Replies

...the times they are a changin'....

Just a little change of pace, if anyone's up for it....

Er...ignited methane from a rotting corpse.

And I love your FR name....

I just love classical Jimi Hendrix music...

I've been a union member, and have always been dis-satisfied with the Union being engaged in politics, always supporting a party I could not stomach, and forcing me to pay dues to the union for it to turn around and give to some Jerk who wanted to tax me more.

I've also had strict orders from my shop steward not to produce that extra pallett of product for the company when I finished my "quota" early. This for a company I owned Stock in, as well as worked for.

Unions have LONG ago lost any pretense of being for the Little Guy, and are some of the most corrupt organizations in America.

And it shows, Union membership is at rock bottom.

I can only hope the individual unions breaking away from AFL-CIO will take heed of their memberships wishes, and leave the political crap out of it.

/rant

It seems logical the Teamsters would be among the first to notice that they'd hitched their wagon to a stump.

I am a Union member and have disagreed with their political alignments for a long time. After the 2000 election our members were polled anomyously about why membership was divided by not showing a strong pro- Gore vote.
The results.......gun control was a biggie. Most of our members are avid hunters and shooting enthusiasts and did not trust Gore potentially tampering with the 2nd Amendment.
Abortion. Pretty much self explanatory about the divide between religious views.

Now since the union's candidate Kerry was defeated soundly in 2004 the leadership, at least in our union (BAC) our leaders are seeking out labor friendly candidates rather than following party lines. There has been a division in the membership because endorsing party elections has not helped the cause of labor. It has been recognized that particular candidates, rather than particular partys can do more for protecting good paying jobs, benefits, and job safety than partys that cannot be elected. it has been acknowledged that there are good candidates on both sides of the aisle.

Organized labor recognizes that if America is to survive, we cannot export jobs, we cannot work for less, and we have to have medical insurance and pensions. Allowing any or all of those issues to be discontinued and America will begin a slide to be equalized with the 3rd world when it comes to our standard of living.

There are those who think Union workers make too much. But the flip side of the coin says lawyers and doctors and pro athletes and CEO's and stockbrokers make too much also. As Americans we all have to get along and patronize our companies and businesses and pass the money around. Someone will always be overpaid and someone will always be underpaid. But the people who earn enough to own a house and a car, send a son to college, seek medical care without the hospital owning the house are the backbone of America.

Being pro labor and pro worker is a good thing. As Americans, United We Stand, divided we fall. Same with Union workers. If we let others dictate how much money they think we should make we will never prosper. If we do good work and have a good work ethic we should be justly rewarded the same as if we do shoddy work be reprimanded.
The free market decides value, not politicians.

These free trade agreements like CAFTA and the WTO and NAFTA stifle competition and set arbitrary limits on wages and productivity. High oil prices are hurting us all. The middle class cost of living wage increases in America is not keeping pace with inflation. And since most Union workers are middle class Americans we are neither robbing the bank or collecting welfare. But to hear some people scream that Union workers are making too much money is bulls*hit. It seems to be vogue to accuse workers of breaking the bank. Forget Enron and Global Crossing and Tyco and unscrupulous accounting fraud and how much that costs America.

Yes the times are a changing. America is going to meet the 3rd world and we all will lose, except the filthy rich who will still have their nest egg and the influence it buys.

The plain truth is that the unions are the members and not the leadership, and when, in any political organization, the leadership forgets this, the members tend to remind them in precisely this fashion. "When, in the course of human events..."

From what I know, I think you're right. I wish my union had followed suit.

The old labor model was based on organizing and negotiating wages and benefits -- things upon which all (or nearly all) of it's members could agree. Politics beyond that, while heavily slanted to the Dems, was at least slightly non-partisan. To wit: Labor would support Republicans who were friendly to their interests and, generally, eschew issues in which they had no stake and which might divide their members (gun control, abortion, school prayer, etc).

