The question
from Caller #2 on the Lars Larson radio show last month took me by surprise.
Larson was hosting his show from Washington, D.C. I was on the phone from
my office in Salem. And his producer was lining up callers from around the
state to complain about Oregon’s minimum wage.
Caller #1 was a restaurant owner in Bend, who complained that his costs
were going up 10 percent this year. I pointed out that the minimum wage
was going up only three percent. It’s a modest increase, I said, but
critically important to enable low-wage working families to put food on
the table and keep a roof over their heads.
But Caller #2 asked a different question. He asked why unions would support
a law that brought benefits to non-union workers. Larson chimed in: “Why
would unions support anything that boosted compensation for non-members?”
Weren’t we hurting ourselves by doing so? Caller #2 wondered if we
had a hidden agenda, if wage increases in union contracts were somehow tied
to the minimum wage.
I told Caller #2 that there are very few union members affected by the minimum
wage, and I told Larson that many of our unions were proud contributors
to the minimum wage campaign because we oppose poverty wages.
Larson accused me of dodging his question. I thought I was answering it.
But now I’m not sure I got to the heart of the matter. My dialogue
with Larson highlights a problem of public perception about the very purposes
of our union movement.
If we’re perceived as special interests competing for workers’
dues dollars, as Larson sees us, we become in the public’s eyes a
profit-seeking business. They see us working to raise wages and win benefits
for a select few, as if we’re fighting for our slice of the pie by
making other slices smaller. That’s why they can’t understand
why we would sponsor an increase in the minimum wage.
Larson’s point of view is ironic, because he and other free-market
ideologues use the opposite argument to justify tax cuts for the wealthy
and subsidies for giant corporations: When their pieces of the pie get bigger,
they say they’re expanding the pie for everyone.
It’s both principled and pragmatic for us to reach out to non-members,
whether we ask them to join us as members in bargaining a contract or to
support us as voters in raising the minimum wage. The more workers organize
and work together, the more they boost their ability to win fair wages and
better working conditions.
Unfortunately, the reverse is true as well. When union membership declined
over the past three decades, union members and non-members fell farther
behind in pay, pensions and health care. That’s why we have always
sought to consolidate the gains we make in our contracts by establishing
minimum standards in law for all workers in all workplaces — from
the minimum wage to the 40-hour workweek. Imagine how hard it will be to
keep paid overtime in our contracts if the Bush Administration succeeds
in eliminating the 40-hour week for workers without unions.
What motivates our support for a fair minimum wage is the same insight that
drives our campaigns to organize more workers into unions. We recognize
that competition alone, if left to its own devices, will drive wages into
the ground — unless we organize collectively as workers, as voters
and, ideally, as union members to engage and shape what the free market
delivers for workers as well as owners and consumers.
In 2002, Oregon’s unions asked Oregon’s voters to say no to
poverty wages. The voters agreed with us. That’s why Caller #1 will
have to pay three percent more for his cooks and servers this year, just
as he pays 10 percent more for his rent and utilities. And that’s
why, to answer Caller #2’s question, our poorest workers got a little
more money in their pockets last month that they’ve been spending
in their local communities, and the forces of competition became a little
less hard on Oregon’s working families.
Not a bad Election Day’s work for our union movement — and something
we can all be proud of.
For more information, check out the Oregon AFL-CIO online at oraflcio.unions-america.com
