We hope to help people know it’s not okay to be exploited and abused within and by capitalist worker unions, to let them know they’re not alone, and to inspire people to get together and fight for the rekindling of revolutionary unionism in the region. We hope to hear more from the author in future articles about how this evolves on their end. -The Blast (10.25.21)
Content warning: sexism.
The Two-Faced Union
By M
As a young adult, I heard two sets of contrasting but similar mythologies concerning unions. Although the details and values expressed between the tales were different, they were both lacking in nuance or any questioning of structural issues. My earliest encounter was that of the received wisdom channeled by the conservative environments I was reared in that depicted unions as a drain on society and economic advancement. Be it implied or be it expressed in plain language, the story went that union members were lazy, entitled, and were the enemy of American business and, by extension, society writ large. Of course, coming of age meant that I inevitably encountered bodies of thought not wholly transmitted by the ruling class. Social democratic politicians like Bernie Sanders and his followers heaped praise on unions and lamented their decline since the middle of the 20th Century. I saw the parallels between the broad strokes of their historical analysis and lived experience – good union jobs helped grow and stabilize the American middle class during and after World War II. I listened and began to imagine unions in a more positive light and as an instrument to buoy the working class from the insecurity endemic to capitalism. Of course, what was left out of both the cheerleading demonstrations and elegies were the very real problems concerning traditional trade unions like the AFL-CIO.
The vast majority of American trade unions organize by craft and contain a layer of functionaries between workers and management who bargain on behalf of wage earners. It is now my conviction that such a model is faulty, but it wasn’t always how I looked at things. The analysis concerning the problem with traditional trade unions was completely unknown to me until I more seriously read into the tenets of anarcho-syndicalism and industrial unionism in addition to the organizations influenced by these movements. Until that time, I had simply attributed the dysfunction of the unionized workplaces I belonged to and heard about as the result of bad actors who didn’t know any better or were outright malicious. Indeed, my eye was trained to pick out the errancies of individuals without regard to any possible structural defects at play. This article details my experiences navigating the world of work within the existing business union framework.
My first union job was as a ramp agent at an airport. I was responsible for unloading/loading bags onto airplanes as well as marshalling air traffic into and out of their respective gates. This workplace became unionized shortly after my hire date. Thereafter, we were represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), an AFL-CIO trade union. During my time at this workplace, I didn’t see any kind of meaningful wage increase. I made minimum wage coming in and coming out of that job. Yes, we did have free flight privileges but they were far from guaranteed and out of reach for many of us who couldn’t afford a holiday or time off of work to begin with. What I did observe was cruel verbal abuse on the part of management that went unaddressed as well as a union steward who behaved and functioned not as a fellow worker but as simply another manager. This union steward was a former rock band manager from Los Angeles who could be found most days pontificating in the dungy breakroom over a sandwich while my fellow coworkers hustled in and out to make their next flight. It sounds as ridiculous and sad as it looked.
I left that job after about a year due to an injury that occured off the job. I do look back at how I naively dismissed the dysfunction of our workplace as simply the result of a few bad apples and wished I could go back to experience it all with a different set of questions and assumptions. I so badly wanted to keep a positive disposition towards unions that I surely missed or ignored important happenings around me. I’ve since revisited this company’s website to see what kind of jobs they’re offering and what they now pay workers. The IAM still represents the workers and they seem to have won some concessions since I was there some four years ago. They now pay two dollars above minimum wage and offer workers $4 above minimum wage “inclusive of reliability incentive.” What this actually translates to is that workers can only secure a wage increase if they “work a minimum of 72 hours per pay period (every 2 weeks).” In other words, the carrot is only obtainable after being “mando-ed”, lingo in the airport for mandatory overtime hours. It goes without saying that the airlines that trade unions like AFL-CIO negotiate with make astronomical profits so it’d be disingenuous to pretend as if these incentive programs dressed up as benefits are implemented for the welfare of the workers.
