Ask yourself, If Unions aren't important, why are corporations spending BILLIONS to destroy them?

[DainBramaged]

[rurallib]

1. great question

[elleng]

2. Because unions are important!

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. Because being able to shut a company down to demand reasonable wages gets in the way

of the boss's profits. Or as "they" say, "the rise of managerial capitalism" / "rise in profit share/fall in wage share".

https://www.box.com/shared/9if6v2hr9h (The leaked Citigroup "Plutonomy" internal memo)

In other words, when CEOs make ever more money and workers, ever less. I'm sure you know about ALEC, the corporate think-tank which is writing legislation being passed in various states, including "right to work" laws which are of course union-busting concepts. The Koch brothers were major sources of funding for the front group "Citizens United" who managed to get passed the ruling allowing for corporations and lobbys to contribute unlimited funds to political parties and candidates, effectively increasing the possibility of the passing of legislation favorable to their corporate interests.

[dmr]

4. Public union employees protect our public assets from

corrupt politicians who are bought off by private businesses/corporations - domestic or foreign.

A politicians can easily replace or intimidate a non-union employee when they try to sell off land, buildings, assets ....

A union employee is our best hope.

[JohnnyRingo]

5. Amen brother.

I've heard stories from people who work in nonunion shops. They say the company tells them how unionization will lead lo lower employment and reduced wages.

I've had to ask them why, if that's the case, the company doesn't make union membership mandatory.

[TeamPooka]

6. k+r!

[Starry Messenger]

7. bingo.

K&R

I get so sick of "progressive" union haters. If the working class of this country isn't worth supporting than wtf are we even here for?

[annm4peace]

8. and why does the AFL-CIO use Wells Fargo for mortgages

Chase used to do mortgages for Union members and gave them back $ 499 in closing costs, of course this was probably factored into their rate..... now AFL-CIO is going to go with Wells Fargo instead and WF will give the union member a $500.00 gift card for doing their mortgage.

So after the big campaigns of move your money out of big banks, the AFL-CIO sells their Union members to Wells Fargo. crazy!

[jtuck004]

10. The racist Gompers and his AF of L was selling out workers long ago, keeping them on the path

of begging for scraps on their knees while busting other worker's unions, getting good working people killed, who wanted never to have to beg again. Subservience to the capitalist and keeping the workers under control was his goal, keeping killers like Carnegie in charge while making sure workers never asked for more than bits and pieces. It's called, derisively by some, "business unionism".

It's not in most history classes any longer, (partly, perhaps, because of anti-Communist hysteria, or maybe because TPTB are scared silly of people who actually know the history of labor?) but the biographies and autobiographies of Mother Jones, Matles, Haywood, Foster and others of the period are in university libraries. The stories are in there about how Gompers helped bust the railway strike in 1894, the steel strike in 1919, along with an amazing description of worker abuse and murder. child labor, and horrific treatment by the government and owners in textile mills and coal mines. It will give you a very different take from what is taught today.

One would have thought after more than a hundred years workers would be in a better position than they are today. But when you read those histories you realize how they were sold out, so perhaps this sort of thing fits right in with Gomper's philosophies, given what the banksters have done to the country for the past few years.

[Demo_Chris]

9. Because they have the billions to spend.

And in any case, they are NOT spending billions to destroy them. They don't have to, we took care of that for them when boomers decided to export our jobs and condemn future generations to poverty and powerlessness.

But again, as I said, they have the billions to spend. The COMBINED TOTAL of all spending on the presidential elections was less than the banking industry alone will pay out this year in bonuses. A single company like UnitedHealth or ExxonMobil or Lockheed could fund every election, local state and national, every time, and never even notice the difference. Any ONE of those companies could do that, and there are a hundred just like them.

Which is why we allow the Oil Companies to control our energy and environmental policy, why we allowed insurance companies to write "health care reform," why we allow defense companies to decide on our foreign policy, why we allow banks to write the regulations for the banks. It's why we have trillions available to hand over to banks, why we can somehow afford to spend 600 Billion per year on defense, and the only thing the people get is the bill. It's why the only things left up for debate are the candyfloss issues that the elite don't care about. You are allowed to vote for whichever candidate you want. You can vote for the guy who pretends to care about the middle class or the other guy who pretends to care about the middle class.

Obama's bold new proposals so far this term are to spend 50 Billion on infrastructure, 600 Billion on his wars, and raise the minimum wage to an amount that will still leave everyone in poverty -- an amount no doubt approved by corporations like Walmart and McDonalds. He's also proposed destroying social security, and he won a permanent tax cut for the wealthy and a permanent low tax rate on cap gains -- which means you get to pay a higher rate than Mitt Romney or Bill Gates or the Walton family.

And if you think it's bad now, just wait until Obamacare kicks and people with no fucking money are suddenly required by law to purchase policies that they cannot afford (and that do nothing for them).

We have got to purge the chearleaders and begin demanding actual representation for our votes. If not there is really nothing left to talk about. Unions are great, and it would be really cool if they actually existed and had some power, but until there is real change in Washington that's not gonna happen.