Unions and the Truth, page 1

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Topic started on 26-3-2011 @ 05:09 PM by OLD HIPPY DUDE

I thought with all the anti-union B.S that has been spewed here, a refreshing look at the truth might be in order
Please try reading the whole post before you anti-union mouth pieces spew any more lies.

Having been a member in several unions in my life I admitt there are some problems that clearly exist , but to suggest that we throw out the baby with the bath water is moronic.

There are those that insist unions consist of liars,thieves, thugs and murderers.
So lets take a look at the real facts.

en.wikipedia.org...
The history of union busting in the United States dates back to the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century which produced a rapid expansion in factories and manufacturing capabilities. As workers moved away from farm work to factories, mines and other hard labor, they faced harsh working conditions such as long hours, low pay and health risks. Children and women worked in factories and generally received lower pay than men. The government did little to limit these injustices. Labor movements in the industrialized world developed that lobbied for better rights and safer conditions. Shaped by wars, depressions, government policies, judicial rulings, and global competition, the early years of the battleground between unions and management were adversarial and often identified with aggressive hostility. Contemporary opposition to trade unions known as union busting started in the 1940s and continues to present challenges to the labor movement. Union busting is a term used by labor organizations and trade unions to describe the activities that may be undertaken by employers, their proxies, workers and in certain instances states and governments usually triggered by events such as picketing, card check, organizing, and strike actions.[1] Labor legislation has changed the nature of union busting, as well as the organizing tactics that labor organizations commonly use.
To those who say it is not right for government to get involved in private business, why is it ok for the government to be the strong arm of business. Do the rights of business over ride the rights of workers ?
I guess so.

Union busting with military force

For approximately 150 years, union organizing efforts and strikes have been periodically opposed by police, security forces, National Guard units, special police forces such as the Coal and Iron Police, and/or use of the United States Army. Significant incidents have included the Haymarket Riot and the Ludlow massacre. The Homestead struggle of 1892, the Pullman walkout of 1894, and the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903 are examples of unions destroyed or significantly damaged by the deployment of military force. In all three examples, a strike became the triggering event.
Strike breaking and union busting, 1890s-1935

Hiring agencies specializing in anti-union practices has been an option available to employers from the bloody strikes of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, until today.[2]

Creative methods of union busting have been around for a long time. In 1907, Morris Friedman reported that a Pinkerton agent who had infiltrated the Western Federation of Miners managed to gain control of a strike relief fund, and attempted to exhaust that union's treasury by awarding lavish benefits to strikers.[3] However, many attacks against unions have used brute force of one sort or another.

The Ludlow Massacre was a grueling, horrific display of the plight of labor workers. Many lives were lost or destroyed by the hands of big business.
In the early twentieth century, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company was owned and controlled by John D. Rockefeller Jr., who lived some 2,000 miles away from his tormented miners

The Ludlow Massacre resulted in the violent deaths of 19 people[1] during an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914.

Louis Tikas and John Lawson were prominent figures in leading the rebellion. John Lawson was the man who drew together most of the demands and presented them to the coal company.

Mother Jones, a celebrity in the labor movement, paid a visit to Ludlow to show her support, She did this by giving powerful speeches, and being the vivacious fire brand she was, she instilled hope and faith in the strikers.

The coal company was furious and, after imprisoning Mother Jones, began threatening the strikers. They began shooting into the tent colony, attempting to frighten the strikers back to work; but they were met with retaliation from the colony. The coal company armed a train that, running along a track between the colony and the mines, began firing into he tent colony.

In mid-October the company, in evil desperation, ordered in four machine guns. They strapped the guns to a car that they called the "Death Special." When the colony learned of this they immediately dug pits under the tents to protect the women and children from the gunfire.

No sooner had the strikers completed these pits than the armored car, bearing the machine guns and coal officials with rifles, opened fire on the colony. This lead to the death of one miner and the injury of two small children.

The coal company was growing desperate. On April 20, 1914 Karl Linderfelt, a company officer and a bitter veteran of the strike of 1904, lead the militia in a brutal attack. The militia surrounded the colony and opened fire. The strikers defended themselves as best they could while women and children huddled in trenches dug out underneath tables in the tents.

A train operator who was running his train past the coal mines at the time of the massacre stopped his train between the two sides in an attempt to end the blood-shed. By doing this, the man saved many lives and opened a doorway for Louis Tikas to begin leading the women and children to a cave over the hills. When Tikas retuned he was kidnapped by the coal company and taken to their side. Although Tikas was unarmed, his head was cracked open with the butt of a rifle and he was then shot in the back.

Among the dead were 11 children and 2 women who were suffocated in he underground trenches when the colony was set aflame.

After the combat, when all was quiet and the firing had stopped, over 60 people had lost their lives.

The murders received national publicity and finally stopped when President Wilson sent in US troops at the request of Colorado Governor Ammons, to restore the peace.

This next section is quite interesting and very informative. But it happened and is happening today.

Spies, "missionaries," and saboteurs

Strikebreaking by hiring massive numbers of tough opportunists began to lose favor in the 1920s; there were fewer strikes, resulting in fewer opportunities.[11][14] By the 1930s, agencies began to rely more upon the use of informants and labor spies.

Spy agencies hired to bust unions developed a level of sophistication that could devastate targets. "Missionaries" were undercover operatives trained to use whispering campaigns or unfounded rumors to create dissension on the picket lines and in union halls. The strikers themselves were not the only targets. For example, female missionaries might systematically visit the strikers' wives in the home, relating a sob story of how a strike had destroyed their own families. Missionary campaigns have been known to destroy not only strikes, but unions themselves.[15]

In the 1930s, the Pinkerton Agency employed twelve hundred labor spies, and nearly one-third of them held high level positions in the targeted unions. The International Association of Machinists was damaged when Sam Brady, a veteran Pinkerton operative, held a high enough position in that union that he was able to precipitate a premature strike. All but five officers in a United Auto Workers local in Lansing, Michigan were driven out by Pinkerton agents. The five who remained were Pinkertons. At the Underwood Elliott-Fisher Company plant, the union local was so badly injured by undercover operatives that membership dropped from more than twenty five hundred to fewer than seventy-five.

