I am great friends with most of my supervisors. They are not the management that causes stress for any Baker I know. The problem was at the top. I am sorry about your long ago experiences but it is not something I have witnessed in my 14 years. In the Waterloo bakery I was at for a few years we had weekend canoe trips with the distribution center staff, managers included.
Did you ever go on strike? Did those supervisors? Did your fellow workers say nasty things to them at the time?
I am in the Hostess strike right now and I don't know of any supervisor who felt uncomfortable because of Union members at any time at the bakery. I have even had lunch with one since then and have been in contact with two others who are personal friends. I spent twenty minutes a day in the breakroom at noon for years with these three men. None of them stole my pension. It was the executives at the top. I know this is a popular anti-Union myth but I just haven't seen it. The supervisors were every bit as screwed by the hedge funds as the Union was. They have no more love for the hedge funds than we do.
[video=youtube;M8EvVxozRWk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8EvVxozRWk&feature=player_embedded[/video]
Turns out this whole thread is based on a lie. This video was edited to leave out the beginning, when the Union worker was assaulted by the brietbart wannabe. Here is the unedited video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIF70HsfpAg Not that facts have anything to do with the irrational hatred of Unions that has been shown in this thread. Just keep drinking that Fox news Kool Aid. http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20130318/NEWS01/303180033?nclick_check=1
Since it is titled "Unions, America's Backbone", I'm in full agreement with you that this whole thread is based on a lie.
I've been watching the History Channel show "The Men Who Built America." It's a perfect story about how individual men made their businesses and empires, and the public works those uber rich men provided. The problem with large organizations (government is the largest of all) is that they don't act rationally. There's turf, rules, regulations, extortion, and so on. Those things do not lead to the kind of business decisions that make workplaces safer, that make products cheaper and safer, and so on. During the Homestead Strike of 1892, Carnegie Steel Company hired Pinkerton mercenaries to deal with Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union member unrest. It culminated in an actual battle in which both several Pinkerton and several union workers were killed. When it came to violence, neither side was exactly innocent. However, the union isn't government. It's a private association of free people. As long as they use legal and non-violent means to make their points and negotiate terms of employment with the companies, I absolutely have no gripes. In fact, those irrational decisions made by large organizations do have consequences and those can be dire in nature. If it takes a private association of free people to correct such problems, I absolutely have no gripes. I have no gripe with the government protecting the physical safety of those on both sides. Or even passing laws that support collective bargaining. Where I draw the line is when membership is not voluntary and where the government intercedes on behalf of either side. I don't know if "america's backbone" is a legitimate description of unions, but I do appreciate what they've done for their membership. If you don't like them, don't look for the union label.
Without Unions there would have never been the development of the middle class in the US. We would have been like every other 3rd world nation since 1900, a poor mass population and a tiny elite controlling government and business. Those Unions fought for safety and living wages at a time when their lives were on the line. If they hadn't done it, America would be an entirely different place today. They managed to get a big enough piece of the pie in the 1940's for the middle class to take solid root in the 1950's and continue growing all the way until the 1970's. This was the golden age of Democratic economic policy in the US. In the 50's through the 70's congress had Democratic leadership every year. The combination of strong Unions and a Democratic congress created the greatest economy the world has ever known. Unions are weaker now than when they first got their footing. If you are lucky enough to have a pension, then you have less protections today than you did in the 1950's. Union membership is currently the lowest it has been in the last 60 years. Private sector Union membership in the U.S. is currently a paltry 6.6%. How exactly can the terrible economy be blamed on such a small sector of the economy? In 1980 the government took an anti-Union turn and began a 30+ year process of stripping workers of their rights. In 1992 the republicans won congress for the first time in 40 years and Unions have suffered ever since. So has the economy. Remember that all laws begin in the House and are then are sent to the Senate before a president can make it law. You can blame Clinton for NAFTA, the creation of the sub-prime, and the repeal of Graham-Steagal if you