Asked what his members wanted the answer of union legend Samuel Gompers was simple. “More.”
Despite being encouraged by liberal interests, unions are the most conservative institutions society has. They advanced most during the 1930s, when manufacturers sought to control input costs and keep production going. Remember, too, that the Great Depression was caused by deflation. Labor assured limited inflation.
While Cloud Czars like Google and Amazon create deflation, they also fight unions because unions limit the flexibility they see as essential to their mission, fostering rapid change.
Some act surprised that Amazon is fighting this battle in Alabama. Bessemer is next to Birmingham, the state’s industrial heart. Birmingham was first called the “Magic City” because the steel mills there seemed to spring up by magic. It’s not an antebellum town. It was, for many years, a union town.
Amazon knows that within a decade most jobs at its Bessemer warehouse will be gone or will have changed beyond recognition. Robots are coming. Robots to stock, robots to pick, robots to bring it in and drive it all away. To be competitive with other delivery companies, Amazon needs to make those changes when business needs demand them.
Beyond that, areas of the economy that are most heavily unionized today are also those most resistant to change. Teachers, cops, and professional athletes are all protected, reflexively, by their unions. Even the bad apples.
I wish there were an easy solution to this. I’m politically inclined to like unions. One of my best friends coming up became a union organizer. I’ve written here many times about how the economy needs more equity, that if capital can organize against workers then workers should be able to do the same.
But this is a problem I can’t solve. Only unions themselves, and a government that allies with both them and tech, can begin to solve them.