Ever think that running a business would include operating expenses to cover , spys, missionaries and saboteurs ? All the more reason to keep profits up and labor costs down.

Clever names to hide the truth.
Like, Labor Board.
and Labor Relations Associates

Nathan Shefferman (Labor Relations Associates), 1940s-1950s

After passage of the Wagner Act, the first nationally known union busting agency was Labor Relations Associates of Chicago, Inc. (LRA). LRA was led by Nathan Shefferman, who produced a guide to union busting, and has been considered the ‘founding father’ of the modern union avoidance industry.[17] Shefferman had been a member of the original NLRB, and became director of employee relations at Chicago-based Sears, Roebuck and Company. Sears had been engaged in blocking unions from the retail industry throughout the 1930s. The chain had "carried out a particularly vicious, ongoing war with the Teamsters union." Sears provided $10,000 seed money to launch LRA.[20]

By the late 1940s, LRA had nearly 400 clients. Shefferman's operatives set up anti-union employee groups called "Vote No" committees, developed ruses to identify pro-union workers, and helped arrange sweetheart contracts with unions that would not challenge management.[21] Consultants from LRA "committed numerous illegal actions, including bribery, coercion of employees and racketeering."[17]

Shefferman built "a daunting business on a foundation of false premises", of which "perhaps the most incredible—and most widely believed—is the myth that companies are at a disadvantage to unions organizationally, legally, and financially during a union-organizing drive." What businesses sought to accomplish through such propaganda was for Congress to amend the Wagner Act

Gee, and you thought only Unions influenced our politicians, what a surprise.
Strikebreaking and union busting, 1948-1959

In 1956, Nathan Shefferman crushed a unionizing effort of the Retail Clerks Union at seven Boston-area stores by employing tactics that Walter Tudor, the Sears vice-president for personnel, described as "inexcusable, unnecessary and disgraceful." At a Marion, Ohio, Whirlpool plant, an LRA operative created a card file system which tracked employees' feelings about unions. Many of those he regarded as pro-union were fired. A similar practice took place at the Morton Frozen Foods plant in Webster City, Iowa. An employee recruited by LRA operatives wrote down a list of employees thought to favor a union. Management fired those workers. The list-making employee received a substantial pay increase. When the United Packinghouse Workers of America union was defeated, Shefferman arranged a sweetheart contract with a union that Morton Frozen Foods controlled, with no participation from the workers. From 1949 through 1956, LRA earned nearly $2.5 million dollars providing such anti-union services.[23]

In 1957, the United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management (also known as the McClellan Committee) investigated unions for corruption, and employers and agencies for union busting activities. Labor Relations Associates was found to have committed violations of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, including manipulating union elections through bribery and coercion, threatening to revoke workers' benefits if they organized, installing union officers who were sympathetic to management, rewarding employees who worked against the union, and spying on and harassing workers.[24] The McClellan Committee believed that "the National Labor Relations Board [was] impotent to deal with Shefferman's type of activity."[25]

There is little evidence that employers availed themselves of anti-union services during the 1960s or the early 1970s.[26] However, under a new reading of the Landrum-Griffin Act, the Department of Labor took action against consulting agencies related to filing of required reports in only three cases after 1966, and between 1968 and 1974 it filed no actions at all. By the late 1970s, consulting agencies had stopped filing reports.

The 1970s and 1980s were an altogether more hostile political and economic climate for organized labor.[17] Meanwhile a new breed of union buster, with degrees in industrial psychology, management, and labor law, proved skilled at sidestepping requirements of both the National Labor Relations Act and Landrum-Griffin. In the 1970s the number of consultants, and the scope and sophistication of their activities, increased substantially. As the numbers of consultants increased, the numbers of unions suffering NLRB setbacks also increased. Labor's percentage of election wins slipped from 57 percent to 46 percent. The number of union decertification elections tripled, with a 73 percent loss rate for unions.[25]

Labor relations consulting firms began providing seminars on union avoidance strategies in the 1970s.[27] Agencies moved from subverting unions to screening out union sympathizers during hiring, indoctrinating workforces, and propagandizing against unions.[28]
By the mid-1980s, Congress had investigated, but failed to regulate, abuses by labor relations consulting firms. Meanwhile, while some anti-union employers continued to rely upon the tactics of persuasion and manipulation, other besieged firms launched blatantly aggressive anti-union campaigns. Although the general direction of professional union busting has been toward greater subtlety, strike-bound employers have turned once again to agencies that supply replacement workers, and professional security firms whose operatives "have proved to be little more than thugs."[citation needed] At the dawn of the 21st Century, methods of union busting have recalled similar tactics from the dawn of the 20th Century

Labor Relations Associates has a nice ring to it, don't you think ?

reply posted on 26-3-2011 @ 05:10 PM by OLD HIPPY DUDE

Wagner Act, 1935

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)[32], often referred to as the Wagner Act, was passed by Congress July 5, 1935. It established the right to organize unions. The Wagner Act was the most important labor law in American history and earned the nickname "labor's bill of rights." It forbade employers from engaging in five types of labor practices: interfering with or restraining employees exercising their right to organize and bargain collectively; attempting to dominate or influence a labor union; refusing to bargain collectively and in "good faith" with unions representing their employees; and, finally, encouraging or discouraging union membership through any special conditions of employment or through discrimination against union or non-union members in hiring. Before the law, employers had liberty to spy upon, question, punish, blacklist, and fire union members. In the 1930s workers began to organize in large numbers. A great wave of work stoppages in 1933 and 1934 included citywide general strikes and factory occupations by workers. Hostile skirmishes erupted between workers bent on organizing unions, and the police and hired security squads backing the interests of factory owners who hated unionizing. Some historians maintain that Congress enacted the NLRA primarily to help stave off even more serious — potentially revolutionary — labor unrest. Arriving at a time when organized labor had nearly lost faith in Roosevelt, the Wagner Act required employers to acknowledge labor unions that were favored by a majority of their work forces. The Act established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), with oversight over union elections and unfair labor practices by employers.[33]
Taft-Hartley Act, 1947

