My hope is, actions have consequences:
Indiana’s House of Representatives approved a bill that would exempt nonunion employees from paying dues when working alongside union workers, a critical step toward final passage. “What you’re doing to the great state of Indiana, it’s a shame, it’s a shame, it’s a shame,” Democratic Representative John Bartlett said during floor debate as union workers shouted and jeered outside the chamber doors.
“This has nothing to do with busting unions,” said Republican Representative Jerry Torr, the bill’s sponsor.
Republican Governor Mitch Daniels, 62, who backed off a similar measure in 2011, supports it now, calling it a “bold stroke.”
Torr is lying, of course. His actions have everything to do with busting unions. While it’s true that Mitch Daniels “backed off” union busting in 2011, it is also true that Mitch Daniels assured union members he would not go after their jobs, but that was way back when he needed their votes. That’s the principled conservative pundits were swooning over Tuesday night.
Contrast Daniels, the current crush of national pundits, with Kasich, who is no longer the favorite of national pundits, on union busting, yesterday:
At a presser today, Governor Kasich got asked whether Right to Work in Indiana has any effect in Ohio:
“First of all, Indiana has a different set of government than we have. They don’t have any referendum or anything like that, and you can pass something if you’ve got the parties lined up. We’ve got a different situation here. And the one thing you have to do is, if you’re going to bring about massive change, that’s going to cause great unrest – I mean, I’ve learned this – is you’ve got to prepare the way. I mean, I’ve learned it. You take a look at our record, you know, you go out deep-sea fishing, you catch a lot of sharks. We’ve caught ’em. Once in a while the shark eats you, OK? That just happens, so what, that’s just part of life. But you have to prepare the public, and I don’t think the public even knows what this issue is. And believe me, they will find out what it is, with huge amounts of money coming in from all over the country. I don’t think the public understands it, I don’t think they’re prepared for it, and I would say that anybody that wants to move this thing forward needs to do that before anything else.
And in addition to that, I’ve just talked about the labor situation in the state, and by and large it’s been pretty darned good. At this point, I would say, if you really feel strongly about it, go out and tell people why it’s important”.
“Massive change” is how Kasich describes the coordinated conservative agenda in midwest states. Remember that when we hear again and again how Obama is a radical. This is going to be a really interesting issue in 2012. On the one hand, national conservatives selected Mitch Daniels to give the response to the state of the union, and on the other hand, recognizing political peril, former Fox News personality John Kasich seems to be in full retreat.
And then there’s Mitt Romney, who is keeping his opposition to private sector unions specific to carefully selected states:
If Republicans are going to make right to work a national campaign theme, they will need to do so cautiously, and South Carolina has given the candidates – and Romney in particular – an opportunity to test the waters.
I think the question becomes whether national conservatives can run on union busting in certain states, and not others, without revealing that union busting is in fact the conservative position. I’m wondering if they can pull that off. I’m certainly going to do my best not to let them get away with it, but we’ll see.
“The only serious opposition to the business lobby’s agenda comes from organized labor,” says Professor Lafer, who is also a research associate with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington and has advised Democrats. “There is a convergence of forces seizing on the right-to-work issue, saying: This is our moment to cut off our biggest opponent on a whole range of issues.”
True, that, and pretty scary stuff. In a country with huge income inequality, where working people have little or no leverage and no power unless they organize and get a seat at the table conservatives are taking the “only serious opposition” to the business lobby’s agenda completely off the field.
Massive change. Great unrest. That’s what Kasich said. Class war, indeed, and conservatives are waging it.
h/t to commenter Elizabelle for the Romney piece.
The Moar You Know
This is a nation where you really could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half. Of course conservatives can and will get away with this – you’d be surprised and dismayed at how indoctrinated the young folks are against unions these days.
Kay
@The Moar You Know:
Can you imagine the howls of outrage from conservatives and pundits if Obama had said this?
They’d treat this as the Saul Alinsky smoking gun.
