Part-Time Jobs Pose a Challenge to Unions

President Reagan somehow took great comfort from last Friday’s government report that showed the nation’s jobless rate remained steady in May--at a hefty 6.3%.

A White House spokesman with Reagan in Venice called the latest jobless rate “good unemployment news on the eve of the economic summit.”

But a more realistic, less comforting perspective would have been apparent if Reagan had considered another undeniably depressing figure issued by the Bureau of Labor statistics:

A record number of Americans--21.2 million--now have only part-time jobs. (And even those with full-time jobs suffered, as evidenced by the fact that real wages, or purchasing power, of all workers’ paychecks plunged 2% between May, 1986, and last month.)

Because people are counted among the employed if they work even a few minutes during the week the jobless survey is made, the increase in part-time workers helps hold down the unemployment rate. While the number of part-time workers in all job categories has jumped 14.3% since 1980, part-time jobs in retail trades soared by an astonishing 48.7% in the same period.

The increasingly serious problem of employees who want full-time jobs but can get only part-time work presents a major challenge for all unions. A test of their ability to deal with it will begin here Monday when the United Food and Commercial Workers Union opens negotiations with Southern California’s supermarket chains for new contracts covering 65,000 union members.

These negotiations are critical because the service sector, which includes supermarkets, is supposed to be the bright spot in the nation’s employment picture. The dramatic increase in retail part-time jobs shows, however, that this sector of the economy is not likely to be the source of the sort of jobs this nation needs.

While many people want part-time work, millions of others involuntarily take such jobs, which often don’t pay enough to support themselves, much less a family.

That bad news is not going to be corrected easily.

Traditionally, manufacturing companies provided most of the highest-paying jobs, but that sector is in decline.

As weak as unions are these days, they should be able to prevent manufacturers from further reducing the standard of living of their workers in upcoming negotiations, such as those in the auto industry.

It is dubious, though, whether they can help preserve the jobs of their members because it takes fewer and fewer workers to produce more and more goods.

Unfortunately, while most new jobs are being created in the service industry, millions of those jobs are part-time. This means that in the coming negotiations with Southern California supermarket chains, the task of the unions should be to persuade management to slow, if not stop, the trend toward more and more involuntary part-time jobs.

These jobs not only hurt workers but reduce their buying power, thus weakening the entire economy because they cannot afford to buy the goods and services the rest of us produce.

The two sides have conflicting interests. Part-time market workers often don’t earn enough to feed themselves and their families adequately with food from the stores where they are employed. But the companies argue that they want full crews only for peak sales periods and don’t want to pay for unneeded workers when there are few customers.

The Food Employers Council, representing many supermarkets, says it does not know the number of part-timers in the markets. But the United Food and Commercial Workers says it does have numbers, and they are startling:

In 1973, about 70% of its members worked full-time. Now that figure is 25%.

Compromises on the crucial issue of part-time work can be reached if management and the union are imaginative. If fact, the Southern California food industry negotiations could produce an agreement that would be a model for the increasing number of other industries where involuntary part-time work also is a growing problem.

But it will be difficult for the two sides to cooperate in seeking imaginative, visionary solutions since management and labor are deeply divided and, even worse, there are sharp divisions within the ranks of both the supermarkets and the unions.

As of now, it still isn’t clear which markets the Food Employers Council will represent in the negotiations and it isn’t even certain that the council will continue to exist after this round of negotiations.

Some companies have dropped out of the council, which once represented every major food chain in Southern California. Some supermarkets still pay dues to the council but haven’t decided whether they want it to represent them at the bargaining table.

The companies are divided on several issues. For instance, should they continue the contract clause they once all wanted that requires all supermarkets to pay the same wages and benefits?

Now some companies want to eliminate the clause in hopes they can reduce labor costs because of “special circumstances.” For example, Safeway might argue it needs to cut labor costs because it incurred a whopping $4.1-billion debt to avoid a hostile takeover.

Other companies don’t want competitors to be granted lower labor costs by the union with which they all have contracts.

The unions, too, are not united. There are now eight UFCW locals whose contracts are up for negotiation. At least two have refused to sit at the main bargaining table and the others are divided on bargaining strategy.

A peaceful contract settlement can be reached despite the many rivalries. But those rivalries will make it almost impossible to achieve what is really needed: a pattern-setting contract that helps stop the nationwide trend of an ever-increasing number of part-time workers.

Deukmejian Appointee No Friend of Unions

No one ever really doubted that good laws are important, but it is sometimes forgotten that the way they are administered and enforced is just as crucial.

The need for adequate enforcement of good laws will be dramatically demonstrated again by Gov. George Deukmejian’s astonishing appointment of Betty Cordoba to the state Public Employee Relations Board.

That is the agency created to help relations between public school teachers and school officials under a law that assumes the legitimacy of unions for teachers.

But Cordoba has for decades not only furiously fought the very idea that teachers have the right to strike, she has opposed any unions at all for teachers.

She is one of the leaders of Professional Educators of Los Angeles, which was created to fight the unionization of teachers, now common in California and other states.

Cordoba and her allies failed to stop the Legislature from approving the right of teachers to have unions and engage in collective bargaining with school administrators.

Her appointment is important as a message from Deukmejian, clearly stating his views on teacher unions and their right to strike.

The state Supreme court has held that public employees can strike as long as such walkouts do not endanger the public’s health and safety.

The Public Employee Relations Board, whose five members now all are Deukmejian appointees, recently managed to conclude illogically that an on-and-off strike by Compton teachers endangered public health and safety.

With the anti-union Cordoba as a member, the board argument used to circumvent the Supreme Court decision is almost surely going to be extended to all teacher strikes. And the prospects for teacher unions getting open-minded hearings on any issue is, at best, minimal.

President Reagan undercut federal law by appointing anti-union members to the National Labor Relations Board. Deukmejian undermined state farm law with his pro-grower appointments to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

Now, with his appointment of Cordoba to the Public Employment Relations Board, Deukmejian almost surely will change it from a relatively impartial organization to an anti-union agency, which was not the intent of the Legislature.