My own personal experience with unions has had very little to do with my belief in the right of working men and women to organize.

When I went to work in St. Louis in 1984, I became a member of the Newspaper Guild. At that point in my career, at that point in the newspaper industry, the idea of working for a union paper with good pay and good benefits was really exciting.

Of course, I didn't realize that the union at the <em>St. Louis Globe-Democrat</em> had rolled over and played dead so that the underfunded owner could keep the paper alive on the critical list. Even though I had four years experience working on daily newspapers, I was entered into the pay scale at the one-year level. Then for 2 1/2 years, I never got a raise and never even advanced to the two-year level.

That didn't bother me as much as the time someone complained to the union and I was reprimanded for working too hard.

My problem didn't really have much to do with the concept of unions itself. I just had the misfortune to work for a company so weak that the union couldn't exert any of its power without putting the newspaper out of business.

I had some amazing experiences in those 2 1/2 years, covering two NCAA basketball tournaments all the way from first round to Final Fours, and even though the bankruptcy of the paper in the fall of '86 meant I lost about seven or eight weeks worth of pay for vacation and comp time, I figured things happen.

And I certainly figured I was better off in that horrible situation as a union member than I would have been as an individual.

[caption id="attachment_870" align="alignright" width="168" caption="1986 Midwest Regional"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/00000004-e1298243339193.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-870" title="00000004" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/00000004-e1298243339193-168x300.jpg" alt="" width="168" height="300" /></a>[/caption]

If that's true for one journalist against a nearly bankrupt businessman, it's certainly true for working men and woman dealing with multinational corporations or  right-wing state governments. Watching what is happening in Wisconsin, where the newly elected right-wing governor created a fiscal crisis (with tax cuts, of course) to give him a reason to break the public-employees union, is pretty awful.

What's even more awful is hearing people blame the unions for the crisis, as if we all ought to just bend over and bow to the people with more wealth and power than we have.

Yes, there is corruption in union leadership sometimes, just as there is corruption in big business and in big government. But the answer isn't -- as my brilliant but sometimes flaky friend Mick believes -- to oppose bigness in any of those three things.

The fact is, they serve as counterbalances against each other, and unfortunately in our society, big business -- also known as big money -- is the most powerful of those three. The mega-wealthy can spend millions of dollars in campaign contributions to buy politicians to support their point of view, and they can buy influence with Supreme Court justices to get decisions like <em>Citizens United</em> -- maybe the worst court decision since <em>Plessy v. Ferguson</em> in 1895 -- to open up campaigns to even more of their financial influence.

The fact is, unions are just about the only counterbalancing force against that money, so when you hear conservatives railing against Big Labor, think of it this way.

[caption id="attachment_871" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Once in a while, the little guys win."]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/106432363.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-871" title="106432363" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/106432363-300x211.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="211" /></a>[/caption]

Big business is like the New York Yankees.

Big labor is like the San Francisco Giants, who get to win once every half-century or so.

And when the Giants do win, the only folks you ever hear complaining are Yankees fans. You see, when you root for the big guys, you think it's your God-given right to win every year.

Can't win 'em all?

Try telling that to Walmart, or the Koch brothers, or the right-wing governor of Wisconsin.

They not only expect to win them all, they do their best to rig the results.