Tide May Be Turning In Labor’s Popularity Union Victory In Ups Strike May Launch A Bright New Era For Organized Labor

The recent labor battle between the Teamsters Union and United Parcel Service is viewed by some as a major turning point in labor relations.

Perhaps it may even have as positive an impact for labor as the air traffic controllers’ strike was negative 16 years ago.

The two-week strike by Teamsters against the country’s largest shipper ranks among the more memorable labor actions in recent years, locally as well as nationally.

The union’s victory may inspire other private industry unions to fight for the contract benefits they’ve surrendered.

The focus may turn next to the orchards of Central Washington, as the Teamsters try to represent apple packers.

The downward trend in union strength and popularity was sparked by the Professional Air Traffic Controllers’ strike in 1981, which sent union popularity spiralling after President Reagan busted the union, said David Olson, political science professor at the University of Washington.

“That set the tone for the next decade and a half for labor relations,” Olson said.

After that, much of the public stopped siding with unions, union membership declined, and labor groups lost control of wages, benefits and working conditions.

But since then, the job market has changed. Unemployment is down to about 4 percent, the lowest in many years. More businesses are downsizing, converting full-time jobs to part-time and temporary jobs, often saving benefit dollars.

The issues pressed by the UPS strikers - more full-time jobs and control of their benefits - rang true with the general public, Olson said. The tide may be turning in labor popularity.

“The UPS strike of ‘97 at least neutralizes the (air-traffic controller’s) strike,” he said, pointing to the public support the Teamsters found during the 15-day walkout. “The UPS strike is very important. It ranks up there with the most important labor movements in the nation.”

In the Inland Northwest, though only 650 workers left their jobs for the UPS strike, nearly every business felt the sting of the delivery stoppage.

Just as labor’s victories have changed, the labor battles have changed significantly as well.

Back in 1909, in one of the region’s first big labor movements, the Industrial Workers of the World members in Spokane were charged with vagrancy, sentenced to 30 days and fined $100 simply for making public speeches.

Inmates who weren’t on a hunger strike ate bread and water. They were crammed into cells and when the jail overflowed, they were taken to Franklin School and the barracks at Fort Wright that winter.

At other times, the Wobs led sabotage efforts on farms and businesses that didn’t agreed to union demands.

The rough action is a stark contrast to this summer’s UPS strike when, in the August heat, 189,000 Teamsters nationwide put down their packages and gathered outside UPS plant gates. Violence was relatively rare and mostly relegated to the East Coast.

In Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, striking workers strolled around with picket signs, visited with fellow Teamsters, and barbecued. Police presence was not needed. No one in the Northwest was jailed. Teamsters often waved to their managers - many of them former Teamsters - across the UPS property lines.

Unions have always played a major role in the region.

“In the 1930s, Washington ranked first in the country in terms of recorded union density,” said Olson, the political science professor. “We have ranked first or second or third from then until the present time. This is a very strong union state.”

Some of the earliest labor unions in the region were formed by miners, farm hands, lumberjacks and railroad workers. “They tended to draw their strengths from socially isolated occupations,” Olson said.

But masons and the brick layers also formed unions in Spokane in 1887. Ten years later, the city had 14 strong trade unions including the 200-member Carpenters’ union, the Journeymen Tailors, the Plumbers, the Brewers and the Cigarmakers.

With the Wobs and their peers, the issues were often freedom of speech and the right to organize in order to improve work conditions.

“The city fathers didn’t understand the First Amendment,” said Ross Rieder, organizer with the Snohomish County Labor Council. “We had that problem all over the country.

“Workers have been part of the civil rights struggle before other people were even involved,” he said.

“Up to and through World War II, union membership in the region got up between 30 and 40 percent,” said John Leinen, secretary/treasurer with the Spokane Labor Council. Today that number is closer to the national levels of 15 percent, or less, of the work force.

Though unions in general have been losing clout for nearly two decades, two exceptions were the machinists and the steelworkers.

After a 69-day walkout at Boeing in 1995, the Machinists’ union won contract issues at a time when other labor organizations were bending to big companies. The walkout included about 300 Boeing workers in Spokane.

That same year, the United Steelworkers of America’s strike at the Kaiser Aluminum plants took 2,000 people out of work for eight days in Spokane. That too ended in a victory when they went back to work after winning several contract provisions.

In contrast, the Broadview Dairy strike in Spokane ended poorly in January 1996 for the Teamsters who worked there. After 13 weeks, most of the 45 Teamsters had crossed the picket line and gone back to work. They lost their contract and about 14 of them lost their jobs.

One of the more colorful contests in the Northwest now involves the Teamsters and the apple industry in Yakima and Wenatchee. The Teamsters are working with apple packers to help them organize for better wages and benefits.

“What’s interesting on the apple workers is that they’re not going to an election yet,” said Olson. Instead the union has asked the companies to recognize the workers’ demands, but hasn’t brought forth a list of signatures of workers wanting to organize. According to the teamsters, over 50 percent of the workers want union representation.

“They’re waiting until the organizing of the workers is at a certain stage before they go to elections,” Olson said. “That’s why it looks like it’s going to be a long, drawn-out, protracted fight.”

That’s nothing new to the Northwest.

Most union members will spend Labor Day with their families instead of their “brothers,” and the union halls which were bustling every night in 1910, now sit empty. But workers will still put it on the line for the pay, conditions and benefits that they feel they deserve.

, DataTimes