Gus
Here in Minnesota of all places, we narrowly avoided something like this. If there hadn’t been a third party candidate running for governor, we might have wound up with both state legislative bodies majority Republican with a Republican governor.
General Stuck
Absolutely, but what has made them give up the long game of incremental and measured attacks on Unions? The GOP is smart enough, on the whole, to realize that 2010 was a historical gimme election for their party out of power, but have used that to launch full on bonzai attacks on dem institutions of political strength, and unions sit at the top of that list of right wing enemies.
I think it is several factors, and not necessarily their historic caretakers of plutocrat wealth. For them to go all in like this, with the massive political risk. I think you can also add other all out shameless, risky political behavior on the draconian voter suppression tactics at the state level from their 2010 victory. Now set on rock and roll.
It is the behavior of political terror within a dying party, as we have known the GOP. Demographics and the destructive economic effects of their 3 decades long assault on the middle class, lying to that group every step of the way, that they were looking out for them.
So all the bullshit is stripped away in panic, and we get what we have. Head long rushes for political suicide on a party scale. A herd of Wildebeast stampeding toward a safe harbor of pure ideology, complete with the delusion that that will be enough to save them. It won’t be, even for America’s sweetheart party
Shinobi
@The Moar You Know: It’s so true. I really had no understanding of how important unions are until I met some actual union members.
Cooincidentally those union members are the friends and family of my partner who live in Indiana. They are all pretty insenced about this new law.
That said they are going to have to get over all their anti gay racist BS to fix it. It is an interesting tension between their economic good and their social mores.
Linda Featheringill
If you want consequences for actions taken, obtain video of everything possible for later advertisements.
Video is the modern version of knit one, purl two.
Nicole
Thanks for continuing to highlight this, Kay. It just boggles my mind how, shall I say, trusting, of their employers the average American can be. At my old job, non-union workers were paid based on a 35-hour workweek. Union workers worked a 40-hour week. Lo and behold, the non-union workers were told that, in order to bring all the time sheets “into compliance,” they were going to be required to work a 40-hour work week, also. With no raise in pay, of course.
I have a friend who has been in a three-year (and counting) battle with her former employer, who trumped up offenses in order to fire her (she was at the top of the pay scale for her position due to her many years working for them and they wanted to replace her with someone newer and cheaper). She doesn’t have the money for the legal battle (the employer is a big telecommunications company). But she was unionized, and so the union is continuing to fight the case for her.
Unions are the shield of the American worker.
Southern Beale
Instead of putting their money into elections I wonder if unions wouldn’t be better served educating Americans about the benefits of unions to the labor market overall? We keep hearing that “right to work” states have lower overall wages but that needs to be demonstrated in a way that the average worker can plainly see and understand. People around here think of gangsters when they hear the word “union.” They’ve forgotten their history. They forget without unions we wouldn’t have what workplace protections we do have, especially in dangerous professions like coal mining.
They should never have stopped running those “look for the union label” TV ads.
Hunter Gathers
Forget it, Kay. It’s Indiana. There will be more commotion over Peyton Manning’s impending release than there will be over this.
Kola Noscopy
I am basically very pro-union, realizing that there are often a lot of abuses and corruption that goes on within unions and their leadership is all too often as thuggish as some of the employers.
But I think it’s an overall PLUS that unions exist compared to the horrors that companies would rain down on workers in their absence.
THAT SAID, I do not get why a non union employee should be required by company policy to pay union dues? Doesn’t seem fair.
If it’s a question of non union employees benefiting from benefits derived from union representation, why couldn’t the non union employees be on a separate tier that requires them to represent themselves and receive no benefits achieved by the union?
Can someone, non-hysterical preferably, explain that to me?
