Friday, February 25, 2011
I've belonged to several unions for brief periods, none of the experiences were satisfactory. I've also had views of unions from the middle-managers in my family, their difficulties with maintaining schedules, & with either demoting or firing incompetent or malcontent employees (usually they'd settle for moving these employees into jobs with no important responsibilities, at the same wages, but were prevented from doing do).
Public employee unions generally understand that times have changed. Right wingers publicize inflated salaries that are not representative of what most public workers actually earn. Anyway, many of these workers are highly-trained professionals - lawyers, CPAs, nurses - who choose to work in public sector jobs & ought to receive wages & benefits attractive enough to retain their services. But private sector workers most resent the generous benefit packages they were forced to relinquish as unionism declined (& fat cat AFL-CIO union leaders failed to organize growing service sector occupations). Of course, who would turn those benefits down if offered at the negotiation table? As contracts expire, these packages are renegotiated to reflect the current costs of health insurance, with union employees kickung in a larger share. In some places they have had really sweet deals. Pension plans have to change.
Republicans have gotten the idea that they received a mandate last November to bust unions altogether, run them out-of-business. I don't believe it. Wealthy conservative Republicans have always detested unions. Read the history of labor unionism in America. They hate being required to give workers anything - benefits, fair wages, safe workplaces. They still wish they could hire 12 year-old children to mine coal.
Thousands of Americans have died to organize unions, & they died because countless numbers of Americans died or were maimed from not having union protection & collective bargaining. Millions of Americans fought in WWII, in Korea & Vietnam believing one of the rights they were fighting to protect & preserve was the right to collective bargaining. We are betraying their sacrifices. Wealthy people were not killed by the thousands trying to stop union organizing. They hired thugs.
Public employee unions generally understand that times have changed. Right wingers publicize inflated salaries that are not representative of what most public workers actually earn. Anyway, many of these workers are highly-trained professionals - lawyers, CPAs, nurses - who choose to work in public sector jobs & ought to receive wages & benefits attractive enough to retain their services. But private sector workers most resent the generous benefit packages they were forced to relinquish as unionism declined (& fat cat AFL-CIO union leaders failed to organize growing service sector occupations). Of course, who would turn those benefits down if offered at the negotiation table? As contracts expire, these packages are renegotiated to reflect the current costs of health insurance, with union employees kickung in a larger share. In some places they have had really sweet deals. Pension plans have to change.
Republicans have gotten the idea that they received a mandate last November to bust unions altogether, run them out-of-business. I don't believe it. Wealthy conservative Republicans have always detested unions. Read the history of labor unionism in America. They hate being required to give workers anything - benefits, fair wages, safe workplaces. They still wish they could hire 12 year-old children to mine coal.
Thousands of Americans have died to organize unions, & they died because countless numbers of Americans died or were maimed from not having union protection & collective bargaining. Millions of Americans fought in WWII, in Korea & Vietnam believing one of the rights they were fighting to protect & preserve was the right to collective bargaining. We are betraying their sacrifices. Wealthy people were not killed by the thousands trying to stop union organizing. They hired thugs.
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
The Republicans seem to have forgotten that their hero, Ronnie, was a union man, who served six terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild, AFL-CIO related. He advocated for collective bargaining rights. But in this upside down, black is white, global warming doesn't exist, he-said, she-said mentality of the rich conservatives, Ronnie's support of unions is a not to be spoken about truth, lest the minions being fed their daily stupid by the media figure out the incongruity of this stance against unions.
Actually Carrie, you are wrong about Ronald Reagan. True he was President of teh Screen Actors Guild, but that does not make him a "union" man by today's standards. We cannot forget it was Reagan who so rightly fired all of the Air Traffic Controllers in 1981 for going on strike. As far back as 1973m when he was governor of CA, he is on record of opposing collective bargaining for public employees. Here's an excerpt from an article dates 10/19/2010 on www.calwatchdog.com.
“(A) time for action has come,” Walt Taylor of the California State Employees Association (CSEA) told Dills’ committee during a May 22, 1973 hearing. “We’ve been back year after year, asking for collective bargaining rights for state employees. The matter’s been studied and studied and studied. The reports have been issued and they’re being ignored.”
This wasn’t surprising. Ronald Reagan was governor, and his view on collective bargaining was well-known: “Oppose any legislation calling for collective bargaining for public employees,” stated one undated governor’s office memo found in the committee files at the Archives.
The unions have lost the support of most Americans. There was a time when they may have served a purpose, but like most things that time has passed.
“(A) time for action has come,” Walt Taylor of the California State Employees Association (CSEA) told Dills’ committee during a May 22, 1973 hearing. “We’ve been back year after year, asking for collective bargaining rights for state employees. The matter’s been studied and studied and studied. The reports have been issued and they’re being ignored.”
This wasn’t surprising. Ronald Reagan was governor, and his view on collective bargaining was well-known: “Oppose any legislation calling for collective bargaining for public employees,” stated one undated governor’s office memo found in the committee files at the Archives.
The unions have lost the support of most Americans. There was a time when they may have served a purpose, but like most things that time has passed.
# posted by 
: 12:49 PM
: 12:49 PM
He was a union man, advocated for collective bargaining. That he so easily flip flopped on real issues is another reason not to anoint him the status of revered saint of the republican party.
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