Why is "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work" not enough?

I've been reading through some of William Z Foster's pamphlets. In passing, he says that the entire approach of "a fair day's pay" has been discredited. Why is this?

One way to think about it: in accepting the job, the "day's pay" has already been implicitly (and often explicitly) agreed to. What, exactly, is the basis for demanding a re-negotiation? Not very strong.

It is amazing what people will suffer rather than admit that they have to go back on an agreement. And work is just that: an agreement.

[On a side note: this is why the concept of "working under contract" as a sine qua non of unionism is ridiculous. Work is always under a contract, Whether implicit or explicit, because it cannot function otherwise: so much work for so much pay is the name of the game. What is relevant is to RE-NEGOTIATE, and from the position of greatest strength for the worker.]

No, work can only be considered as a whole pie: what are the entire earnings of the company, and how can they be divided up?

To ask for less than that can only lead (through howevermany diversions and delays) to a servile position for labor.

Why does bureaucratic unionism fail?

The union is not another department within a company, and cannot be thought of as such.

Otherwise, when the rest of the company is undergoing cuts, it becomes "only fair" that labor accept cuts as well. (auto industry)

In an era when finance capital rules, the entire game becomes very unstable.

Only in the public sector is such a union sustainable, particularly if it provides a pretext to rip off the taxpayer! (look at teacher's unions)

What about Monopoly unionism?

Monopoly unionism, monopolizing labor like it were any other commodity, certainly sounds like a step up from bureaucracy. It sounds dynamic, an electric turbine of the type imagined by Andy Stern.

The simple fact, though, is that labor is not like any other commodity, and cannot be effectively monopolized. Sure, you can wrangle a bunch of contracts, but again you are back at insurance. Back at bureacracy.

What about marketplace unionism?

There is doubtless a value in simply going some way to rationalize labor markets. The government should probably be doing this job, but it doesn't, and I think that there is also an approach to unionism that fulfils this function; i.e. fills in as a kind of broker for labor deals. The way many construction unions operate seems to be an example of this model.

But this, also, becomes unstable -- precisely, it becomes unstable when access to a qualified pool of labor is not enough; e.g. there are abundant unskilled laborers, so the value of the qualified labor deal can never go above subsistance wages plus cost of education -- this is the de-facto situation in New York construction, where private firms have clearly started investing in the education of non-union workers).

This unstability can only be supported by thuggishness. While thuggishness itself is not such a bad thing (most unions probably need to be able to be thuggish at times), when it is the only real tool the union becomes distorted beyond recognition. Take, as an example, mob forms of unionism.

What is the tool of the Union?

The tool of the union is the strike.

There can be no acceptable limitation on the use of the unions priviledged tool. This is why most "contracts" as written pose as big a threat to worker strength as operating under "no contract".

This is what must be remembered: worker compensation is not the same as worker strength.

Over the long haul, only strength can insure high compensation.

Therefore, if high compensation is used to disarm workers (illegalize strikes), the compensation will not stay high forever.

In planning for the long term, strength must be chosen over prosperity.

Capitalism is fatally flawed -- fight for prosperity, but not at the cost of security.

UNBIND THE HAND OF LABOR!