Thanks.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
They certainly are – in many ways. Another example is the image of Jan Brewer shaking her finger in the President’s face – she knows she’s better than him, even if he is the President, because he’s not like her. It’s appalling to see, and I can only image the shrieks of “treason” had Ted Strickland dared to look crosswise at W, much less shake a finger in his face. Not that Gov Strickland would have – he’s far too gracious and adherent to protocol for that sort of stunt.
But it’s just like when Kasich says you must prepare people for massive change, it’s fine for him to say that. But let a “liberal” suggest that you might want to prepare a populace for change, and it’s implementation of the radical’s outline for stealth society smashing.
It all makes my head hurt.
Martin
@Southern Beale: Those ads came out of the textile union, which is effectively nonexistent as that industry is effectively nonexistent in the US.
They stopped running because the union stopped existing, as did the label.
But these guys are walking right into Obama’s campaign message. The tax inequality and the labor issues and the invest in manufacturing all go hand-in-hand in his message. Bring it on. Let’s settle this.
danimal
@General Stuck: I think you have it mostly right, General. The GOP is going for the one-punch knockout because they know they can’t last 15 rounds and win on points.
They’ve been good at hiding the scope of their efforts and tried to present a moderate face on radical policies for decades now. Lately, the bag of tricks hasn’t been fooling people. This is their last shot, and they know it.
barry
@General Stuck: “Absolutely, but what has made them give up the long game of incremental and measured attacks on Unions? The GOP is smart enough, on the whole, to realize that 2010 was a historical gimme election for their party out of power, but have used that to launch full on bonzai attacks on dem institutions of political strength, and unions sit at the top of that list of right wing enemies.”
They felt that they were within reach for the final death blow. Pure and simple.
Davis X. Machina
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Republicans are monarchists. Opposition to the legitimate king, the Lord’s anointed, though he or she be ever so flawed, cannot even be contemplated (Romans 13, 1-2). But no allegiance whatsoever is due a pretender, who has not the Mandate of Heaven, rather the opposite — opposition to him is a duty.
Bossuet, not Madison, is the blueprint they follow.
The strangest journey by a political term in modern times is not the one ‘liberal’ has gone on, but the one undertaken by “Republican”.
barry
@Kola Noscopy: “THAT SAID, I do not get why a non union employee should be required by company policy to pay union dues? Doesn’t seem fair.
If it’s a question of non union employees benefiting from benefits derived from union representation, why couldn’t the non union employees be on a separate tier that requires them to represent themselves and receive no benefits achieved by the union?
Can someone, non-hysterical preferably, explain that to me?”
Certainly – because any time a company can split the workers, the company gains power and the workers lose power.
Roger Moore
@General Stuck:
I’m confident that they’re going into all-out attack mode, especially in the rustbelt states, precisely because they know that 2010 was a lucky year for them. They know they aren’t going to get a better chance to implement their regressive program, so they want to push as much of it through as they possibly can while they have the opportunity. They have a better chance of getting what they want by doing it now, losing the next election, and trying to defend the new status quo as the minority than they do of playing the long game and trying to win over voters. That’s especially true because a lot of their program is built around destroying institutions that would take a long time to rebuild. If they can smash the unions quickly enough, they’ll have an open field for quite a while even if the Democrats manage to end right to freeload.
General Stuck
@Roger Moore:
You give them much more credit for rational decision making at this point in time, than I do. And I don’t see anything rational about dealing all out death blows to unions in places like WI, OH, and even Indiana. Non industrial agrarian state economies like in the south, and intermountain west, but not the mid west.
They have had big majorities at the state level in the recent past, and at the national level, also too. Smells like fear and panic to me, largely fueled by the Obama presidency, and all that portends for the white party, at least in their paranoid minds.
jibeaux
Well, since Romney has claimed that health care reform is appropriate for Massachusetts but not appropriate for the nation, I feel confident he’ll find a way.
just me
If by ‘splitting’ the workers, you mean giving workers the choice of joining a union or not, I suppose some case can be made. But forcing non-union workers to pay dues just lines the pocket of the union. Unions are sometimes good, sometimes bad, just like all institutions.
