(The following article by Gregory Cancelada and Jack Naudi was posted on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website on June 14.)
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Calls for “Buy Union-Made” and “Buy American” might appear nostalgic in a day when X-rays of American patients are analyzed by physicians abroad and U.S.-produced shoes are nearly impossible to find.
But the union movement hopes its 130-year-old message to buy products with the union label and more recent calls to buy American are reinvigorated amid the growing debate about overseas outsourcing of service jobs and the steady loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States.
“First of all, union-made in the USA is No. 1. If you can’t find union-made, at least buy American-made,” said Charles E. Mercer, president of the AFL-CIO’s Union Label and Service Trades Department. “We say it in the same breath, the same sentence.”
The AFL-CIO admits that a tough task confronts consumers when they search for union-made goods and services, so it uses the annual Union-Industries Show to highlight such products. The event, which started in 1938, was held in St. Louis in April this year.
“Do you know that Midas mufflers are union-made? Do you know that Colgate toothpaste is union-made?” Mercer said.
The show manages to educate even AFL-CIO leaders.
“During a show in Phoenix, I found out that Revlon [cosmetics] is union,” Mercer said. The products are made by workers represented by the United Auto Workers. “At every show, you learn something.”
Economists and business leaders believe global free trade ultimately results in a higher standard of living, although restructuring can be painful in the short term. They point to “insourcing” by foreign companies opening businesses in the United States and the growth of American exports of goods and services as examples.
But the AFL-CIO believes that educated consumers, by making the choice to buy union-made or American-produced goods and services, can help to keep jobs with good pay and benefits from moving abroad.
Of course, convincing consumers isn’t easy even when they’re union members. Last year, the buy-union campaign in St. Louis was never stronger than when 10,000 grocery workers went on strike or were locked out of three grocery chains.
During the 25-day strike in October, officials of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655 urged the community to avoid the three chains involved in the strike. Worried that the public would begin patronizing nonunion stores, Local 655 disseminated a list of union groceries.
With the strike over, the buy-union drumbeat has quieted considerably.
“I would like to shop union all the time, but it’s not reality,” said Fran Boyer, a checker at a store in Brentwood, Mo.
Boyer no longer looks for the union label on products.
“I have to look for what I can afford; that’s the biggest thing,” she said. “I know that’s sending jobs overseas, but that’s the reality of the economy.”
Though the task might seem impossible, groups can persuade consumers to change their buying decisions for the right cause, said Brian Till, chairman of the marketing department at the John Cook School of Business at St. Louis University.
Calls to “Buy American” and “Buy Union-Made” are similar to campaigns to promote the purchase of dolphin-free tuna, recyclable materials and clothing not made in sweatshops, Till said.
“My suspicion is that for a lot of people faced with two different brands that are relatively comparable in price, a symbol or indicator – whether for recyclable, dolphin-safe or union-made – can be just enough of a difference at the margin to make that the choice,” he said. “Whether they’re going to pay a significant price premium for it, that remains to be seen.”
But successful campaigns require a concerted effort, given that consumers face a marketplace cluttered with messages, Till said.
And the union also needs to target its message carefully, rather than try to convince everyone that buying union-made is best.
“There are people in the population who might not be union members, but nonetheless have empathy for the unions. And there are other people who think unions are a bad thing,” he said. “So, it is really identifying the particular market where you can have the most impact.”
Targeting the message is one reason the AFL-CIO isn’t interested in an aggressive advertising campaign through mass media, Mercer said.
At the same time, a mass-media campaign doesn’t make much sense when products are so difficult to find.
“I don’t think that people are unreceptive to buying union-made. I think the problem is the frustration in finding the products,” he said.
To help consumers identify union-made products, Mercer’s Union Label and Service Trades Department is overhauling and expanding a Web-based database on www.unionlabel.org.
“We’re [also] putting together a union vacation travel plan,” Mercer said. “If you want to go to New Mexico, it tells you which stores, hotels, car rental agencies are union.”
A steady decline in union jobs has compounded the difficulty in finding union-made goods and services.
Last year, 12.9 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, down from 13.3 percent in 2002. The percentage stood at 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics kept track of this particular statistic.
Having unions at a health care facility isn’t news to Kathy Clark, administrator at St. Louis Altenheim, a nursing care and retirement facility. Maids, dietary workers and nurses have been organized since the early `70s.
Clark is ambivalent about the union. But one thing she endorses, at least for Altenheim, is a buy-union campaign. With unions urging people to buy union products, why not endorse operations such as hers that employ union labor?
“I would certainly like to appeal to union workers to do that,” she said with a laugh. “We’re in a competitive business. I think it would be great.”