What doesn't get reported in the corporate-controlled media is the high public cost of dismantling unions. Case in point is the exploding cost of the Medicaid program. Despite the widespread belief that most Medicaid recipients are unemployed, in fact, 80 percent of Americans without health insurance come from families in which at least one person works. (Source: Department of Labor.) It's become the vogue, particularly for a certain retail business giant, to deny health care to its low-wage, unskilled workers, and then pocket the savings. The burden of providing medical care for these people and their families then shifts to the government.

The Health Care Accountability Act, sponsored by Sens. Ted Kennedy and Jon Corzine (but ultimately going nowhere thanks to big business opposition,) would require states to collect and publish the number of employees at large companies who get taxpayer-subsidized health insurance instead of coverage on their jobs. The legislation is now often referred to as the "Wal-Mart bill," because of the company's reputation for perfecting this practice. The world's largest corporation, with gross profits of $70.5 billion last year, is also the largest employer of people on state-run health insurance programs in the dozen states that track such information.

It was shocking for me to read (in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Saturday) that fewer than half of Wal-Mart workers receive health coverage through the company. Part-time workers are not eligible for family coverage, and the company makes new employees wait six months before qualifying for benefits (as opposed to most competitors' three months.) Part-timers wait two years for an individual plan.

Customers may be getting great bargains at the Wal-Mart check-out counter, but they're paying the piper every April 15th.

This race to the bottom has badly damaged union supermarket chains, who compete against Wal-Mart Superstores, but it's damaging for all of us. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which is attempting to organize Wal-Mart workers, estimates that taxpayers paid more than $210 million subsidizing health care for Wal-Mart employees last year, and that's only in the 15 states that keep records. In Florida, more than 13 percent of company employees (12,300 workers) are enrolled in health insurance programs for the poor.

Other corners of Corporate America are even being hurt. Well-meaning companies are struggling with rapidly growing health care costs for their employees, while paying more than their share to cover immoral competitors.

Meanwhile, what little union activity remains in the U.S. is working to lift the tide for all boats. Even the threat of unionization is a powerful force for change. As labor attorney Nathan Newman points out, Costco stores provide health care coverage to 92 percent of their employees despite the fact that only 18 percent are unionized. This ripple effect of organization also serves to keep working conditions better for all. Corporate consultants hired to bust unions commonly advise companies to "improve work conditions as a key strategy to keep unions out," according to Newman.

With little high-profile support among lawmakers, though, working organizations are taking a public beating. Their bargaining and political power has been so sharply reduced that, today, only 1 in 12 workers in the private sector are card-carrying members. They're painted largely by the media to be an impediment to business growth and prosperity, and, as a result, many Americans have bought into the myth.
But according to polls, an overwhelming majority of Americans also believe that working citizens deserve the right to a living wage and access to basic health care. My hunch, too, is that they overwhelmingly believe a moral culture should be standing up for its most vulnerable citizens against social injustice and profit-blinded greed.

posted by CM @ 9:23 PM