Labor unions' popularity is growing

Full story: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060707/OPINION03/607070324/1008/OPINION01



Ron Gettelfinger

Labor unions' popularity is growing

Support of good wages, health care appeals across race, class and gender

A re Detroit labor leaders out of touch? That's the claim made in a recent Detroit News analysis of the results of a poll commissioned by the newspaper. The survey was intended to assess public opinion about the state's automotive industry.

"State residents fear Detroit auto executives and labor leaders," the News reported, "have lost touch with the harsh realities of the global marketplace."

Auto executives can speak for themselves. But it's just not possible to conclude from the actual poll results that Michigan public opinion is leaning against our state's labor unions.


Unions gain approval

Farther down in the article -- way farther down -- we find out that a 62 percent majority of survey respondents actually approve of labor unions, while only 33 percent disapprove.


More at link...

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PER DU RULES.

The conservatives have been brainwashed into thinking that working as a slave and siding with CEO's is a good thing. It's very strange. I fail to see what's wrong with a living wage, benefits, protection from being fired for no reason and the like is considered bad. Don't these people enjoy the weekends?

Managers are not eligible for union membership, so all you have to do today to bust a union is tell your workforce that they aren't workers! No, they are "managers." Their goal is to reduce the "worker" characterization to a tiny segment of the population. This is Bush's goal as well:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/kentuckyriver_cases?rk=c7aOckn1-uW9W

The National Labor Relations Board appointed by President Bush has refused to hear oral arguments as it considers three cases that could reshape basic workplace rights and further erode our freedom to form unions.

The cases focus on the definition of “supervisor.” If that definition is broadened to include skilled, experienced workers who sometimes instruct co-workers, hundreds of thousands of employees could lose their contract protections and union rights.

In other words, if you're a cashier and sometimes you've gotta train the new guy while the manager does payroll, goodbye union.

It really disgusts me. At my place of employment people would come to our union meetings and announce that they were very angry at the union, because the union was forcing them to strike or be scabs. Their fellow workers voted to strike and they didn't want to deal with such a difficult and unpleasant thing. Besides, they were from wealthy families, so they could afford the low pay. We told them that they could have voted against going out on strike, but they were too "busy". Can you imagine the audacity of going to a union meeting and saying, "You know, you people have all voted to force me to take positive action for myself!"

I had one scab tell me that she "respected my right to fight for what I believe in." I said, you respect my right to lose my job so that you don't get a pay cut?! How open minded of you!

I want to point out that 95% of the scabs (I'm making this up, but I'm erring on the side of conservative) are liberals.

Unliveable wages? Outsourced jobs? Many of us are totally complicit in our own destruction. We have to fight back. And, motherf**k it is a HARD FIGHT.

<<sorry for ranting but I went to jail and was fired as intimidation for union activity, so I'm a little touchy>>

Four years later my case was settled. First an administrative law judge sided with the company. The the NLRB overturned that 2-1. The St. Louis Court of Appeals upheld in my favor. Case file online at the NLRB.

HTML: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:8Lzmr3jH_yEJ:www.nlrb.gov/nlrb/shared_files/decisions/261/261-38.pdf+nlrb+dawes+industrial+label&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

PDF: <261 NLRB No. 38> Industrial Label Corp., 17-CA-9763

Come look over the DU UNION page sometime: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=367

That's the downside.

I'm willing to work harder so that my boys can prosper as my father did.

Very few people in our bargaining unit would have underwent "financial doom". The UAW pays strike benefits. Out of a bargaining unit of 1000 people, I was one of the least well-off people in the union and I was one of 2 people to lose my job permanently. Everything the scabs had was because earlier union activists fought for it. Our job did not pay a living wage before the union ($10,000 a year at most in NYC with no benefits.) Now, these people will be moving through the hierarchy and advancing beyond that job description, and new workers may lose benefits.

I've been on the picket line with illegal hotel maids who are supporting a family on strike benefits of $800 a month (in NYC) and I've know a LOT of scabs who have money in the stock market and other investments. The biggest complaint was going on the picket line. (I'm not a "group" person. Why do you have to be so loud?) I only met one person (out of the 1000 in the bargaining unit) with a child. (And I processed everyone's benefits, so I knew.)

One thing I've learned is when pushed comes to shove 50% of liberals* will turn their backs on you and even vilify you if you ask them to take a risk to do the right thing. 40% will hang in there and then give up and abandon you and hide from you in shame. 10% will stand by your side and fight and suffer with you until you win. The trick is to learn how to spot that 10% so you don't get heartbroken along the way.

The thing about a strike is-- there is no inbetween. Until you get to the bargaining table, a strike is war. Those who cross the picket line are like people who surrender to the enemy and do their bidding. Some people want to do the enemy's bidding. Some do it with shame. Some do it with despair. But no one has to do it. It is always a choice to cut another person's throat.

It was a really bitter experience for me. We lost and I am one of two people who were fired for union activity. I went to jail and I'm still facing a hearing for being part of a civil disobedience (with clergy and even senatorial candidates). The people who chose to scab don't understand why we can't just be friends again like before. They were rewarded for strikebreaking by a temporary reduction in workload and other perks. They sold the rest of us out.

Sometimes in life there are only two choices: the right thing and the wrong thing.

*mind you I bet 100% of neocons will cut and run when the going gets tough.

for the greater good.Many people have lost everything to fight for the rights of future workers.It's what makes a union strong.

to fight that fight.

He was born in 1910. He saw the strikebreakers, the scabs, the Pinkertons; he also saw Jimmy Hoffa and other abuse. He was never comfortable about the unions.

But I have to think that were he still around, he would on the whole believe that a union is better than no protection for workers at all. But the unions have to be clean and above board--no nepotism, fat cats, or criminality.

I never could figure out the need for unions.