April 2007
State of the Union
Shrinking numbers need public support
By Laura Freeman

Neil Newman, co-owner of Newman Masonry in Mentor, is a union member and contractor. He and other union contractors are finding it hard to compete with nonunion companies. Photo by Toby Shingleton

What is the state of the union today?

Unions provide medical benefits to members, bargain for fair wages and working conditions, organize strikes and promote legislation in the best interests of members. There are unions for teachers and librarians, truck drivers and postal workers.

As good as it sounds for workers to have unions behind them, are people still joining them?

Ken Kastelic, financial secretary for the Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen Local #16 in Mentor, says unions are shrinking.

“Not so much in construction as in manufacturing,” Kastelic said. “It’s due to numbers being down in the factories which could be due to losing jobs overseas.”

He blames it in part on the anti-union climate of the Bush administration.

“For unions to grow you have to have public support,” he said. “The administration we’ve lived with the past several years isn’t just a nonunion atmosphere, but an antiunion atmosphere.”

Unions often falter during Republican administrations and flourish when Democrats control the White House. Lake County Commissioner Bob Aufuldish says it’s more the economic times that dictate union membership than who is in power. Aufuldish is the second vice chairman of the Democratic Party in Lake County.

“Sometimes legislation, usually sponsored by Republicans, is passed that tries to restrict unions,” he said. “I think (union) membership may slowly rise. People think it’s beneficial to be in a union. Those who apprenticeship through the union and learn the trade are highly qualified. The quality of their work is top-notch.”

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a steady decline in union membership from 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year for which comparable data is available. Union membership is now at 15.4 million, which is 12 percent of the U.S. workforce, down from 12.5 percent a year earlier.

In Ohio, unionists made up 14.2 percent of the workforce last year, down from 16 percent the year before. The BLS says the drop is due to layoffs at Ford and GM and the Delphi Auto Parts bankruptcy.

Possible reasons for decreasing union membership nationwide include employers who want to stay union-free and younger workers who don’t believe in organized labor. Union products and services are more expensive so sales are lost to nonunion producers and overseas.

Neil Newman, union member and contractor, just finished work at Chestnut Elementary School in Painesville. He and his brother Dale are owners of Newman Masonry, a fourth-generation company in Mentor.

“Nonunion companies can come in 30 percent lower and take jobs away from us no problem,” Newman said. “It’s easy when nonunion contractors aren’t paying for the benefits that the guys deserve.”

Companies with union workers have had to cut back on production, causing workers to lose their jobs and unions to lose their members. The U.S. shift toward technology and service has made the economy less dependent on industrial jobs with strong union membership.

Simple economics

Bill Fitzmaurice of Willowick retired from Ford Motor Co. in February. During his career, he was a union member for 30 years. He says while there may be a drop in union membership, the United Auto Workers union still is one of the strongest unions in America today.

“But auto companies are in dire straits right now because they gave the union whatever they wanted just to keep them happy,” he said.

Several factors have impacted the American auto industry, Fitzmaurice said, much of it due to simple economics. The reasons have implications for other industries and unions.
“Our typical rate for an hourly employee at Ford, not including benefits, is $22 or $23 an hour,” he said. “It’s very costly to build a car in America with American workers.”
He said these high costs get unions in trouble because of foreign competition.

“Toyota hires 3,000 people, starts a factory in Mississippi and doesn’t have to worry about people retiring for the next 30 years,” Fitzmaurice said. “American companies are paying more toward benefits as people retire. They are moving to foreign soil to build cars and auto parts because of the cost of labor that unions are charging for their services. In foreign countries wage rates are a lot less and unionism is either very low or nonexistent.”

Building contractor Newman said he and other union employers pay into a nontaxable health and welfare fund and a statewide pension fund on top of regular wages.

“The extra money union contractors pay out makes it hard to compete with nonunion contractors,” he said.

How does he get jobs when he’s bidding against nonunion contractors who pay their workers less? Newman said in some cases the union will subsidize contractors to help them get jobs and make them more competitive.

“In a lot of private projects people want a good union contractor because our men have gone to trade school for four years as opposed to nonunion contractors who get men who aren’t properly trained,” he said. “There’s a difference in craftsmanship between union and nonunion.”

He said it’s not as hard to get into a union as people might think.

“We run a public notice in the local papers,” Newman said. “Anybody can come and apply.”

But experienced workers often don’t want to go through the apprenticeship program because they’d take a cut in pay for two years. Newman said it’s worth it. He has more than $100,000 built up in his own pension fund.

“After that, they would be making more,” he said. “The pension fund alone is unbelievable. Most of the nonunion contractors I’m bidding against don’t pay anything of the sort.”

Why union?

John Galinac and Ronald Giangiacomo are looking for people who want to be unionized.

Galinac is business agent for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, representing projectionists, ushers, ticket takers and other theater employees. Giangiacomo is business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Members of the IBEW are working on the Kohl’s and Target department store construction projects in Mentor, and at schools in Painesville and Ashtabula County.

Giangiacomo said not all unions are shrinking. Unlike some unions, both men have seen an increase in membership. Galinac, whose local is one of 400 internationally, said IATSE has been most successful locally at organizing workers at Classic Park in Eastlake.

Giangiacomo has seen a rise in membership of construction electricians which he says puts his union within 5,000 members of being at an all-time high. There has been a decline in membership in the industrial branches however.

Other growing unions include the Service Employees International Union, which Giangiacomo said has been successful of late at organizing the janitorial and nursing industries. Fitzmaurice said some of the strongest unions right now besides the UAW are the Teamsters, the United Mine Workers and the International Association of Machinists.

