New UNION forming for NonUnion Workers and Retirees (AFL-CIO)! Must Read

Great new Website, affiliated with AFL-CIO for all of us who are sick and tired of the Downsizing/Merging and Layoffs which follow. Now is a chance for us all to join and have a voice in a NEW AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT which can include all of us: Techies, Clericals, Corporate Employees, Service Industry workers...all of us who are not currently eligible for a Union where we have a voice. Let's do this and make it work for us. And for those who are concerned about Labor Union's bad reputation the past few decades, we can work to make sure that the corruption is kept out by vigilant monitoring of elected officials.

It's time for all of us to unite and have a voice. We need lobbyists who work for US. Think of the money we could raise that would send the K-Street crowd out of DC. Think of how we could have a united voice to go after our Senators and Congresspersons who continue to give away our rights to the Corporations.

Check out their website. It looks really interesting and I'm going to join and donate. The time has come!

Help Build a Workers' Movement. Nonunion workers and retirees are invited to join the people power of America's union movement and help make America work for all of us. (credit to Buzzflash for posting this headline and the link to the website)

http://www.workingamerica.org/home.cfm

pilot in Minnesota. I joined up last year. I think its a great idea. Go Union!
http://www.uswa.org/uswa/program/content/overview_sub.php?modules2_ID=186&modules_ID=297

"About US"
http://www.uswa.org/uswa/program/content/1261.php

What a great idea - am going to check it out.

as to how that is susposed to work? demand higher wages? that will only hasten the export of your job to another country.

Downsizings, Demand that CEO's pay be more proportional to workers pay as it was before the mid-1980's. Get rid of these Golden Parachutes where CEO's and the Boards of Directors get extra bonuses when they decide to Merge or Sell off a company. Get rid of the generous "Stock Options" offered only to the Executives when they sign on as a "Bonus."

There are tons of abuses that have caused our jobs to be outsourced and it starts with the crookery that started during Reagan and Poppy's Administrations. Clinton and Chimp Boy have continued the abuses.

Every day there's a new scandal about a company "cooking the books." And, they get a "tap on the hand." Millions of families have been relocated, dislocated and suffered tremendous hardship because of all this chicanery which has been going on.

We older DU'ers may be more aware of it than the younger ones, but there are lots of young DU Techies who would know what I'm talking about. Our country is a mess. We must do something.

that they give a rats ass? Greed and corruption is ingrained into the corporate world, to make the all might buck for themselves and their stock holders. Our government supports them 100% (United pension fund rape the other day!) as an example.

Government control must come back to the people, then, and only then can corporations be regulated to give the working stiff a fair shake. Unions will just piss them off and hasten the defeat of the working stiff.

they will take our pension, we will be denied heath care because we cannot afford it, and the rich will just get richer. The middle class is history and the people taking back control of their government is the only way to stop it.

for workers rights just because of the very abuses you list. Plus the average work day and work week has increased due to the weakness of labor in the last decade.

Look...the Unions got busted by the corporatists and also by some of their own mis-management and corruption through the decades. But, what they did for the average American stood for decades to give folks a chance out there to have some stability in their lives. Otherwise we are slaves to whomever wants to own us...the Corporations.

What other alternatives do we have today for a BIG VOICE? Our politions on both sides aren't listening to us, but to the Corporate Lobbyists who write the Bills to take away our rights FOR THEM... Our Senators and Congresspeople rely on these "talking points" prepared by well funded lobbyists to go out and give their speeches on the floor of the House and Senate. It's all corrupted. We've got to do something SOON or nothing will be left and our lives will be disrupted beyond repair.

Where do our Young People go? They are told to get "retrained" for jobs and what the hell are they going to "re-train" in? Whatever they do their job could be obsolete or outsourced if there's a cheaper person to be found to do it.

What has Bush done to creat jobs? Clinton was lucky because of the tech revolution which masked the fact that we were losing manufacturing jobs while we were gaining in technology. Then the Dot Com Bust came and it was easier to "outsource" rather than pay all those high salaries plus there were less "start ups" to employ all those who had gotten Computer and Programming training.

What do we do? This "Workers Union" sounds as good as anyplace to start to me.

:shrug:

nt

Clinton encouraged high tech with subsidies to industry, assistance in worker retraining (esp. manufacturing workers), governmental educational assistance for liberal arts majors to retrain in high tech, assistance to universities, k-12, and the government itself to get wired.

Clinton actually helped the "revolution" flower...

Unlike the big zero we have today.

to flourish. Still....neither Clinton/Gore/ or Chimp could have foreseen the outburst in "innovation" which would change the way "businesses do business."

Much of our "Downsizing" is due to the very technology that made corporations more "productive."

IOW'd's, Computers replaced "clericals and middle managers who supervised the clericals and forced everyone to work 24/7 answering e-mails and staying up all night to do business in different times zones.

Windows 95 with Excell and Office meant any worker in the USA needed to be on call constantly to deal with International and National Business.

