[Mb-civic] Solidarity Isn't Forever - George F. Will - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Solidarity Isn't Forever

By George F. Will
Friday, September 16, 2005; Page A31

When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?
But the union makes us strong.

That is the rousing first verse of the labor anthem "Solidarity 
Forever," written in 1915 and sung to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of 
the Republic." Ninety years later, "forever" has expired.

Pilots, flight attendants and other members of different unions are 
crossing the picket lines manned by members of the Aircraft Mechanics 
Fraternal Association. The only solidarity in evidence is in the 
planning Northwest Airlines did in anticipation of the strike that the 
union called on Aug. 20.

Northwest is like the other "legacy" carriers -- the older airlines with 
labor costs that cannot continue. The costs will be cut through 
negotiated cutbacks of benefits won by unions in palmier economic days, 
when it was believed that airlines could not risk a strike. Or the 
benefits will be cut unilaterally, now that Northwest has entered into 
bankruptcy protection, joining Delta as the third and fourth of the 
seven largest carriers currently using bankruptcy as a management tool.

The fact that Northwest's operations have been minimally disrupted by 
the mechanics' strike is a function of foresight. Northwest had it; the 
leader of AMFA's 4,430 striking mechanics, O.V. Delle-Femine, did not.

He has forfeited the support of other unions by poaching some of their 
members and disdaining other workers with lesser skills. The AMFA has no 
strike fund or medical coverage for its members, whose coverage from the 
airline has ended. Northwest wants $203 million worth of concessions 
from the union -- a demand toughened by 15 percent from $176 million 
since the strike began -- as part of the $1.4 billion it is seeking from 
all of its unions. Northwest is using cheaper replacement mechanics, 
many of whom it trained for months -- and not at all secretly -- in Arizona.

Northwest, which has offered permanent employment to some of the 
replacement workers, seemed to have studied the playbook that 
Caterpillar used against the United Auto Workers strike of 1995. The 
strike failed after 17 months because of replacement workers and picket 
lines porous even to some union members.

Northwest might also have learned a lesson from Margaret Thatcher's 
victory over the National Union of Mineworkers. Her government 
stockpiled coal near power plants and steel mills, and it warned other 
users to prepare for a showdown. Nevertheless, the miners struck. 
Independent truckers prospered by distributing coal from mines that were 
still operating. After almost a year, the strikers capitulated. The 
mines were reformed and, although the number of miners was reduced by 40 
percent, they produced 85 percent as much coal as the larger workforce 
had produced.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/15/AR2005091502142.html?nav=hcmodule
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20050916/b4c9eeca/attachment.htm