Under Sweeney that all changed. He made the AFL-CIO a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. That meant signing on to "non-labor" issues and dumping a ton of money into campaigns, most of which were failures. It served to both alienate much of the rank and file and, also, Republicans who might have been predisposed to support some of labor's issues. It also sent a signal to Dems that they could take "labor's" support for granted. That's a bad move at any time, but it's especially ridiculous when redistricting and simple mathematics guarantees a Republican majority in the House until a least 2012, and in the Senate until at least 2009.

Sweeney is either an idiot or he's been bought an paid for by the DNC. I'm guessing the latter.

The other evening, a local agent for a union of highly skilled professionals told me that he was hearing from the AFL-CIO that the Teamsters were in a cash bind and could not repay borrowings from the AFL-CIO. In time, we will know more, especially as new union financial reporting requirements go into effect. I surmise that a lot of problems and chicanery will become evident.

Why Did the AFL-CIO Self-Destruct?

In a word: greed.

The very notion that a service or labor provider can set his own worth, kind of distorts the whole notion of "free exchange" and "private enterprise".

Doesn't it?

I'm a County Public works employee that's a member of SEIU which was affiliated with AFL-CIO. The guys I work with who are all truck driving, gun owning, church going conservatives are fed up with our union giving money to anti gun, pro tax increase, pro illegal immigrant, pro homosexual agenda democrat politicians.

As road and bridge construction workers we realize that under democratic regimes the likelihood of us actually building roads and fixing bridges is nil. Especially in Oregon the faggoty pedophile controlled democrats believe in increased density, urban growth boundaries, zero constuction, traffic "calming", illegal diversion of gas tax revenues, increased bike lanes, and astronomically expensive ineffective light rail projects.

We are also fed up that come contract time, we are sold down the river because the Union won't pay for a professional contract negotiator and lets the elected local union busybodies negotiate with the professional paid negotiator from the management's side. The reason why the Union won't pay is because they have no money left after all the democratic mafiosi get to "dip their beaks".

Is that clear enough?

Unions broke up because there's not enough dues money to pay all the corruption and bribes to the top leadership.

Plus kick in millions for Democrats who never get elected....hahahahahaha

Well except form Illinois and Jessie Jackson jr., Dickhead TurdBin and Mayor Daley.

A major factor = JOHN SWEENEY, one of the leading 'Hate the United States' Socialists!

"What I’m mainly interested in here is: What do you, dear reader, think about these potentially momentous developments?"

The short story is that Big Labor screwed the pooch.

Big Labor has been giving all of its political contributions to Democrats. Those Democrats fail to share the core values of union members (e.g. on gun control, abortion, gay marriage, public religious displays, fighting terrorism, urban sprawl, new jobs from drilling for oil in Alaska, national missile defense, etc.).

Compounding that problem has been that Democrats have lost all national power. Republicans now control the House, Senate, Presidency, most state governorships, most state legislatures, and even have most registered voters.

...And while Big Labor has been spending every last union due dime on Democratic Party politics, union membership has been in a steady decline.

But wait, there's more. Big name Democrats such as Senator Kerry voted *for* NAFTA and were rewarded with union endorsements and union dues for campaign contributions. Ditto for VP Gore in 2000...whose White House not only signed NAFTA but who also went to Japan and signed the Kyoto global warming nonsense that would have wiped out 5% of all U.S. jobs (had President Bush and the U.S. Senate not killed it).

So Big Labor is backing candidates who are supporting NAFTA and Kyoto...treaties that are designed to break the working man.

And it doesn't stop there. Big Labor backs major homosexual candidates such as corrupt New Jersey Govenor McGreevy, even sending union "volunteers" to aid his fund raising and get out the vote efforts. Big Labor tells its membership to *support* the gay pride parades and the anti-job "environmental" parades (e.g. Earth Day), as well as to support anti-sprawl inner city local candidates. Well, what are carpenters supposed to think when you tell them to go support inner city candidates who are advocating shutting down new home construction?!

