The Rule of Reason – Part 3

Who stands in the American worker’s corner, the unions or management? 

Another issue in the top ten problems facing America in 2015 is the dehumanization of the American worker. Following the rule of reason, what should Americans do to protect their jobs and their future?

Are Unions what they used to be? No! And they have themselves to blame. My Dad, a 33 year Teamster, had benefits and a great retirement plan. He thought Jackie Presser, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1983 until his death in 1988, was his best friend. And in a way, he was right. But foreign competition and the inability to work hand-in-hand with management made American union-made products too labor intensive. Today, only 11.3% of all American workers are unionized and that percentage will drop in the next decade. What killed unions? Foreign competition, cheap wages, and greed.

Now don’t say, “Hey, why should I care? I’m not a union member.” The weaker unions become, the more ruthless American Capitalists grow, caring little about those working for them. So it’s all Americans’ problem.

Are Corporations, even those with generous human resource programs our salvation? No. Most organizations expect talented people to leave them. The average stay, even at the ‘C’ level is an abysmal 4 years. Used to be when you asked someone, “So what do you do?” The response was, “I work for Kroger Foods as a Regional Store Manager.” Not now. Today, the answer is, “I’m in the Retail Grocery business. I specialize in marketing. I have a resume in my briefcase if you care to look.” Corporations brought this upon themselves.

There is a clear division in corporate America today. The wheeler-dealers, the skilled professionals, and the labor class. In the vast majority of cases, the top-tier are graduates of Harvard, Yale, Wharton Business School, Stanford, and other prestige MBA and Ph.D. programs. They make 90% of the money and produce little. You can’t crack their ranks, because you don’t have their connections. Corporations will suck the life out of people and cut them out as though they were a cancer. I.T. specialists, who work for years holding out-of-date technology together until their company finally bites the bullet and transitions to the State-of-the-Art, have their companies fire them and hire new graduates familiar with the new technology. Corporations rarely bother to retrain their own people on the new technology—those same people who saved their butts by holding the old technology together.

So what is the American worker to do? Self-reliance is the future. Working for yourself and contracting your services to the highest bidder may be the solution for success in the future work marketplace. In Scripture, most people fell into one of three categories, a ruling class, a free worker, or a servant/slave. You don’t want to be a slave or servant in today’s world system. Take the skill you have and contract it out. If you are working for yourself, you control who you give your talents to, how long you work, and what you spend your time doing. Here is a supporting article on the issue.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/003761-toward-a-self-employed-nation. God bless the labor class and give them rest.