A THIRD "U": A UNITARIAN-UNIVERSALIST PERSPECTIVE ON LABOR UNIONISM

Reading

Torah: "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates." (Exodus 20:9-10)

Torah: "The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning." (Leviticus 19:13)

Torah: "Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates." (Deuteronomy 24:14)

Jesus: "The labourer is worthy of his hire." (Luke 10:7)

Jesus: "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." (Luke 6:31)

Paul the Apostle: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galations 3:28)

The U.S. Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

The U.S. Constitution: "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." (first amendment)

The U.U. statement of values: "the inherent worth and dignity of every person;" and "justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;" and "the use of the democratic process."

Talk

I was recently sitting in my union's office, with another officer of the union and with our lawyer. After we'd finished discussing the matter at hand, a grievance which was unlikely to benefit either of us, the lawyer asked why we did this, taking time away from our careers and our private lives without evident prospect of self benefit. We each said a couple of things, and then she said, "it's like a religious thing". I agreed, and I think we both knew we understood each other at this instant, though we are of different denominations. This is not necessarily the motivation of all union officers, and it's not my entire motivation, but it's the first part of what I would like to explain today. The other part is my vision of the future of labor unionism in an increasingly technical world.

Historically, there has often been friction between labor unions and religious perspectives. As a teenager I had a Bible, the Thompson Chain Reference Bible, which had an index and copious marginal notes. Under "unions" the index pointed to a chapter in Acts of the Apostles with the marginal note "unions condemned". I disagree. I view a labor union as fundamentally the same as a religious congregation, simply two different manifestations of how people can and should cooperate to accomplish good for each other and for the world.

Earlier we heard several excerpts from religious and national texts. These are all passages which have influenced me, from my childhood Biblical upbringing, through my school civics studies, and now my Unitarian-Universalist beliefs. I admit there are many strains of thought in the Bible, and divergent provisions in our nation's founding documents. I've chosen these for reading because they are ones which have especially influenced my thinking. I'd like to comment on each of them.

The first three readings were from the Torah, which, divided into five books, stands at the beginning of both Jewish and Christian Bibles.

"Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates." (Exodus 20:9-10)

The first was the Sabbath commandment. Usually, of course, this is thought of as a commandment of religious duty, but, in my perhaps twisted view of things, it is a labor law. I note that, of the ten commandments, it is the only one which, besides saying what you are to do, or not to do, also says you are not to make or allow anyone else to work on the sabbath either. Here we have a mutual duty of people in regard to limiting work to work days.

I also notice that, though written three thousand years ago, plus or minus a few centuries, it lists maidservants in the same fashion as menservants. Today we are still fighting for equal rights for women in the work place.

"The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning." (Leviticus 19:13)

The second reading was about timely payment of wages. I think about how, even today, in a corporate bankruptcy proceeding, there can be past-due wages which get lost. In fact, aren't pensions just deferred wages? Ought we not bring our standards up to those of a few thousand years ago, so that wages, once earned, are out of the control of the employer, leaving pensions safe from the misbehavior of the employer?

"Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates." (Deuteronomy 24:14)

The third reading is about generally avoiding oppression of hired workers. The wording makes it clear that proper respect of all working people was intended, not just of one's own religious or ethnic group.

"The labourer is worthy of his hire." (Luke 10:7)

I see these themes occuring again in the words of Jesus, who summarizes labor relations by saying "the labourer is worthy of his hire". This concept of "worth" is a great one, which we Unitarian-Universalists use in our principle of "the inherent worth and dignity of every person".

"And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." (Luke 6:31)

I take the Golden Rule, as expressed by Jesus, to be a statement of equality. If I am to do to each as I would have done to myself, then I am doing equally to each.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galations 3:28)

Paul the Apostle makes an even clearer statement of equality, by saying we are all one, regardless of being Jew or Greek, of being bond or free, of being male or female. I note that the second of these three distinctions among people, which are not to affect our oneness, is a work condition. If a slave is the same as a free person, is not a worker the same as a manager?