What we gained in "Productivity" we lost in human interactions where one used to have time for "reflective thinking before making a business decision." Now...everything is INSTANT...CELL PHONES...FAXING/PHONING/CONNECTING WITH HONG KONG when you should be sleeping but you are wating for the E-Mail about your contract being approved which will give you money to feed you family, if you are "online and wired" 24/7.

The new Business Model based on workers replacing clericals means one works all the time for diminishing rewards in salary and job security while the CEO's and the BOD's rake in the cash. And most of them wouldn't know how to do a personal e-mail or their own work. THEY are the only ones still allowed to have "Secretaries" to do it for them.

:shrug:

procedures that were followed by managers. And managers got in big trouble and got removed when they didnt follow them.

as people can spend more. Further, if you only purchase from companies who do not export jobs and pay fair wages, jobs are not lost. Look at costco versus walmart.

can really feel "Proud" they work for Company X,Y or Z. You could be downsized or outsourced tomorrow if you don't perform to keep the Company Stock up. Which means lying, cheating, cooking books. Those who are willing and able to "play that game" get rewarded. It's all "topsy-turvy" today in Corporate America.

At some point company loyalty got thrown out on the road in place of "shareholder value," and "CEO/Board of Directors" Compensation Packages.

We are going to a two tier society in America: The "Have it All's" and the "Have Credit Card..Will Travels." This doesn't make for a stable economy or a Stable America.

Thanks for posting that.
I will check it out and tell others.

Thanks so very much for this link!

think the obvious attack on working people by the Bush Administration
is becoming more and more obvious to those blinded by right-wing rhetoric and phony patriotism. The trashing of a negotiated contract by United Airlines and the way a federal judge bailed out a large corporation and their execs is criminal. Meanwhile individuals are being targeted by the bankruptcy bill. I know it's been said before, but Bush is a uniter-let's hope he can unite the labor movement with
his blatant attacks on working people.

That's a dangerous idea. It would be nice if something close to that was finally attempted by the AFL-CIO.

Take that you Lobbyists and Religious Right Finatics and shove it where the sun don't shine... Bring back INTEGRITY TO CORPORATE AMERICA!!!

BRING BACK HONESTY, TRUTH AND WORKING to feed your family, and have a decent life. Does anyone really need a 6,000 sq.ft. house with the Media Room and granite countertops and stainless steel appliances? A Hummer in the garage and a car for every kid? And then you go out to treat the family at the local Franchise with the same boring food? Where are great expressions of our "creativity and differences" that made America so innovative. Right now it's the TOP taking home the bags of money while the rest use the "credit card" so that we can keep ahead or "pretend" we are. Or, we do with less and make do with the leavings of those who are raping us. :shrug:

:dem::kick:

....and a kick, count me in....

My grandfather was a member of the IAM-AW and I have been a member of the Musicians' Union.

"the union makes us strong"

I think the best way to build an infrastructure to counter the fundamentalists is to strengthen the unions.

DO NOT allow to happen to this union what happened to us: we bargained away our right to strike in order to gain layoff protections.

We ripped our own balls off in the name of "security". Now postal managers regularly run roughshod over the union's constitution because they know we can do nothing but file a grieveance.

Here's how THAT works. Violation occurs, and you put up with it. After the violation, you file a grieveance. It either gets settled in-plant or gets tossed to Step 2.

This continues until an arbitrator rules. If they rule in your favor, technically it has precedent, but in practical terms, the ruling is utterly meaningless; management typically applies the settlement to that one, specific case and then turns right around and does it to somebody else. If that person doesn't know the other grieveance has been settled in an employee's favor, they'll likely not even file one of their own!

Postal management has repeatedly demonstrated that it has no intention of abiding by the union contract in good faith. An examination of the union's greveance backlog at the national level clearly illustrates this.

They need to make certain this union has teeth it will keep.

bosses taking money and misusing it and other abuses have taken place in the past. The Airline Unions (I have a friend in one of them) seem to have given away their rights time after time in much the same way as you describe.

I don't know how to avoid corruption but this effort, even though it's affiliated with the AFL-CIO might draw enough savvy folks into it that we could make a difference. Maybe those of us who haven't belonged to unions could bring some new ideas in.

Given how bad our political situation is with neither party really listening to the people and we Dems having no representation that can do anything for us, this seems a "last resort."

I've posted many times on DU in the last three years urging "White Collar Unions," for all the folks who have been downsided and merged out of work the past two decades. We don't have pensions we don't have health care we are forced to move from job to job losing benefits all the time. If this New Workers Union could be a voice then I'm all for it. And, if we need to use the AFL-CIO to get started, then so be it.

The unions used to be a voice that the "Lobbyists" have now replaced. We've got to take things back. Our politicians aren't going to do it for us. We have to have a big enough voice to counter the lobbyists are we are done for and will be working as "slaves" soon.

I get really worked up about this, as you can see. :rant:

KICK!

:-)'s for the kick..this one is going to be slow...so need all the help I can get.

:kick: