" The unions get away with the wage demands because the government has built their power to excessive size. The same government puts a heavy tax burden on business, a burden that has slowed capital investment and thus has helped foreign nations to begin to catch up with the U.S. in technology. The AFL-CIO's tunnel vision becomes all the more obvious when a reader flips to the back page of this "Memo From COPE." Spelled out there is an argument not for encouraging business investment, and thus increasing jobs, but for socking the corporation with higher taxes. "There is no simple explanation of trade policy and problems," COPE says, quite correctly. Neither is it easy to understand why the federation is so determined to destroy union members' jobs. Mr. FANNIN. Mr. President, as I stated, there are some signs of hope. Some labor leaders appear to be showing enlightenment. They have come to understand that what is in the best interest of an industry is also in the best interest of the individual worker, in most cases. As evidence, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD two articles, and an editorial from the Wall Street Journal. There being no objection, the articles and editorial were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows: [From the May 15, 1972, U.S. News & World Report] BUILDING WORKERS WARNED: DON'T PRICE SELVES OUT OF JOBS Work harder, end "feather-bedding," take smaller pay boosts. That's the advice workers are getting from both a union chief and an employer. Just beginning to get attention in the construction industry: A drive to end "feather-bedding" and slow the relentless wage spiral in the nation's building trades. What's unique about this campaign is the fact that much of its impetus comes from key labor leaders who are convinced that construction workers in many areas have priced themselves out of the market. UNION, EMPLOYERS UNITE In what is considered a revolution in union tactics, officials of the AFL-CIO's building trades will join with employers in the new drive. The aim is to eliminate make-work rules and lower labor costs. Recent speeches by a national union president and by a spokesman for employers are seen as preliminary efforts for the "educational" campaign. Union workers are to be urged to work harder on the job, drop requirements for standby crews and modify other job-creating regulations. Also, the unionists are to be told that construction unions must take smaller pay boosts in order to permit their unionized employers to compete with "open shop" competitors. OUTBID Behind the drive is an admission by union and contracting leaders that nonunion firms are making big inroads in the heavy-construction industry. With lower labor costs-and no work rules-nonunion contractors are able to outbid the unionized companies. Speeches at a national convention of the Operating Engineers Union late in April, in Washington, D.C., served as a preamble to the campaign. Engineers handle earth-moving equipment and other machinery on construction sites. In a hard-hitting and unusual appeal, Hunter P. Wharton, the union's president, exhorted his members to give “a fair day's work for a fair day's wage." A step-up in worker output, he went on, is needed to stop the invasion of nonunion companies in the industry, with the resulting loss of union jobs. At the same convention, the new president of the Associated General Contractors-James D. McClary-said the unionized companies are being hurt by the big pay raises won by building-trades unions in recent years. CONTRACTOR'S VIEW Mr. McClary offered this opinion on what is behind "the very rapid growth of the open-shop movment" in his industry: “It has been made possible, in my judgment, by two things. Unions and union contractors are pricing themselves out of the market. Laugh if you want to at 80-741 O 72 - 30 this, but there are still a lot of people in this country who have enough pride in their craft and in themselves that they want to work where their skill is recognized and where they can take their paycheck at the end of the week and look the paymaster in the eye. "They want to work where their income is steady, where they are not off on wildcat strikes or honoring a picket line for someone else's stupidity, or becoming embroiled in a useless jurisdictional dispute-in many instances not even involving their own craft." WORKERS ARE URGED TO END "FEATHERBEDDING" Mr. McClary declared that the building industry "is in serious trouble and it could get a lot worse before it gets better." He called on workers and employers to "quit fooling around, quit playing games and go back to work." The construction industry, he said, is guilty of "leading the inflationary spiral that is rapidly driving this country to economic ruin." WASTED TECHNOLOGY Union work rules, the contractors' official added, have forced so many nonproducers onto the payroll that economic benefits from the complicated, expensive machines are lost. These big machines, he went on, do not produce "if you show up later or are out drinking coffee or just plain goofing off, or quit early." Employers also have a lot of faults, Mr. McClary admitted. For one thing, the contractors have "let you get away with many of those things I have mentioned." The business spokesman added: "In some parts of the country, we have turned over virtual management of our jobs to your people. . . . We have become just as lazy and nonproductive as you have become." The association president asked the union to find a way to settle differences without strikes which neither side wins. He urged workers to "cut out this stupid obsession with featherbedding." On wages, Mr. McClary suggested they "try to go more than six months without a raise in pay-at least until we are out of our current mess and until productivity justifies an increase.” The Engineers Union's president, Mr. Wharton, spoke on the same program with Mr. McClary, and made a similar appeal for more work, fewer work rules and a slowdown in wage advances. GENERAL WARNING Much of Mr. Wharton's speech was a warning to other AFL-CIO building unions, as well as to his own local union officials and rank and filers. Mr. Wharton cautioned his members that "our