Schlemizel
My fear is that non union workers may not see this as a bad thing. They may believe that it will allow them to get the benefits of collective bargaining for free!
They may not be bright enough to understand that what they are really doing is destroying the union so that their next gig will be at Foxconn US for $1.30 an hour.
Southern Beale
This video of this woman heckling Newt Gingrich while everyone around her calls her an asshole, moron, etc. is pretty amazing. This woman is my hero. I don’t know who she’s supporting but she should get a fucking medal.
Satanicpanic
@Kola Noscopy: Because other employees are going to benefit from the union does- either by better working conditions OR from the employer deciding to pay non-union employees more money in the near term, knowing that once the union dies it can go back to what it was doing before.
At any rate, forming a union is a democratic act, and democracy is not compatible with people opting out.
rikyrah
for every union member who voted Republican – no better for you
rikyrah
thanks once again Kay for connecting the dots
General Stuck
@Schlemizel:
Can you imagine the dissension in the ranks at places of employment if this were to come true. And I don’t think the wingnuts are doing this because they want freedom for workers to choose. They are doing, because that is what their rich masters want, but for winger politicians, it is now mostly coming from a personal desire to defund unions that organize and help greatly to elect democrats. IMO
Davis X. Machina
You’re wasting time with Kola Noscopy, for whom collective action problems don’t exist, because there’s no such thing as a ‘collective’, and free riders aren’t problems, they’re just enjoying already a state to which one ordinarily only aspires.
Jager
When I was a young lad,I worked for a company headquartered in Indianapolis. On my first trip there, I was astounded how “southern” it was, how racist it was, how many white belt, white shoe combos I saw and when I went out to a bar with with the VP of Sales his advice, “if you can’t get laid in Indy,boy, you ain’t got a dick”. Can’t imagine it has changed much since the 70’s.
(A friend of mine who lives in suburban Indianapolis told me the other day that if you make a reservation at St Elmo’s Steakhouse for Super Bowl week, it costs $150 just for the reservation!)
General Stuck
though it is true that the 2010 elections provided majorities in these state legislative bodies to where dems couldn’t block them, and have winger governors. So there is that on the opportunity side of the debate. Or, maybe its all these things together to where they made the leap to kill unions outright. But it should be obvious they are going to pay a price at the polls, at least for the next election, and likely beyond. Like a lunch pail republican I read the other day said. “they hit us where we live”. That isn’t forgotten easily.
kideni
Thanks for pulling this together, Kay. A pretty useless poll came out here in Wisconsin yesterday, and if you only look at the headlines, it looks good for Scott Walker. If you look at the actual details, though, among other questionable criteria (heavily polling conservatives) it underrepresents union households as probable voters. As We Are Wisconsin pointed out in a press release, do they seriously think union households are going to have lower turnout for this recall election than they did in 2010?
PeakVT
Yes – unless we get a new media corps.
honus
@just me: You can’t have some workers pay union dues and some not. The union will improve the pay and conditions for all workers. (unions may be good or bad as you say, but this mainly relates to the nature and efficiency of their tactics. And corruption, of course. But very few unions get by with exploiting their members for the benefit of owners) The workers that don’t pay dues are free riders.
Violet
@Schlemizel:
If unions had any sense they’d show video and images and quote interviews with Foxconn workers over and over in union states. “This is what no union gets you.” “This is what you get without collective bargaining.” They’d have to frame it better, something along those lines.
Republicans would push back, which would open the door to discuss discrepancies between right-to-work states and union states in health, education, etc.
Kola Noscopy
@Davis X. Machina:
Hmmm…I guess you missed the part where I wrote this:
“But I think it’s an overall PLUS that unions exist compared to the horrors that companies would rain down on workers in their absence.”
