Date: Fri 21-Aug-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

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COMMENTARY: Connecticut Labor Embarrasses Itself But Still Stands Alone

Against Greed

By Chris Powell

At the annual convention of Connecticut's AFL-CIO the other day, the labor

movement showed that it can be its own worst enemy.

In preparation for its political endorsements for the November state election,

the AFL-CIO had invited Governor Rowland to address the convention. But as he

did so, about 40 convention delegates, most apparently members of the union

that represents state prison guards, made a scene by walking out of the hall,

crossing in front of the podium. It was reminiscent of the guards union's

crashing and ruining Rowland's birthday party at a Hartford restaurant last

year.

Like the party crashing, the convention walkout was caught on videotape and

broadcast on television, confirming the thuggish impression the guards union

leaves everywhere it goes. Once again the union made its grievances seem

immaterial; labor had invited the governor into its own house only to see him

insulted childishly. And insofar as the union committing the insult represents

public employees, its venting of resentments so rudely and visibly may have

been counterproductive, winning sympathy for Rowland, a Republican, while

distracting from the state AFL-CIO's endorsement of his Democratic challenger,

US Rep. Barbara B. Kennelly.

Meanwhile Connecticut's labor movement wasn't doing much better outside the

convention hall. For Local 1298 of the Communications Workers of America,

representing about 6,300 employees of Southern New England Telecommunications

Corp., was making itself look as silly as the prison guards union was making

itself look thuggish.

Just as the union's contract was expiring, the CWA leadership reached a

tentative agreement with SNET for a new 2«-year contract providing for raises

of 11 percent. But presenting the new contract to the union membership, the

union leaders quickly discovered that they were badly out of touch; the

membership wanted a lot more. So Local 1298 President Dan Keating stepped in

front of a TV camera broadcasting live for the 11 pm newscast, ceremoniously

tore up the agreement union leaders themselves had just negotiated, and

threatened to begin a strike against SNET the next day.

Of course if the company had betrayed an agreement so quickly with such cheap

grandstanding, the union would have screamed about bargaining in bad faith.

Instead SNET overlooked the union leadership's incompetence and invited the

union back for further negotiations, and the union postponed its strike.

Organized labor in Connecticut now is composed less of the working class than

of the government class -- public employees, whose privileges and

compensation, by law as well as union contract, already are greatly superior

to those enjoyed by most of the people who pay for them, including the working

class itself. For while Connecticut's taxpayers do not need any more trouble

from the people who are supposed to be working for them, big capital more than

ever does need to be brought under control, or at least put in its place.

SNET is a good example.

In January, SNET agreed to be acquired by SBC Communications of San Antonio,

which a few years ago was one of the so-called "Baby Bells" created from the

divestiture of American Telephone & Telegraph's national monopoly. The purpose

of that divestiture was greater competition, but now that government is even

more in the pocket of big business than it was during the Nixon

administration, the "Baby Bells" are recombining and acquiring smaller

companies like SNET, growing by acquisition and by eliminating competition

rather than by providing better and less expensive service. Last year SBC

acquired fellow "Baby Bell" Pacific Telesis, and in May, even before digesting

SNET, it acquired another "Baby Bell," Ameritech.

There's a lot of money in eliminating competition -- not just from driving up

consumer prices but also from reducing the demand for labor. When SBC

announced its acquisition of SNET, the smaller company's stock shot up 20

percent. If the acquisition receives the necessary approvals from the state

and federal governments, which unfortunately seem to be mere formalities,

SNET's nine top executives will be in line for bonuses totaling $32 million,

with $11 million of that going to SNET Chief Executive Officer Daniel Miglio

alone.

That $32 million will be essentially a reward only for stifling competition

and rearranging great hunks of capital, and it makes the raises offered to

SNET's ordinary employees look inadequate.

Strangely, the diminishing of competition and the shameless greed of the

plutocracy of this new guilded age don't always seem to be special concerns of

organized labor, though they might interest the public a little more than the

particular wage and pension provisions of Local 1298's new contract with SNET

as it falls into SBC's hands.

Indeed, if organized labor is such a poor counterweight to big capital now, it

may be because labor has come to be dominated by the government class, which

is more pampered than exploited and largely insulated from and indifferent to

what happens in the private economy.

But clumsy as Local 1298 may be, right now in Connecticut it seems to be alone

on the front lines against what a century ago, during another guilded age,

Bryan called the encroachments of organized wealth.

(Chris Powell is managing editor of The Journal Inquirer in Manchester.)