Union busting

[REDWAVE]

The power of labor unions has been reduced to very little in this country. In the 1950's, 40% of the American workforce was unionized. Now it's about 9%. Worse still, King George III, who is shaping up to be one of the biggest union busters in history, is going after the few main areas of strength the unions have left: public sector unions and the longshore union, which was born from the famous 1934 San Francisco general strike. First he colluded and conspired with the PMA (Pacific Maritime Association), even invoking the slave labor Taft-Hartley Act, to force the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) to accept a totally unfavorable settlement. A once proud union has been virtually brought to its knees. Now Bush is going after the unions which represent federal employees. Not only will the power of the unions be totally broken in his new police state "Department of Homeland Security," he also wants to "outsource" about 850,000 more federal jobs. That means good-paying, unionized federal jobs will be replaced with lower paying, non-union jobs in the "private sector," where workers have about as many rights as the Dred Scott decision said black men had.

At a time when the wages and living conditions of all workers are under intense assault, it is vital to rediscover the militant spirit of labor exemplified by the "Wobblies" (IWW-- Industrial Workers of the World). Replacing the sell-out bureaucratic misleadership of the unions with radical, militant leadership which will really fight for the rank and file is also essential. Finally, it is necessary to launch a major drive to organize the unorganized, and re-unionize the workforce.

All workers, union and non-union, are much better off when unions are strong. Unions have won many benefits for all workers, including minimum wage laws, workplace safety legislation, etc. Conversely, when unions are weak (as they are now), workers are almost totally at the mercy of employers.

 

[HeavyStick]

How many times are you going to say the same damn thing?

Sweet Virgin Mary's Tampon.

Jesus Tap Dancing Christ.

Sing a different song, dance a different dance.

Go bump one of the fifty other threads YOU started about this and add some facts and stop babbling.

 

[Bob_Bytchin]

How many times are you going to say the same damn thing?

Sweet Virgin Mary's Tampon.

Jesus Tap Dancing Christ.

Sing a different song, dance a different dance.

Go bump one of the fifty other threads YOU started about this and add some facts and stop babbling.

There you go Heavy.

 

[HeavyStick]

There you go Heavy.

thank you

 

[Freya]

Yes, it will really be a shame to have the free rein for inept and stupid people end.

 

[scylis]

i guess somebody's not a Teamster. i wish i was. paid 15 minute breaks every ten minutes. heath and dental. vacations. mmmm....

 

[medjay]

Who wouldn't want paid breaks and a living wage?

 

[HeavyStick]

I like the dental plan medjay has.

 

[bored1]

I like the dental plan medjay has.

A benefit of the collective bargaining power of his union.

 

[scylis]

I like the dental plan medjay has.

looks to be the Spectre Special Dental Plan.

 

[medjay]

I like the dental plan medjay has.

This is what happens when you don't have a union dental plan.

You wind up with Richard Kiel as your dentist.

 

[HeavyStick]

I would like to thank all that have quoted me.... redshitstain has me on ignore. Quoting someone overrides that nice little feature.

 

[HeavyStick]

You wind up with Richard Kiel as your dentist.

Wasn't he the one armed drummer in Def Leopard?

 

[scylis]

question there, man:

why does your title mention Pee Wee, while your AV is of Mr. Rogers?

just wondering.

 

[HeavyStick]

Pee Wee got busted for porn, I didn't find any good pics to use as av's so MR. Roger's was a good substitute.

 

[medjay]

Wasn't he the one armed drummer in Def Leopard?

Jaws for all you Bond fans!

 

[RastaPope]

I was going to join a union once, but then I got a real job.

 

[medjay]

I was going to join a union once, but then I got a real job.

I'm sure there are plenty of carpenters, electricians, iron workers and machinists who'd like to know where the real jobs are at.