So where unions are concerned, NO questions are allowed, bozo?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@just me: I’m in Texas, one of the right to work states. The only unions that exist in large numbers that I know of are assocated with federal government contractors. A company will not deal with a union unless it has to. Why would it? And a company, given a choice of hiring someone in a union and someone not in it, will choose the person not in the union. A consequence of this is that wages and benefits are lower in Texas than in states that require anyone that works at a union company to be part of the union.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
My hope is that Democrats will start voting in off year elections (and no, I’m not talking about the base).
Comrade Dread
Well, yes, they will be able to say one thing in one state and one thing in another.
That’s the advantage of touting state’s rights and Federalism, is that if they’re called on the carpet for it, they can simply say, “Well, union busting will work in Indiana, but not in Michigan. If Michigan wants unions, they can keep laws favorable to them.”
Left unsaid, of course, is that the ultimate end game will be to create a rush to the bottom with states trying to out do one another on wages, tax rates, environmental laws and enforcement, work place regulations, legal liabilities, and all of the other things that might impact a business’ bottom line.
They want to bring globalization home, in the sense that they’d love for businesses to get away with sweat shops and third world wages and conditions here.
Southern Beale
@Martin:
Oh, right thanks.
I did a post a year or so ago on the movie Norma Rae. Huge movie, big Oscar winner, about a union organizer. These days you’d have Tea Party boycotts and a smear campaign by the GOP PR firm of Russo, Frank & Marsh and their phony front groups.
Judas Escargot
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I was thinking Deval Patrick, who started his first term while W was still President.
The local newspaper comment sections here in MA would have gone red with rage as the turnips searched their thesaurus for synonyms for ‘uppity’.
nancydarling
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): It has been quite a few years, but there was a long article in Harper’s magazine about a series of fatal explosions in petro-chemical alley east of Houston. Companies and contractors were hiring non-union people for really dangerous jobs. They were not trained, some were unable to read English (and not just because they were foreigners) and the result was really unsafe working conditions for everybody.
The Other Chuck
@just me:
What’s your opinion then of the non-union employees gaining the benefits of collective bargaining without paying for any of the expenses for the legal process involved? In most states, the union isn’t even allowed to exclude any employee from their collective bargaining agreements, union or not.
Right to Freeload. Right to Work you to death.
Roger Moore
@General Stuck:
That’s what I mean about them knowing it’s the best chance they’re going to get. They know they haven’t been able to get away with killing unions before, and they see they’re never going to have this kind of majority again any time soon. They’re trying to get their shots in while they can. It’s not as if they’re going to be able to implement right to freeload in Michigan, Ohio, or Indiana by patiently waiting and trying to convince the voters about how evil unions are. Instead, they’re going to take advantage of their chance, even if it means they lose.
And it’s not as if the Republican rank-and-file have to decide this for themselves. They’re taking their marching orders from their governors, who are taking their marching orders from the Koch brothers. If the Kochs say it’s time to move aggressively, it’s time to move aggressively. It doesn’t matter if that’s because they think 2010 was an anomaly or because the Kochs just don’t see a better chance of getting their Libertarian nirvana before they die.
artem1s
@Kola Noscopy:
we had a couple of posts on BJ about the TN community where one had to buy fire insurance if you lived outside the city and wanted to be covered by the municipal fire department. People generally will talk themselves into NOT buying insurance and play the odds.
Instead of thinking of it as dues, think of it as insurance and it makes a whole lot more sense to require an opt in. Or realistically, assurance, as it is a given that the CEO is almost certainly going to promote policies that will benefit his bottom line over that of labor.
negative 1
@Kola Noscopy: Because the contracts we bargain apply to all workers, or at least all workers get some benefit. So even if a union worker gets $20/hr. while a non-union worker gets $18/hr. (which is pretty unlikely, although theoretically possible) the company is unlikely to drop the non-union wage to $10/hr. because those affected would just join the union. That only has leverage against the company because the union exists.