progress seems to have peaked," and he declared: "Now is the time for all of you who are leaders to display leadership. It is time, if it is not too late, to turn ourselves around and approach our problems as they exist." Labor, the union leader said, "must rededicate itself to pride of workmanship." He said local union officers "must show the way" and "cannot continue to create jobs by having unproductive labor create jobs by having unproductive labor on the job." He added: "Our leaders can no longer demand and have standby labor on the jobs so as to create a job for those who have no desire to work for their pay." Large wage increases won in recent years by regional construction leaders, Mr. Wharton said, may "retard our progress." "LEAPFROGGING" DECRIED Employers have been forced to grant big pay boosts in order to prevent, or end, strikes that could ruin business. Mr. Wharton condemned "me-too-ism" or "leapfrogging" by rival unions on wage demands. He put it this way: "IT one trade got more, then the representative of our trade or some other trade had to get as much . . . or a little more, to show he was a better negotiator than the other fellow." As wages rose, Mr. Wharton said, "productivity was standing still and in many instances. . . it was falling below the norm." Delegates to the union convention heard praise from Secretary of Labor James D. Hodgson. He said: "For President Nixon and for myself, I want to thank you for a helluva job well done" in co-operating with the Government's wage-stabilizing efforts. "You're keeping a lid on the unproductive work rules. . . . You have worked out new jurisdictional-dispute machinery. And you're reminding your members that a fair day's work for a fair day's pay is still a sound idea." [From the Mar. 17, 1972, Christian Science Monitor] RUBBER FIRMS, UNION WORK FOR CHANGES NEW YORK.-Some significant changes are taking place in the rubber industry: Firestone Tire & Rubber Company plant workers in Akron, Ohio, heartland of the U.S. rubber industry, last weekend voted 2,356 to 977 to give up their six-day, 36-hour workweek, zealously protected since the 1930's. B. F. Goodrich Company has won an agreement from its United Rubber Workers local in Akron to negotiate modifications of work rules. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is talking "informally" with the URW with unprofitable plants and products. None of this would have been likely even a year ago. Rubber workers in plants in other areas are likely to put in more hours a week, produce more, and receive lower hourly pay than their union brothers in Akron. As a result, Akron plants are at a competitive disadvantage, and these days companies have little patience with unprofitable plants and products. Blue-collar production jobs in Akron plants of the three major tiremakers have dropped from a peak of about 52,000 in 1944 to about 14,000. Some plants have been closed down, and others have been moved out of Akron. PLANTS LESS PRODUCTIVE According to the companies, they have had no other choice. Akron plants for years have been only 50 percent to 75 percent as productive as similar rubber plants in other areas. Tire workers in Akron are paid about $4.45 an hour, compared with $4.35 for workers similarly employed in other cities and as low as $3.75 an hour in the newest plants, where modern production processes and equipment have reduced skill demand. Watching jobs disappear and reading recurrent reports about new plants to be erected elsewhere-most recently an announcement by General Tire & Rubber Company of a multimillion-dollar plant to be built in Mount Vernon, Ill., to produce radial tires-Akron's rubber unionists began having second thoughts about their long stubborn defense of the status quo. Goodrich, Firestone, and Goodyear seized the opportunity to begin to talk with their uneasy local unions on ways to modify obsolete work rules and conditions and to make Akron plants more competitive. Most WORKWEEK TOPS LIST company executives place the six-day, 36-hour workweek at the top of the list of costly problems that need to be eliminated. The short week was put into effect by managements in the depressed 1930's as a work-spreading device. It is to be found only in Akron rubber plants, where workers long resisted a change: The six-hour day gives workers an opportunity to supplement incomes with second jobs. Goodrich and URW agreed to change to a standard 40-hour, five-day week in 1965, in a cooperative effort to keep jobs in Akron. Last year Firestone proposed to put a new radial-tire operation in Akron if its employees would shift to the 40-hour week. They refused to, and the company built a new plant in Tennessee. The 36-hour, six-day week has been a sacred cow in Goodyear's contract, too. Generally, the parties agree that both labor and management are jointly responsible for other nonproductive work rules and arrangements that plague Akron rubber plants. Both agreed to rules-still in contracts-intended to meet the frantic needs of production in World War II. Once they were there, they became virtually untouchable. MEETINGS ANNOUNCED Some limit the work that a man in any work classification may do--a practice that has made repair and maintenance costs in Akron far out of line with those elsewhere. Traditionally, an Akron rubber worker may use a 'bidding and bumping" system to claim the job of a less-senior fellow unionist, whether he has the qualification or not. Piecework rates in Akron call for more pay for less production. Incentive standards need overhauling. And many other rules are considered by managements to be unduly costly and unproductive. Members of the big Goodrich local voted 8 to 1 in January to authorize officers to negotiate with the company on a list of 12 proposals it had made for improved productivity and lower costs in Akron. One official said URW had given up the 36-hour week at Goodrich in 1965 to do that, and had been assured then that many of the company's Akron problems would be ended. Now they're back at the door," he said. But there seemed to be no alternative to more concessions, now being negotiated. About the same time, Gerald D. Gelvin, president of Firestone Local 7, told his members