Posted on 09/05/2011 9:18:22 AM PDT by SmithL
California, like other Western states, was not fertile ground for labor union organization during the early 20th century, with Southern California employers being particularly hostile, even violently so, to union activity.
As manufacturing took hold in the state during and immediately after World War II, however, union membership boomed, particularly in the defense industry, topping out at about 40 percent of the state's workers in the 1950s.
The decline of manufacturing in the 1960s and 1970s hit unions hard, but they found a savior in Jerry Brown, who was elected governor in 1974. He signed long-sought collective bargaining legislation for farmworkers as well as teachers and other government workers.
Public employee union membership soared, partially offsetting decline in the private sector. Overall California membership stabilized in the high teens – 18.6 percent in 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, well above the national average of 11.9 percent.
On this Labor Day, it would be accurate to say that without more than a million public employee members, the California union movement would be virtually dead.
While more than half of the state's nearly 2 million government employees belong to unions, it's scarcely 10 percent in the private sector, . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Unions - funding the Democrat party.
Labor Day should be a memorial to all the jobs lost due to unions.
Well, today, it's more accurate to say "Your tax dollars at home" -- someone else's home, that is.
Ironic that Californians elected Governor Kevorkian, the father of the hypergrowth of the public sector union to resuscitate their dying economy from the grasp of the public sector union
And with those million public employee union members leaching the lifeblood of the California economy, it is virtually dead.
That's progressive-liberal speak for "the fruits of your labor being wasted on the undeserving".
Not really. It's always been about celebrating lazy union f-_ks.
On this labor day, it would be fair to say that...
Unions main purpose these days (other than to fund Demonrat politicians) is to protect the worthless, lazy people who would otherwise be unemployable. Speaking from experience regarding the Teamsters.
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