‘Unions Have Made America Great’

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/01/12/unions-have-made-america-great/

By Mike Hall, Jan 12, 2008

In Brandon, Miss., members of UAW Local 2402 last month spearheaded several fundraisers to buy presents for children who were facing slim holidays. They also have pitched in with Habitat for Humanity to build new homes for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Local Vice President Tracey Daniels says:

Our local is always joining in with the local community to help and give back to those in times of need and those less fortunate.

Local 2402’s story is one of several new member-submitted stories and profiles that are part of the UAW’s new interactive website and ad campaign—I am the UAW—launched last month. Click here to read more from Daniels. The ad campaign highlights the union’s new interactive website, which encourages UAW members, family, friends and supporters (including friends in other unions) to tell their stories and submit photos, podcasts and videos to the site.


Members of UAW Local 2402 in Brandon, Miss., reach out to those in need in their community.


John Havens, from UAW Local 2164, says some of his friends and neighbors in Bowling Green, Ky., tell him he doesn’t live in the “real world” because his UAW job has given his family a living wage and comfortable life.

They have no voice in their job. The rules change without notice—even the days you should report to work. Then they go to work and are disciplined and a 50-cent raise taken away. I’ll say “they can’t do that” and the response is: “You don’t live in the real world.”


FULL story at link.

All through the Fifties, Sixties, Seventies and Eighties (until RayGun started the Union busting trend of the Reich wing) Union Membership has guaranteed a better than living wage for tens of millions of American families.


Let's hope when the Rethugs are gone next year, Unions once again regain their prominence.

Because without Taft-Hartley, there could not be a "right-to-work" state anywhere in the Union.

Unions have also driven tens of millions of jobs overseas through demands that the market couldn't maintain.

There was a time for unions, and they did their job well. That time has passed and unions are now an enormous drag on our economy.

"Until we get real wage levels down much closer to the
Brazils and Koreas, we cannot pass along productivity
gains to workers wages and still be competitive"

(Stanley J. Mihelick, EVP Goodyear Inc. NYT, June 4,
1997)

pnorman

The reason unions came about in the first place is because of 3rd world wages. That's all the businesses want, really. Slave labor that is easily replaceable if they dare to ask for anything beyond that.

Where I work, they demand sacrifice after sacrifice during the bad years, and we get nothing extra during the good years.

Do you really want to stay in the gilded age???

the Neanderthal capitalists are still haunting DU...

That was the first time I had ever laid eyes on him, let alone had heard of him. He was "working the crowd", and later appeared on the speakers stand. I was impressed! Later that year, I was marching in support of striking hotel workers by SeaTac. Dennis was there too, and he went down each picket line there, shaking hands with each and every one on those lines.

pnorman

John Edwards has helped workers start unions. (He didn't spend all his time in Iowa, as some seem to think.)

zalinda

Kucinich is a union card carrying member. He has perhaps the best record on labor of all the candidates. Hillary is married to a former (AFSCME) member. Edwards has been in a picket line several times the last couple of years including the Goodyear strike (USW) and Smithfield (UFCW). Biden was elected to office by labor and has never forgotten that. Obama too supports the working family and labor movement. Governor Richardson rates well (especially AFSCME) too. I don't know much about Gravel.

None of the Dems have crossed a picket line that I know of. TWO reps have in the last couple of months. One had just been endorsed by an international union. They are rethinking their position now.


Unions past their prime? That shows ignorance or bias. Compare the US to other industrialized countries. New laws passed since 1980 have been the biggest factor of labors decline. Last August the NLRB overturned most of 60 years of labor law. But in the last two years while working families have been in rapid decline, the USA has 3 million newly organized members. That says it all.

You mentioned Edwards has. You mentioned Kucinich is a union card carrying member.

"None of the Dems have crossed a picket line that I know of."
That's different from actually WALKING a picket line in support of union workers.

And that's my whole point.

What Dem candidates have ACTUALLY WALKED A PICKET LINE in support of union members?


<edit to add> Kucinich walks picket line
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/4283/1/186

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-nevada_thujan10,1,3188680.story

Leaders of Local 226, which is dominated by casino and hotel workers, said they backed the Illinois Democrat because he has been "a champion of working Americans" and understands unions.

"He was one of us. He was an organizer," said D. Taylor, the union's secretary treasurer. "He organized workers and families in the worst neighborhoods in Chicago. He has walked our picket line at the Congress Hotel in Chicago where we're in the fifth year of the strike."

This isn't hard to do. Try it.

How many people have actually LOOKED?

How many people have actually asked the question? How many people have GOOGLE'D to find the answer?

Thank you, Omaha Steve, for proving my point.

And I thank you for all of your contributions to DU on labor issues.

Sorry I misunderstood. I enjoy talking labor anytime. Thanks for the kind words too.

Can anyone find a link where Hillary actually walked a picket line?

What must be bore in mind is that the labor movement has been under savage and well financed attack for as long as anyone can recall. But it picked up intensity greatly since the Reagan so-called "Revolution"

Until the passagage of the Norris-Laguardia Act in 1932, unions were pretty close to being illegal. Any jugge could issue a crippling injunction for "restraint of trade", and many did. Here's one example:
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The judge who issued an injunction against the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in Philadelphia in 1922, declaring that "This organization is no corporation, should have no legal recognition and should be driven out of all existence as a menace to the nation" was an extreme instance, yet he helps to explain labor's ingrained fear of judicial control.

http://newdeal.feri.org/survey/sg41577.htm
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And in the Thirties, in many workplaces, it was a firing offense to wear a union button! THAT is the "Right To Work" "culture" that Corporate America would like to return this nation to. I'm not denying much narrow-minded and destructive "self-interest" in the American labor movement; and "thuggishness" too. Not surprisingly, most of that is displayed by the most "Right-wing" (and Bush-supporting) unions!

pnorman