Union Delivers Pyrrhic Victory

There were sobering messages in the United Parcel Service strike. But the most important weren’t those you heard from the Teamsters’ public relations apparatus or its shallow shills on television news.

If you believe (heaven help you) in the world as defined by 30-second snippets on TV, you believe the Teamsters won a mighty victory for union rights and poor, exploited, part-time working stiffs.

It is possible that public sympathy for the strike did reflect the start of a sunny season for unions and a populist revolt against cost-cutting, downsizing corporations. But it’s way too early for that conclusion to be anything more than wishful thinking.

In fact, during the last three decades, part-time jobs have risen only slightly, from 14 percent of the U.S. work force to 18 percent. In fact, part-timers at UPS have enjoyed a complete package of fringe benefits, unlike part-timers at many other companies. In fact, college students and other part-time workers - 80 percent of whom do not even want a full-time job - covet slots at UPS.

Due to the settlement, those part-time slots will be even more popular - and more scarce. Thousands will be consolidated into full-time jobs. Is that progress? Depends on where you sit.

But, it is clear that the Teamsters’ PR blitz obscured the ways strikes injure ordinary Americans - from small entrepreneurs to union working stiffs - in today’s cutthroat business world.

During the last few weeks, many entrepreneurs who had depended exclusively on UPS for the shipping of merchandise and supplies, came painfully to the realization it was dumb to put all their eggs in one basket. Now, they’ll diversify. Competitors such as Federal Express are nonunion and now have an opportunity to seize market share from UPS. The Wall Street Journal reports that this week’s settlement will add $1 billion a year to UPS operating costs. The company says it may lay off up to 15,000 Teamsters as customers switch to other shippers.

It is way too early to know how significant the layoffs and loss in market share will be, long term. But the potential for injury to working stiffs is clear.

So, was this a union triumph? It was, in terms of the union’s power over its multi-employer pension fund. UPS will continue to subsidize pensions for Teamsters at other, less-solvent companies. This inflates UPS operating costs without helping UPS employees.

The marketplace deals brutally with high-cost competitors. And that, like it or not, is why union shops have dwindled since World War II - from 33 percent down to barely 10 percent of the private sector work force.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster For the editorial board