THEY DANCED TOGETHER

In the 30’s Unions were forced to take drastic action to get a number of things for workers in American factories. The workweek was adjusted to 40 hours in 1938, for example. That took job actions that shut down industry. Shitting down a company became the methodology early on in the union movement. They needed a “way in” to the decision making of American industry. While their rights were certainly valid in the early years, unfortunately the method of forcing job actions to get the attention of management was unfortunate. At some point, labor and management could not resolve their issues. This stems from 1) management’s mindset that equated labor similarly to a machine part (i.e. assembly line work) and 2) labor’s acceptance of skilless jobs – abandoning the centuries-long development of crafts developed in Europe through the various guilds of earlier centuries. At the time, it worked for both parties. Since WWII it has not worked so well.

Ultimately it was the method of establishing their "way in" that killed the unions and killed their jobs. Their "way in" was to force the ultimate pain on their employers - "shut them down." Auto owner industry was also a dance partner. The way workers were treated prior to unionization in the auto sector - as parts of the assembly line machine with less than optimum input in the process, their jobs or process improvement set up the scenario that pressed the union to use the "ultimate" non-participatory tactics to gain a role in the process - "shut them down." It grew out of the "dumbing down" of the American immigrant worker - that of a cog in a wheel. There was not notion of building a trade skill or a craft as had been done in Europe for centuries. It was about a changed process where competence could be diluted across and assembly line of narrowly skilled executors - that did not require understanding much more than the repetitive task they performed 8 hours per day. This created the culture. The problem is that the auto sector was not dealing with "cogs in wheel" but human beings.

So the union was formed by forcing the manufacturer to compensate in ways they did not consider viable nor needed. Once you shut down a plant any hope for serious cooperation, long term quality or process improvement becomes nearly impossible. When the foreign (and mostly Asian) manufacturer came here after the war - they brought with it the culture of the cooperative, some would say "blind and loyal" team work that 1) drove Japan to the ultimate loyalty to the whole and 2) Germany to the ultimate diminishing of their great minds for the purpose of all. Americans were never made that way.

Times and outside competition changed. The unions could not. Neither could the manufacturers that employed them. They only knew one culture in dealing with their jobs, their bosses and their "shut them down" methods which were at the very foundation of their founding.

Well, they have finally "shut them down" - for the last time. Many of the unionized plants will make cars again but not with unionized cultures. It no longer can be done. The last place for both the unions and their American employers to go to sustain - just a little while longer - was to the government - the non-producing sector in this county with money. The Democrats were also tied to the unions and were formed around "labor" issues from THEIR very beginning. All three are victims of their tangled relationship. Now - after pouring our tax dollars into the dysfunctional auto companies they will all file Chapter 11 anyway - providing the means for the people who make cars to divorce the unions. The politicians will maintain their votes with hands elevated skyward stating to the unions "we tried!"

The assembly line method employing American individuals spawned union formation using the ultimate strategy used between opposing forces thrust into a forced marriage with twin beds. Union methods and activities killed their jobs. But union methods and strategy was a logical development in a dysfunctional environment. New foreign manufacturers with different cultures have adjusted to understand how to work with American individualists who ultimately live for themselves when pressed to the brink.