SAWANT: Unionization is powerful
Column: Sincerely Rue
Throughout the week before spring break, I could hardly focus on my exams due to my upcoming trip to Paris. And while I had a lovely time, I could not ignore the protests that took place on the last day of my trip.
At first, I observed cops marching up and down Pont de la Concorde in the morning with rifles strapped to their chests. I did not understand why because, at that point, all was quiet.
Then, as I was walking down the Quai Anatole France on Friday night, I could hear shouts coming from the Place de la Concorde. Only then did I realize, pieced together with the snippet of political news the hotel receptionist had offered me that morning, that the rifles strapped to police officers' chests had been in preparation for what would turn out to be a violent, fiery mass of rioting French workers.
The protests were in response to French President Emmanuel Macron and his unpopular decision to push a bill through parliament that raises the retirement age to 64 from 62, sans vote.
And while the French penchant for protesting can be dated all the way back to the 1780s, I believe the real power in successful, or at least meaningful, protesting can be accredited to their labor unions.
While French labor unions are supported by the unique right to strike, their success in France poses a more general thought for consideration: how powerful labor unions can be and how underrated that power is.
A labor union can make great progress when its main method is to paralyze economic activity (or even threaten it) and then assume power through negotiation.
Going on strike is not only a statement but also an agent of tangible action. When workers refuse to work, it is more about their actual convention — a physical materialization of the sentiment that there is strength in numbers. Rather than delegating a person or two to represent the interests of all workers, each one shows up and can take part in debate and protest.
It is difficult to deny the impact of hundreds and thousands of motivated workers — at least compared to if governments and corporations only had to deal with one or two of them.
Striking also serves as a buffer against absolute power exerted by corporations or governments. It puts the workers in a unique place of power because, in many instances, their refusal to work can block a country's economy, paralyze infrastructure or cause companies to incur great financial losses.
To give you an idea of such power, SNCF, France's national railway company, incurred losses of €310 million over the span of two months after its workers went on strike.
This number — €310 million lost in only approximately 60 days simply because railway workers decided not to go to work — is an extremely powerful statistic. And at the bare minimum, this should underscore the vitality of their labor contribution to the economy.
Similarly, the labor of a country's workers is precious and often gets taken for granted, especially when companies make decisions that negatively affect workers without their consent or when governments act without negotiations first. That is why it is in unions' best interests to band together and strike when they are being mistreated, misled, ignored or pushed around.
Especially in countries where negotiations and collective bargaining are a luxury, sometimes, it is the only way (and the most effective way) for workers to demand attention and consideration. But even in countries where collective bargaining is a legal standard, it never guarantees that workers will be respected and paid the heed they deserve.
Another example, perhaps closer to home than the French labor strikes, was the vote among Rutgers faculty to allow union leaders to authorize a labor strike in response to negotiations over labor contracts.
In a University-wide email sent on March 6, University President Jonathan Holloway detailed that Rutgers administration met with faculty and staff union negotiation teams 100 times to reach an agreeable contract. In the same email, he also addresses and confirms the existence of the vote to authorize a labor strike.
I believe that without those 100 rounds of negotiation and, most notably, without the power to threaten a strike, the mentioned offer of a 10.75% increase in compensation over four years would not have been proposed at all, or at least not yet.
Therein lies the power of labor unions.
It is difficult to deny workers a seat at the negotiation table when hundreds and thousands of them are at a company's doorsteps, suffocating their cash flows, or on the steps of parliament, halting the country's infrastructures and now, possibly on College Avenue, interrupting the education of its students.
Rujuta Sawant is a Rutgers Business School junior majoring in business analytics and information technology and minoring in political science. Her column, "Sincerely Rue," runs on alternate Mondays.
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