The Taft-Hartley Act [34] was a major revision of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the Wagner Act) and represented the first major revision of a New Deal act passed by a post-war Congress. In the mid-term elections of 1946, the Republican Party won control of the upcoming Eightieth Congress, gaining majorities in both houses for the first time since 1931. On June 23, 1947, the Republican-controlled Congress passed, over President Truman's veto, the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947 The Taft-Hartley Act widely interpreted as anti-labor. Labor leaders dubbed it a "slave labor" bill and twenty-eight Democratic members of Congress declared it a "new guarantee of industrial slavery."
“ Management always had the upper hand, of course; they had never lost it. But thanks to Taft-Hartley, the bosses could once again wage their war with near impunity. ”

Martin Jay Levitt, 1993, Confessions of a Union Buster[35]

Taft-Hartley Act established unfair labor practices which can be charged against unions and employers. It allows specific "employer rights" which broadens an employer's arsenal during union organizing drives. It bans the closed shop, in which union membership is a precondition of employment at an organized workplace. It encouraged state "right to work" laws which prohibit mandatory union dues. It perpetuated red baiting. It gave management new weapons, while restricting fundamental union activities. For a time, Taft-Hartley instituted anti-communist loyalty oaths for union officers.[35]

Presidents have invoked the Taft-Hartley Act thirty-five times in attempts to halt work stoppages in labor disputes. All but two of those attempts were successful.
Landrum-Griffin Act, 1959

The Landrum Griffin Act of 1959 is also known as the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA)[36] defined financial reporting requirements for both unions and management organizations. Pursuant to LMRDA Section 203(b) employers are required to disclose the costs of any persuader activity as it regards consultants and potential bargaining unit employees.[37]

Martin Levitt's interpretation is as follows:

The law regulates labor unions' internal affairs and union officials' relationships with employers. But the law also required companies to report certain expenditures related to their anti-union activities. Fortunately for union busters, loopholes in the requirements allow management and their agents to ignore the provisions aimed at reforming their behavior.[38] The loopholes require consultants to file if they communicate with employees either for the purpose of persuading them not to join a union, or to gain knowledge about the employees or the union that may be passed on to the employer. However, most consultants accomplish these goals by indirect means, using supervisors and management as their first line of contact with employees. Even before the Act was passed, labor consultants had identified front-line supervisors as the most effective lobbyists for management.[39]

Landrum-Griffin also seeks to prevent consultants from spying on employees or the union. Information isn't to be compiled unless it is for the purpose of a specific legal proceeding. According to Martin Levitt, "It is easy for consultants to use this provision as a cover for "all kinds of information gathering."[39]

According to Martin Levitt, "because of Landrum-Griffin's vague language, attorneys are able to directly interfere in the union-organizing process without any reporting requirements. Therefore, "young lawyers run bold anti-union wars and dance all over Landrum-Griffin." The provisions of Landrum-Griffin allowing special rights for lawyers resulted in labor consultants working under the shield of labor attorneys, allowing them to easily evade the intent of the law."[40]

Martiin Levitt stated:
“ With the help of our trusted attorneys, our anti-union activities were carried out [under Landrum-Griffin] in backstage secrecy; meanwhile we gleefully showcased every detail of union finances that could be twisted into implications of impropriety or incompetence.

The Hoxie List

During the period from roughly 1910 to 1914, Robert Hoxie compiled a list of methods used by employers' associations to attack unions. The list was published in 1921, as part of the book Trade Unionism in the United States:

* 1. Effective counter organization; employers parallel the union structure, trade against trade (local, district, and national), city against city, state against state, national against national, and federation against federation.[41]

* 2. Uncompromising war on the closed shop by asserting the right to hire and fire, to pay what the individual can be made to work for, and therefore to destroy uniformity and control hours, speed, and the conditions of employment generally; by continuous propaganda, conventions, meetings, literature and personal solicitations, showing the tyranny of the unions under closed shop rule, and the loss and waste in the closed shop from inefficient workers forced by the union upon employers, from loafing on the job, restrictions on output, and on apprenticeship; showing that the union label is a detriment rather than an advantage to the employer using it; urging employers not to use goods bearing the union label, nor to patronize any concern which does; and opposing the union label on publications of any branch of government.[41]

* 3. The expulsion of members who sign closed shop agreements, with forfeit of contributions to the reserve fund.[41]

* 4. Giving financial aid to employers in trouble because of attempts to withstand closed shop demands or to establish the open shop, by inducing banks to refund interest on loans during strikes, and getting owners not to enforce penalties on failure to live up to building contracts. The National Metal Trades Association, for instance, advocates a plan for the cooperation of bankers' associations to extend aid on a wide scale.[41]

* 5. Mutual aid in time of trial and trouble with unionism; taking orders of a struck shop and returning profit; furnishing men from shops of other members and of outsiders; paying members out of the reserve fund for holding out against unions—a kind of strike benefit; and endeavoring to secure special patronage for employers in trouble from members and outsiders.[41]

* 6. Refusal of aid to any enterprise operating under the closed shop.[41]

* 7. Advertisements in some newspapers and the withdrawal of advertisements from others friendly to unionism.[41]

* 8. Detachment of union leaders by promotion or bribery, honorary positions and social advancement, thus constantly depriving unions of the directive force of their strongest men.[41]

* 9. Discrediting union leaders and unions by exploiting their mistakes in strikes, or mismanagement of funds; appealing to the public by the prosecution of leaders; exposing records of fearful examples as types, e.g., Parks, O'Shea, and Madden, and by inciting to violence.[41]

* 10. Weeding out agitators and plain union men by blacklists, card catalogs, lists of employees, and by identification systems, for example, the Metal Trades' card catalog, and the Seaman's employment book. Employment agencies for employers' associations require lists of all formal employees, examine their records and require certificates of membership.[41]