My second union job was with the Chicago Park District who is represented by the Teamsters. This job was in the landscaping industry but the inadequacies I found with regard to the union workplace paralleled my time spent in the aviation field. I was hesitant to accept the Park District job because of stories I had heard from past coworkers about this organization. They had told me that it was a place where it’s hard to know where you stand with regard to management and where job security is hard to come by. Many jobs in the landscaping industry in the Midwest are seasonal, especially at the entry level. Most companies, however, will be up front about whether or not employment is permanent or otherwise from the beginning. I took the advice of colleagues to heart but still ended up taking a job at the Park District after stints with other local contractors. I was pulled in by the fact that the workplace was represented by a union which secured wages much higher than industry standards. For example, workers here received hazard pay ($2 more per hour) any day that they used pesticides, a scenario which is unheard of elsewhere. Still, most of my coworkers were wary about continuing to use the chemicals given their links to the development of lymphoma and other serious health complications. Open discussion of these issues among workers wasn’t formally instituted, but I felt assured that management cared enough to give us hazard pay.
Although the entire shop I worked at was represented by the Teamsters, different departments clearly had greater privilege and protection than others. As time went on, I began to see how our department, which is relatively new, differed in treatment from those departments who had a stronger footing. For example, it was made clear to all of my coworkers that we were required to wear masks in the shop during the ongoing pandemic in 2021. Meanwhile, workers at the nearby engineering department would saunter through the shop unmasked with idle chatter between cigarette drags. More puzzling than these developments was the seeming precarity of my own job and that of workers inside a unionized shop. For example, any kind of major vehicle incident or series of minor accidents would result in immediate termination. I was told after two minor vehicle incidents in very cryptic language that I may not be invited back for another season because the Park District’s risk management department would likely consider me a liability. When I asked when exactly this invitation to return to work would either be formally extended or revoked, I was told that my “end of the year review” would be three or four months out from the final day of my season.
Of course, I was not happy with ending my season on a note of great uncertainty as to where I stood with management. I happened to speak with another coworker who hadn’t had any kind of assessment during her whole entire season. This is not at all appropriate since assessments are given to provide feedback and insights to workers. More importantly, they’re the venue in which management gives workers either a green or red light to come back to the department after winter furlough.
I’m certainly not the first person to shed light on malfeasance within the Teamsters union in Chicago or within the Chicago Park District as a whole. The former has a reputation for being influenced by outside actors. In 2004, for example, Teamsters working for the city of Chicago were investigated and alleged of “allegations of mob influence, kickback schemes and the secret shifting of union jobs to low-wage, non-union companies” at the expense of workers whose benefits were put on the chopping block by the union (https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2004-10-17-0410170378-story.html).
The Chicago Park District’s mismanagement is also well documented. One recent, high-profile news story concerned the resignation of Superintendent Michael Kelly, which was spurred on by the controversy surrounding his hiding of sexual misconduct and harassment on the part of Park District employees. In fact, the Park District’s misaligned values touched my own life before even technically being employed by them. In February 2020, I was hired by the Park District and was told to await directions regarding the onboarding process. A few weeks went by as the world descended into further confusion in the grips of rising COVID-19 cases and the official declaration of a pandemic by former President Trump on March 20, 2020. I was told soon after that all of the seasonal Park District employees who had recently been hired on, including myself, would be laid off until further notice because of the pandemic. It was not clear when or if any of us would find ourselves coming back to work. Meanwhile, all of the full-time employees in our department were steadily working. Additionally, it was made known by a former full-timer within the department who left in 2021 that the money that was slated to bring on seasonal new hires during 2020 was in fact diverted to corrupt administrative staffers.
Although my grievances are far from imagined, I note them here not to exercise self-pity but to give pause and meditate on what could improve in workplaces I have passed through. I propose that the solution to the problems stated above is not the reform or a weeding out of problematic characters within trade unions but the substitution of solidarity unionism whereby workers manage and direct their own fates.
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