I am happy to see all the support for Labor in here.. there was a time in 2004

that I had my doubts.

I was a Gephardt supporter.. Strong labor.. we did not make it in Iowa.. we got kneecapped by some on the farther left..

And there were some mad Union members.. let me tell you.

But we hung in with the Party, and I became a Kerry delegate to the state convention.

Because, the Democratic Party did not embrace my canidate.. but hell did you guys see the opposition?

I am not that philosophically pure that I will give up 80% because I did not get the other 20% of my platform.

I for a while thought the farther left portions of the party had just dropped us (labor) off at the train station..

But they did not.

I think you may need to rethink that.

and we did get juiced pretty good here.. I live in Iowa, and I know what happened.

But politics be damned.

Kerry was a hell of a lot better person to support.. and that is just the truth.


Edit to add: than just giving up.. I know if I went back 6 years and looked at the posts against Gephardt, my blood would boil, but that does not mean, that the same people who rallied against my canidate then, does not have the same long term goals I have.

kapish

Breathtaking actually.

"...I for a while thought the farther left portions of the party had just dropped us (labor) off at the train station..

But they did not."

Thank you.

and assisting in a flamebait cause.

:sarcasm:

I know Kerry did, Dean did...in fact he said the nation's middle class was strong because of unions. Kucinich did.

Gephardt a strong union man.

MY point in spite of being lectured....who did not support them?

:hi:

Empower them and your leadership is secure.
Serve them and your leadership becomes historically significant.
Our Third Way president and his friends do not know this.

Quote:
3 February 1930
"Chicagorillas" -- labor racketeers -- shot and killed contractor William Healy, with whom the Chicago Marble Setters Union had been having difficulties.

14 April 1930
Over 100 farm workers were arrested for their unionizing activities in Imperial Valley, California. Eight were subsequently convicted of `criminal syndicalism.'

4 May 1931
Gun-toting vigilantes attack striking miners in Harlan County, Kentucky.

7 March 1932
Police kill striking workers at Ford's Dearborn, Michigan plant.

10 October 1933
18,000 cotton workers went on strikein Pixley, California. Four were killed before a pay-hike was finally won.

1934
The Electric Auto-Lite Strike. In Toledo, OH, two strikers were killed and over two hundred wounded by National Guardsmen. Some 1300 National Guard troops, including included eight rifle companies and three machine gun companies, were called in to disperse the protestors.

1934
International Longshoremans and Warehouse union strike of 1934. Two longshoremen, Nick Bordoise and Howard Sperry, were shot to death by the San Francisco Police. May 1934
Police stormed striking truck drivers in Minneapolis who were attempting to prevent truck movement in the market area.

1 September - 22 September 1934
A strike in Woonsocket, RI, part of a national movement to obtain a minimum wage for textile workers, resulted in the deaths of three workers. Over 420,000 workers ultimately went on strike.

9 November 1935
The Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) was formed to expand industrial unionism.

11 February 1937
General Motors recognizes the United Auto Workers union following a sit-down strike.

26 May 1937
The 'Battle of the Overpass'. Walter Reuther and a group of UAW supporters, fresh from having organized GM and Chyrsler, attempting to distribute leaflets at Gate 4 of the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge plant, and were beaten up (together with bystanders) by Ford Service Department guards.

30 May 1937
Police killed 10 and wounded 30 during the "Memorial Day Massacre" at the Republic Steel plant in Chicago.

25 June 1938
The Wages and Hours (later Fair Labor Standards) Act is passed, banning child labor and setting the 40-hour work week. The Act went into effect in October 1940, and was upheld in the Supreme Court on 3 February 1941.

27 February 1939
The Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes are illegal.

20 June 1941
Henry Ford recognizes the UAW.

15 December 1941
The AFL pledges that there will be no strikes in defense-related industry plants for the duration of the war.

28 December 1944
President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the Army to seize the executive offices of Montgomery Ward and Company after the corporation failed to comply with a National War Labor Board directive regarding union shops.

1946
Workers in packinghouses nation-wide went on strike.

1 April 1946
A strike by 400,000 mine workers in the U.S. began. U.S. troops seized railroads and coal mines the following month.

4 October 1946
The U.S. Navy seized oil refineries in order to break a 20-state post-war strike.

20 June 1947
The Taft-Hartley Labor Act, curbing strikes, was vetoed by President Truman. Congress overrode the veto.

end quote.

http://www.lutins.org/labor.html

Support labor and your leadership is secure.
Serve labor and your leadership is historic.
Let the systematic defiance of Taft-Hartley be just the beginning.

goes no where with me

The left of the party and labor have always been natural allies. It was the same DLC that took down Gephardt AND Dean.

