No one is indispensable

Watching TV news and apparently a big problem with cleaning up after the blizzard in New York City was an informal "slowdown" among unionized sanitation workers. It seems the mayor had planned to lay off 100 supervisors, but since the slowdown, he's reduced that number to 50.

One of the realy major problems with unions is that they don't know when to quit. They sometimes have this very overblown vision of themselves as absolutely indispensable. No. I don't think so. Not with unemployment rates hovering around 10%.

Anyone remember the air traffic controllers strike under Reagan? They threatened to go on strike. Reagan suggested they go ahead. They did. Thy thought they'd shut down air traffic all across the country. After all, they were highly-trained and experienced in a very stressful and critical job. But they were replaced without too much trouble or disruption.

From my personal experience, I knew of a third-generation, family-owned custom manufacturing company that had been unionized for several decades. Most employees were long-term. Everyone got along.

Then the industry changed. The company was forced to switch over to digital systems, but retrained staff rather than laying people off. The owner felt a commitment to his employees, who had been loyal to him. Should add that the digital equipment was absolutely necessary for this company to remain competitive, and its migration to digital was actually relatively late in the industry. The thing is, for this type of manufacturing, the company had to be compatible with its customers, who were doing everything digital as well. If the company couldn't handle the digital link-up, customers went somewhere else.

So the next time the union contract came up for negotiation, the union demanded big raises across the board. They reasoned, the owner had just spent at least $250,000.00 for the digital equipment. So he could afford pay increases, too.

The owner shut down. He had no choice and simply didn't want the headache. He didn't sell the company -- which had been struggling, particularly under the burden of trying to make some return on investment on the digital equipment. He shut the doors, sold the assets, and moved on. I don't know what happened to his 60 employees.

The thing is, no one is indispensable, not even quarterbacks. And I've been in New York during garbage strikes. It isn't pretty, but the option isn't to get the trash picked up or not. The option is exactly who's going to pick up the trash, union members or somebody else.

No matter what your bosses tell you, union members, this ain't the time to start kicking up dust. Believe me, for every one of you, there's probably a couple hundred unemployed who'd love your job -- even with less pay and benefits than you have right now.

Save the Republic... and your jobs.