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Unions Keep Losing Members -- Can They Reinvent Themselves?
Forbes ^ | January 29, 2015 | George Leef

Posted on 01/29/2015 9:23:04 AM PST by reaganaut1

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To: reaganaut1

if they stopped carrying water for the democrat party, and did what they are paid to do - advocate for their members - they wouldn’t be in this mess.


21 posted on 01/29/2015 10:43:50 AM PST by camle (keep an open mind and someone will fill it full of something for you)
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To: reaganaut1

So when US Corps off shore manufacturing jobs now they are pretty much off shoring non union jobs. Great. < /sarc >


22 posted on 01/29/2015 10:47:34 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: FrankR

People don’t like unions except democrats and well paid union bosses.

Has anyone here ever organized and attended a trade show? As a CNC Machinist I attend the WESTEC shows and once set up a booth at a show in Anaheim.

If you want to see unions in all their thuggish goonery set up a booth at a trade show. Those A-hole are the most crooked useless SOBs you will ever come across. You can’t even wipe your nose without a union worker, his goon supervisor, and goon boss charging you $500.

Not an exaggeration... At a trade show in Florida I was attending a booth with a large aircraft company. We were not allowed to carry our own boxes of sales literature. A union moron was ‘handling’ the box and was required to take his union mandated break and put the box on the ground rather than finish taking it all the way to the our sales tent union goons had set up. It was about 100 yards. A huge rain cloud opened up and it began pouring down rain. One of my colleagues picked up the box and carried it after it had been raining for a few minutes destroying most of the literature. The idiot union bosses came and furiously yelled at all of us and threatened to fine the company for doing what must have been done by a union member.

Maybe it’s just a case of 99% of the bad ones giving the 1% of the good ones a bad names. Unions can go the way of the dinosaurs as far as I am concerned. The death of unions is a good thing.


23 posted on 01/29/2015 10:54:50 AM PST by Organic Panic
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To: reaganaut1

Is a union necessary if the government forces businesses to do what the union would have demanded?


24 posted on 01/29/2015 10:57:34 AM PST by School of Rational Thought
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To: reaganaut1

Until the unions come clean with their tactics and how they are using the dues for their political gains. They deserve what they get. I was in the Teamsters and AFSCME and then the PSCOA all three have reasons to exists but when it comes to the memberships rights to direct their dues it is impossible.


25 posted on 01/29/2015 11:26:53 AM PST by Busko (The only thing that is certain is that nothing is certain.)
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To: reaganaut1

The union thugs are waiting for the illegal alien invaders to sober up and finish coming “out of the shadows” so they can sign them up as union members at the same time that they are filling out the DNC’s voter registration forms.


26 posted on 01/29/2015 11:30:05 AM PST by FlingWingFlyer (When the hell do I get MY white privilege? I'm tired of busting my @$$ for a living.)
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To: MrB

Indeed. And public employee unions membership has increased. What a racket! They don’t have to worry about the employer losing money so they can demand anything they want.

“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.” FDR

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15445


27 posted on 01/29/2015 11:33:09 AM PST by Rusty0604
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To: MrB
They need to address the question of what purpose they serve, and be honest about it.

They're the hardest left of the left.

They cannot be honest. That's why I chuckle about unions somehow becoming entrepreneurial.

You can elect Putin in fair elections, but you'll still have the KGB mindset. Same thing.

28 posted on 01/29/2015 11:45:53 AM PST by gogeo (If you are Tea Party, the eGOP does not want you.)
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To: MrB

Government unions are the only growth area. Private unions are still shrinking. That’s why right to work for government employees in Wisconsin drew national attention and $$$.


29 posted on 01/29/2015 11:47:48 AM PST by gogeo (If you are Tea Party, the eGOP does not want you.)
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To: MrB
I'm not "pro-union" in the sense of the current Democrat inspired monopoly structure, but I do believe in the right of free association in the construction of contracts. If unions were competing businesses marketing teams of skilled workers and seeking to maximize their added value things would be very different. It's the NRLA of 1933 that's the problem.

They need to address the question of what purpose they serve, and be honest about it.

