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This isn’t about people that command a wage with their own skillset. They don’t need a union. A union is for those that don’t or can’t. If they’d rather work for less, more power to them. I wish their trailer park well.

123

Unions had no one but their selves to blame for Taft-Hartley.

After World War II, they went bat ■■■■ crazy with power.

They caused enough disruption that they brought Republicans and Democrats together to reach a 2/3rds majority in both Houses of Congress to override Truman’s veto.

Prior to Taft Hartley, companies were essentially helpless and at the mercy of organized labor.

After Taft Hartley, the playing field was level.

Ironically, the unions in Britain brought about the same result. The Winter of Discontent of 1978 to 1979 directly led to the election of Margaret Thatcher, who enacted reforms similar to Taft Hartley to bring the British unions under control.

What is more telling is that later Labor governments have never undone those reforms.

Taft Hartley was needed, its overwhelming bipartisan nature makes that self evident, as does the fact that Democrats have made no serious effort to undo it, even when they have had the power to do so.

And specifically, I have zero desire to see the return of the closed shop, secondary boycotts, ad naseum.

124

Yes, crimes are often hard to prove. How many times does someone steal from Walmart before it’s proven and they’re arrested? These days, we don’t even arrest them in some places. Let’s not pretend the corporations are evil monsters out to screw you over as a general rule.

125

I have no college degree. I’ve worked my way up the food chain and I’m now the VP of Business Development. While my bother sat around depending on the union to fight for his rights (electrician), I was busy working my tail end off and doing what others didn’t want to do. Every time my company had a new challenge, I took it on. They never heard “not my job description”, and they still don’t. I’m a senior level manager and a few days ago, I was in the shop running wiring because we were way behind. Then I come home and run my woodworking business. It’s my retirement project because I can’t sit still. I’ll retire at 55 and I’ll probably spend the next 20 years building my woodworking business. It’s growing faster than I wanted. :))

Seriously, I’ve worked overseas with unions and they’re some of the laziest and most useless workers I’ve ever worked with. If it’s not directly in their job description, they flat out won’t do it. That’s really sad to me because most of my knowledge was gained doing things that I wasn’t hired to do.

126

We are not Sweden, so who cares about what Sweden does or their workers do.

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127

So, we should never look at ideas that work in other societies, on the basis they come from other societies?

That is a stupid way to go through life…

128

When it is a direct comparison, sure, take a look at it. We are not Sweden, i get it, you want/need someone to fight for you, I don’t. I have seen what unions do, i have seen how unions turn friends into enemies, i have seen how unions “protect” their members when a company comes thru the plant halfway thru a shift and tells everyone to shut it down we are done, too bad, those that spent 20+ years working for a pension lose EVERYTHING. What did the union do??
Not a DAMN thing, those union bosses didn’t lose their jobs, retirement, homes. Third shift came in to find the gates locked, didn’t even get paid for the hours they already worked. What did the union do??
NOTHING.

So forgive me if I don’t give a damn about unions, their bullying tacticts, etc.

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129

There are good unions, and bad unions. That does not mean unions as an entity are always corrupt or useless…nor does it mean they are all perfect.

The concept of unions (democracy in the workplace) can be very effective.

Maybe if the congress was not owned by corporate America, unions would be stronger, with the appropriate oversight.

Most of western Europe celebrates May Day, to honor unions. We do not.

Ths USA was a big factor in the success of unions…and yet today, we have less unions than most western Europe.

They took our idea, and made it work, better than we did.

130

Not everyone is that ambitious. I believe you make your own bed. My wife was more like you. She rose in management. I never really wanted to put in the effort. And naturally, I got back what I put in. That’s how it works. But at the same time, and with a union, I don’t have to worry about ■■■■■ supervisors.

You’re absolutely 100% right about job description and unions. Those rules are put in to prevent management from abusing their power. Even though it’s usually just one or two jerks. But I found in many cases employees will sometimes do extra for those they respect. Many won’t even do that.

131

Please let me know if I’m misunderstanding you - but you blame the union for the company shutting the plant down?

What do you think they could have done?

132

Your opinion, not mine. You want to join a union, be my guest, but don’t force me to. It is as simple as that.

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Yep, as usual you misunderstood. The union did jack ■■■■ to help the members, zero warning, post-shutdown, did ■■■■■■■■■ for their members. You cannot tell me union leadership had no idea this was coming, yet, absolutely no warning.

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134

A lot of those guys, I knew them and their families and they lost everything. So yea I get passionate about it, try to imagine spending 20-25 years in a hell hole steel mill, melting in the summer, freezing in the winter, just waiting for the day you can retire and get that pension. Just to show up for 3rd shift and find the gates locked and news crews with cameras in your face asking your reaction.

Here is a decent short history of the plant. My dad was lucky, he retired after 33 years about 2 years before the first closing. I worked there for 3 years after I came home from the military. I had an “easy” job in the core room, he was on what was called “18 gang” where they hand made specialty molds. He witnessed more deaths than one outside combat should. His good friend dropping dead from a heart attack, a dismembered head landing at his feet after a maintenance guy literally got his head cut off by a crane, in the short time I was there 2 guys were killed and I nearly had my neck crushed from a mill operator who would get stoned at lunch and while I was on the mill 20 feet up dumping in iron oxide into the mill he allowed the mill crane to unlock and swing towards me. How my dad survived with nothing worse than a sprained ankle was a miracle. Union protection my ass.

