The Jig of the Union Loller

by Michael Burnham

  “Yeah, short,” Claude said. “Forcing us into HMOs, and then when those fail forcing us into PPOs, whatever the hell those are. Making us take a college test every time we want to bid a job. Keeping our wages way below everyone else’s in the area. Like I said, deliver for management. If the company can save two million bucks by shaving a percentage point off the raises, what do they care about box seats at Fenway ten or twenty times a year? The union reps get the tickets, management gets the two million, and we get squat.”

  Ken looked to Warren. “I’m claiming Bugsy for my side.”

  “You’re wrong,” Warren said. “He’s a fighter. If we ever had the balls to strike, Bugsy would be first in the picket line.”

  “Maybe,” Ken said, “but not for the reasons you think.”

  Ken drew a log stream of air into his nostrils, sending the liquidy solids inside toward the bridge of his nose, and wiped the back of his right hand over his moustache. He pinched the fleshy base of his nose, and looked to see if anything came out. With his left hand he reached into a small tin and pulled out a fistful of peanuts.

  “Want some?” he said. Claude and Warren declined, and Ken popped the nuts in his mouth, one by one, as he spoke.

  “Warren sees the union as an instrument of power,” Ken said to Claude while chomping. “He feels the union’s job is to dominate management. Ostensibly, they should do so for wages and benefits and work conditions and so forth, but when you get right down to it, Warren cares less about the what than the how. He wants the control, the ability to bring the other side to its knees, day in and day out, regardless of the issue or whether the union’s right or wrong.”

  “Not true,” Warren said. “Sure, the quality of pay and conditions and benefits is the main goal of any union, but you don’t get what you want if you’re powerless. First you show your strength. Then you make your demands. Why bargain before you flex your muscles? Put some fear into them, make them squirm about the possibilities. Were the Philadelphia carpenters able to get ten-hour days before they stopped working or after?”

  “You don’t care what the carpenters got,” Ken said. “But even two hundred years later, you still get a thrill from knowing they brought the masters to heel.”

  Claude stood up from the cooler and walked behind Ken to inspect the rifles on the opposite wall of the wheelhouse. “Whatcha got here?”

  Warren answered. “The top one’s an AR-15 semi-automatic .223 with a red-dot scope and a compensator. The middle one’s a Remington 1100 12-gauge autoloader shotgun. The bottom one’s a Marlin Model 1889 Rifle, an antique. It looks good, but Ken would never fire it.”

  “Unless I had to,” Ken said. “But back to what I was saying, Bugsy’s more into family, like me. Isn’t that right?”

  “What do you mean?” Claude said.

  “I mean, a union’s like a family,” Ken said. “People buy into a union because of the social aspect, because it feels good to belong, because of the kinship that develops among the members. It’s like when you were little and had to go to church, or to school. Why did you go? Because your parents told you to. You obeyed them. You went not because you believed in the value of church or school, but because your ties with your parents were important to you. Your family ties carried over to school too: If your brother got into a fight, you stood up for him, no matter what, because he’s your brother. Your brother is important to you in ways that are a lot bigger than the squabble of the moment. You think union brothers should behave the same way.”

  “I do,” Claude said. “Except in real life I don’t have a brother.”

  Ken flashed Claude a smile. “I don’t either, but I’m sure if we’d had them, we’d have protected them. The point is, if you see a union as a family, then it limits you. Preserving the relationship becomes important. A good parent will do the best he can for his family without putting the family unit itself in jeopardy. When you use the same analogy with the union, all of a sudden the all-or-nothing strategy Warren prefers is harder to support, because if it fails it’s the end of the family, and you don’t want that. You’re happy if you can keep the family together and provide each member with a good life. I mean, it’s natural for people to bitch about this thing they don’t have or that thing they don’t have, but in a union you have to realize you’re never going to wring every single dollar from the company till unless you’re willing to risk everything to get it, and most of the time it just doesn’t make sense. I’d rather focus on the ninety-five percent of the pot I do have than fret about the five percent I don’t have.”

