Amalgamated Transit Union, Division 757, Portland, OR
Anyone who talks to me for very long will hear me say that I was raised a union kid. My father, Bill Hunt, was an ATU 757 member for 23 years. During the last years of his working life he was an ATU 757 executive board officer. Today he is a proud member of the ATU 757 retirees’ chapter. I tell you this because I grew up believing that being “union” was a very good thing.
The preamble to the ATU Constitution states that the union was established “to promote the general cause of humanity and brotherly love, and secure the blessings of friendship, equality and truth.” Those union values brought us the 8-hour work day, 5-day work week, the minimum wage, pensions, workers’ compensation, vacations and other benefits we often take for granted. The values in the ATU preamble remain as important today as they were when they were written over 114 years ago.
Global corporations are making every attempt to drive working people’s wages, benefits and working conditions down. This fact makes union values more important than ever. The power of union values put into action is why corporations attack unionization in every country. And, that is why, as union members, we must speak up about our union values. Four of the most important of these values are:
• Unions fight to have workers treated like assets, not like interchangeable resources or throwaway parts. It is the working people who create the profit and provide the service. They deserve their fair share of the value they create in addition to recognition and respect. • Unions fight for families. It is hard to balance the demands of work and family so unions fight for family leave laws and child care. They fight for fairness and justice in the workplace so that a family’s welfare cannot be threatened by capricious management action, favoritism or bullying. • Unions fight for the entire community. Unions brought America the middle class and now unions are on the front lines fighting to keep the middle class. They know a healthy country must invest in the future and so unions fight for family wage jobs, universal education and health care for everyone. They know that families who are thriving contribute to the community by giving both their time and money. • Unions provide an opportunity for people to practice democracy in their daily lives. Union members vote on who leads them, on their wages, benefits, and working conditions, on who they are going to defend and how their money is spent. No other organization in American life provides so many opportunities for meaningful democratic action.So yes, like many of you, I am proud to be union. I am grateful for the accomplishments of organized labor. More importantly I am looking forward to the future as organized labor continues its fight for the union values of economic morality, social justice and social responsibility.