Blog
State of the Unions
August 18, 2011
I still remember the smell of that locker room.
Every summer during college, I worked at a plant on an industrial island in the Mississippi River. Corn syrup (the fructose in our soft drinks) was the main product, although we also loaded some impressively big barges with some sort of cattle feed.
Hours were long, days were hot (try working under a giant dryer turbine in July), and we all wore long-sleeves and jeans, plus steel-toed boots and hard hats. And were thrilled to do it.
The college program was a great deal and we knew it. A kid couldn’t make that kind of hourly wage, not anywhere. That’s why we jumped at every chance to work more: 12-hour days, seven days a week. They literally had to make us go home. We were disgusting, ripe messes by the time we got there, but we were happy.
And that was before that first paycheck came. I tore it open in the men’s locker room and couldn’t believe my eyes. It was more money than I’d ever earned in my life. I was grinning like the guy on that Enzyte commercial.
Unfortunately for me, a union employee saw the whole thing. He asked me what I was smiling about, and as only an idiot 19-year-old can, I told him. Bad move.
The next day, our supervisor brought us the news: the union foreman had gotten wind of how much the college kids were making, and from now on, overtime was gone. This in spite of not one single full-time (unionized) employee ever wanting to work more than a “straight eight”.
That was my first experience with unions. They didn’t seem right back then, and they don’t seem right these days. Oh, I know they put into place some needed protections (and things like weekends) way back when, but there had to be a reason even my grandparents and their co-workers at the sewing machine factory wouldn’t have them in their workplace by the 1940s.
Fast-forward to now. We look across the nation’s landscape and see states (if you can even call it one anymore) like California. Once the capitalist miracle of both America and the Pacific Rim, the eighth-largest economy on the planet is now more akin to that of a third-world country. It’s tens of billions of dollars in debt. And owned lock, stock and barrel by Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—the mother of all public (read: government) employee unions.
Move to the Midwest and it’s no better: the United Auto Workers (UAW) union finally killed the goose that laid the golden eggs in Michigan, and now I guess we’re all part-owners of lovely downtown Detroit, courtesy of those federal government bailouts.
Right next door is ground zero. Wisconsin. Whether it’s the governor’s Budget Repair Bill that finally brought teachers’ unions to task or the average state taxpayer reconsidering public employee unions’ right to collectively bargain in the first place (a “right” that FDR, Samuel Gompers and George Meany—presidents of the U.S., AFL and CIO, respectively—were against, by the way), the state capital of Madison has been white-hot all winter with scheduled votes, a dereliction of duty by Democrat lawmakers, pro-union protests, and anti-union counter-protests.
Three special elections later (failed recalls of a state Supreme Court Justice and Republican legislators—with a recall for Governor Walker still yet in the works), the unions’ back has been broken. Tens upon tens of millions of dollars—much of it from out of state—plus floods of volunteers from nationwide affiliates have all seen their efforts wasted. The country is finally waking up to the fact that a transfusion of socialism into the body politic is simply bad medicine.
Americans just want to work. They understand more government (and more government employee unions along with it) just doesn’t cut it. And they vote with their feet: moving across the country to get to states and places like Virginia. Texas. Tennessee. Right-to-Work states led by business-friendly elected officials. States that have free markets, and low (or no!) taxes. And jobs. Lots of jobs. Not to mention that certain air they have about them.
That air with the smell of freedom in it.
Why are we conservsatives still referring to “collective bargsaining rights”? We should call them for what they are and always were: “collective bargaining privileges”.
As every friendly little Marxist agitator knows, “He who defines the terms controls the debate.”
Pleae remember to define terms so we can take control.
It’ll never change. Those that are in the Union, think they’re gonna be set for life, when they retire. BOY, have they got a shock coming!!! Between the union crooks at the top, and the government in their back pockets, “Kicking that old can further on down the road”, that when they retire, there’ll be nothing left for them. As with ALL Socialism, those at the top GET, and those at the bottom GIVE. Should give anyone a pretty fair idea, of what will be left. The politicos in most, if not all states, just as the government, have been putting those magical mystery I.O.U.’s back in the bucket for many years now. So, if you’re lucky enough to be able to spend them, then more power to you!!!!!
IT IS ABOUT TIMR AMERICA WOKE UP! MY FATHER TOLD ME ABOUT THE GOOD OLD DAYS WHEN THE UNION WOULD TAKE BATS TO PEOPLE AND EQUIPEMENT TO INSIST COMPANIES GO UNION FOR EVERYONES OWN GOOD. LIKE YEARS BACK WHEN YJR TRUCKING UNIONS WOULD SHOOT AT ROARWAY TRUCKS BECAUSE THEY WERE TRUCK DRIVING SCABS! ON AND ON HE WOULD TALK LIKE A PROUD ASSHOLE HE WAS!