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135

May Day is to honor workers in general. Not specifically unions. I celebrate May Day as a non-union worker.

I support unionization in general, as I believe that all workers have the right to organize to better their conditions, although I understand why many people have a nasty impression of them in the United States.

There was too much overreach in the 70s. Too many unions not willing to compromise with management. Dragging down the companies they were supposed to be working with to create better conditions for their workers. Making them uncompetitive with the influx of new ideas of production efficiency out of Japan. Losing market share and profit and then forcing cutbacks to the very workers they were supposed to protect.

In spite of that, I believe that a good union and good management who work together and find compromises can better the lives of their workers. And I fully believe that a happy worker is a better worker. Had that experience myself.

Early on at my job I went through a string of store level, district level, and regional level management that were just trash. Incompetent, egotistical, not putting in raises for us when they were supposed to, making unreasonable demands, the works. Even lying to us about how the benefits system really worked to improve their internal controllable expense numbers to get more money.

Once that RM and his cronies all the way down to the individual store levels were kicked out and fired (turns out they were all committing some kind of internal fraud, karma always gets you) and we had new blood come in charge, the environment changed overnight. And I became a much harder worker because of it. Even inspired me to give management a try. Did it for three years, hated it. Went back down the ladder a bit into a position I had never tried; commercial sales. Ended up really finding my groove. I’m damn good at it.

Would have been nice to have a good union though. We all complained up the ladder about what was going on, but of course it’s extremely difficult to fire management in any company. Took them all really ■■■■■■■ up and not covering their tracks to get them out of there.

It’s funny. Once we were a new RM (who is stern, but he’s very fair) and a new team of DMs, the regions sales shot up 200% in just two years. The lesson is, keep your workers happy. Treat us fairly and with dignity. We will take care of the rest.

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136

Sometimes it just doesn’t even matter if there is a union or not. You can’t combat stupidity, with or without a union.

One of my first positions on the management side was a beef slaughterhouse in Pennsylvania. At the time it was union, but not longer is.

Among other personal, I inherited a maintenance guy who was not the brightest bulb on the earth. He was caught several times violating maintenance protocols, including lock out/tag out. Some of them before I came on board, the last couple afterwards. He had been previously disciplined on a progressive basis and on his last disciplinary issue (violation of lock out/tag out), he received a two week suspension and was formally notified another violation would result in his termination.

As it turned out, about 4 months later, he committed a violation and was “terminated”, just not by me. He stepped into a beef grinding machine, not locked out or tagged out. An employee started it up. He barely had a chance to scream. By the time they got the machine shut down, there was literally nothing identifiably human left, other the remnants of his clothes and possessions.

I was sued personally by his widow, along with the company, but both the company and I were exonerated at trial and he was found 100% at fault for his own death. Both the previous manager and myself had kept exacting records of disciplinary procedures, he had been retrained on lock out/tag out procedures when he came back from suspension and we had kept good records including of the fact that he indicated in writing that he was familiar with the procedures.

He had nobody but himself to blame for his death.

Union neither was good nor bad in this situation, and actually pretty much just stayed out of the aftermath. You can’t cure stupidity.

137

Several years ago, I was sent by corporate to investigate reports of union activity at a unit where there had never been any discontent.

It took be me literally a matter of hours to find the culprit. A manager who was basically Adolph Hitler incarnate. Rude and totalitarian. Booted him out on his ass and replaced him with a decent manager. Things went back to normal almost immediately.

Sometimes one ■■■■■■■ is all it takes to stir up discontent to the unionization level.

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@Safiel

This place had a record of OSHA violations, millions in fines from both OSHA and the EPA. Management only cared about pushing finished castings out the door and the union did jack ■■■■ to improve anything. The “green hats” (union stewards) looked the other way most of the time, only reason I worked there is because my dad did, wanted to work with him. The fact he made it thru 33 years with only a sprained ankle was due to him, he told me my first day “remember your Marine training, be aware of your surroundings”. That saved my ass more than once.

It was hard work, but satisfying because we kept the trains rolling, literally.

I am not so much anti-union, more anti-bullying, “not my job”, mentality. Also, what many people seem to either ignore or overlook is anything one “gains” from contract negotiations, they lose something else. If one wants a union they should do their due diligence, personally I won’t join one.

139

You are not required to work for a union shop.

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What is the history of May Day?
May Day traces its origin to the labour union movement in the United States in the 19th century. The Marxist International Socialist Congress adopted a resolution in 1889 stating that employees should not be forced to work for more than eight hours a day. Following that, it became an annual event.

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Yes that was the original start.

It’s morphed since then. A lot of non-Union workers celebrate it as well. I consider it a celebration of workers in general today.

All workers should celebrate it and reflect back on the struggles of our proletariat forebears. Men who fought for our right to dignity and respect in the workplace and the right to organize to challenge oppressive management. Some of them died fighting oppressor enforcement like the Pinkertons for the future of the common laborer.