A question for all here

[Pecos Bill]

I just read the thread started by Twyacht and since I don't want to hijack that thread I'll post this here.

What do you all say to abolishing ALL unions? I ask this in all sincerity. Since the unions seem to be filled with fat cats who don't want to work for their pay and demand too much for what little they do, let's abolish them by Federal edict and let the leaders of business and the government decide who should be allowed to work, who should be allowed to receive pay for that work, and if they should be allowed to continue ito work. After all, only the leaders of business and the government know what's best for this country and the people in it. The ordinary people have no right to have anything except what the "right thinking" leaders and the government want them to have. So I say ABOLISH ALL UNIONS! Clear up all this controversy! Put these money grubbing power hungry scumbags in their place!

What say you all?

Pecos

[tombogan03884]

Labor Unions are a Socialist creation that sets up an adversarial relationship between the people with money and ideas that create jobs, and the labor force that actually does them.
The main objective is not to better the life of the worker but to increase the economic and political power of the unions leadership at the expense of both groups.
People who say "Unions did away with child labor" fail to realize that those children were working because their families needed the money.
In reality Unions take food from the mouths of the poor.

[twyacht]

Believe it or not, there is a difference between "Public" and Private Unions...History shows for every Teamster, Dock Worker, Jimmy Hoffa, Trumka, AFL-CIO, UAW, NEA, type(s),,....there are just the tool box carrying workers that go to work like everyone else.  HOWEVER, the MGT. of unions, got it all wrong.....and their Lib, Socialist agenda is all wrong.

We all worry about our families, our future, our retirement...

But when it comes at the expense of others, in this day and age, something has to give. Promises were made, by politicians, and union heads, that now cannot be met.

I am an electrician, solicited by the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers),  more than once, in more than one state, do they mean well?,....I Guess,..,....Do I want to pay them to advocate on my behalf? NO.

Unions are reliant on an employer....The give and take has to be there.  Like S&W,...if they moved, folks would still buy them.

Why pay $38 an hour, for someone else, to do it just as well, for $20?  

States are having to deal with the reality of NO MONEY,...the scam is over,....With no employer, there is NO union....

Moving to a non union state(s) seems to be more popular,....

[Timothy]

I've been a member of two unions in my lifetime.  The United Auto, Aeronautical and Agriculture Workers (UAW) and the Marine Draftsman Association.  I had no choice in the matter when I took the jobs though the MDA allowed me to resign after paying dues for three months.  

I worked hard regardless of these affiliations and neither did me any favors.  For the job I did working for GM, my $11.88/hr job in 1979 was about seven bucks over the average pay for the area.  Way too much money for what I was doing to earn it.  The MDA was a small semi professional union that should not have existed at all.

My Dad was a UAW, Teamsters member over the years but he worked hard during the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties until he retired.  He asked for nothing and took the layoffs to let the younger guys keep working.  In 29 years with GM, they went out on strike once.  Today, they threaten to strike with every new contract.  Yes, my Dad was a staunch, WWII Vet and a Democrat but a Democrat in his day isn't what it's morphed into today!

Labor laws exist today to prevent the problems that existed in the forties and fifties.  Their time is over and has been for a couple of decades.  I have friends today that think otherwise but we refrain from these conversations because we each know the others position.  Friendship is something that isn't worth arguing over such touchy subjects.

[tombogan03884]

Unions are why Detroit went from being the showcase of the industrialized world in 1961 to a 3rd world shit hole in 2011.
Unions are why the "Big Three" auto makers are now Japanese companies.

[Sponsor]

[Timothy]

Unions are why Detroit went from being the showcase of the industrialized world in 1961 to a 3rd world shit hole in 2011.
Unions are why the "Big Three" auto makers are now Japanese companies.

My Dads plant, and the plant I worked in is empty.

Fisher Body, Plant 1, Grand Rapids, MI.    About two million square feet of sheet metal manufacturing collecting dust and pigeon poop!

The 2-million-square-foot Fisher Body plant, which came to be known by many as simply "No. 1," has been an economic engine in West Michigan since being announced during the Great Depression 73 years ago.

Dec. 20, 1935: GM's Fisher Body announces plans to build first metal fabrication plant, hire 2,000. Some earn $40 a week

July 1936: First products ship from 196,875-square-foot plant.

1940s: Commercial production halted, plant makes tank parts, weapons and subassemblies

1955: Expands by 265,000 square feet, employment over 3,000

1964: Expands to 1.3 million square feet, employment nears 2,600

1979: Work begins on $90 million, 382,000-square-foot expansion.

