Posted on 03/28/2009 3:19:35 PM PDT by Michael Eden
Most kids are exposed to images of the union-busting and strike-breaking measures undertaken by auto-manufacturers and other industries during the early 20th century. You've probably been exposed to photographs and video of corporate thugs beating up workers trying to organize to improve their lives. You've probably seen pictures of "company towns."
Kids don't get to see the "busting" and "breaking" measures being taken by union thugs. And the mainstream media is ignoring the stories of union abuses going on right now.
Card Check Process Used by Union Organizers Ignites Fury at Indiana Plant: Union organizers are going to great lengths to get new members -- including harassing and intimidating company employees until they vote to join.News and Views from National Right to Work (nrtw.org) also carried the story of the rampant union abuse, and provide Youtube video of the story. Their first article links to this earlier one (which features additional supporting video).FOXNews.com
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
A bill working its way through Congress that changes how employees can create and join unions is facing tough criticism from workers who say it gives unions the green light to use aggressive tactics to get them to sign up.
The Employee Free Choice Act -- known in Congress as the "card check" bill -- calls for an easier system to allow employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations. Under the bill, employees can request blank cards from existing unions that employees can sign to express interest in joining the union. If 30 percent of employees sign the cards, companies can hold secret-ballot elections to decide on unionization.
But workers at the Dana Corporation Auto Parts plant in Albion, Ind., say the card check process has nearly torn the 50-person plant apart after harassment and intimidation from the United Auto Workers union forced them to a secret-ballot vote.
A union organizer came to the plant two years ago to ask employees to join the UAW because the company had signed a neutrality agreement with the union.
The meeting, however, did not go well, according to plant employee Larry Guest.
"He was using real rough language -- cursing. It didn't go over well with the women at all. There were a couple that just got up and left," Guest told FOX News.
Employees said union representatives approached them in the break room, at the plant doors and even followed them to their cars.
"He was just like an itch that you couldn't scratch. He just wouldn't go away," said employee Rita Murphy.
"After a while we realized he was going to be here morning, noon and night until he got his numbers that he needed," said Betty Pop.
Dana employee Jamie Oliver told FOX News that she was approached at her home.
"We're here in a little town and we're a plant of 50 some people -- you know the last thing you need is to have the union coming to your door saying I want your name," Oliver said.
The union's relentless approach, she said, eventually wore her down.
"When they approach you every day -- every day, every day," she said, "after a while it's like 'Okay. Fine. I'll sign the card.'"
The UAW collected the necessary signatures, but plant employees appealed to the National Labor Relations Board that ruled the employees could hold a secret election.
"When they held the election, there was no more union," said Guest. "Although it was close."
Now, employees say, the forced choice has turned friend into foe, causing some employees to be threatened by coworkers who had wanted the union.
One employee said she was threatened for her choice.
"I have my reasons for the way that I voted. That's nobody else's business, and had it not been for the card check, nobody would know if I was for or against," said Beverly Musolf.
The UAW declined to give comment to FOX News on the employees' complaints.
The latest version of the Employee Free Choice Act was introduced to both chambers of Congress on March 10, 2009.
FOX News' Brian Wilson contributed to this report.
Card check is an open invitation to union abuses - and the proof is in what they have already done with their card check opportunity.
We have to get the word out. We have to see to it that as many Americans as possible are aware of what happened in Albion, Indiana at the Dana Corporation Auto Parts plant. We have to inform the American people so they can resist this terrible measure. It amounts to a denial of the right to vote one's conscience, and it will be devastating to the economy.
We have already seen Wal-Mart stock go down as a result of the mere fear that Card check will become law. If it does pass, a lot of investors will come to the conclusion that profitability is gone and pull their investments out of businesses.
Call your elected representatives and ask them if they want to see workers being harassed and even intimidated and threatened into joining unions, such as what happened in Albion, Indiana at the Dana Corporation. We've got the precedent. Let's use it.
The union thug tells you to sign the card. You tell him no. You walk to the parking lot after work and you find your tires slashed or your car vandalized.
Union thugs come to your home and tell you to sign up. You say no. They say you have a nice family it would be a shame if something happened to your wife or kids. They leave and say, “Remember, we know where you live.”
The union thug tells you to sign the card. You tell him no. You walk to the parking lot after work and you find your tires slashed or your car vandalized.