 

[SINthysist]

This is a country of merchants and entrepreneurs. If you are worried about the workers of America, you need to go to China and Mexico (and a few other places) and organize those people. Then when they begin to earn what our workers earn and they can be competitive, we’ll have a use for strong unions again. Right now, their never-ending demands for more, more, more, only hurts American workers…

 

[REDWAVE]

I was waiting for it!

Ah, that SIN is a very clever propagandist. Pitting one group of workers against another is a basic tactic of the ruling class. I especially liked the touch of trying to paint workers in less developed nations as greedy: "their never-ending demands for more, more, more." It is not workers in "Third World" countries, fighting against starvation wages, who are greedy; it is the corporate CEO's who make on the average 400 times as much as the average worker. There's the greed! The assault on wages and living standards, the speedups and intensification of exploitation, the gutting of social programs, and the massive layoffs have not been carried out by workers in China or Mexico, but by the bosses here at home. They are the true enemy.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

I used to work with a union, actually, 19 of them, and it worked out great. We had mutual respect and were able to negotiate more flexible work and training rules and it helped production greatly.

It bothers me when union dues are collected and a large majority of the dues are spent in ways that are not consistent with the member's political views though. It also bothers me that so many union bosses have gotten in trouble for racketeering and other practices against the law. Maybe some of the problem is in the union management.

 

[REDWAVE]

Roses

Morning, Roses. You're actually one of the few conservatives I can stomach. I disagree with many of your views, but you do seem to be a gentleman of the old school . . . which is rare these days.

Let me ask you a few questions, though. From your account, I take it you were on the management side, and likely with a fairly large corporation. What exactly do you mean by "more flexible work and training rules"? Speedups, disregard of worker safety, forced overtime, elimination of overtime pay through "flextime" schemes-- things like that?


Also, do you have any problems with the far greater amounts of money big corporations spend to "influence" the political process and get their way? What about the recent revelations of truly massive fraud and corruption at numerous major corporation-- far more than at unions? Why (to paraphrase the Bible) do you insist upon straining out a gnat, and swallowing a camel?

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

Re: Roses

Morning, Roses. You're actually one of the few conservatives I can stomach. I disagree with many of your views, but you do seem to be a gentleman of the old school . . . which is rare these days.

Let me ask you a few questions, though. From your account, I take it you were on the management side, and likely with a fairly large corporation. What exactly do you mean by "more flexible work and training rules"? Speedups, disregard of worker safety, forced overtime, elimination of overtime pay-- things like that?

Thank you.

No on the speed up. We were developing something new and we were having parts problems. Keep in mind we had two other projects that were in full swing and they needed people. The old rules were that people could only be trained on one function and had to stay at that function. Because of the lack of parts, some functions couldn't be active, but we had to keep the people there.

I negotiated to send some people to the other projects, then cross-train the people that remained with us so they could work at functions that were active. It was much more interesting for the team that they could work at multiple functions and it saved us several million dollars. All in all, it worked out very well.

Safety was and will always be the primary consideration. Safety wasn't comprimised. In fact, a core part of the training was safety. No one was ever hurt there while I was present.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

Re: Roses

Also, do you have any problems with the far greater amounts of money big corporations spend to "influence" the political process and get their way? What about the recent revelations of truly massive fraud and corruption at numerous major corporation-- far more than at unions? Why (to paraphrase the Bible) do you insist upon straining out a gnat, and swallowing a camel?

The cases of fraud and deceit are bad no matter where they are found.

I don't think any of the cases indicate systematic fraud though.

 

[REDWAVE]

The mind boggles!

Now there you boggle my mind, if you really do believe what you said-- which I think you do.

Eight billion dollars worth of fraud at WorldCom alone! And you don't call that systematic! My God, what would it take?

The truly enormous amounts of fraud which have been revealed to exist at a plethora of giant corporations makes it clear that the capitalist system is riddled through and through with fraud and corruption. It's not a case of just a "few bad apples"-- the whole damn barrel is rotten!