  Warren opened another beer. “That’s not fair,” he said.

  “Why?” Ken said.

  “Because in Bugsy’s case the union isn’t like family, the union is family.”

  Warren laughed, Claude forced a chuckle, and Ken popped another handful of nuts. The conversation turned to fishing. The trio swapped tales about ocean beasts, drank beer, and chugged toward a fish-filled part of the sea. In an hour, Ken cut the engine and announced they’d reached their destination. When the men gathered the fishing gear and sat on a bench on the port side of the craft to prepare, Claude selected a rod with a heavy line and baited the hook with bits of shrimp.

  “Hey, you know what?” Ken said. “I forgot to bring up the gaffs. Warren, can you go down and grab them? Should be three long and one short.”

  Warren went to the back corner of the wheelhouse, lifted a square section of the floor, and slipped the latch onto a hook on the cabin wall to hold the door open.

  “Shit, forgot the big net, too” Ken said to Claude. “Maybe I’ll grab my sweatshirt while I’m down there. Be right back.”

  Ken went to the wheelhouse. Claude heard a loud whump, looked over his shoulder through the window, and saw that the trap door had slammed behind Ken. He returned to his preparation.

  In five minutes, Ken and Warren were back, and all three tossed their lines over the rail. As the need arose, they urinated off the starboard rail. Their chatter halted and took new turns as a steady stream of fish were hooked, boated, and placed in a big metal tub to await cleaning.

  At noon, Ken suggested they eat, and he and Warren went below deck. Claude had to use the ladder. When finished, he wondered why the others went beneath the wheelhouse, since the sandwiches were in the cooler near the cabin door. When he pulled the trap door, it budged a little but didn’t open. He tried again, with a harder yank, but it felt as though the door were locked from inside. Claude grabbed one of his own sandwiches and a beer from the cooler and headed for the bench, but before he sat down he heard the trap door creak open and Ken talking, and a few seconds later Ken and Warren reappeared and joined Claude outside.

  Claude was glad he’d dressed warmly. Although the overhead sun shone bright in the sky, the non-stop wind turned a cool day cold. Claude pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose.

  “This wind is something,” he said. “Just a few hours out here, and already Warren and I are getting the sniffles just like you, Ken.”

  “When you do what I do,” Ken said, “sniffles come with the territory.”

  Warren and Ken broke into laughter. Claude didn’t see what was so funny but smiled along with them.

  “Come on inside the wheelhouse,” Ken said. “We can warm up a bit, and the way we’re drifting we’ll still be in good fishing waters. Come on.”

  Claude didn’t see the point of sitting in the wheelhouse when there were fish to be taken, but followed Ken in. He picked up a pair of binoculars and scanned the horizon, surprised at how many large boats could be seen with a decent set of lenses. Ken and Warren flopped onto the cabin floor near the coolers.

  “I think the time will come when unions won’t be necessary,” Ken announced. “We’re not too far from that now. It’ll start out as a fad, of course, a business craze, but once it happens, look out. Management will see all this head-butting is stupid, and the workers will agree. Then it’s bye-bye unions.”

  “Dreamer,” Warr
en said.

  “No, seriously,” Ken said. “Empires crumble. Capitalism won’t last forever—like feudalism, it’ll run its course. Once the oil dries up, maybe mitigation will be a good thing. Maybe companies will be happy to turn a modest profit as long as the jobs they provide give their workers good lives. Maybe CEOs of the future won’t be able to become millionaires, maybe the lack of resources just won’t allow it to happen.”

  “Oh please,” Warren said. “What you’re saying is that when resources become scarce, the high end is going to fall but the middle and bottom are going to stay the same. That’s a pretty silly notion, Ken. There’s always going to be a little wealth in the world, however it’s measured, and it’s pretty obvious that we’ll go back to a handful of people hoarding it all before we turn into the utopic fantasy world you’re talking about.”