* 11. Detaching workers from the union and the union's control by requiring an individual contract with penalties, i.e., the loss of unsettled wages called deposit in case of strike; by welfare plans, insurance and pensions to the workers which depend upon long, continuous service and are forfeited in case of strike; selling stock cheap, giving the feeling to the workers that they have a stake in the game, and also by bonus and premium systems; and by "going the unions one better," i.e., paying above the union scale, giving special advantage to superior workers, requiring good working conditions by the members of the association, establishing accident prevention bureaus, safety inspection, and giving care to the housing of employees.[41]

* 12. Conducting trade schools and agitating for continuation schools and vocational training; conducting trade schools themselves or helping to support them; having cities conduct continuation schools as in Cincinnati and Hartford. The National Metal Trades' Association cooperates with the University of Cincinnati in engineering courses there; providing "instructors" to teach the unskilled as does the National Founders' Association; advocating trade schools supported at public expense generally, and separate vocational schools; attacking the present system of academic education; donating sums to certain societies for promoting industrial education, e.g., the National Metal Trades Association has donated money to the National Association for the Promotion of Industrial Education.[41]

* 13. Securing foreknowledge of union plans by the spy system, use of detective agencies, spies in the union, the shadowing of leaders, gaining their confidence or using the dictagraph.[41]

* 14. Systematic organizations and use of strike breakers and counter-sluggers.[41]

* 15. Organization of counter-unions.[41]

* 16. Use of the police and militia. The unions, not having been able to enact the rules of the game into law, cannot gain their ends by the assertion of their rights. With the law on the side of property, indorsing [sic] individual liberty, to gain their ends they resort to force.[41]

* 17. Systematic appeal to the courts, the use of the injunction, systematic prosecution for violence, the employment of large corps of legal talent, the bringing into play of law and order leagues, suits for damages in case of strikes, and systematic attacks on the constitutionality of labor laws.[41]

* 18. Opposition to labor legislation by organizing lobbies to appear before both state and national bodies; by a system of calling upon members of association to send in letters and telegrams in great numbers; by having employers who will be most affected but who have good labor conditions appear before legislative committees to oppose labor legislation; and by having advertisements in many newspapers denouncing labor bills and calling upon citizens to write to legislators not to support them.[41]

* 19. Political agitation and action such as urging employers to neglect party lines and to vote for safe and sane men only; supporting antilabor statesmen and opposing labor politicians and demagogues, by sending funds, men, and literature into the districts of candidates; exposing the weaknesses of the labor vote and the failure of labor to defeat men the association supports; preventing the adoption of anti-injunction planks or other class legislation, or allowing only meaningless ones in party platforms; denouncing the initiative, referendum, and recall, especially the recall of judges and judicial decisions; and defending the courts and the constitution.[41]

* 20. Appealing to the public by the use of the press, publishing bulletins, and condemning papers which are unfriendly; systematically attacking unions and exploiting their violence; preventing the publication of seditious articles like those in the Los Angeles papers; giving statements to the press during strikes, pointing out that the strike for recognition and for the closed shop and not for better wages and conditions; pointing out, in case the strike is merely a matter of wages, that the trade can stand no more but is now paying higher than elsewhere, also that should wages be advanced prices would be higher, and the consumer would have to pay more in the face of the increased cost of living, and exploiting the losses of the workers in strikes, thus showing the folly of strikes; sending out circulars to educators and clergy; sending publications to the workers; for example, the National Founders' Association and the National Metal Trades' Association send their review to molders and machinists free; attacking Socialism and socialists and lauding ministers, educators, judges, and economists who show the fallacies of unionism and set forth the eternal verities.[41]

Hoxie summarized the underlying theories, assumptions, and attitudes of employers' associations of the period. These include the supposition that employers' interests are always identical to society's interests, such that unions should be condemned when they interfere; that the employers' interests are always harmonious with the workers' interests, and unions therefore try to mislead workers; that workers should be grateful to employers, and are therefore ungrateful and immoral when they join unions; that the business is solely the employer's to manage; that unions are operated by non-employees, and they are therefore necessarily outsiders; that unions restrict the right of employees to work when, where, and how they wish; and that the law, the courts, and the police represent absolute and impartial rights and justice, and therefore unions are to be condemned when they violate the law or oppose the police.[42]
Given the proliferation of employers' associations created primarily for the purpose of opposing unions, Hoxie poses counter-questions. For example, if every employer has a right to manage his own business without interference from outside workers, then why hasn't a group of workers at a particular company the right to manage their own affairs without interference from outside employers?

This list and summarys were published 90 years ago and nothing has changed not even the lies
the anti-union corporate mouth pieces spew.

Business employ ,liars, thieves, murders, spys, missionarys,saboteurs,lawyers, phycholgists and elected
officials. Funny how elected officials are exempt from insider trading. A solid stock can fill next elections coffers and there is no money trail.
Where is the advantage the unions have ?

edit on 26-3-2011 by OLD HIPPY DUDE because: (no reason given)

reply posted on 26-3-2011 @ 05:26 PM by OLD HIPPY DUDE

In memory of the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

en.wikipedia.org...

reply posted on 26-3-2011 @ 06:47 PM by TerryMcGuire

Amazing to me Dude, are the people who talk hard about standing up to power yet have little concept of those who have done so in our past. Do they think that they are the first to recognize the threat of big government. How do they propose to fight that power? Individually?

No, they will form into groups and unite in a way that will make their collective strength greater than the sum of it's parts. Some of them might even give themselves a name like, Party or Club or Association or, or Union.

The way forward is not by turning our backs on those who fought for our side before we were born or against those who stand by our side now in our struggle against those who would put us ALL down.

Those powers that be, are not new. They have been lying and name calling and slandering we who stand against them since before you or I were born. When the workers of this country stood up and fought for better conditions and non slave wages it was all workers who bennefited.

Sure, labor unions have lost much of their starch. And sure there is corruption in union history. It's not easy working all day to feed and house your family while at the same time living under threat because you stand against the powers that would put you down.

And today? This new union to fight the powers that be? The Tea Party? Do we suppose that these good Americans will fare any better in their fight against power than have the labor unions now that they have gone to bed with these dispicable big moneycrats who call themselves republican? I say good luck with that folks.