My experiende with a union was during a summer job in the early 60’s. I was working in a freezer in an ice cream factory when the supervisor called me into his office. There were two other men there from the union and they proceeded to tell me the advantages of signing up with the union. That just meant that I had to pay dues. When they were finished with their “sales pitch” I asked “If I don’t sign up I get fired -right?” They said “Yes”. I told them to sign me up. I felt like I had a thief with a gun to my head selling me on the idea that I should give him my wallet.
‘Collctive Bargaining’ – ‘Union Dues’ – ‘Union Leaders’ …
I was privelged to serve 20+ years in service to our Country.
I began my career as an Airman Basic – went through the Aviation Cadet Flight Program – 242 combat support missions during the Vietnam War, flying a KC-135 air refueling missions – 6,000 hours of flight time – had a couple of ‘close calls’ with ‘SAMs’ …
Now that I look back on it, why didn’t WE – as members of the US Military – NOT THINK ABOUT UNIONIZING?
We could have gone ‘On Strike’ because we were forced to fly some two to three missions a day – had really horrible living conditions – had some ‘non-union’ guys (the Viet Cong) trying to do us in – had lousy food – very few clean latrines – hard beds – Oh, I DO remember: at EVERY duty station, there was a woman behind every tree – BUT NO TREES!
Now that I think about it, I don’t think we had the material to build signs that read: ‘NO PAY – NO WORK’ – ‘WE DEMAND COLLECTIVING BARGAINING!’ – and, probably, “I demand that my cockpit be ‘green’ – and painted blue – and have all of my ‘personal needs’ be administrated to … AT ALL TIMES!’
Trumpka: Do we know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried?
You can take your ‘Unions” and their RICH ‘Bosses’ … and go to where the sun-don’t-shine!
We here in Texas have the EVERYTHING going for us:
NO STATE INCOME TAX – AND A ‘RIGHT TO WORK’ STATE!
Get with it, America … take another look at the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights!
After the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, a woman asked:
‘Mr. Franklin … what do we have?’
‘A Republic, Madam … if you can keep it.’
We MUST keep it … and we MUST get those Union ‘Thugs’ out of our face!
thecolonel
Here in California we have Grocery Workers voting to go on strike. I over heard one employee complaining about not being able to pay all her bills, because the store where she worked wanted her to pay a larger portion of medical benefits. Hey lady, cut back like every one else does. My wife and I are retired living on a fixed income. We’ve learned to live within our means. Remind me NOT to shop at that store. I’ll go where others are grateful just to have a job.
My son got a job 5 years ago when he was 19 at a factory outside of Dallas, TX. His starting pay was $9.oo hr. Within 2 years he was up to $19.00 hr. The union tried to get him and others to join. He told them he didn’t need to pay a union to keep his job for him. This company took good care of their employee’s. Now if you didn’t show up to work and do your job, they didn’t keep you.
I also know of two different people in other states, who actually made more money not working than they ever did on the their UNION JOB. Their problem? Mental job stress. Of course they were government unions. The union reps were at their homes continuously counseling them on what they needed to do to remain on their “disability”
Unions have always been about the union management and never about “workers.” The union bosses promote mediocrity because it is a lot easier to keep a bunch of folks without ambition in line than it is to hold back a few go-getters from leaving the union fold. So this is why you see so many drone-like people with red shirts out demonstrating at union protests.
I was a member of two unions early in my life (forced by law if I wanted those particular jobs) and it didn’t take long for me to figure out who were the bosses and who were the slaves.
First “real” job I ever had, at 15, was in a Safeway supermarket. I had to join the “Retail Clerk’s Union”. I was forced to borrow the $75.00 initiation fee ($75.00 was real money, at least to me, back then) to be allowed to go to work.
The RCU really stuck up for me…they got me about $0.26/hr more than minimum wage, which was just enough to pay union dues every month. When my manager happened to find out my religious background, he found a reason to fire me. There was no question about what he did and he didn’t even try to hide it. I spoke with the union boss who told me, in essence, “Tough luck, Kid”.
Forty years later and things really haven’t changed much. Unions are the last bastion of old “smokestack” America. They outlived their usefulness by the dawn of the 1970s. If you have any initiative or individual skills or desire to excel in your chosen field, the last place you need to be is in any union.
Why is it bad for employees to negotiate for corporations and good for corporations to dictate prices. Note the recent rise in bank fees by the same companies we bailed out 2 years ago.