What's wrong with labor?

[geefloyd46]

Unfortunately there has been too many people like Tony Danza in this clip. They might be by far in the minority but unfortunately there's enough of them to make this into an effective stereotype. I just read an article on Andy Stern cashing in after leaving SEIU and it makes me think he didn't see this as a comedy but as a road map to a career choice. The article is here:

http://truth-out.org/news/item/10696-andy-stern-responds-to-critics-of-his-post-seiu-career

The rest of one of the funniest Taxi episoded can be found here: http://laborspains.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-rest-of-taxi-episode-is-just-as.html

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[Citizen Worker]

1. Unfortunately, this strategy of co-optation occurs more than one might think. Several years ago an

acquaintance was elected to the top position in his Union. I congratulated him and he said, "do you know so and so?" So and so was the VP of (In)humane resources. I said that I didn't know him personally but knew his position. My friend went on to say that so and so had invited him to lunch to celebrate his election. My friend was quite taken that he had been invited to lunch by someone so important. I suggested that instead of going to lunch with the executive that he take his brown bag and have lunch with his members in the shop of the employer where so and so was a VP. And the next day to go to a different employer with his brown bag. I allowed as how so and so "is not our friend and he never will be," and that the "Union members are your constituency not management." I don't know that he followed through with my suggestion.

[freshwest]

2. Saw the same thing with my union in the Reagan era. The company we worked for starting giving the

Union vice-presidents (all 7 of them) pay as if they were still at work, plus their union salaries, benefits from and did the charm offensive. Took them to all their hangouts, country clubs, etc. After a while, they felt a difference between themselves and the rank and file.

I had a couple of friends employed by the union, one of the vice-presidents and his wife who had become one of the union's secretaries. Most of these folk became emotionally removed from members in general, as they never did the same work under the same conditions as the rest of us.

And so it went.