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Ding! Ding! I live in what used to be considered the second most radical union county in Iowa, after Ottumwa. The union has screwed the workers over so many times that they have no credibility.

Case and point: Keokuk Steel Castings here is in deep financial trouble. They make exceptionally good wages for here, $15 per hour on up. They told the union to take a 90 cent per hour pay cut or they would have to move to Mexico. The union turned them down flat. That will mean 500 jobs, and they will take their sanctimonious moral victory right to the unemployment line.

It isn't like they will find another job that pays close, and they could care less. Hell or high water they are going to 'screw the man,' even if it means leaping on their own flaming sword. You simply can't maintain popular respect if you are willing to sacrifice your family's future for some self-righteous moral high road.

Same idiotic thinking in SC. Here the Union workers refused to save their jobs at Georgetown Steel. M. Sanford, SC Governor tried to help, he got concessions from the Electric Power company and arranged to assist in negotiating with all parties including the union "Leadership". Appears the workers were actually asked for only minimum concessions, but no no,no, who can believe the lying oppressive Capitalist...now after the shutdown the local "news"papers are full of the whining, blaming screed from these workers and their "Leadership", they (the workers)are faced with, maybe, finding local jobs at 33% of their previous GS wages and no/minimum benefits.....it sure is a hard lesson to learn....ie; coming to terms with one's own stupidity.

Keokuk. Vacationed there close to 55 years ago on the Illinois side. Swam in the Mississippi at a place called Chutes Beach.

I'm originally from up the line, Davenport. I can remember during WWII and shortly afterwards it was one of the important industrial areas in the country.

The union has screwed the workers over so many times that they have no credibility.

A dozen or so years ago, the union lads/lasses thought they would call the shots at a number of factories here in NE Iowa, and most of those facilities have either shrunk, moved, or had the work outsourced to Asia. The loudmouths now have to go hat in hand seeking lower paying jobs because some activist asses just had to be bellicose. Whether the old firebrands are reflective enough to see that they screwed themselves remains a mystery to me.

There is always some fresh fool that doesn't get it though- the hospital my wife works at just voted in the SEIU because a majority of the nurses were pissed off at "the man" (this not long after the hospital unknowingly hired a nurse who was revealed to be a professional union agitator, BTW). Now, they will not only have to still contend with "the man," but they will find out how much fun it is to also contend with "the goons."

And I doubt that Howard Dean will be giving them any refunds.