...And you can be pro-gay all day long, but backing the expansion of healthcare coverage to gay "couples" is about to wreck General Motors and Ford. Even if you are pro-gay, how "pro-gay" is it to kill off all union healthcare for everyone?? Because that's precisely what is going to happen when GM and Ford go bankrupt. No more jobs, gay or straight, means no more healthcare for *either* "partner."

So is anyone really surprised (besides the corrupt old news media, anyway) that we're seeing private sector unions flee from the hyper-liberal public sector union leadership?!

Should anyone truly be stunned to see a few unions calculate that rather than piss away union dues on out-of-power Democrats, that perhaps there are *other* ways to spend their dwindling resources (e.g. on organizing Wal-Mart or Fed-Ex)?!

How suicidal would unions have to be to continue more of the same?!

Thanks for all of your input (some of which is a little more than moral courage for speaking out).

I love my union even with its problems. There were moments when some of the "brothers" tried to educate me with with the democrat mantra. But that doesn't go far in a state that loves the 2nd Amendment. Many of the arguments were easy to counter, and the older "brothers" didn't offer much resistance when I chimed in:

"There are too many guns in America, they should be banned."

I replied, "So, you want President Bush to have all the guns?"

"I don't think our fore fathers could envision the assault rifles of today."

I replied, "Give me a break, you know weapons as well as I do. The muzzle loading rifle of the time WAS THE ASSAULT RIFLE OF THE DAY. A good rifle shot straighter and further than field artillery. Our boys were not only a great shot, we were armed to the teeth. We HAD to be. There were hostiles on both 2 and 4 feet that wanted to eat our lunch. Who's making you speak this crap?"

Then some of the subtle threats fell out of the old timers pie holes:

"You know it wasn't so long ago that if a member didn't toe the line, they'd find their legs broken."

More members than I replied, "Bring it on. This is post 9/11 America and we're not going to live in fear. We're still armed to the teeth, and a good shot...remember...you taught us along with our military associations. We're not afraid to spout our opinion right back in your face, and especially if we don't agree with it."

But here's another reason why I like my union. The union president himself has said on more than one occasion that President Bush has been good to our union and industry. The union could endorse either 2004 political candidate without favoring one over the other. But then again, aside from the union president having two big brass ones, he is an old Irish salt. So, I bought him a Catholic Mass card for being so courageous especially when he's surrounded by very real thugs who could show him where the fishes sleep.

To counter the political B.S., I prefer that every dollar of every political fund be tracked and published to the public (not just membership). This hurts the corrupted politician because now Senator Slug will have his name attached to the bill titled "Gentleman's Club, Lap Dance with the works". That is, unless the union leaders use there own strip joints free of charge to grease the wheels of gov't. Hey, I said that my union favored Republicans as well as Democrats, I didn't say that the leadership were a bunch of altar boys.

My union competes against other unions and we kick ass. I work my butt off for my money along with the others. We compete with not only other Americans, but also the rest of the world. We can't afford to screw around with B.S. labor strikes price hiking. We've been sticking it too other unions because that's what they've been doing. Slackers in our union wait in the union hall because the union allows the companies to hire who they want and bar the non-hackers.

Sure, I've got a great health plan that deteriorates at times. But the medical industry is becoming more of a free market now that the "health care" lie is dying. By the time our dental plan went toothless, we were literally getting discount coupons on our door knobs and in the mail as if it were a garage shop oil change special..."teeth cleaning two for one, bring the whole family. Need a cap 1/2 off the original price, etc." Now only if the rest of the pharmaceutical industry went globalized...

Unions are as necessary as the 2nd Amendment. When someone abuses the right to bear firearms, all Americans suffer. Unions won't become a 4th column because businesses will always find or make a hustling union (like mine) to stick it to the fat, dumb, and lazy unions. Maybe my leaders aren't the most innocent of union leadership, but they run our organization like a business and they reinvest in the membership. If they didn't have both the management and membership's interest at heart, they'd be buried--literally.

Hell has frozen over, pigs can fly, and monkeys are coming out of my backside!

I never thought there would be a reason for me to go and pay good money to see Blue Man Group.

But the times they are a changin' ...