This fight is much larger than what many would have us believe. It is not about pampered workers crying for more sugar in their coffee or better stereos in their BMWs. They are fighting a holding action against the powers that be while the rest of us dawdle around getting our acts together .

And while some of us, mindlessly, call them the same names using the same slanders, fed to us by the same type of people who had our children,,,,OUR CHILDREN, working their childhoods away in their factories and mines.

Any way dude, thanks for putting this thread up. I hope folks have the time to read it. Even if they don't know it, if it had not been for labor unions there is no doubt they wouldn't have had the time to read much of anything.

reply posted on 26-3-2011 @ 07:06 PM by Misoir

I hate unions for one reason… they are such a headache for me politically. I am not anti-union or pro-union, hell even Archie Bunker from ‘All in the Family’ was a proud Union member who exercised his striking rights. But at the same time I see that unions have become too excessive in their demands from government and business, they need more regulations, they need more pay, they need more days off, etc… I can understand how this hurts business and especially the special perks that come with being a public sector union member.

With that said I also believe big business would like nothing more than the destruction of all labor unions which is obviously a plan to completely destroy workers. Whatever happened to a middle ground? Why do Conservatives have to rail against unions and why do unions have to work so extensively with those who push Socialist ideals? How about respecting and adhering to free-market capitalism and doing what you were originally designed to do, protect workers at that specific job.

Back in the 1950s unions were at their highest with union membership in this nation about 36% of the work force. Now they represent around 8-12% of the work force yet seem to be more vocal and political. Maybe it is because there was a war waged against them by an alliance of the far-right and big business? Maybe it is because unions lost their way and have become merely political organizing machines for the left-wing? I don’t know the answer to those questions but what I do know is that unions have lifted millions of Americans through the generations out of poverty and into job security, they do not need to become political organizing machines, they do not need to be a target of constant assault, and union members should be both Democrat and Republican with both parties welcoming them with open arms.

Accepting capitalism, small government, workers rights, limited taxation and regulation, support for American ideals and individualism, and a commitment to the betterment of working conditions and job security for those with the necessary merits for the job should be the goal of unions. I mean if Sen. Robert A. Taft, a.k.a. “Mr. Republican”, could openly support the right of workers to organize and strike in unions can’t we all?

reply posted on 27-3-2011 @ 03:10 PM by OLD HIPPY DUDE

reply to post by Misoir

Nice reply Misoir, but I doubt you read my whole post.

Martiin Levitt stated:
“ With the help of our trusted attorneys, our anti-union activities were carried out [under Landrum-Griffin] in backstage secrecy; meanwhile we gleefully showcased every detail of union finances that could be twisted into implications of impropriety or incompetence.

I fail to see the political clout you think the unions have, when every move they make, every penny they make and spend is open to the public for review and businesses and corporations do not play by the same rules, with off shore accounts, backstage deals, and insider trading along with owning and controlling the MSM and elected officials.

reply posted on 27-3-2011 @ 03:21 PM by crimvelvet

reply to post by OLD HIPPY DUDE

I thought with all the anti-union B.S that has been spewed here, a refreshing look at the truth might be in order Please try reading the whole post before you anti-union mouth pieces spew any more lies....

I am actually rather neutral on the subject of Unions.

My biggest fear is just like so many other organizations they have been infiltrated by the Banksters.

I became heavily disillusioned a couple of years ago when Food & Water Watch and Organic Consumers SUPPORTED the Ag. cartel's food bill. After doing some research I found they had major ties to the United Nations and the Rockefeller Foundations.

Show me there are absolutely no ties to BIG MONEY and then I will support the Unions, otherwise they are just another trap set to neutralize concerned citizens.

Actually my biggest worry is a combination of Union protests and Agent Provocateur Cops will be used to justify Martial Law and then we are ALL screwed.

reply posted on 27-3-2011 @ 03:33 PM by TheWalkingFox

Originally posted by Misoir
Back in the 1950s unions were at their highest with union membership in this nation about 36% of the work force. Now they represent around 8-12% of the work force yet seem to be more vocal and political. Maybe it is because there was a war waged against them by an alliance of the far-right and big business? Maybe it is because unions lost their way and have become merely political organizing machines for the left-wing? I don’t know the answer to those questions but what I do know is that unions have lifted millions of Americans through the generations out of poverty and into job security, they do not need to become political organizing machines, they do not need to be a target of constant assault, and union members should be both Democrat and Republican with both parties welcoming them with open arms.

You were exactly right with your first guess. Unions - and really, ALL workers, organized or not - are under direct attack from the conservative oligarchy that people who "hate unions" have gleefully voted into power. Laws are being passed that are directly unconstitutional and blatantly violate the rights of private citizens to negotiate contracts with their employers. OF COURSE unions are going to get vocal and political - they're being assaulted by politicians!

For the record, Union members run the gamut of political leanings. Just in my one little corner of the union world, we have an open and avowed socialist, lots of plain ol' Democrats, at least five Bush-hugging "bomb. bomb Iran"-style conservative Republicans, and two avowed Libertarians. All are members of the union. The union does lean for Democratic candidates when asking for donations, but that's purely because the Republican party is violently anti-union, so gathering contributions for them would defeat the whole point.

reply posted on 27-3-2011 @ 10:22 PM by neo96

speaking as a ex union member i hate the ever living hell out of them.

the past is the past todays unions are nothing like the unions of old with that much power and the will and desire to use it makes unions a more dangerous entity that the everyone just loves to hate on business.

the only thing unions are today is the middleman they get their cut before you and you have no say the only thing union members have done is trade one master for another,

unions were all fine and dandy when this country actually had wealth when this country actually had a industrial base but those days are long over they are long gone.

unions have run business out of this country and now its the nonstop attack of government unions federal and state and when local services teachers,fireman, and other service industry can strike on a whim and endanger the public safety and impact the economy on an massive scale there needs to be a check and balance.

that much power is dangerous and only the blind will not acknowledge it.

the decline of america its business and its economy is largely impacted by unions and they are among the biggest reasons for this countries decline.

ask yourselves why has china become wealthy why are they now well on their way to being the richest nation on this planet and ask yourselves what it it they have or what they don't have.