I work in a union-shop state and people working in a union shop but unwilling to join pay an ‘agency fee’, a calculated % of the active union dues. We here in the union have to make available a report outlining how much was spent on representing workers as a % of total expenditures, and then that ratio is applied to the union dues to come up with the agency fee. So it’s not like if you’re working under a union shop you’re held at gunpoint and forced to join. You’re just expected to pay for the benefits you are receiving.
Linnaeus
@negative 1:
This is worth emphasizing. You can’t be forced to join a union as a condition of your employment. If you’re in group of workers represented by a union (a “bargaining unit”), you can be required to pay a service/agency fee if you elect not to join (this would be stipulated in what’s called a “union security” clause in the collective bargaining agreement). The rationale is that since all workers in the bargaining unit benefit from the contract and from union representation, they should all contribute. The union is required by law to represent all workers in the bargaining unit, whether they are members or not, which is called the “duty of fair representation”.
kay
@kideni:
Thanks. I did see the poll, so it’s worthwhile to read some (local) analysis/context.
I think Kasich is trying to take this issue off the table for 2012 in Ohio, and that interests me. If they thought this was a political winner, they would be crowing about it in ALL of these states, instead of just some.
What bothers me is how this is portrayed. If a liberal came into a 50/50 state and pushed thru really “massive” changes, he or she would be called “radical”. But that’s exactly what conservatives are doing in these states. They’re pushing through a really far Right agenda, in swing states.
You can’t get much further Right than Mitch Daniels. He’s privatized, sold off assets, deregulated, subsidized business interests, and busted unions. It’s the conservative-libertarian wish list. Yet, again and again, because he’s a conservative and not a liberal, he is portrayed as “moderate” or “sensible”.
That simply isn’t true. It’s a lie. These are NOT hard-Right states, and this is a hard-Right agenda. I simply want it called what it is.
Daniels isn’t even moderate on social issues. His school reform is a quid pro quo to the religious Right, and his abortion stance is draconian.
kay
@kideni:
The thing that is keeping me hopeful is this: Kasich had massive institutional support on Issue Two. He had every Ohio newspaper. He had national pundits, who were making bank trashing public employees and moaning about austerity.
It didn’t matter. The truth of the thing trumped a massive pressure campaign. People were lectured and hectored by all manner of “betters” that they had to accept this, and they completely ignored that, and voted it down.
So. Hopefully we’ll see voters move in that direction again in 2012. Hopefully there will be the same sort of disconnect between “our national conversation” which is dictated by whatever the conventional wisdom is, and, well, VOTERS. If nothing else, that’s a lot of fun, watching pundits and prophets get smacked like that :)
PWL
I wish I could feel sorry for blue-collar workers, but I can’t.
They were apparently only too happy to let their unions die after St Ronnie’s election. They seemed OK with corporations taking pensions away from them, among other things. And they’ve seemed perfectly OK with swallowing whatever red, white and blue bullshit Fox News feeds them, without bothering to take the time to find things out for themselves–and then voting against their own interests.
If they can’t or won’t defend their own interests–unlike their fathers–and insist on calling progressives “Unamerican” or “fags” while cheering on Republican idiocy,then I don’t see why I should care if they slit their own throats.
AA+ Bonds
This is what I mean when I say that conservatism no longer exists
AA+ Bonds
@PWL:
You should slit your own throat
AA+ Bonds
Hang all Koch employees
AA+ Bonds
Anti-labor trolling is for dickless shitheads
Chris
@PWL:
Well, it’s not all blue collar white workers, for one thing.
But for another, I’ll disagree with the “unlike their fathers” assessment too. Their fathers were the same as they were. They loved Democrats, unions, the welfare state and the entire New Deal because it was all about them. But when the Dems started focusing on Other People’s Rights – black people, other nonwhite people, gay people, women – that’s when a ton of them jumped ship and went for Nixon, then Reagan, then all the rest.
Tone In DC
Kay, great post.
