To Be Organized or not to be

Why should you care about Unorganized Labor?

The New York Times writer Noam Scheiber published an article Dec 21, 2021 entitled:

Architects Are the Latest White-Collar Workers to Confront Bosses

Saying they are overworked and underpaid, architects at a prominent New York firm want to unionize. Others could follow.

The writing was news worthy. Yet from what I gather, from others in the field, and not, very light on why such a condition exists, and not explained on how this sub-group of workers fits into the broader scope and history of organized labor. This zoetic message explores these associated circumstances as coined in the quote by former president Harry Truman, "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know."

Architecture is a fine art. As well, much science is involved in the creation of built artifacts. Architecture beginning in the western society’s industrial revolution era became a business, slowly dispensing away from the notion of Renaissance Years where the ‘Master Builder’ sketched a plan and the multitude of laborers were the constructors. The romanticized ideal remains, the reality does not. Throughout recorded history, on all seven continents, structures have been created that often are wonders of the man-made world.

There are associated human costs to these creations, be they from the slaves forced to build them, to the estimates made to include predicted number of deaths to build them, like 2022 Qatar World Cup venues, in the thousands of human souls. Institutionalized governmental and non governmental organizations, private citizens, mega corporations, capitalists world wide, real estate moguls and other wealth driven entities build today’s ‘architecture’.

Are there exceptions to this list above? Of course, but they are few and far between. Name me five, put them in the comment section below.

So do architects need organized labor to assist their work ? How about other trades people? Other service workers? Others? The short answer is “yes” and there are many reasons why this is so. Let us put our history hats on first.

Talking about the precursor of modern day Unions, we read:

The formation of the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers (shoemakers) in Philadelphia in 1794 marks the beginning of sustained trade union organization among American workers.¹

From a document of the late 19th century, we read

49. The most important of all are workingmen's unions, for these virtually include all the rest. History attests what excellent results were brought about by the artificers' guilds of olden times. They were the means of affording not only many advantages to the workmen, but in no small degree of promoting the advancement of art, as numerous monuments remain to bear witness. Such unions should be suited to the requirements of this our age - an age of wider education, of different habits, and of far more numerous requirements in daily.²

40 years later the same social doctrine of the Catholic Church espouses :

#71 The Church fully supports the right of workers to form In the first place, the worker must be paid a wage sufficient to support him and his family.³

100 years later we read:

It is right to struggle against an unjust economic system that does not uphold the priority of the human being over capital and land.⁴

The social teachings of the universal Roman Catholic Church has for the past 130 years influenced the promotion of the contemporary worker unions. These statements call both on a “church” understanding and a “state” awareness of the dignity of the individual and value of work brings for a family and the extended communities served.

Union Maid (excerpt)
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

“Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union 'til the day I die.”

Woody’s words haven’t sung true yet. Let us examIne a few recent numbers prepared in the US of A by the Bureau of Labor Statistics :

The union membership rate (the percentage of wage and salary workers who were members of unions) was 10.8 percent in 2020, up from 10.3 percent in 2019. In 2020, the union membership rate in the public sector increased by 1.2 percentage points to 34.8 percent, while the rate in the private sector increased by 0.1 percentage point to 6.3 percent.⁵

What is the bench mark? In the US of A the real height of organized labor participation was in the past. We query graphically the scholastic data available. Further, as we began this message pertaining to “architects unionization possibilities” we should stick with private sector data. Here is a chart⁶:

The drop in membership is stunning. The explanations are too many to list and explain. Those anti-union voices, also are numerous, negatively persuasive, harping on the working person. The worker’s inability to countermand, one laments. Often management is documented operating against current law and statutes, thus hindering unionization of groups desiring better working conditions. The 2021 Television adaptation of “American Rust” has a thoughtful portrayal of this scenario.

“Hey, see this? I’m not even on the chart.”

As a registered architect, and before I became registered, I could have used the union membership to assist my career, to help my family thrive a little more, (we had one income in a two income society) and consequentially helped the communities we moved about. I was not a member of an organized labor union in the private sector.

I worked for a 12 person firm in the late ‘90s through and into mid 2000’s. I received a survey report from the American Institute of Architects describing wages and benefits for people in the profession with similar years of service and roles in architectural companies. The data was from members of that organization (AIA), which demands high dues, but does not provide the benefits like a union shop is expected to do.

