Downwards Spiral

Articles like this one make me more than a bit upset. Not in the “go out and punch someone” sense but more in the “pull the blanket over my head and wait for the bad things to go away” sense. It’s just another sign that the manufacturing industry in this country is on a slow and inevitable decline. Which is something that I think is a bad, bad thing no matter how much free trade acolytes try to convince me otherwise (Because, I’m sorry, I know that our country is rich and successful and powerful and that we do, indeed, have some sort of moral duty to help the rest of the world pull itself up to our level. That doesn’t mean we can be so charitable that we bankrupt our ownselves. The reason to aid other country’s to improve their economy isn’t self-sacrifice but self-interest. The stronger they are the stronger we’ll be because we’re intimately linked to them. And the inverse is true, as well, weakening ourselves to develop elsewhere doesn’t make things better it only makes them worse.) – this country was thrust to the forefront through manufacturing and I can’t see how parceling it away makes anything better.

There are any number of reasons why this is happening, of course. There’s historical inevitability. There’s complacency. There’s even dark conspiracies like political expediency (This doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem in right to work states which, if you’ll notice the map tend to be colored awfully red. While the so called rust belt is awfully blue. I’ve heard it said that the conservative movement has purposely and systematically marginalized if not impoverished those areas in order to gain and remain in power. I’m not certain if there’s any real credence to this but it is a striking correlation. And knowing what I do about how the Republican machine operates, I wouldn’t be surprised. I suppose that says it all, really.). Like any complex system there’s no one single cause but the combination of many smaller factors leading to some result. What really matters is the effects. And the consequences of those effects.

The auto-industry is bleeding. It’s in very big trouble at least in the U.S. That’s not exactly news but this report just reinforces that belief. The UAW once had over a million members. It’s shortly going to be less than five hundred thousand. Until the next round of layoffs and plant closings, anyways, when it will sink even lower still. Now, in many ways that largest of the auto unions is a victim of its own success. The “Big Three” (Which is really the Big Two ever since Chrysler was bought out.) have long claimed that the unions are a millstone around their necks – and that a large reason why they can’t turn a profit is that their out-of-country competitors aren’t bound by the same union laws or the ongoing benefits that the unions have fought long and hard to obtain. Which, yeah, is true but that’s not a problem with the unions, that’s a problem with those other companies. From the industry that gave us the $5 workday, you’d think they’d have a much more progressive view on worker’s rights. Still, it was Ford that did that and old Henry absolutely couldn’t stand the unions so perhaps I’m expecting too much.

The declining membership is a problem, though, because the real power in unions lies in their ability to collectively bargain. The more members they have the more say they have at the bargaining table. And the more dues they’ll collect to fund the activities. The better they’ll be able to recruit and retain leadership and talent and fight for their members. Fewer members means a weaker union no matter how much of a positive spin its representatives put on it. And its unions that have resulted in the advances and comforts that the modern worker in the United States enjoys. That they’re crumbling should be a warning to everyone even if they don’t enjoy that peculiar brand of solidarity.

But, then, I realize that I, myself, would never join a union. I mean, I probably seem as though I’ve only recently climbed down from my ivory tower but the truth of it is that I’ve worked in “union jobs” before and will probably do so again. Backbreaking, physical, “manual labor”. I’ve come to the conclusion that, all things being equal, I’d much rather not have to do so but the truth is, I enjoy being able to work with my hands. To use them to fashion something newer or better into this world. It’s probably why I enjoy writing so much and do it so frequently. I’m not much of a naturalist, really, but there’s a connection with the natural world you can’t get unless you actually get out there and interact with it. And I, for one, see almost everything on this world as being a product of the natural (All our technology, all our machines, they’re made from things drawn out of the world and they’re as much a part of it as the trees and grass and everything else “green” all just different parts of the greater whole – all beautiful in their own way. Science and technology don’t race away from nature they celebrate it by singing to it with new songs. But, yeah, I’m pretty crazy.). But although I’ve had the opportunity to more than a few times in the past I’ve never joined any union. Never wanted to. I suppose there was some lingering feeling that, as a creature of the middle class, unions were for other people – my family has its electricians and auto-workers and contractors and other denizens of the assembly line, true, but it has just as many doctors and lawyers and engineers and scientists. But, really, I don’t like the idea of my money and my voice being used without my consent. The policies and practices of most unions stand apart from my own (Most everyone’s does. I am so far to the left of most people, so to speak, that I’m very much alone. Especially when I veer to the right.) and any dues they’d collect would help support them. So call me a conscientious objector or call me a spoiled child of privilege, I don’t really care, just don’t call me someone who’s not concerned by things.

And I am concerned. Not just for the fate of the region and the people that I call home. But also for the future of manufacturing. Like it or not, unions like the UAW don’t represent the average worker (and certainly no one from some Dickensian vision of factory life). They represent men and women from highly trained and highly technical backgrounds who perform delicate and impressive tasks with a great degree of skill. Some of that comes from their instruction and training, sure, but a lot of it comes from years and years of experience. Experience that gets handed down whenever someone new joins the line or the shop or whatever else it might be. Secrets of the trade, tricks of the craft, and other things that never quite get written down because the people who know them are too busy to be writing books (Or are, of course, too unskilled at writing books to properly encode that information.). There are things, after all, that can only be learned by actually doing them. The auto-worker’s union is full of such knowledge. And the smaller it gets the more of that knowledge is going to be lost. People who’ll forget their skills, forget their hard-earned lessons, and never bother to find someone who’ll benefit from them because they’ll have moved onto other jobs and other places. And the overall quality of work is going to suffer for it.

If you don’t believe me then look at the sad history of stained glass. At one point people - with no doubt perfectly justifiable reasons - turned their backs on that beautiful art and the skills needed to make the windows that adorned the medieval cathedral were lost forever. Attempts – expensive, laborious attempts – have been made to recover those techniques but we’ll never know exactly what they’re missing.