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May 18, 2018 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Who’s on our side?
Guest Opinion
By Tom Chamberlain Oregon AFL-CIO President
By John Vandermosten, Retired IBEW Local 48
Think about right-to-work
The question is not whether
you have a right to work, but
rather under what conditions
that work is performed.
Federal, state, and local
laws define some of the basic
rights an employee has in the
workplace. Such things as
safety, non-discrimination
rights, minimum wage re-
quirements, rights for workers
to organize, and age-related
laws are applied to most work-
ers.
Beyond this, the wages,
hours, and working conditions
are agreed to through the em-
ployer/employee agreement.
This employment relationship
may be arrived at in a variety
of ways:
1. A handshake. (This is what you are
expected to do and this is what you will
paid.)
2. An individual written contract
outlining the job responsibilities and the
rate of pay for that employee.
3. A written contract defining a
specific group of employees, their
wages, hours, and working conditions,
along with certain agreed to
responsibilities of management. The
written contract may include a method
for resolving differences in interpretation
of the contract (grievance procedure).
In the first situation, there is
likely no detailed description
of the responsibilities of the
employee or the employer in
terms of wages, hours, and
working conditions. The em-
ployer, in many cases, has the
ability to change the details
and the employee may have
little recourse. Even in the
case of legal violations and an
absence of a grievance proce-
dure, the employee’s option is
to use the courts (something
that may be quite difficult
when there is no income).
In the second case, any is-
sues arising outside of the de-
tails of the contract may be de-
cided unilaterally. Again,
absent a grievance procedure,
the recourse is limited.
In the case of a group con-
tract (union) with the em-
ployer, and agreement as to
wages, hours, and working
conditions is jointly agreed to,
along with a procedure to set-
tle disputes. Those issues that
are included in the contract de-
fine the rights and responsibil-
ities of each party. The ability
of a larger group of employees
seeking improved wages,
hours, and working conditions
can provide increased lever-
age when negotiating with
management. Federal and
state labor laws may give em-
ployees additional protection
when engaging in organizing
and negotiating.
It can be argued that the
employee has rights as well as
responsibilities when it comes
to employment. When the de-
tails of this is put into a con-
tract, there is a greater likeli-
hood that a strong working
relationship will result be-
tween the employee and the
employer.
John Vandermosten is retired from
IBEW Local 48. He serves as labor liai-
son for the Multnomah County Democ-
rats.
America’s search for our
moral compass
Unbridled capitalism is failing the vast majority of Americans.
You see it every day as the gulf between the rich and the rest of
us widens beyond anything we have experienced in this country.
You see it in cities and towns as the ranks of homeless swells,
spilling over into our streets. You see it as secure retirement dis-
sipates: Social Security was designed to be about 40 percent of a
retiree’s retirement benefit, but for most Americans today it is the
primary source of retirement income. You see it as the vast ma-
jority of job growth is for the very rich or the very poor. Middle-
wage job growth has yet to return to pre-recession levels. You
see it in the hopelessness of college graduates who worked hard
for a degree and a good job, only to find they are working low-
paying jobs, saddled with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars
of debt. You see it in our woefully underfunded and over-
crowded schools. You see it in our tax system, where the rich and
corporate America refuse to pay their fair share, and you see it in
our health care system, driven by profit instead of what is best
for our people.
Those of my generation were told if you work hard and played
by the rules you would have a better lifestyle than your parents.
That promise worked because of a strong social safety net and
high union density. This is no longer achievable for far too many.
America’s capitalist model, which evolved after the Great De-
pression, post-World War II, and into the 1980s, was a model of
capitalism with strong checks and balances. These checks and
balances ensured workers would share in the wealth and pros-
perity of our country, and those who were sick, disabled, or poor
would be provided for by a strong social safety net to lift them
out of poverty. These were times when America’s moral compass
was evolving. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s
pushed an agenda of equality that resulted in a comprehensive
legislative agenda that never was meant to be the end, but rather
the beginning of a transformation to a fair and equable America.
President Johnson’s Great Society agenda sought to end poverty,
and with the passage of Medicare and Medicaid began the march
to universal health care.
We once lived in an America with a strong moral compass,
which showed us the way to improve the living standards for
most Americans. Today we live in an America lost in darkness.
The darkness of hate driven by the despair of millions of Ameri-
cans who work multiple minimum wage jobs. Americans who
see work outsourced to not just other countries, but to states who
pride themselves on their anti-union policies and rhetoric, which
results in a low-wage, benefit-poor workforce.
It is no wonder that Donald Trump’s message of hate and dis-
crimination focused on recent immigrants and communities of
color has proven to be seductive to those who search for some-
thing to blame for the erosion of their living standard. They are
being duped: scapegoating other workers is a diversion from what
ails America, an agenda of greed. An agenda where Congress
passed a multi-billion dollar giveaway to corporations and the
richest Americans in the guise of tax reform, and begins to un-
derfund programs for the aged, poor, and disabled.
For those of us who haven’t been seduced by Trump’s agenda
of hate and deception, know that the Koch brothers and their
cronies who fund the anti-worker agenda have overreached and
are feeling an organic backlash. The #MeToo movement, teach-
ers on strike across America, vast marches in protest, and the in-
creased numbers of workers joining unions are not only compo-
nents of this backlash, but are a symptom of America’s search
for our moral compass to readjust our course back to an America
that works for all and not just a privileged few. We all must un-
derstand that this is just the beginning of the journey where suc-
cess will not be measured in hours, days or months, but years and
decades. But the journey has begun.
The Oregon AFL-CIO is a 138,000-member-strong federation of labor unions.