It might be good to pause a moment to consider this equality concept. At first it may seem a lot simpler than it actually is, and then it may seem a lot more difficult than it actually is. We can pull a mathematics textbook off our shelf, and consult the definition of an equivalence relation, but, though equivalence relations must adhere to a strict set of axioms, there are many examples. I may be equal to you in weight, for instance, but not equal in height. Jesus was talking about equality in how we treat people, and this is also how I understand Thomas Jefferson's great words in our Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

But another problem, if I am going to treat everyone equally, is that I will have only a very small amount of time for each. The answer to this, I think, is in a sort of division of labor. I have the specific tasks of doing good for my own family and my own co-workers, provided I don't do this by trampling on someone else's rights. This problem was put to me about a week ago by a contract employee at Ames Research Center, where I work, who wondered whether I was for him or against him, since I was president of the civil servants union which does not include him. My answer was that I am for everyone, but it's my specifc task to work for the civil servants. The labor relations laws are different for civil servants, so that we actually cannot belong to the same union local. The laws go so far as to make it illegal for a civil servant to represent a non-civil servant before the government, and my predecessor as president of the local was once threatened with legal action for crossing this line. I'll therefore do my best to promote the good of the civil servants, without harming non-civil-servants. It will take care.

In fact, it seems that achieving equality generally requires restraint as well as positive action. I remember often the advice of the minister of the church I attended as a teenager. In his class on marriage relationships he said, the way to achieve equality was for each of you to give 60%, and expect to receive only 40%. The result would be a 50-50 relationship.

The form of organization which follows from a belief in equality is democracy. We explicitly acknowledge this in our statement of values.

About two and a half thousand years ago Pericles of Athens defined democracy by saying, "Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it." I feel this admirably states both the required division of labor, and the equal participation in the basic decision-making.

Democracy is a restraint, and also requires restraint. As president of my local I must wait until others have spoken before expressing an opinion. I must carry out the decision of the majority, even if I disagree, provided of course it's within our legitimate authority.

I frequently remember what Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government". Somewhat over a year ago, when I was elected President of my union local, the losing candidate for one of the other offices challenged the legality of our election process. We went through all sorts of events. Nasty emails flew back and forth. We called in the International Union to conduct our re-run election. Copies of the list of our members home addresses were snatched from our office. I called the police. I spent entire weekends reading rules, laws, constitutions, codes of conduct, to determine what to do. The original election winner won again, by a landslide the second time. Some people resigned their membership. Some charges were filed to expell others.

But we got through it. And, after saying "Democracy is the worst form of government", Churchill did add "except for all the others." And so it is.

I started this talk with being asked the question, why I, and other union leaders do it. I've given you a summary of those inputs, throughout my life, which have brought me to union work, whether paid or volunteer. Now perhaps I owe you an answer to the question why I keep on.

My union local has achieved some things. For example, a plan to reduce our research library space by a factor of four was mitigated to reduction by a factor of two. We got Congress to require an explanation for any planned layoffs. We found all the flaws in the resulting plan and let Congress know. It looks like we have avoided layoffs for another year. We will continue to fight against the efforts to reduce the science component of NASA's mission.

There are several more examples, but the other side of motivation is feedback. For instance, at lunch last week a fellow employee, whom I do not know personally, almost collided with me. He apologized for being in a fog. I said, "that's all right - I'm sometimes in a fog too - I think I'll probably meet my end walking in front of a car while thinking about something". He said, "No - I'll be your guardian angel - I know what you are doing, and 1500 of us count on you."

I wish to devote the remainder of my talk to the issue of labor unions in an increasingly technical society.

It is no secret that labor union membership has been declining in the United States. The generally accepted explanation is, that traditionally unionized occupations, such as assembly line workers, and being consistently replaced with more professional type occupations, such as engineers. These latter have had a much lower rate of unionization. Should this be so? What has caused this?

With respect to my concepts of equality, this seems like an anomaly. Though I am highly trained - I have a science Ph.D. and consider myself an intellectual - I have an attitude which is well expressed in an excerpt I recently read. This is from author George Orwell. He says, "In a way it is even humiliating to watch ... miners working. It raises in you a momentary doubt about your own status as an 'intellectual' and a superior person generally. For it is brought home to you, at least while you are watching, that it is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior. You and I and the editors of the Times Literary Supplement, and the Poets and the Archbishop of Canterbury and Comrade X, author of Marxism for Infants - all of us really owe the comparative decency of our lives to poor drudges underground ... with their throats full of ... dust, driving their shovels forward with arms and belly muscles of steel."