Frankly, what we had in 08 was a contest between overt DLC (Clinton) and covert DLC (Obama), and people went with the candidate who claimed to not be DLC, who after the election installed the DLC in the halls of power and abandoned the left AND labor.

We hoped for Malcolm X and got Malcolm In The Middle.

labor, the working poor or the destitute.
Never.

president.
He has never fought the battles traditional liberals have fought.
He has sought accommodation with the other side instead of confronting and subduing it.
Racial nationalism and class struggle are real, institutional problems. You cannot back out of them just by incentivizinig individuals.
The battles of 1947, the 1950s and 1960s are not over.
No amount of incentivization or individualization of perspective will change that.

I do not see it that way..

A third way Democrat, are you saying he's lying?

you don't see yourself as deluded.

you have a burr under your saddle.. and not a thing in this world I can do to remove it when it comes to my ops

policies the DLC support.

Thank you for your Bizzaroworld post.

We were stinging because our canidate did not get it.. We got over it!

flamebait flamebait

You really are stuck on me today

Not at all.

Many DUers blamed unions for Kerry's loss. We didn't produce enough votes.

Caucuses in Iowa, means that we were all in the same room.. and Edwards people to one corner, Kerrys to another and Gephardts in another.. If you do not carry 15% of the people at the caucus, you have to disband and join another canidate or leave the caucus.

Well let me tell you, when we as Organized labor workers thought we were going to carry Iowa, and when we had some outside people pushing at caucuses.. there was a LOT of anger from the membership.. not leadership.. but membership

But you know what.. we were upset.. would not be natural not to be.. I mean we put a lot of time and effort into Richard. He has always been strong union.

But we bit the bullet, and the majority of us went to Kerry.. a few to Edwards.. no one left the room.

We worked hard.. but Kerry did not fight back hard enough and quick enough against the Rove strategy.. I mean it is old history and everything is clear looking back.

But union membership in Iowa.. we worked for Kerry, I went to the state convention for Kerry..

So those who blame the membership, have not got a clue..

He was a class act.

Not sure why people are attacking you for this thread.

I have apparently acquired a fan club.. :)

it's about time Labor Unions gathered like a hurricane and sweep the corporate nasties off the map.

Lerkfish, there is no flamebait in this except in your mind.

I am really beginning to worry about you.

Along with Tom Daschle and other little quislings. I didn't shed a single tear when Dick left the building.

Lots of people we embrace, made a huge mistake supporting that war..

Had nothing to do with his support of labor at all.

Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

As far as Gephardt goes...... he may have been a good supporter of labor, but in the end he got just about everything else wrong.

As I recall. Gephardt had problems that nothing to do with his labor support.

In any case, whatever was happening in 2004, the opposition to labor in the party today is coming directly from the White House and from anti-labor candidates it supports, like Blanche Lincoln.

"Down the toilet indeed."

I can think of some anti-labor, so-called Dem politicians I would like to flush out of office forever, and they aren't on the left, that is for darn sure.

Then, many DUers seem to suddenly channel an inner freeper even though most have no fucking clue what they're talking about in regards to the subject or what teachers really deal with. Having grown up with two teachers, that both infuriates and saddens me.

Turns out that it goes both ways. :hi:

but my parents worked harder than anyone else I know and got shit for it in the end. Even retired, my mom can only afford a beater that breaks down every fucking week 'cause most of their pensions go to pay my stepdad's nursing home bill; he's been institutionalized for several years now with dementia in only his early 60's. And most teachers I know and grew up with ain't exactly rollin' in it, either.

And, even if they were, just what in the hell is wrong with that? Are professional people supposed to just drive beaters that break down all the time in addition to all the other shit teachers have to deal with on a daily basis?

Thanks for giving me my DRTBGINOT, or Daily Reason To Be Grateful I'm not A Teacher; every day I thank God I don't have to deal with that shit and feel sad my parents got nothing out of forty-plus years of dedication to the profession.

DU's two most prolific advocates for teachers' unions both (proudly?) drive non-union made cars.

You see, when they say "Union Yes!" what they really mean is "MY union"... :hi:

exactly what you're saying now. And, yes, that is an excellent point and one on which we can agree. My parents and most of their former colleagues would certainly agree, too.

What the fuck are you implying?

Teachers advocates have angrily denied that their call for "supporting unions" means that they themselves have a responsibility to purchase a union made vehicle.

I support teacher's unions. Are you calling me out, too?

As always, it is your choice. :hi:

And based on my observations, it is (and has been) not the "farther left" but the "not far enough left" portions of the party that want to drop us (labor) off at the train station.

that doesn't work anymore, especially when the 80% candidate sells out labor

whether they're in one or not is either delusional or a CEO.