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A time for (job) action? No way
©New York Times
© St. Petersburg Times, ST. PAUL, Minn. -- There never is a good time to go on strike, union leaders often say, but the walkout Monday by nearly 28,000 Minnesota state employees seems to have come at an especially inopportune time. Gov. Jesse Ventura, business leaders, editorial writers and many other Minnesotans have condemned the strikers for walking out during a national crisis. When so many Americans are talking about the need for shared sacrifice and unity, it has suddenly become difficult, even risky, for unions to use their most potent weapon. "This strike comes at a most unfortunate time," Ventura said. "Our citizens are still hurting from the devastating attack on Sept. 11, we are coping with the possibility of a long and difficult war, and we are facing the prospect of an economy that is on the brink of recession." For unions, public sympathy can be crucial in trying to outmuscle and outlast management in a strike. But with the public showing less support for strikers after the attacks, labor experts say unions might become more reluctant to walk out. In North Carolina, where state employees are threatening their first strike ever, many state officials say economic problems, made worse by the Sept. 11 attacks, make it harder for the state to meet the union's demands. When 200 teachers in Granite City, Ill., went on strike five days after the attacks, they were widely denounced for being selfish. The local newspaper, the Belleville News-Democrat, wrote, "They lost credibility when they walked out days after the worst terrorist attacks in our nation's history. Beyond that, the attacks Sept. 11 weakened our nation's already shaky economy -- and made the union demands even more unreasonable." Michael LeRoy, a professor of labor relations at the University of Illinois, predicted that there would be fewer strikes as a result of the new mood across the nation. He recently conducted a study on how various administrations, including those of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, sometimes accused unions of being unpatriotic when they went on strike during the Korean War and the Cold War. "A time of national emergency makes it more difficult for unions to engineer public support," he said. "And I wouldn't underestimate the importance of public sympathy in conducting a successful strike." The shift in the collective bargaining terrain, coming when unemployment is soaring and corporate profits are falling, could weaken labor's hand at the bargaining table. Nonetheless, many union leaders assert that they should not shrink from striking. "We sacrificed back in 1993, when we took a 0 percent raise," said Murray Cody, communications director of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, one of the two unions that went on strike Monday. "We were told back then to sacrifice to help the state out, and they promised that when times got better, they'd take care of us. But they never came through on that." Cody rejected some criticism that his union in Minnesota was being unpatriotic, noting that members have contributed more than $10,000 to the victims of the terrorist attack on New York. Cody said the union, whose contract expired in June, originally planned to strike Sept. 17, but delayed the walkout for two weeks because of the Sept. 11 attacks. Some union and business representatives forecast a decline in strikes because of the national mood. Patrick Cleary, senior vice president for human resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, said, "I believe that, barring some gargantuan problems, labor and management will find a way to make peace or defer battle." Along these lines, New York City's teachers' union, which has been without a contract for more than a year, has asked for a two-month delay in contentious hearings in its salary dispute. Leaders of that union say it is not an appropriate time to battle over wages. But Patrick Lynch, president of New York City's main police union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said the Sept. 11 attacks could strengthen the hand of uniformed unions, such as police and firefighters, because the public has come to appreciate all the more the importance of these workers. Some union strategists fear that managers of some companies and government bodies will seize on the national crisis to take advantage of their workers, knowing that it is a difficult time for unions to strike. Ron Blackwell, the AFL-CIO's director of corporate affairs, predicted that strike activity would decrease, but he said labor relations might remain tense, partly because executive pay has skyrocketed while rank-and-file wages languished.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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