the answer is unions.

you people have no idea how much i hate unions and they the unions don't pay me I HAVE to pay them just so i can have a job.

unions are pure evil they dont pay me and pay my bills.

reply posted on 27-3-2011 @ 10:30 PM by XxRagingxPandaxX

To destroy unions is to destroy the middle class, the thing that made the U.S. such a great country.

reply posted on 28-3-2011 @ 09:17 PM by OLD HIPPY DUDE

reply to post by neo96

You obviouly did not read my whole post.
Businesses left the states , not to just escape unions but to employ slave labor and avoid federal and state taxes thanks to NAFT and GATT ;ie FREE TRADE. So with paying little or no taxes, no tariffs and slave wages, profits are much higher. Now the question is has all that lowered consumer prices ?
Do you anti union folks really think once unions have been eliminated that any american worker will maintain their current wage ?
And as for public workers unions, who created those jobs ?
The publics demand for sevices for their tax dollars.
Elected officials who create panels , boards ,commisions and new departments that create NEW JOBS.
Who negotiated those union contracts, made promises, and signed the contracts ?
Know any elected official from either party wanting to reduce elected officials pay ?

Most of you anti-union folks think your choice of the lesser of two evils is bondage over socialism, I choose neither !

edit on 28-3-2011 by OLD HIPPY DUDE because: because

reply posted on 28-3-2011 @ 09:24 PM by neo96

reply to post by OLD HIPPY DUDE

the reasons businessess leave the states are as following :

1. unions
2. human resources such as education and people who are willing to do anything for a job china and india lead the world in people and actually do goto college.
3. regulations
4.taxes

its a free country you can be pro union all you want to be but having been a union member for over 10 years this is one opinion i have a right to have.

reply posted on 28-3-2011 @ 09:34 PM by OLD HIPPY DUDE

reply to post by neo96

You are truly a corporate mouth piece.
You have not read my full post of FACTS.
So keep you opinion , just stop spewing lies and try posting some facts to back up your opinion.

reply posted on 28-3-2011 @ 10:02 PM by neo96

reply to post by OLD HIPPY DUDE

1. you do not know me
2. i will not keep my opinion its a free site and you have no authority to tell me what to do or say and i will chime on any topic i so choose

this thread is nothing but a waste of time.

the biggest fact since your all about facts is that unions destroy wealth and they do not create any

reply posted on 28-3-2011 @ 10:14 PM by OLD HIPPY DUDE

reply to post by neo96

You assume to much boy.
You are entitle to your opinion, I never said to keep it to yourself.
I said keep your opinion just stop spewing lies, grow up.

opinion are like a$$ h@le$ everybody has one.
Post all you like .
Try posting some facts to support you opinion.
Otherwise it means nothing.

reply posted on 28-3-2011 @ 10:30 PM by crimvelvet

reply to post by OLD HIPPY DUDE

Try posting some facts to support you opinion.
Otherwise it means nothing.

As I said I am pretty neutral on Union but I got very badly blindsided by organizations that I THOUGHT were allies and who were actually OWNED by the Ag Cartel. I am talking Food & Water watch, Organic Consumers, Consumers Union and La Vida Locavoire.

So lets take a look at Unions. There is not much of a money trail because they are mainly funded by union dues.

We also know of the ACORN-Union ties. and I sure do not trust ACORN, see: epionline.org...

So I had to do a bit of looking but here is what I found:

ACORN Rising Internationally
John McCusker, The Times-Picayune archiveWade Rathke

March 26, 2011 - ACORN is defunct, but ACORN International, a separate organization, is thriving, according to a message to supporters from Wade Rathke, founder of ACORN and chief organizer for ACORN International....

I then went for the good stuff, WHO is funding/funded ACORN because that is who actually calls the tune. It is some VERY interesting reading:
Remember the Fabian Society/Carnegie/Rockefeller/Morgan/Ford connections:

The Tides Foundation is the "mixer" used so we do not know who donated to what.

Carnegie Corporation of New York
Tides Foundation & Tides Center ...................$3,088,667.00 - 1992 – 2005
ACORN................................................................ $50,000.00 - 1996 – 1996

Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Tides Foundation & Tides Center ....................$2,879,900.00 - 1993 – 2005
Friends of the Constitution ...................................$15,000.00 - 2000 – 2000
ACORN .................................................................$10,000.00 - 2002 – 2002

Rockefeller Family Fund
Tides Foundation & Tides Center .....................$1,225,000.00 - 1991 – 2004
ACORN ..................................................... ............$25,000.00 - 1998 – 1998
Friends of the Constitution ....................................$15,000.00 - 2001 – 2001

Rockefeller Foundation
Tides Foundation & Tides Center .............. .......$4,543,775.00 - 1993 – 2005

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
Tides Foundation & Tides Center .........................$819,300.00 - 1997 – 2004

J. P. Morgan Charitable Trust
ACORN ..................................................................$302,500.00 - 1998 – 1998
Tides Foundation & Tides Center $...........................60,000.00 - 1993 – 1996

Ford Foundation
Tides Foundation & Tides Center .....................$71,316,439.00 - 1989 – 2006
ACORN ..................................................................$200,000.00 - 2003 – 2003

Pew Charitable Trusts - [Sun Oil Co.)
Tides Foundation & Tides Center ....................$140,465,400.00 - 1990 – 2005
ACORN ....................................................................$45,000.00 - 1988 – 1988

Turner Foundation
Tides Foundation & Tides Center .......................$1,925,308.00 - 1994 – 2002
.
Joyce Foundation
Tides Foundation & Tides Center....................... $2,772,260.00 - 1988 – 2003

Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation
ACORN ..................................................................$168,750.00 - 1998 – 2002
Tides Foundation & Tides Center ............................$35,000.00 - 1991 – 1991

Bank of America Foundation
Tides Foundation & Tides Center ...........................$132,172.00 - 1996 – 2005

Chase Manhattan Foundation - Only listing
Tides Foundation & Tides Center ............................$12,500.00 - 1998 – 1998

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Tides Foundation & Tides Center ........................$3,262,095.00 - 1993 – 2001

U.S. Department of the Interior
Tides Foundation & Tides Center ..............................$44,500.00 - 1998 – 1999
Source: activistcash.com...

