A recent Statesman article described 100 employees of Round Table Pizza who, when they came to work, found that the doors were locked and that the company had left town. These workers not only lost their jobs, but the company is no longer going to be doing business in Boise.
I am writing to support these unemployed workers and to point out that corporations, large institutions like universities and colleges and city/state governments in Idaho will continue to treat employees as expendable parts that can be thrown away as soon as they are not providing enough profit for executives or top administrators to command tremendous salaries. Legislators, administrators and executives view workers, from custodians to professionals, as faceless cogs in the apparatus of capitalism whose primary function is to generate resources for their use.
In Idaho, the only people who are not "at-will" employees are those who have contractual protection. Labor unions in a "right-to-work" state like Idaho have the right to organize workers if a majority of the work force votes for representation. Workers in Idaho have the right, on their own time such as breaks and after work, to discuss working conditions and seek union support.
Unions have helped workers obtain better working conditions, fair treatment, decent wages, health and pension benefits. Union members fought for hospitalization for miners, the protection of retiree health benefits for public employees, and living wages for teachers.
Gov. Butch Otter and his deputy sheriff, Mike Gwartney, continue to lower wages and benefits and push for the eventual privatization of state employee jobs for the same reason that Round Table Pizza can simply walk away from its obligations to its employees - the workers have no protection unless they are organized and have negotiated a contract.
"Free market" power brokers and absentee corporations are focused on one thing: profit. Trade associations, CEO and administrative associations, are collective bodies that work for the interests of these professions. Many of these business associations seek to deny workers their universal human right to organize. It is no mystery that they fear strong worker organizations that can challenge their power.
Unions, for their part, pool financial resources and a sense of shared goals - to confront business interests with justice and equity clearly articulated in a legally binding contract. This contract is negotiated locally by co-workers and their representatives for local working conditions. Unions also create a ripple effect of political change (through political action committees) for such issues as the eight-hour work day, family leave and the rights of women, people of color and retirees. Unions are not perfect, yet they remain the only vehicle for challenging the unequal distribution of wealth and power in our society.
If you think there is another way to challenge capital, talk to the people laid off by Round Table, the former employees of the Selland College at Boise State University, who were laid off by BSU and are still waiting for job information from the College of Western Idaho, or city workers who have been denied the right to even vote on representation by our "Democratic" mayor and council.
The only way people can challenge the excesses of what C. Wright Mills called the "power elite" is through collective bargaining.
Joe Hill - who was executed by a Utah firing squad (in part) for his union activism, told his supporters on the day he was shot: "Don't mourn, organize." It is as true today as it was on Nov. 19, 1915.
Robert McCarl is vice president of Idaho Association of Government Employees (NAGE/SEIU Local 687) and member BSU Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT.
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