The Hindu Business Line : Union: A most potent social insurance

THE Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is the largest and fastest growing union in North America, with 1.8 million members, according to www.seiu.org. It is also "the second largest union of public service employees with 8,50,000 local and state government workers, public school employees, bus drivers, and child care providers". Fifty-six per cent of SEIU members are women, and some 40 per cent people of colour, informs the Web site.

What's hot news, however, is the now-running contest with $100,000 first prize on www.SinceSlicedBread.com, sponsored by SEIU. The Web site is looking for commonsense ideas that are original and creative, have the best chance of practical success and would most effectively: Grow the US economy; create good-paying jobs that allow people to raise a family, afford health insurance, pay for their children's college education, get additional training and save for retirement; and encourage existing companies to expand and entrepreneurs to start new ones.

"The union says it launched the contest because elected officials in Washington aren't coming up with good ideas about the pressing issues of the day, such as child care, health care, elder care and retirement security," writes David Schwab in The Star-Ledger (www.nj.com). Closer home, though unions didn't run such a poll, a killer idea that they have suddenly latched on to is BPO. Only, the business process outsourcing industry is finding it tough to come to terms with what it considers a killing development.

For instance, Kiran Karnik, President of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) has said that employees in IT and ITES sector don't need any external intervention as they are looked after very well. The move to unionise workers is a retrograde step and would spell disaster for the industry, according to Prosenjit Ganguly, head of HR at HTMT, a BPO firm. Just the right time, therefore, to come to terms with `union'.

The word `union' occurs after `uninvited' and `uninvolved' in Concise Oxford English Dictionary, which defines the word as "the action or fact of uniting or bring united". Union means "the formation of a single political unit from two or more separate and independent units; a uniting in marriage; also sexual intercourse," defines Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Dictionary.LaborLawTalk.com also defines union as "the state of being a married couple voluntarily joined for life (or until divorce)", as in the example `God bless this union'.

And usages aren't forever, too; nor can a certain work culture run to eternity in sweatshops or call centres. "So we grow together, like to a double cherry, seeming parted, but yet an union in partition; two lovely berries moulded on one stem; so, with two seeming bodies, but one heart," says Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

BPOs, though, see the idea of union more as a heart-breaking partition.

Union used to mean `a large, fine pearl', and Webster Dictionary, 1913 says `obsolete', and cites a quote of Holland: "If they [pearls] be white, great, round, smooth, and weighty... our dainties and delicates here at Rome... call them unions."

On the word's source, http://encarta.msn.com notes, "15th century. Directly or via French from Latin union — `oneness' from unus `one'. But Online Etymology Dictionary has more to say: "From O.Fr. union (12c.), from L.L. unionem (nom. unio) `oneness, unity, a uniting,' also in L. meaning `a single pearl or onion,' from unus `one,' from PIE *oinos (see one)." A search for `unus' yields many related words including quincunx, uniate, unique, communion, unity, null, ounce, inch, unite, universe, unanimous, unilateral and unite.

Short for trade union, from 1833; and unionise to `make into a union' is attested from 1841, informs www.etymonline.com.

Webster's 1828 Dictionary defines the ecclesiastical meaning of union as "the combining or consolidating of two or more churches into one". Union is "agreement or harmony resulting from the uniting of individuals; concord," says The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

"If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, by unions married, do offend thine ear, they do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds in singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear," is a grab from a sonnet of the Bard.

"A number of persons, states, and so on joined or associated together for some common purpose," defines Random House Unabridged Dictionary on www.infoplease.com, quoting as examples student union and credit union. The former, according to www.ultralingua.net, is "a building on a college campus dedicated to social and organisational activities of the student body". And the latter is "an organisation for lending money to its members at low rates of interest," according to Cambridge Dictionary of American English.

Wikipedia lists a whole bunch of unions. Such as: "Personal union, separate, independent states that share the same monarch; Political union, a type of state composed of smaller states; Civil union, a commitment ceremony similar to marriage; Government of India, officially the Union Government; European Union, an inter-governmental organisation in Europe; and African Union, an inter-governmental organisation in Africa."

Union has a special US connotation that is explained on The Free Encyclopedia as follows: "During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the United States, the northern states that did not secede."Union is a word your plumber may use, to refer to `coupling for parts such as pipes and pipe fittings', as in Encarta. As a textile term, union is "a fabric made of different yarns, e.g. cotton and linen".

Union is a graft, in GardenWeb Glossary of Botanical Terms. Bud or budding union is "the junction on a stem, usually swollen, where a graft bud has joined the stock following the process of budding". Union refers to "the structural adhesion or growing together of the edges of a wound," in On-line Medical Dictionary. In Math Spoken Here! www.mathnstuff.com, union is "the operation of creating a set which contains all elements of the original sets but no new elements; and a set containing each of the elements of the two sets which were united". For example, the union of set A, {lcub}2, 3, 4, 5{rcub}, and set B, {lcub}2, 4, 6{rcub} is set C, {lcub}2, 3, 4, 5, 6{rcub}. And, the only expansion of UNION on www.acronymfinder.com is `Underwater Intelligent Operation and Navigation'.

From about the 1660s, the word union began to be used generally for any group of people who came together for some common purpose, explains www.worldwidewords.org. "In the nineteenth century, it began to be used in particular for an association of workers, in full a trade union. Earlier, the term for such a group had been combination, almost always with the implication of some conspiracy against public order and the public good, as Pepys wrote in his diary in 1668: `Some few ... that do keep out of all plots and combinations'." Understandably, the first meaning of union in http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com is an organisation of employees formed to bargain with the employer.

"A union is an organisation of workers that pushes for the best possible working conditions — who else will? The boss? The boss invented sweatshops! Unions are easy to demonise, if you don't belong to one. They brought about the 40-hour workweek, overtime pay, safety laws, and more, including previously unknown prosperity for those who punched a clock," reads a posting eulogising union on www.everything2.com.

Industrial union is a labour union composed of all the workers in a given industry, regardless of skill, craft, or occupation, as opposed to the craft union, in which all members are of one skill, such as carpenters or electricians, states www.encyclopedia.com. "The industrial union is sometimes referred to as a vertical union, since it accepts workers from the least to the most skilled as members."

The trade union movement represents the organised economic power of the workers, said Samuel Gompers. "It is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish." That's as good as a $100,000 idea the industry may pay heed to, for everybody's sake, even as the unions now unite in their complaints, and force them with a constancy, as in King Henry VIII.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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