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COMMENTARY: Workers' Problems Aren't News

Management,

Doth have its say;

In the paper,

Everyday.

By Bill Collins

Steve Yokich is not exactly unbiased. After all, he is president of the United

Auto Workers. But from time to time he has something thought-provoking to say.

Like this: "Now if 10,000 American workers were illegally fired each year for

their religious beliefs or their political views, the American people would be

up in arms, but the widespread violations of American workers' rights to

organize and bargain collectively -- fundamental rights in any democratic

society -- are virtually ignored."

So is Steve Yokich, especially in Connecticut. You surely never read his words

in your local paper or heard them on Ch.3, Ch. 8, or Ch. 30. In fact you

probably never even heard of Steve Yokich, or any other labor leader. Okay,

Jimmy Hoffa. Labor mainly makes the news here when there's a scandal, or an

inconvenient strike at Yale or a nursing home.

The reason for this blackout is scarcely a mystery. It has to do with money.

Revenue for newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV comes form advertisers, not

workers. Thus we see business pages and business programs every day, but never

labor pages or labor programs. "News" reports come from corporate PR

departments or from stock brokers. Thus we hear a lot about new products, new

styles, new mergers, and new ways to invest for fun and profit. Meanwhile, the

seamier side of business goes unreported. First off, such reporting would

require time-consuming journalistic research. Second, advertisers would become

grumpy.

Thus, as average readers, we end up being surprised when a bunch of workers

are killed in a sweatshop fire, or a bunch of meat is recalled because it

carries disease. We're stunned when a bitter strike breaks out in a seemingly

healthy industry, or, worse yet, when we ourselves get laid off or can't find

a decent job.

Picture instead a "reformed" business page, which in addition to offering tips

on investing, offered tips on organizing a union at Stew Leonard's or

McDonald's. Or imagine a TV business report which, in addition to listing

United Technologies' sales and profit figures, listed its job-related injuries

and illnesses. What if the nightly business news listed the percentage of

General Electric's products made abroad, along with its stock price?

Obviously any newspaper or TV show which carried such information would

quickly lose its advertisers, and then its very life. Thus we hear little

about the still-medieval work life in meat-packing plants and in agricultural

fields. We're ignorant of the proliferation of sweat shops right here in the

U.S.A., and the very real corporate war on labor unions. Also news to us is

the undermining of time-and-a-half pay for overtime, or the quiet lengthening

of the work week.

Even the reporting of this spring's final day of the Supreme Court was

misleading. It cast an important labor decision as a matter of states' rights,

not as a wicked blow to the ability of workers to enforce their own rights.

Nor does the press much report on the tireless work of Congress to weaken the

powers and budgets of OSHA and the National Labor Relations Board. Largely

unnoted is the steady erosion of employee benefits (especially health and

pension), or the switching of union work to non-union contractors.

One reason the worker protests of these matters have been so muted is that

more and more of our worst jobs are filled by immigrants. They're thrilled

just to be here. Another reason is America's unusually pernicious form of

capitalism. A third is our remarkable political system, wherein money is

allowed to buy virtually whatever laws it desires. So, if you have the chance

to be a boss, go for it.

(Bill Collins, a former mayor of Norwalk, is a syndicated columnist.)