  “That’s only because you can’t look beyond your current frame of reference. You can only see union and management at each other’s throats, with the worker trying to decide which one to pledge his allegiance to. What I’m saying is in theory a worker can have allegiance to both a company and a union—if the company and the union share the same goal. It’s already happening, Warren. Companies in this country are saying, look, we won’t move to Mexico, but you’ve got to be willing to cut back a little, to not try to squeeze everything out of us. Once that takes hold we’re on our way to a better world.”

  “We’re on our way to living like Mexicans,” Warren said. “We’re the richest nation in the history of the world. Why should we accept substandard anything? Why should we take less so the CEOs can take more? We do the work, let us keep the profits. Tell me, what exactly does Munson own, anyway? Does he own us? He’s our CEO, but if he died tomorrow, we wouldn’t need to replace him. We do the work already. Throw his desk out the window and split his millions and his stock options among the people keeping the lights on.”

  Warren wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Bugsy, what do you think?”

  “Don’t really know,” Claude said. With the binoculars at his eyes, he moved his head from one side of the cabin window to the other. “How far can you see with these things?”

  “How far are the stars in the sky?” Ken said.

  Claude kept his eyes on the ocean. He said nothing. The boat rolled. Ken sniffed again and reached for the tin of nuts.

  “All I’m saying,” Ken said, “is that a company is like a person. People have values, and so do companies. If your company has good values, you respect it, just like you would a person. If companies treated their employees like lifelong friends, I could see a day when unions would disappear. I realize right now most companies in our country treat their employees like things to be used and discarded—in fact I recently read that the average company is geared toward keeping its employees for only five years now—but deep down we all know that’s crap. Nobody wants friends they don’t respect, or friends who don’t respect them. Maybe someday we’ll all wake up and realize how much better off we’ll be when companies and employees simply treat each other with real, honest-to-goodness respect.”

  Warren spat on the floor. Claude flipped the binoculars around and looked through the wide end of the lenses. Ken seemed ten miles away.

  “Hey Warren,” Claude said at last, “when we gonna meet your girl?”

  “Warren’s got a girl?” Ken said.

  Claude took the binoculars from his face. “That’s where you stayed last night, isn’t it?”

  With eyes on him Warren fidgeted. But then his face broke into a wide smile. “Didn’t catch her name, if you want to know the truth.”

  Claude shook his head and grinned. “You dog.”

  Ken looked at Warren and tossed his palms in the air. Warren shrugged. Ken laughed.

  “Yeah, Warren, hey when are you going to settle down, anyway?,” Ken said. “You’re getting on you know. Time to catch a filly, don’t you think?”

  “Didn’t do you any good, did it?” Warren said.

  “I just picked the wrong one. Twice. But I’ll get it right the next time, you watch.”

  “Sorry, I’m not taking marriage advice from someone like you,” Warren said. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Ken said with a smile.

  “But now Bugsy here, he’s stayed married all these years. Him, he can give me advice on marriage.”

  They both looked at Claude, who smiled. He lifted the binoculars so the strap came off the back of his neck, then handed the binoculars and their case back to Ken. He sat on a cooler and pulled out his pack of cigarettes.

  “They all get fat,” Claude said. “They yap when you need them to listen. They bitch when you buy a power saw, then spend twice as much on crap for the garden. They want nothing to do with you when you’re horny, but as soon as you fall asleep they’re climbing all over you, expecting to be serviced. They cook the same old food and wear the same old clothes and tell the same old stories over and over and over again. They’ve got no respect for the way it’s supposed to be, with the man making all the decisions and everyone else following his lead.”

  Claude lit a cigarette. He shook the match out and tossed the spent stick on the floor. He slid as much of his mouth to the right side of his face as possible, and exhaled a stream of smoke through the tiny opening.

  “That’s marriage,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind trading in my wife for something newer on the showroom floor, but it’d kill her. I’m the best thing she’s ever had. She has a nice home, nice family, pretty yard, all because of me. Sometimes she forgets that, and I have to remind her, but we’re clear on who’s in charge. If you ever do get married, stick to your guns. It’s your castle. Don’t let your wife tell you to do this or do that, because if you give in once, you give in forever. My dad taught me that. You’re the man. Do it your way.”