Daniels sounds like he’s worse than Luthor (Rick Scott) or Jughead (Scott Walker).
AA+ Bonds
Don’t fucking engage with the Koch employees, just point out that they’re poor and ugly
AA+ Bonds
The real problem with unions among people who criticize them online is that unions have big strong men in them and their critics fear the big fully developed dick of the Union Man
They love it and want to touch it but are afraid their own baby penises will shrivel into their stomachs if they see one
AA+ Bonds
The real problem with unions among people who criticize them online is that unions have big strong men in them and their critics fear the big fully developed dick of the Union Man
They love it and want to touch it but are afraid their own baby wee-wees will shrivel into their stomachs if they see one
priscianusjr
@Roger Moore:
priscianusjr
@just me:
Benjamin Franklin
@priscianusjr:
I understand some of the ambivalence about unions and the baggage they bring.
But you have to understand the History.
The Fat Cats have always exploited labor. That’s what they do. Unions were created to level some of the ground.
Unfortunately, (ex Hoffa) the Fats hired goons and paid off the local law enforcement to discourage organizing. Hoffa, had no means of protecting his people, so he hired Organized Crime to help, and once they’re in, they won’t go away.
That bent the spine of Unions to perpetuity. But, during the70’s (remember the Hard hats and Reagan Democrats) and 80’s Unions forgot their roots.
They’re discovering their Roots, again. Hope it’s not too late.
Roger Moore
@priscianusjr:
What do you expect from somebody whose screen name is “just me”? Did you expect somebody who was capable of thinking about the collective good, or understanding that things other people do to benefit themselves might also benefit others in the same group? You should expect somebody like that to be a selfish asshole.
Chris
@Benjamin Franklin:
Related, I promise:
A week or so ago I posted about how political machines, who used to be the backbone of the Democrats, are now only a shadow of their former selves, if they even still exist. (And got a fairly good and detailed explanation of why that was for my trouble).
In a similar vein, I’m surprised by how the union/organized crime connection’s become so dead. You’d think that after 1980, with Reagan turning the federal government decisively anti-union (and de facto bringing things back to the Fat Cat/Hired Goon/Paid Cop trifecta), unions would’ve started reaching out to mob allies again. Granted, the mob isn’t what it used to be either, but there’s other criminal (gang and such) elements around too.
I’m not even advocating that, just registering my puzzlement that it hasn’t happened. Or has it in fact happened, and is it just something I don’t hear about much?
PWL
AA+plus bonds:
Unfortunately,your level of argument is not much above that of the knuckle-draggers and mouth-breathers of the Fox News crowd. I don’t fear you–I’m just sorry that you show such a low level of intellectual development.
Chris:
You may have a point. But–anecdotal evidence–in my area of the world, it’s the blue collar types who spout the most rabid anti-Obama rhetoric, buy totally into whatever Fox News says, and look at you like you’re insane if you suggest that maybe the Republican party doesn’t have all the answers. Some of these folks actually seem to think it’s great that unions are about dead, cause Real Murikans “make on their own,” apparently without ever realizing that it was unions which got them a lot of the things they have –and at a cost in blood.
After a while, one gets tired of dealing with what seems like willful ignorance and an absolute unwillingness to consider anything outside the received wisdom of Rush Limbaugh. So you might forgive me if I appear to have lost patience with people who don’t seem to care about protecting their own interests. Maybe this just caught me on a bad day or something…
Benjamin Franklin
@Chris:
In a similar vein, I’m surprised by how the union/organized crime connection’s become so dead.
Many things contributed, but I would guess RICO had a major role.
Benjamin Franklin
@PWL:
Maybe this just caught me on a bad day or something…
I didn’t want to interrupt the fistfight, but I saw your point, and concur a little.
Unions became a liability, as nearly any bureaucracy will be, given time.
Linnaeus
@PWL:
Maybe it’s just me, but my (anecdotal) experience is quite different. The most pro-Obama people I know are the blue-collar union folks like my family, former co-workers, and fellow union members from other union. They do the phone banking, they organize the rallies, they pound the pavement trying to reach other voters.
