Ban on Firing Union Strikers

* Re “Ban on Firing Strikers Blocked,” July 13: The Senate acted wisely and courageously in maintaining an employer’s right to fire striking workers. It did not, as Sen. Howard Metzenbaum stated, show that “workers are disposable” and that the outcome would “lower worker productivity.” Rather, the outcome prevents a labor monopoly that would have--in terms of the true world economy we face today--ultimately sacrificed the economic well-being of all Americans for the benefit of the few, self-chosen, striking union members.

This observation is bolstered by the second article reporting that United Airlines employees have assumed 55% ownership of the airline. It’s important to note that they did this only after taking a 6% to 20% pay cut and, contrary to the senator’s hand-wringing, agreeing to productivity increases (i.e., harder work). Moreover, these concessions mirror those which have occurred in virtually every transition to employee ownership.

The lesson is clear: Under self-ownership, employees necessarily balance both short-term and long-term interests. That is, they reduce their exposure to “disposability” by acting in the longer-term interests of their company. This, in turn, generates a form of discipline that usually extracts employee concessions, much less gains.

In the absence of this self-balancing mechanism, individual employers must also have disciplinary tools to constrain employee excesses. Thanks to farsighted senators, the right to fire striking workers correctly remains that tool. It’s unfortunate, but good medicine is often bitter.

GERALD J. STILES

El Segundo

* The largely Republican filibuster of the striker replacement bill in the Senate says volumes about the larger electoral strategy of the GOP in the 1990s. Maintaining busted unions means forcing the left to remain divided over whether to pursue the ineffectual politics of racial identity or the ultimately shallow vision of the pro-business Democratic Leadership Council. Busted unions means the right can rebuild itself while driving a wedge between working Americans of all creeds and color.

The decline of wages in recent years is blamed on immigrants who steal jobs rather on the real culprit, which is the concerted attack on unions by business over the past 20 years. My heart aches to think of what could be and what the Republicans do not want: a thriving democratic labor movement that binds together a broad-based coalition of working-class Americans of all creeds and colors.

MIKE BAKER

Calabasas

* My mother was one of the women who started the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in the early part of the century. She told the story many times of the nine months she was on strike, wearing a “sandwich board” to explain the union view, her shoes literally without soles, so layers of cardboard were inserted. How proud I am that her sacrifice helped create a solid and long-lasting union.

But I am in tears at what has become of the union movement today (albeit not without some union excesses). The whole point of a strike, it seems to me, is to put both parties in a position where they hurt. The employer because new workers won’t do the job as well; the strikers because they lose pay, benefits, etc. The incentive, then, is to quickly resolve the issues dividing them. But if the company can fire its workers at will, where is the incentive to negotiate?

I think what many people are saying about members of Congress is true. Living a life of privilege has destroyed their ability to understand the average working person today.

DOROTHY FISHER

Studio City