Union thugs come to your home and tell you to sign up. You say no. They say you have a nice family it would be a shame if something happened to your wife or kids. They leave and say, “Remember, we know where you live.”
“Cities like Oakland will continue to wallow in their own sewage by giving into the 2% of the population that is holding them hostage. Shame on the press, the Oakland City Council and left backed groups like this for commmiting this outrage on all of us.”
You called the right targets in where to place the blame. The injustices in the last 40 years have been in allowing the screaming fascists of the left to frame the debate. By giving faux credence to the “racism” charges leveled in the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson cases, leading to rioting that was tolerated and therefor condoned, the 2 percenters have essentially thumbed their nose at America and formed their own lawless society. Lefties love to hide behind painting others as racists, homophobes and any other P.C. charge they can trump up because at the heart of it, they are soul less immoral criminals. Now they fill the halls of Congress and sit in the White House thumbing their noses at us.
I wrote:
Your two comments hit the head on the nail.
First off, the “2 percenters” appear to be those who suffer no moral restraints. They will lie, distort, and resort to intimidation tactics and even violence to get their way.
See, for example, the anti-Prop 8 crowd, engaging in harasment and intimidation to target people for the “crime” of contributing to the Prop 8 campaign. Is there an ANTI-anti-Prop 8 campaign to target homosexuals and those who contributed to the “No on 8” campaign? Of course not. One side practices restraint; the other has no restraint.
I just wrote an article on the “card check” issue - and how unions harassed, intimidated, and threatened workers at a Dana Corp plant in Albion, Indiana. Were the pro-union people harassed and intimidated? Of course not.
And now we have a man whose history shows one thing: Marxist activist. And the “2 percenter” view becomes the law of the land.
Somehow we've either got to stop these people from doing this crap, or start doing it ourselves.
How can anyone be surprised. This is the beginning of communists America. Unions will be one of the front line of thugs that rule by insane radical methods with King Obama at it’s head.
I am neutral on unions if ones has fair management one does not need them if management is not fair then unions can help even things out. They do some good but they also can do harm.
Both the communists and the Nazis started with organizing unions on their way to power. Unions were the base of both the communists and the fascists.
People don’t realize that the USSR stood for “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” and NAZI was an acronym for “National Socialist German Workers’ Party.”
Liberals love to call conservatives “fascists.” But they are wrong: fascism came out of the left - and they themselves are the fascists.
Does the “National Socialist American Workers’ Party,” sound like something that would come out of a conservative Republican movement, or a liberal Democrat movement?
detictive
I don’t know where you live but in my part of the country any union thug that would try that around here most likely would make it out of the yard.
I worked in management at a company that was always concerned about being unionized.
We followed the law very stringently - and were trained in what we could do and could not do.
We were not allowed to “pressure” workers into not voting union. Our efforts consisted of trying to stay informed as to worker issues/concerns, and making sure that no union organizers were allowed onto the premises, or to talk to workers on the premises.
In any event, if management didn’t follow you to your car while pressuring you, go to your home and talk to you at your home, make phone calls late at night, and threaten you, then your management didn’t do to you what the union organizers did to the workers at the Dana plant in Albion.
How come these people aren’t filing civil rights violations against the Unions? Again, liberal take action and file lawsuits, conservatives just complain and complain and complain...
Union thugs visited my brother at his home in New York. I don’t know exactly what they said to him but he felt strongly pressured and afraid. It was a group 3 of 4 at a time who would come to his home many times and they wouldn’t always leave when he asked them nicely to.
When I lived in Detroit several years ago friends would tell me about people who were threatened by the teamsters or who had their cars vandalized.
In today’s age and with youtube, I cannot believe there are not hidden camera gems of union thugs at work. People need to invest in a small video camera with a lipstick camera or a button hole camera and get this crap on the net.
BOOKMARK FOR LATER.
You're right. We need to get back to the "Minutemen" mentality. We need to stand up and fight, as opposed to simply allowing ourselves to be harassed and manipulated.
It took DECADES for a conservative organization such as the ACLJ to rise to counter the liberal ACLU. We need to pour into the breech, and stop tolerating the excesses of the left.
We should throw their own tactics back in their faces until a) they stop using them or b) we win.
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