What I found in the statistics provided for the nation, and the region I worked, was my responsibilities as a project manager, mapped out in the survey, did not come close to pay equity for others with similar skill sets in other firms. The truth was the current compensation at the time and the benefits packages did not even put me on the survey chart. I now understood that I had been taken advantage of for many years in that particular office climate.

At the next executive staff meeting, I brought out all the back up material I had gathered, laid it on the conference table, and exclaimed, “Hey, see this? I’m not even on the chart.”

Sadly, most workers are unknowingly unorganized …

I was acting as a one-man union negotiator, as I was not represented by anyone except for myself. I was a good worker, with high performance results in the firm. Realizing this value to the firm, I was immediately given a substantial raise in pay because it was obvious to management my next steps would be to exit the firm.

The essential point of relaying these office interactions is that had I never spoken up, nothing would have changed. This discernible logic suggests it is the benefit of unionized, organized, worker represented, labor, that helps one attain goals in spite of rapacious employers from continuing to take advantage of their employees.

We did not work over 40 hours per week in that company, as we read is common practice in firms described in the New York Times article.

Their NYC employers deal with the wealthiest entities in the built and unbuilt environment in their endeavors in 21 century real-estate businesses, which architecture is a subset. Hence without exception none of architecture’s compliment of workers should be short changed monetarily, or, in life balanced living, ever. Sadly, most workers are unknowingly unorganized due to immediate and understandable factors of daily existence.

The majority of US of A adults recognize this fact.

More messaging at a familial level follows here. Three straight forward questions were asked of our sister, our sister-in-law, and our brother. (Answers are lightly edited).

1. Why did you join?

2. What is/was your role obtained in Union?

3. Why do you think organized labor is important for the typical worker?

Renee our sister responds:

1. I joined because I wanted to support the efforts of the Paraprofessional educator (aides) bargaining unit to secure fair and just wages and working conditions. The Paras were paying the premiums for their own medical insurance when no other employees in the district, including teacher administrators had to do so. The Paras were the least paid hourly employees. There are other areas as well, that are not just, nor fair.

2. I served as secretary, and then president. I am currently a member of the executive board.

3. Through my experience, I have come to understand organized labor offers a way employees a sense of, and a legal way, to secure a safe and fair work place. It also provides a communications conduit when their abilities to articulate are ineffective, for whatever reasons. Unions can provide the opportunity for a respectful and cooperative relationship with one's employer.

Teresa our sister-in-law responds:

1. I had to. It was required. Either way, you had to pay the dues.

2. I served as secretary to the local, building representative and collective bargaining team member, participating in contract negotiations for 3 separate school districts.

3. Provides workers a voice in securing safe working conditions and environment, protects job security, opportunity for better pay and benefits and can lead to greater sense of camaraderie.

Vincent our brother responds:

1. To join letter carrier union is/was required.

2. Dues paying member.

3. With the volume of membership, it does give workers some leverage to rein in management if they attempt to enforce unfair or unsafe work place practices.

I glean from the sibling survey a commonality of safety and fairness exists, no matter the category or physical place of the associated union membership. The statements advocate for unity where as unorganized labor, though popular, is a useless management tool to the unsuspecting worker. The majority of US of A adults recognize this fact.

A zoetic message to carry forward and use, as the need arises, to say to the overseer, is, organized labor is good for myself, my family, my village. If you prefer, the union is good for the worker, the worker’s family, and the worker’s community. Workers organized labor reinforces a voice in our shared democracy, in a time needed to squelch the illogical ideologies of a rebellious and a traitorist citizenry, locally and globally.

Help a Union flourish!

1. https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/labor#section_1

2. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html. Rerum Novarum (Encyclical, On the Condition of Worker, Leo XIII, 1891)

3. Quadragesimo Anno (The Fortieth Year) #71 On Reconstruction of the Social Order, Pius XI, 1931

4. Centesimus Annus (The Hundredth Year) #35 John Paul II, 1991

5. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, A look at union membership rates across industries in 2020 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2021/a-look-at-union-membership-rates-across-industries-in-2020.htm (visited January 02, 2022).

6. Economic Policy Institute “Explaining the erosion of private-sector unions” https://www.epi.org/unequalpower/publications/private-sector-unions-corporate-legal-erosion/ By Lawrence Mishel, Lynn Rhinehart, and Lane Windham • November 18, 2020