Unlike George Orwell, I suppose the larger number of intellectuals have said something like, "thank God I'm not a miner - and don't need a labor union." They might do well to consider the statement of Norbert Wiener, the mathematician and contributor to the foundations of computer science: "The degradation of the position of the scientist as an independent worker and thinker to that of a morally irresponsible stooge in a science-factory has proceeded even more rapidly and devastatingly than I had expected."

This statement, of course, carries the implication that the scientist ought to be in a superior position. I found these last two quotations while searching for material for this talk, but my own view is best stated in something I simply stumbled upon. Reading through the proceedings of an interdisciplinary conference on logic, physics and history, involving some of the most noted people in those fields from around the world, I found the following interchange in the discussion after one paper:

"Yourgrau: ...The way he treats theoretical physics reminds me of a guild in the Middle Ages, He says, 'we physicists;' one is reminded of 'we barbers' or 'we plumbers.'"
"Vigier: But physics is a trade!"

There are many organizations which work for good, as we perceive it. There are N.O.W., the N.A.A.C.P., many religious organizations including our congregation. How is it, we might ask, that a "trade" specifically calls forth a "trade union"?

According to Tadeusz Kotarbinski, quoted in the Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (which has been the source of several items I've used in this talk), "Where there is need for a controller, a controller of the controller is also needed." In a note, the Dictionary refers this back to Decimius Junius Juvenal, who, at the beginning of our second century wrote, "But who is to guard the guards themselves?" Unlike some utopians, I do not see management as bad or irrelevant, but I do believe that management, like all cogs in the machine we call our economy, needs to be regulated. It is unions which accomplish this regulation, and it is democracy which must regulate unions in turn.

Some people say to me something like, "but I'm education and I'm a hard worker - I wish to stand on my own merits, rather than being protected by a union." To them I say, the purpose of a union is to establish a situation in which you can stand on your own merits, rather than being treated as a "stooge in a science-factory", or engineering-factory, or whatever it is you work in. It's foolish to fight alone. Remember, you have:

"the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." (first amendment)

Exercise this right by joining a union and participating!

There are also larger issues on which as many working people as possible, from secretaries to scientists, need to be united. This week our nation's leadership was proud to announce that unemployment had fallen from 4.8% to 4.7%. Our leading economists define "full employment" as an unemployment rate of 3%. This is crazy. In our economy a job is necessary for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". If the number of jobs is even one less than the number of workers, our nation's founding principles are being violated.

There are also reasons why each trade and profession should speak out. For scientists, this was well stated by the physicist Ernest Rutherford, "It is essential for men of science to take an interest in the administration of their own affairs or else the professional civil servant will step in - and then the Lord help you." I'm happy to report one recent victory on this front. A fellow NASA scientist, Dr. James Hanson at Goddard, studying global warming, found that his conclusions were being adjusted by a political appointee before public release. He spoke out, and before long the political appointee was fired, having been found to have adjusted his qualifications too.

In conclusion, let me return to the issue of the relationship of religion to unionism. That chapter in the book of Acts, which I mentioned - I read it, and found out the marginal note was wrong. The chapter condemned a manufacturer's cartel, not a union, and the reason for condemnation had nothing to do with the form of organization, but rather with the fact that they were the manufacturers of idols.

Though many of our religious leaders have been like the Thompson who wrote those marginal notes, others have been like Norman Thomas, the socialist presidential candidate, whom I recently read was a Presbyterian minister. I should have known that, friends of mine had been supporters of his, so I asked their daughter if she knew this, and she said, "yes - and he baptized me".

I was perhaps most encouraged recently, though, when I had the opportunity to attend an Easter sunrise service at the Jamestown landing in Virginia, where one of my remote ancestors set foot in 1611. Among my thoughts were, "This is the South - I'm out of place - but I want to do this anyway." I looked through the order of service, and read through the responsive reading, to see if there was anything that was so far from my beliefs that I should keep quiet. There I found, among the blessings for which we were being thankful, "the comradeship of labor".

Thank you for affording me this opportunity to speak. Upon request, I would be happy to point you to the web sites of my local union and my international union.