want but it was a republican congress that wrote those laws and sent them to his desk to sign. In the 1980's the middle class began to shrink as the federal government became aggressively anti-Union for the first time in 40 years. It was no accident that throughout the 1900's the strength of Unions was directly connected to the strength of the economy and the size of the middle class. As Unions grew, so did America, as they continue to shrink we wallow in recession. Strengthen Unions and the economy will come back. Being anti-Union IS being anti-American. Don't worry, they won't be strengthening workers rights and Unions anytime soon. Corporations like your money too much. They now own enough politicians in both parties thanks to the blue dog democrats and the apparently anti-Union Obama, who has done nothing to help. As long as money is the only recognized form of free speech we can expect the middle class to continue to shrink at the insistence of corporate America. You can also expect the main stream media to continue with its conservative anti-Union slant at the insistence of those very same corporate sponsors. The media has effectively rewritten history about the role of Unions in America. Proof lies in in the comments in this thread that reveal a parallel universe storyline that has been sold to infotainment consumers by Fox News, talk radio, and the Koch brothers. So please, will one of you anti-Union ostriches explain to me how Unions can be blamed for the bad economy when they are weaker now than in the last 60+ years? Isn't it more likely that a strong middle class requires strong worker rights and compensation? How is America supposed to buy the goods and services that keep the economy humming if nobody has a disposable income? Try to respond with facts, your emotional opinions are not exactly something to base policy on. Any anti-Union person should be embarrassed to use a video of a fight that is edited and misleading. What does it say about you opinion that it is based on a known lie, and you use it anyway? Take Hostess for example. The hedge funds collected $4.25 an hour per employee for over a year for the pension but failed to deliver it. This was over $7000 from me alone. They took that money out of the hands of 18,000 people and concentrated it into the hands of a few. And no, they didn't earn it by being the titans of industry. If you think that was good for the economy then you are in serious need of an education, or a spanking- because you must be 10. Someday you'll have a real job and understand.
I'm not anti-union, but you are dick. Hard for you to make a point without trying to insult anyone who doesn't believe what you believe in? But maybe that is what to expect from someone who believes in spanking children and making broad generalizations about people they don't even know.
One time, I had a real job, and was in a union. And I was one of the top performers in a Fortune 40 company. I was stuck in a wage scale (which I understood, but didn't like) and stuck without being able to be promoted b/c of union rules on time-in-a-particular grade. My raises were pooled and decided by a union calculation. And when management told the union they had to start laying people off, they started by just laying off anyone with less than 5 years of service (I had 4+). Management asked specifically if they could keep me, because of the program I had started, because I was seen as a nationally-recognized subject matter expert, and because one of our main customers loved the work I was doing. Union said "we don't tell you which managers to hire, don't tell us which union members to fire." So I got to pay $50 a month for a group of people who worked less than I did, were worse at their job than I was, and who were less important to the company (and bottom line) to be paid more than I was, earn similar raises to mine, and not be protected in a layoff situation. Rewarding mediocrity and not being merit-based are only two of the reasons that I think unions are going the way of the dodo. If you're mediocre (or suck), they're great. If you're good, you're not rewarded.
I'm not for or against unions, they have a lot of positives and negatives. But while unions supposedly helped develop a middle class, as MH says, that only worked so long, I suppose.
I have no problem insulting people who 'don't believe what I believe in' if what they believe is a intentional lie. Maybe you missed the first post in this thread, a video labeling Union members as thugs. That video is an edited lie. I may be a jerk but at least I don't lie to people in order to get them on my side. I realize that I am much ruder than all the other kind gents in this thread. You should flip back through the comment thread and read all the generous offers to shove things in my mouth or the kind well wishers for my family to starve. I have felt great love in this thread from 'conservatives' who care about their fellow man. Sorry if my spanking joke offended you. But just to be clear, any child that thinks it is OK to steal would be in need of some kind of reform. Otherwise they might grow up to be a criminal, like the hedge fund managers at Hostess. I would be disappointed in my children if they grew up to behave like that.