1984: Fisher Body name retired as part of GM reorganization

1998: $130 million in upgrades; employment tops 2,500

2001: Ranked among most productive stamping plants in nation

2003-2007: More than $100 million invested in upgrades, 1,000 job cut in restructuring

Oct. 13, 2008: Plant closure announced, 1,480 jobs to be lost

[Pathfinder]

I had to join a union one summer when I built vending machine doors (!!!!!). Initiation fee and 3 months dues - plus a mandatory 2 week layoff as they did PM on the plant and the top seniority people got to keep working. I got nothing other than that job - and into great shape as I had no car and had to bicycle about 15 miles each way.

I agree, most unions have outlived any semblance of usefulness. But, as a historian and a genealogists, I know there was a time in the country where people died - in some cases lots of people - because of company malfeasance. Some fo my ancestors came from Wales and were involved in mining in what is now WV. The unions made the miners' lives bearable once they had a chance to work.

BUT, having said that, the very idea of a union is un-American and anti-liberty. If we can solve the whole corporate malfeasance thing, unions would have no place in this country.

[sledgemeister]

So whats the definition of a "union"?

Would the American Medical Association (AMA) be defined as one, the (American Bar Association) ABA?
Should all of those type of "unions" be "banned" as well? Of does it change when you call something a professional members society?

[kmitch200]

As a member of IAFF (Intenational Association of Fire Fighters) for 31.5 yrs, the union does have a place.

The city I worked for had a mayor when I started that hated us.
The city manager at that time said "Firefghters are nothing more than commodity's, like papers and pencils."
These are the types of dickheads that think you can just 'create' a fire dept when the need arises.
They don't seem to get the picture that when a calamitous event strikes, you just can't pull trained first responders out of thin air.

They would be happy to have 2 guys on a truck with 4 more undermanned trucks responding from many miles away.
Safety, (as well as OSHA) demands that you have at least the amount of responders on the trucks necessary to keep the crews safe.

Do I like the fact that it is part of AFL-CIO, one of the most crooked organizations since Al Capone?  HELL NO!
Did I like it when the shitheads in high places in the union endorsed democrats for the highest elected offices?  HELL NO!
Did I like the fact that the NEA was union so we were to support them in their quest for ever increasing funding - even with evidence that throwing money at schools is an obvious waste of money?  HELL NO!

Did I like it when they negotiated for the highest standards of safety and equipment for my irish ass when I came upon hazardous chemicals or 'fireman killer' buildings, or psychos that wanted to maim anybody they could get to?  HELL YES!

Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

[crusader rabbit]

As a highschool kid in the mid-'60s I managed to get a great job as a bagboy in one of our local Southern California supermarkets.  I made better than minimum wage, and enjoyed the work.

At the end of the third week, I was approached by the RCIA Local 1428 Rep who requested an initiation fee and asked me to sign something that gave the union dibs on my monthly dues.  And, since I had two week's pay in my wallet, I had enough to comply.  The initiation and dues took a chunk out of my stash, but I was informed that I needed to pay if I wanted to keep my job.

I worked hard, and was noticed by the boss.  He offered me a nice promotion to Apprentice Clerk working in the produce department.  It came with something like a 50-cent-an-hour raise.  I jumped at the chance to better my lot in life.

The Union Goon was back at the end of my first week as Apprentice with a request for something outrageous--I think it was $400 for initiation and a bump in my monthly dues.

Recognize, I was working about 14 hours a week, and taking home around $30.  The amount requested was well beyond my means to provide.  But the Union Rep was used to this problem--He suggested that I could borrow the money from my parents.

Well, the reason I was working was because my parents had no money to let me borrow.  Dad was going for his PhD at the time, and Mom was working as a private school teacher (summers off meant no income for 3 months).

Since the Union Goon seemed to understand my parents had no dough, he had an alternative suggestion:  I could pay $20 per week for 20 weeks until the initiation fee was paid and that would leave me with a little more than enough to pay my monthly dues.

Essentially, I could work for nothing for nearly 5 months so the Union would allow me to keep my job.

I went to the boss with my problem, knowing that I had been doing an excellent job and that he would have a solution.  The solution:  Gotta let ya go.  Don't want no union trouble.

So, that showed me how much these union guys were in it for the worker.  I quit on the spot and have never taken a union job since.

Whatever benefit the unions may have offered at one time does not belie the fact that today they are an expense we cannot afford.  They are a leftist/socialist parasitic infestation that shold be eradicated as quickly as is humanly possible if we have any hope of saving the host.  And that is even more true of public sector unions that should have never been allowed to form in the first place.