The most anti-Obama people I know? Mostly white-collar, professional types with college degrees (or at least some college education), who all work in IT, services, or something business-related.
buckyblue
@Gus: That’s what we’ve got here in WI. The feeling is certainly here that if they want a revolution on their hands, they’re going to get one. To the pitchforks I say, to the pitchforks.
HRA
In my working career, I belonged to 2 unions and I have worked in non-union jobs as well. I do understand why unions are important. I can also state they can be detrimental as well.
IOW they are able to tick you off in the least and you can have a really bad experience from them as well.
Where I work we have 2 unions. One is for the professional and the other is for the lower level. The professional union sent out a ballot recently asking for permission from SUNY to drop any political activity through the union. Am I wrong in seeing where this move is going and who the target is at this late date?
just me
I’m a bit bemused by folks decided on my nature based on my handle. I rarely post here, so when I decided to, I just picked the first thing that came into my head.
It is true that non-union employees may benefit from union efforts. It is not true (or at least not clear to me) that they will always benefit from union efforts.
I am well aware of the history and value of unions. That doesn’t mean they are a perfect institution, of course. There are no perfect institutions. It seems to me that there could easily exist an individual who didn’t want to join a particular union. Forcing him or her to support it seems unfair. There is also the rare case of workers who have religious objects to paying dues. In some cases, alternatives are offered, but certainly allowing an individual to be a non-fee paying non-union worker seems appropriate. What if an individual has an object to the methods/goals of the union? Must they be forced to support it?
Chris
@PWL:
@Linnaeus:
Both noted… and as with Linnaeus, my anecdotal evidence is quite different. Then again, maybe that’s because I don’t hang out in especially blue collar environments. But I’ve got quite a few friends who come from that background and are as liberal as you or I. (Actually, those guys are the ones who taught me to HATE Reagan’s weasely black guts).
And agree with the white collar thing, too. I’ve met blue collar Republicans, but the most activist, hardcore ideological Movement Conservatives I know are people who graduated from college with me and are now working some white collar job or other – ironically, most of them are in some government department or political organization or other.
All anecdotal, and skewed by my white collar upbringing, I admit, so, take it for what it’s worth.
Benjamin Franklin
@just me:
Let me ask you; do you subscribe to cable tv? Would you like it if someone patches in without paying, while you pay the monthly amount?
Why would anyone pay dues if they didn’t have to?
kay
@just me:
Well, no, but there won’t be any unions under your scenario, so that’s the trade off you’re making.
What no liberal who objects to unions has been able to give me is an alternative. I know perfectly well unions aren’t perfect, and trade offs are made. The fact is, though, no one has come up with any other way for middle and working class people to apply even a small amount of leverage or clout, due to their own collective efforts.
Without unions, you’re relying solely on regulation, and government. Unions were a response to the fact that government wasn’t doing anything to protect workers. Regulation followedfrom union demands. You’re enjoying protections earned by union members right now. So am I. Where do you think all these worker protections came from? “History” isn’t abstract. It happened. Do you really think employers and politicians offered all the federal labor protections we enjoy? They gave nothing. It was all earned. No one gave us a 40 hour week. It took collective action.
It simply won’t work if it’s all up to individuals to act solely in their own best interests, because the whole point is collective action.
You really do have to choose. You can’t have both things.
kay
@just me:
And you can choose. That’s an option. You can decide that your right not to contribute is a higher priority than membership in, and the existence of, unions.
What you can’t do is have both.
I would argue that you can’t (realistically) assume you are going to retain any of the protections that union workers earned, because they didn’t always exist, and there’s no guarantee that they will continue to exist. I would bet the other way, in fact. I think things like “overtime” probably go away rather quickly once the organized opposition to business interests is gone, but that’s another trade off you may, of course, make.