that the union "must develop a positive cooperative attitude and an appreciation of the problems of our company." He announced that local negotiators would begin meeting with Firestone on "our mutual problems." Last weekend, the Firestone talks produced the first really tangible breakthrough for the rubber industry in its efforts to stay in competition in Akron. At a meeting at which 82 percent of the local's membership was present and voted, the highest percentage ever for the local, members voted almost 3 to 1 for contract modifications: "BIDDING AND BUMPING" The six-day, 36-hour workweek will be changed over a 90-day period to a 5-day, 40-hour workweek. This will permit three work shifts daily instead of four, and "minimal" layoffs are likely. Beginning in 1973, the plant will be shut down completely for two vacation weeks every summer, a plan intended to stabilize production. Now, employees can elect to take vacation time whenever they want, on a seniority basis, and shortages of workers or skills can interfere with the efficient operation of the plant. The piecework system will be changed so that an employee will not be reimbursed during a "down" period-when his machine is not operating-on a basis of the average rate for all employees but at his own average; some will get more, many will get less. Seniority rules will be changed to allow older workers to elect to take time off at 80 percent of pay when layoffs are scheduled. The present system provides for laying off workers on a strict seniority basis, with those having longer service "bumping" others from continuing jobs. SOME ADDITIONAL PAY These changes are less than what Firestone would have liked--they leave the big wage differential untouched-but they are expected to smooth operations. Workers who cherished the 36-hour workweek for years will have one stop to make the change more acceptable. They will be paid for four additional hours of work each week. The workweek change was hotly debated before the ratification vote. One local 7 oldtimer said, "Most of the real bellyaching came from the guys who've been putting in time on two jobs. Now a lot of them aren't going to be able to do it." Progress is being made in the Goodrich talks, and similar rules gains are expected. Goodyear and union negotiators will say only that they are talking "informally" about much the same things. Meanwhile, Mohawk Rubber Company and URW Local 6 recently announced that a joint program undertaken in Akron has increased Mohawk plant produc tion by 25 percent-largely through programs of "change and modernization" and without reducing earnings or increasing workloads. The local represents 300 employees at the Mohawk plant. SOVIET OUTPUT RISES Soviet industrial production in the first two months of the year increased by 7.3 percent over the same period last year, the Central Statistical Board reports. Labor productivity, a crucial factor in Soviet economic planning, rose by 5.7 percent. The statistics showed that Soviet industry met planned targets for all key products during this period, the official news agency Tass says. Biggest growth was reported for passenger cars, up 48 percent; digital program controlled machine tools, up 32 percent; instruments and porcelain tableware, up 17 percent; and refrigerators, up 10 percent. [Editorial from the Apr. 28, 1972, Wall Street Journal] A CONSTRUCTIVE UNION APPROACH In recent years the International Union of Operating Engineers has won enormous pay increases for its members, but there was little rejoicing at the union's recent convention in Washington. For more than a year the Operating Engineers and other construction unions have recognized that the big pay boosts to some extent have been self-defeating. They have priced some construction out of the market and encouraged contractors to use nonunion labor wherever possible. A high wage scale is cold comfort for the worker without a job. "It is time to turn ourselves around and approach our problems as they actually exist," said Hunter Wharton, president of the union. "We are the makers of many of our problems.' Mr. Wharton indicated that contractors weren't always getting their money's worth when they hired union labor. "Had productivity increased as wages began to rise," he said, "we wouldn't now be faced with some of our present-day problems." "Our leaders can no longer demand and have standby labor on the job so as to create a job for those who have no desire to work for their pay," he declared. "Labor must rededicate itself to a pride in workmanship-a fair day's work for a fair day's pay." That would indeed be a constructive approach. If the union chooses to pursue it, maybe the atmosphere at next year's convention will be a little cherrier. [From the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 17, 1972] CROSS PURPOSES IN CONSTRUCTION While the Pay Board is struggling to get wages under control, a number of federal laws are working effectively to push wages up. It isn't exactly novel for the Government to be working at cross purposes but this instance is especially astonishing. The federal wage-boosting program was instituted in 1931, with passage of the Davis-Bacon Act. In a troubled economy builders sought federal construction contracts even more avidly than usual, and here is how one of the sponsors of the legislation described the results: "A practice has been growing up in carrying out the building program where certain itinerant, irresponsible contractors, with itinerant, cheap, bootleg labor have been going around throughout the country 'picking' off a contract here and a contract there, and local labor and local contractors have been standing on the sidelines. . . . This bill. . . is simply to give local labor and the local contractor a fair opportunity to participate in this building program.” At least some of those allegedly irresponsible contractors were on the move because they were as desperate for business as the local contractors. And some of that "cheap, bootleg" labor was merely recognizing that, in 1931, almost any job was better than no job at all. But Congress nonetheless sought to stabilize local wage rates, at least those paid on federal construction contracts. |