It is observable elsewhere what happens without them.

There is really no need for “collective bargaining”, other than enriching the union heads.

Actually, collective bargaining can lower costs of negotiation with goodness knows how many individual employees. It depends upon the situation.

On the job safety is no longer an issue.

If you were a hospital worker handling ebola patients or their waste products, I'd bet you wouldn't think this was true. There are lots of jobs, from tree climbers to fishermen, or mining that are still very dangerous and do benefit from new equipment cash-strapped employers are otherwise loath to buy.

30 posted on 01/29/2015 11:55:17 AM PST by Carry_Okie (Those who profess noblesse oblige regress to droit du seigneur.)
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To: Organic Panic

I knew someone who was setting up their booth and the workers put a bunch of paint cans right in front of it. Soon after a union fork lift driver ran over the paint cans splattering paint all over the merchandise. It was a very unhappy and expensive situation.


31 posted on 01/29/2015 12:03:12 PM PST by ladyjane
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To: stephenjohnbanker; MrB; fieldmarshaldj; AuH2ORepublican; BillyBoy; GOPsterinMA

I’d go even further, bring back the spoils system so a Republican President can fire them all. Instead of an independent civil service we have a democrat civil service at all times.


32 posted on 01/29/2015 2:26:11 PM PST by Impy (They pull a knife, you pull a gun. That's the CHICAGO WAY, and that's how you beat the rats!)
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To: Impy; stephenjohnbanker; fieldmarshaldj; AuH2ORepublican; BillyBoy

Anything’s better than the “system” that’s in place now.


33 posted on 01/29/2015 4:41:13 PM PST by GOPsterinMA (I'm with Steve McQueen: I live my life for myself and answer to nobody.)
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To: MrB

I had to in-process into a government job in 2010. At the end of the processing business....the union rep for the organization came in to give a ten-minute speech on the union. Thirty of us in the group. At the end, she hands out the sign-up slips...none were given back to her. Zero new members from my group.

A month goes by and I bring up this topic with a guy who’d worked for the organization for ten years. Roughly 1,500 civilian employees within this agency. As far as he knew....probably less than a hundred who were union members and they were from the 1980s period when hired. No one had interest in the union, and none wanted any “assistance” by the union, or wanted to contribute any funds to the union.

Maybe other gov’t agencies are different. Maybe there’s still some willingness to play into this. But I think it’s a dinosaur presently, and dying off slowly. And I should note this....I quit my government job in the summer of 2013...dissatisfaction was primary reason to leave....they can’t fix problems, accept change, or think outside of the box.


34 posted on 01/30/2015 2:52:45 AM PST by pepsionice
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To: stylin19a

“...immigration amnesty...”

...should be called the great Democrat Party Voter Registration Drive for Democrat Government for Eternity.

IMHO


35 posted on 01/30/2015 5:01:25 AM PST by ripley
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To: The_Reader_David

“...using their members’ dues to advance left-wing candidates and causes...”

In other words, using their members dues to advance the cause of international communism.

IMHO


36 posted on 01/30/2015 5:03:41 AM PST by ripley
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To: Impy

http://chicago.suntimes.com/bears-football/7/71/330625/charles-tillman-good-vibes-bears-meeting-john-fox


37 posted on 01/30/2015 5:33:10 AM PST by GOPsterinMA (I'm with Steve McQueen: I live my life for myself and answer to nobody.)
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To: GOPsterinMA

If Tillman is healthy and willing to take a reasonable salary I’d love for the Bears to bring him back.


38 posted on 01/30/2015 6:21:46 AM PST by Impy (They pull a knife, you pull a gun. That's the CHICAGO WAY, and that's how you beat the rats!)
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To: Impy

No doubt! And I bet that will exactly happen.


39 posted on 01/30/2015 6:48:02 AM PST by GOPsterinMA (I'm with Steve McQueen: I live my life for myself and answer to nobody.)
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To: Impy

Yep.


40 posted on 01/30/2015 7:16:58 AM PST by stephenjohnbanker (My Batting Average( 1,000) (GOPe is that easy to read))
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