WHAT THE HECK is the departments of the US Gov. doing giving to a "mixer" foundation?????

Then we come to the good stuff. I selected some interesting "groups" the Tides Foundation gives to as well. One of the biggest grantees is Catalist???

If you are wondering who “Catalist” is And note they are one of the few groups WITHOUT an website listed...

Helping Non-Profits maximize precious resources, mobilize supporters and influence policy debates...

Giving organizations the tools and data to reach voters, build advocacy campaigns and creatively reach new supporters....
Serving the Progressive Community
Clean and current data for 265 million individuals
Cutting-edge software tools that enable you to query, analyze, visualize and export lists
Data-mining and analytics products to pinpoint the individuals that you need to reach
Expert staff from diverse technical, civic and political backgrounds

NO WONDER Tides Foundation gives them so much money and hides who they are!!!!

Tides Foundation 2006 Grantee List: www.tides.org...

Center for Third World Organizing www.ctwo.org....................$17,000.00
Center for Community Change www.communitychange.org....$483,000.00
Catalist...................................................................................$1,025,000.00

ACORN Institute.......................................................................$412,250.00
Acorn Internatational.................................................................$20,000.00
ACORN Living Wage Resource Center.......................................$20,000.00
Missouri ACORN........................................................................$40,000.00
Massachusetts ACORN................................................................$2,500.00
Florida ACORN..........................................................................$42,500.00
Arizona ACORN.........................................................................$12,500.00

Miami Workers' Center..............................................................$30,000.00
Georgia Living Wage Coalition.................................................$20,000.00
Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights...........................$5,000.00

New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition........................................$5,000.00
New York Jobs with Justice........................................................$15,000.00
New Alliance Organizing Project..............................................$26,000.00
National Organizers Alliance......................................................$6,000.00
National Lawyers Guild...............................................................$2,500.00
National Immigration Project of the Nat'l Lawyers Guild.........$2,000.00
National Employment Law Project............................................$21,730.00
National Accountability Group...................................................$30,753.00
National Housing Law Project......................................................$1,000.00

National Asso. for the Advancement of Colored People.............$26,581.80
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund............................ $50,350.00
NAACP National Voter Fund.......................................................$22,000.00
Mississippi State Conference NAACP...........................................$18,550.00
Equal Justice America....................................................................$1,000.00
Equal Rights Advocates.............................................................$165,000.00
Equality Now.............................................................................$112,020.00
American Institute for Social Justice.........................................$450,000.00

Center for Constitutional Rights................................................$62,818.20
Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition...........................................$80,000.00
League of Conservation Voters Education Fund......................$371,000.00
League of Conservation Voters.................................................$131,000.00
Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights........................$142,500.00
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington..................$50,000.00
Center for Policy Alternatives.......................................................$21,947.00
Center for Progressive Leadership................................................$40,000.00
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.........................................$77,867.00
Arms Control Association www.armscontrol.org........................$83,626.00

Center for Independent Media...www.newjournalist.org/about.html..$1,000.00
Center for Investigative Reporting..www.muckraker.org.....................$1,500.00
Center for Justice and Accountability..www.cja.org...........................$15,000.000
Center for Media and Democracy..www.prwatch.org..........................$10,000.00

The Jewish Community Center in Manhattan...............................$300,000.00
Congregation B'nai Jeshurun...............................................................$60,000.00
Iraqi Society for Change..........................................................................$4,000.00
Foundation for Christ Consciousness................................................$20,000.00
Feminist Majority Foundation............................................................$24,491.00

Grist Magazine............................................................................................$5000.00
Foundation for Nat'l Progress...www.motherjones.com..............$10,000.00
Democracy: A Journal of Ideas..www.democracyjournal.org.....$25,000.00
Demos..................www.demos.org.........................................................$15,000.00

If nothing else it proves BOTH the right AND the left are funded and therefore controlled by theBankster/oil elite.

reply posted on 28-3-2011 @ 10:43 PM by OLD HIPPY DUDE

reply to post by crimvelvet

Gee someone read my whole post.
Nice work.

Spies, "missionaries," and saboteurs

Strikebreaking by hiring massive numbers of tough opportunists began to lose favor in the 1920s; there were fewer strikes, resulting in fewer opportunities.[11][14] By the 1930s, agencies began to rely more upon the use of informants and labor spies.

Spy agencies hired to bust unions developed a level of sophistication that could devastate targets. "Missionaries" were undercover operatives trained to use whispering campaigns or unfounded rumors to create dissension on the picket lines and in union halls. The strikers themselves were not the only targets. For example, female missionaries might systematically visit the strikers' wives in the home, relating a sob story of how a strike had destroyed their own families. Missionary campaigns have been known to destroy not only strikes, but unions themselves.[15]

In the 1930s, the Pinkerton Agency employed twelve hundred labor spies, and nearly one-third of them held high level positions in the targeted unions. The International Association of Machinists was damaged when Sam Brady, a veteran Pinkerton operative, held a high enough position in that union that he was able to precipitate a premature strike. All but five officers in a United Auto Workers local in Lansing, Michigan were driven out by Pinkerton agents. The five who remained were Pinkertons. At the Underwood Elliott-Fisher Company plant, the union local was so badly injured by undercover operatives that membership dropped from more than twenty five hundred to fewer than seventy-five.

