Union employees at the Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah, Ky. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
By Kyra R. Greene
As I was preparing to start my new teaching job at San Diego State University in the fall of 2007, I got a call from my father. It was an ordinary call at first, but then he got serious.
He wanted to know if I was planning to join my university’s faculty union. I knew the answer to that question right away: “Yes, Dad.”
After all, with me, our family would enter our third generation as trade unionists — while black.
Flash-forward to this week: The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31 case. Public-sector workers across the nation will now find it harder to exercise their collective power for the foreseeable future. Some folks might think this is an insurmountable challenge to unions, but I’m not ready to give up on the hard-won gains of generations past. Organized working people have always faced mighty obstacles in this country, but when we fight we win.
Two years after my father’s death, I honor his and my family’s legacy by continuing to believe in and fight for workers’ right to organize.
My father’s parents were both union members until they retired. My grandfather, an Army veteran, worked as a postal worker in 1960s Memphis, while my grandmother worked as a high school teacher there. Later, in the 1970s, she went to work for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And my father worked as a cascade operator at Kentucky’s Paducah gaseous diffusion plant from the late 1970s until the early 2000s.
My father’s union went on strike twice during that 35-year period. The last time, in 2003, he went to work at a gas station as a clerk to make ends meet. He did what he needed to do to stand strong during those trying times.
I was pursuing a Ph.D. in sociology at Stanford back then. Higher education represented another step in my family’s long march for freedom and dignity and witnessing my father’s resolve and discipline during that strike inspired me to keep walking.
He reminded me that strong unions of working people had fought for the stable, well-paying public-sector jobs that ensured my grandparents’ hard work translated into buying a home, sending my father and his sister to college and securing a dignified retirement for themselves.
My father’s union-bargained healthcare benefits meant that, unlike too many other children growing up on the south side of Paducah, my brothers and I could visit the doctor, dentist, and optometrist regularly. And my father’s stable, relatively well-paying job meant that he could help my brother and me pay for college.
By the time I began my university teaching career, my family’s experience had taught me that working people coming together at work and in the community allowed families, particularly black families, a shot at economic stability and a decent life.
We still had to navigate the racism and gender discrimination that pervaded our lives in Kentucky and Tennessee, but union membership allowed us to dream of a better tomorrow for ourselves and our children, and to actually do something to make that dream a reality.
What the deep, corporate pockets bankrolling this latest legal assault called Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31 care most about is increasing their power at the expense of working people, especially people like me. Research by the Economic Policy Institute and the Institute for Policy Studies shows that attacks on public-sector unions disproportionately hurt the wellbeing and life prospects of black women — and of their families.
Whatever their flaws and no human institution is perfect, labor unions continue to defend the interests of working- and middle-class workers of all races. This week has been devastating but today is not the end, it is a rallying cry to continue organizing and resisting. We must stand up and fight back!
Kyra Greene is the Executive Director of the Center on Policy Initiatives. Originally posted at Medium
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Kyra: I can’t argue with your personal experience. But your assessment that government unions are good for black people - or for poor people in general - is simply wrong. When government fails, the rich can opt out. But that’s not the case when you’re poor. The poor get whatever government has left over, and in the case of public education (to take just one example) that’s generations of empty promises. You can read my thoughts on this here in National Review, and I’m delighted to talk with you directly - I’m at will@calpolicycenter.org.
Mr. Swaim, are you saying that public employee unions are NOT good for black people? excuse me, but that’s absolutely insane. especially after WWII, first trade unions and then public unions MADE the black middle-class.
and if government fails, god bless the union members who got their own. it’s their aspirations that make them rich, even if they’re only middle-class.
Thanks for asking for clarification. I’m saying something different: that the broad claim this author makes (that unions are universally good for poor people) doesn’t pass the reality check. My critique in National Review describes the many ways in which government unions have let down the poor.
yes, unions may sometimes fail to reach their goals. and yes, some people who lead unions may not be the best at supporting their members. that only means that we’re all human and everything has exceptions. that doesn’t necessarily negate this writer’s thesis.
a hyperlink, so we poor union supporters can read what you wrote, would be helpful.
Thanks for the nudge. Here is the link to my National Review commentary:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/government-workers-unions-civil-rights/
The National Review is a reactionary libertarian/free market rag that also includes racist commentary.
Capitalism and the free market myth, with all the attendant government giveaways, are responsible for the widening gap between rich and poor. It is ludicrous and contrafactual to state otherwise.
I am responding to your comment, not because I am interested in debating or hearing more from you, but as a message to SDFP readers.
It is frankly jarring to see a link to National Review on this site.
Anna: You’ve neatly illustrated the challenge of our time: to dismiss free markets as “myth”; to confuse capitalism with cronyism (which is a problem everywhere, and not limited to capitalism); to say that anything that contradicts your worldview is “reactionary,” a “rag,” “ludicrous” or “counterfactual”; and to be shaken by the mere appearance of the words “National” and “Review” on this site – all of this explains why it is so hard for Americans to talk through differences of opinion. Though you’ve said you don’t want to debate, I figure debate is what democracy is all about.
For what it’s worth, I heard similar abuse when I ran OC (Orange County) Weekly for 12 years — and was presumed to be a leftist.
PS: Please send me evidence that the NR is racist. You can reach me at will@calpolicycenter.org
Right Wing Goons attack justice when they argue unions must supply anti-unionists the same wage gains and advantages of membership to those who don’t pay dues. Remember when these goons used to shout, “There’s no free lunch” at starving people? Now that they’re getting something for nothing they can be assured they’ll go to Right Wing Heaven and eat cake.
Bob: Nobody is asking the union to represent them for free. If a government union provides great service, people will pay for that. If the unions fail to provide that value, people won’t pay for it — and shouldn’t. The “goon” impulse is to make that choice illegal.