Giangiacomo said one of the best things about unions is that safety and training are paramount. Apprentices in his union attend classes at the Joint Apprenticeship & Training School in Mentor; journeymen receive ongoing training there.

“To stay viable in the industry you have to have a trained workforce,” he said. “Things are always changing. The National Electric Code is updated every three years. We train the men on safe electrical practices and precautions and on OSHA standards.”

Newman says the focus on safety has other benefits of hiring union laborers.

“We get drug tested annually and can be randomly tested at any time,” he said. “People want workers on their home and commercial sites to be drug-free.”

From both sides now

Fitzmaurice worked in the pattern shop at Ford’s Cleveland Casting Plant for 11 years. He became a member of the union at the beginning of his career when he worked at Warner & Swasey. At Ford, he was midnight shift supervisor and shop steward. Since he was in a supervisory position he has been ineligible to be a union member; there is no union for salaried personnel at Ford.

“I’d be supervising brother union members and that can’t happen,” he said. “You’d have to have an independent union for your salaried employees and everybody’s afraid to lose their jobs if they form a union.”

“Unionism lost an awful lot of its power when Ronald Reagan made a decision to get rid of the air traffic controllers then replaced them when they went on strike,” Fitzmaurice said. “That’s when unionism started going downhill.”

He says there would have been advantages to being in a salaried workers’ union.
“We can’t negotiate our wages where they (union workers) can negotiate theirs, and you don’t have anybody to back you,” he said. “For instance, if you make statements and someone files a grievance against you, all you can do is try to prove yourself not guilty. Union employees have union officials they can go to. Salaried people have nobody to turn to if they have attendance difficulties or get in trouble in their job.”

He said the union will take care of you.

“The problem is that the unions take care of everybody, even the screw-ups,” he said. “They cover their butts and sometimes they should and sometimes they shouldn’t.”

Union vs. the little guy

Al Saluan owns Atlas Cinemas on Diamond Center in Mentor and on Lakeshore Boulevard in Euclid. He employs both union and nonunion workers at his theaters. He says it’s not a question of liking or disliking the fact that his theaters are unionized. He and Galinac of the IATSE have butted heads in the past.

“It’s expensive to pay a union employee to work upstairs (in the projection room),” Saluan said. “That’s why most of the national theater chains did away with union operators and have their managers running the complex. It’s an extra cost you don’t need. Right now I’m the only independent theater owner who uses union workers 40 hours a week. Most of the theaters in the Cleveland area are not unionized.”

Saluan employs three union men who split a 40-hour week. He said the men have full-time jobs elsewhere and just work in the theater to keep their pension.

“And we have to pay into it,” he said. “It’s costly. You’re paying the union member a high hourly rate, their vacation and their pension.”

Saluan also owns Atlas Great Lakes 16, the theater complex going in at Great Lakes Mall. Work was delayed due to the weather. He doesn’t know if he will have union employees there.

“It’s up to me to make a decision if I want the union there,” he said. “It all depends on what’s involved at that time opening up that complex.”

He ran a theater in the same location for two years under Regal Cinemas and it was not a union house then. Saluan said with today’s technology and automation, the manager can run the entire theater.

“Before, it took a certain expertise,” he said. “Now, most places are becoming state-of-the-art complexes. Once digital kicks in and we don’t have such a thing as a film, one person can handle all the screens. And we won’t have to pay an extra salary.”
Saluan said he is not anti-union.

“I just hope you can understand where I’m coming from as a small businessman trying to make a go of it,” he said.

Future of the union

An AFL-CIO-commissioned poll shows 53 percent of nonunion, nonsupervisory workers would join a union if they could. U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette, R-Concord Township, is among a few Republicans and many Democrats supporting a bill called the Employee Free Choice Act.

The legislation would allow unionization if the National Labor Relations Board finds that a majority of employees at a company has signed authorizations designating the union as its bargaining representative.

It would provide contract mediation and arbitration and stronger penalties for violations against employers while employees are attempting to form a union such as payment of fines and three times back pay.

The NLRB must seek a federal court injunction against an employer whenever there is reasonable cause to believe the employer has discharged or discriminated against employees or during an organizing drive.

Bob Schiebli is president of the Lake-Geauga AFL-CIO in Mentor and general organizer for the Iron Workers International Union in Washington, DC. He supports the Employee Free Choice Act and wants to make sure those who want to join the union can do so without interference.

“Under the election process sometimes the employer brings in union busters, makes threats of job termination and intimidates workers to go against their choice to join the union,” Schiebli said. “It could take up to three years to take a case before the NLRB and in that period of time employers can terminate employees and blast them with anti-union messages.”

 Schiebli said the unions are fighting for the rights and the working conditions of all people who work in the U.S.

“They’re trying to change the workweek by taking away overtime rights, and are trying to whittle down health care plans,” he said. He doesn’t want to see that happen.
Galinac said Henry Ford had it right.

“Henry Ford was antiunion, but he knew he had to pay his people enough money so they could afford to buy what he was manufacturing. You have to pay your people; all the money can’t be held in the pockets of 1 percent of the population,” Galinac said.
Giangiacomo said unions will always be around.

“Some would call us a necessary evil. We’re going to change, but the more greed there is out there from the other side – employers, manufacturers, large corporations – as long as you have those who would take advantage of the working population, there will always be a need for unions,” he said.

Laura Freeman is editor of the Lake County Business Journal