reply posted on 28-3-2011 @ 10:44 PM by richc

reply to post by OLD HIPPY DUDE

Hey old hippy dude, Your COOL! Thanks for all that info. I'm saving it in favorites for time being. It so sad that so many American Workers don't know what the working conditions were before this wonderful guilded age of ours came into existence. But I fear that the time is fastly approaching that American workers and not just the "PUBLIC EMPLOYEE" will find out what those conditions were by experiencing it first hand. It is so amazing to me that with all the outsourcing that has been going on, all the good paying American jobs going to China and other places where slave labor is aboundant, that it hasn't given them a clue as to what's up with the goals of corporate America. Oh yes those corporation went over seas because they are "TAXED TOO HIGH" But Exxon Mobil the most profitable corporation in the history of the world didn't pay a dime in taxes last year and plus got back $156,000,000.00. And General Electric didn't pay any taaxes and neither did Bank of America. So if they don't pay taxes then what's left Oh those pesty wages and safe working conditions and those dam environmental laws. You know we have alot of nerve expecting to be able to drink clean fresh water. What the hell were we thinking asking for that? Oh and gotta breath air too. Man are we greedy.Isn't it sad that we are so sedate that we don't even bother to know what our history was.How does that quote go, maybe something like this,"He who does not know his history is in danger of repeating it.".It's a paraphrase but the objective of the sentence is accurate. Well Old Hippy Dude, Thanks again. Richc

reply posted on 28-3-2011 @ 10:46 PM by Sestias

reply to post by OLD HIPPY DUDE

I live in a so-called "right to work" state in the south. "Right to work" in fact means unions are not recognized nor even tolerated very well.

The result? Wages here are about 20% lower than in union states and benefits are almost nil. My brother-in-law, a diesel mechanic, moved down here for awhile but high-tailed it back to Massachusetts when he realized they have much better wages, benefits and working conditions, thanks largely to unions. Mass. is also a much richer state per capita.

Yes, some big corporations have moved down here because of the tax breaks, the relaxed environmental laws, and the cheap labor. The result has been that my area of the state is still dirt poor, as it has always been.

Not to mention most of those companies are now offshoring their production to places where wages are even cheaper than here and there are no environmental regulations at all, so even our slave labor is losing their bowl of soup.

Soon we will all be working for third-world wages. That's how well we are all treated by employers without unions. With no clout or ability to organize or negotiate; we just have to accept what is dished out to us.

I wouldn't be surprised, though, if workers here were to begin to fight for the right to unionize. All the recent publicity has had a galvanizing effect.

edit on 28-3-2011 by Sestias because: polish

reply posted on 29-3-2011 @ 01:17 AM by crimvelvet

reply to post by Sestias

...Not to mention most of those companies are now offshoring their production to places where wages are even cheaper than here.....

SInce two of you have posted about the off-shoring I thought I would post the info I have uncovered about that. (I am an independent and HATE both the DemiRats and the ReBOOBlicans)

This is part of something I never posted as a thread it is mostly about the food supply.

“The Planned World Starvation” strategy is now complete

The whole blasted Depression was orchestrated by the bankers with lots of help from Congress

Have you ever wondered what the bankers plan to steal this time???

The last time the Central Bankers collapsed the economy they got their traitor Franklin Delano Roosevelt to STEAL American GOLD

Quotations from speeches made on the Floor of the House of Representatives by the Honorable Louis T. McFadden of Pennsylvania, Chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee
..."Roosevelt ordered the people to give their gold to private interests- that is, to banks, and he took control of the banks so that all the gold and gold values in them, or given into them, might be handed over to the predatory International Bankers who own and control the Fed....

"The Prime Minister of England came here for money! He came here to collect cash!

"He came here with Fed Currency and other claims against the Fed which England had bought up in all parts of the world. And he has presented them for redemption in gold.

"Mr. Chairman, I am in favor of compelling the Fed to pay their own debts. I see no reason why the general public should be forced to pay the gambling debts of the International Bankers.

I think I know what the plans are this time.

All of our Manufacturing has been sold off, boxed up and shipped to other countries. Thanks to the"Leveraged buyouts" of the 80's and 90's, the bankers and "Foreign Interests" now own what is left. Heck even our Water Authorities, Seaports, Toll Roads and Bridges have been sold to Foreign Interests!

So what is left to Steal???

US Departments of Labor and Treasury Schedule Hearing on Confiscation of Private Retirement Accounts

the unstated agenda of these hearings, as I understand it, is to push for the US government to eventually nationalize (confiscate) all assets in private Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and 401K plans!

The US government is desperate to get its hands on private assets to help cover soaring budget deficits and debts, and this is simply the largest and easiest piggy bank that could be seized. The Investment Company Institute estimates that at the end of 2008 that there were $3.613 trillion of assets in IRAs and $2.350 trillion of assets in 401K plans.

IS there anything else besides retirement Accounts?
Yes our LAND. Over 40% of US land is farmland. Confiscation of this private land has been in the works for years. Information, billl and laws

And if you do not think the bankers are involved you might want to read this World Bank Document

The real tool for land confiscation is the recent triple whammy.
1. The orchestrated real estate collapse: See AIG and the Big Takeover

2. The proposed confiscation of American's personal saving that will prohibit individuals from investing in land.

3. The Food Safety Farce that has just been enacted into law will remove independent farmers from the land and drive up food prices as the Ag Cartel grabs complete control of our food supply. Please understand farmers have ONE buyer, the Food Cartel who sets the price they will pay the farmer. The spread between farm prices and consumer prices has been widening for years. Making the food cartel rich and bankrupting farmers.

This means the added cost of the new regulations can not be passed on to the consumer. Farmers already work an outside job to support their farms. They do not have the extra time or money to deal with these regulations. In 2002 the Average age of the principal operator was 55.3. "According to the 2002 Census of Agriculture, 50 percent of the farmers are 55 years of age or older" With bewildering piles of paperwork and HUGE FINES coupled with up to ten years in Jail, wouldn't you just give up and retire instead?

Forty-one percent of U.S. total land area is farmland (938.28 million acres). In 1900, the average farm size was 147 acres, compared to 441 acres today....

More than three million people farm or ranch in the United States. Individuals, family partnerships or family corporations operate almost 99 percent of U.S. farms. Over 22 million people are employed in farm or farm-related jobs...

The top five agricultural commodities are cattle and calves, dairy products, broilers, corn and soybeans. U.S. farmers produce 46% of the world’s soybeans, 41% of the world’s corn, 20.5% of the world’s cotton and 13% of the world’s wheat.

THAT represents a very healthy chunk of change when sold on the international market and the Ag Cartel isn't about to allow independent farmers a chunk of it.

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