  “Cut the crap,” Warren said. “That daughter of yours even hints she wants something and you’ve got the credit card out before the second syllable leaves her mouth. King of the castle my ass. If that only child of yours wants it, she gets it.”

  “That’s different,” Claude said. “I love my daughter. I can’t imagine living without her.”

  “You love your wife, too,” Ken said. “Sure, the dynamics between you and your wife are different than between you and your daughter, but that’s to be expected. Wives have to succeed in lots of ways daughters don’t. I’ve had two wives come and go, and even though I could no longer live with either of them, I loved them both. I still love them both. Whenever you share a common circumstance with any kind of intensity, and make agreements that satisfy you both, there’s got to be some love there. When I was married I dwelled on all the great things about being single, and now that I’m single, I tend to miss a lot of the good things about being married. You can complain about your wife all you want, but if she were so bad you’d have been gone long ago.”

  “Maybe,” Claude said.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Joan.”

  “Joan Amognes?”

  “Yeah, she didn’t want a name that rhymed. When we got engaged, she wanted to keep her maiden name. That lasted about two seconds.”

  “So why are you still with her?”

  Claude leaned back on the cooler, resting on his palm as the middle and index fingers of his left hand held his cigarette. He crossed his legs.

  “A husband and wife stay together,” he said. “My parents argued, but there was never any question of them splitting up. My in-laws fought all the time. My wife will stand by me forever, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. She’s my wife.”

  
The threesome returned to their rods, and excitement reigned as they pulled in one fish after another. Claude caught the biggest fish, a cod, but Warren landed the most surprising, a five-pound sheepshead.

  “Must be a sunken wreck around here somewhere,” Ken said. “That’s a good-sized sheepshead. Make you a fine dinner.”

  Warren placed his catch in the tub with the other fish,
and asked Claude if he wanted another beer.

  “Naw, I’m done,” Claude said. “How much longer do we have?”

  “It’s two-thirty now,” Ken said. “I’d say we should start back in another hour or so.

  The rest of the afternoon the men tossed anything they caught back to the sea, and at three-thirty Ken started the engine and headed for land while Warren and Claude put away the gear and cleaned up. Ken told them to decide which fish they wanted to keep and which he should drop off at the market. Claude opted to take home his cod and one of the porgies Warren didn’t want. Joan could clean them, and whichever one they didn’t have for dinner could be frozen for later.

  Once the chores were finished and the fish wrapped, Warren and Claude joined Ken in the wheelhouse to escape the wind and keep him company. As the wind picked up, the engine strained to power the boat through the high swells. Claude wished he’d left his last beer in the cooler as the waves rocked him and his stomach.

  “I’ve got to use the ladder,” he announced.

  “Jesus, be careful,” Ken said.

  Claude left the wheelhouse.

  “Maybe you should go watch him,” Ken said. “If he falls overboard, he’s gone.”

  “Aw shucks,” Warren said. “I was thinking of heading back down beneath the deck again.”

  They both laughed, and Ken shooed Warren out the door to keep an eye on Claude. Before long, both returned, and with Ken spent the rest of the trip chatting about sports and the weather.

  As they neared the anchored rowboat, Claude thanked Ken for such a terrific time, and said he really enjoyed meeting him and perhaps would see him sometime soon, and thanked him again for such a terrific time. Ken helped Warren and Claude into the rowboat, handed down their duffel bags and their fish, and waved goodbye. He waited on the rail until certain they could handle the rowboat in the swells, and when he saw they were managing well enough, he disappeared into the wheelhouse, started the engine, and lumbered away.

  “I told you he’d do us right,” Warren said.

  “Good call,” Claude said. “He sure did do us right.”

  At the beach, Warren took care of the boat and oars while Claude lugged everything to the car. An hour later, Warren steered the Grand Marquis into the Amognes’s driveway.