I am happy to post a message I got from Mark Mix, head of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation regarding their efforts to help workers defeat the big unions. There is some interesting information in this link.
http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/hostedemail/email.htm?h=2ab4b099c61c9b1723f9cda0946b0de2&CID=8369313530&ch=33F2A8ECBE0143D0E2454E54F9820FF6
If you can, consider making a contribution to these good folks. The above message should be forwarded to your friends. Workers shouldn't have to silently be controlled by these corrupt unions.
These cretins don't need donations. They are well funded by the members of the National Association of Manufacturers and many of the Chambers of Commerce, for whom they serve as loyal propagandists. Should they ever prevail on the "right to work for less," their next target is to repeal the minimum wage, and the forty hour week. Their ultimate goal is for the peons who are privileged to work in their businesses to be be paid in beans and cornbread and live in unheated shacks similar to Cite Soleil in Haiti.
ReplyDeleteThey need DONATIONS??? What a scam!
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteI know you are a union guy, but one thing you never do in your defense of unions is address the corruption of the union bosses and the thuggery of the unions. I admit historical there was a need for unions, but it has now swung too far the other way. Why should I have to join a union if I want a job?
Thuggery usually enters into the union movement when the guys that used to be hired by management to beat up picket lines realize that, with management moving on to more enlightened and sophisticated tactics, they could make something for themselves directly by taking over the unions. It happens. Any power structure is subject to abuse.
ReplyDeleteYour fixation on SEIU is rather ironic. It was, at one time, a rather small union run by some old-school Italians (literally, they WERE Italian), until the merger with 1199, one of the most militant, most democratic, and most rapidly growing unions. Andy Stern is the man who ousted the old school gangsters, sometimes taking flak from hidebound "leftists" because he used receivership to do so -- a method leftists have a knee-jerk opposition to, since "union bosses" use it to oust any "leftist" who manages to get elected to local office.
I'm familiar with many ways that union work rules can get in the way of both individual worker preferences, and reasonable management decisions. They have, however, the virtue that they provide AN objective framework for personnel decisions, rather than leaving it up to "managerial discretion." Discretion can be, and usually is, abused.
I hardly follow your argument that "it has now swung too far the other way" when unions are at a low point in power as well as membership. How much farther your way could things swing?
Why should you have to join a union if you want a job? Actually, you don't. But, if your bargaining unit is represented by a union, and you enjoy the benefits negotiated, and union stewards who have a legal duty to represent you, then you don't get to take a free ride. You pay a contribution in lieu of dues. If you really want to end that obligation, you convince a majority of your fellow workers to decertify the union. Then the minority that WANTS a union doesn't have a collective bargaining agent. Its not perfect, but it could be a lot worse.
OK, Gary, I've decided your question needs a little more than I can impose upon a comment for. So, I have now posted two articles at
ReplyDeletehttp://siarlysjenkins.blogspot.com
I have been out of the habit of posting much there, because I got more reads at Alexandria. But, having been accused of lese majeste against the divine majesty of the last of the Stuarts, it is good to have a home to return to.
Take a look, and let me know your thoughts.
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteI read your article. You recite the history of worker explotaion. I never denied that. I just said the the pendulum swang too far the other way. You did not address the issues I raised.
It all comes down to this. You get a job. You know what the pay is and the benefits. If it turns out you want more, you go somewhere else. No one forces you to work for somebody. While you work for that employer, you owe him an honest day's work and he owes you pay and whatever benefits you hired on for. Going on strike to me is not an option. Especially when you are a public servant and even more when you are involved in public saftey. In Columbus Ohio, we have seen cops not only demsonstrating, but engaging in bully boy tactics against those who oppose their demands. Shameful.
As foe your comment that Andy Stern forced the mob out of the union, I don't know the facts, but seems to me he would have wound up dead for doing that.
Well Gary, I don't know the facts, but it seems to me that you would have ended up dead for putting large scale drug cartels out of business... Maybe the union bosses in the SEIU locals weren't connected with any big sources of outside firepower, or maybe the bigger players said, nah, your little graft isn't worth the flak we'd take if we made a hit for you.
ReplyDeleteI notice that while you addressed ONE of the TWO articles I posted, you tip toed around my well-balanced attempt to recognize certain legitimate management and employee concerns around the question of sick days.
Finally, your latest argument shows that I DID answer your question, and you DID read my answer, because you are offering a counter-point, as is your right, either as a matter of free speech, or because this is your own digital living room where you can say anything you want.
I agree that "While you work for that employer, you owe him an honest day's work." Somewhere underneath all the reality and rhetoric of class struggle, it is sometimes overlooked that any economy, any community, from hunter-gatherers on up the line, need people to do real work if we expect to enjoy real benefits. There was once a Catholic mother in Ohio who told her large brood of children "As they say in socialist countries, those who work will eat."
But I can see no real basis in the real world to assert that "No one forces you to work for somebody." That might be a true statement IF anyone who wanted to could head west, stake out a farm, and live by the sweat of their brow without being beholden to anyone. Given that most people depend on large, impersonal enterprises to hire them, and depend on a highly centralized and intercoordinated system of resumes, security checks, credit checks, and references, there is no "free choice."
In the other hand, a strike could be considered a way of saying "If the pay isn't good enough, nobody will work here until it is." You are happy to recognize that workers WERE exploited, in a raw, cruel, open and obvious way, as long as we are talking about something long enough ago that you don't have to take it seriously as a basis for policy now.
I see, in the last thirty years, the obvious signs that the robber barons, albeit much more sophisticated, and dressed up in the language of liberalism, are all too ready to bring those days back, in a sanitary pastel kind of way of course.
I miss the days when the United Mine Workers of America provided in its constitution that any person would be denied membership who had every belonged to the Nazi Party, the Communist Party, or the Chamber of Commerce. (The last of those three is the only one with power to do any real damage in this country now).
So what was the other article about?
ReplyDeleteI should throw your own words back at you. Did you read the post? Here, I'll give you a direct link to the specific article:
ReplyDeletehttp://siarlysjenkins.blogspot.com/2011/03/providing-sick-days-and-keeping-abuse.html
In the process of getting the link, I notice it is the first of the two articles, as they appear at the site.
But, here is the short version. One contentious issue is sick days. Unions, and many non-union workers, want paid sick days. A referendum in Milwaukee a couple of years ago, mandating sick days, passed with over 60% of the vote, which in America is a landslide. A circuit court struck it down, an appeals court recently reinstated it.
As a former shop steward, I know both how badly they are needed, and how easily they can be abused. There is such a thing as legitimate management prerogative, but it is more limited than most managers grab for. So I endeavored to develop a well balanced system with just the right incentives to keep it within the bounds of reasonable use, without a high rate of abuse. Try it, you might like it.
Next we could discuss how to apply the same principles to health care reform.