Unions are corrupt, they do not represent the membership

[Sheepshank]

I've read that here on DU several times today, generally from Bernie supporters.

So....disillusionment with unions, they are ineffective, why have them?

Was Scott Walker onto something?

I am deadly serious. Are we here to support unions or demolish them because they are supporting someone other than Bernie Sanders?

[CountAllVotes]

1. My union is not corrupt

I've been paying dues for many years and well into retirement. They represent ME and I am proud to be a Union member and I am happy to pay dues.

They negotiate my health care plan every year and they make sure that I get the best deal possible.

Bashing unions gets one nowhere with me, that is a guarantee!

[NCTraveler]

2. Never seen unions trashed like this here.

As OS said yesterday, seems some just started caring about unions yesterday. Now they are ready to side with republicans and label union leadership as corrupt. Zero difference in the anti-union rhetoric of the right. Truly zero difference. Union leaders are corrupt.

[Blue_Adept]

3. When things don't go the way Sanders supporters want it to...

it really feels like a scorched earth campaign in how they react to those that have betrayed them.

[bigwillq]

4. Unions are fine, for the most part

I think things would be worse without them, but unions protect some bad workers. I've had some family and friends who have gone through some horrific experiences with some bad union workers. The bad workers have kept their jobs because they're protected by union bosses.

[angel123]

11. protection by union bosses.

No, they are protected by union contracts. Are you advocating that unions protect only "good workers"? What is the definition of a "good worker"? I certainly would not want co-workers to decide who gets protection. Contracts are written to cover a broad range of issues.

[ibegurpard]

5. take it up with the union members

Who aren't happy with their leadership decisions

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Are you a Union member? I love my Union, it's also like the others a very political creature which

has a wide variety of attributes and objectives among the membership, elected office holders and otherwise. It's like government, the idea is to support the membership but that idea is not always carried out, the potential for corruption exists and changes can be resisted to the detriment of membership.
Unions can also be flat out wrong, as membership knows. The Teamsters endorsed Ronald Reagan, Union Buster deluxe because they were chumps.

Your language is not respectful to Unions as a whole because some Unions are supporting Bernie Sanders, some are not. Your verbiage says "Unions are supporting someone other than Bernie" and that's just very self serving and it makes me want to know if you are in a Union and what Union you are in if you are.

My Union will not endorse in the Primary. I can promise you that.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Which unions? Some are corrupt.

[JonathanRackham]

8. Mine is fine.

Current leadership is very honest.

[Ernesto]

9. UNION Sheet Metal Worker here......

My wife is a UNION Nurse.
We are both well-retired and doing fine.

Scott Walker is fecal matter.

[Iliyah]

10. You sumed up Walker quite nicely.

[Amimnoch]

12. Democrats support Unions

Burnie supporters support Burnie.

Oh, and they're ok with unions who support Burnie, and they're ok with union members who go against their union and fellow union workers to support Burnie.

That's all.

[Bobbie Jo]

13. "Union corruption" is a RW meme.

Always has been...

K&R

[Amimnoch]

14. Couldn't agree more!

The attacks on any union that doesn't support Burnie is disgusting here lately.

Where does that quote of absolutes come from.. the one that goes something like "If you're not with us you are against us?"

[Sheepshank]

16. BINGO!!!

why is that so hard for so many to understand?

RW memes are abounding on DU lately. It's sickening.

[Starry Messenger]

15. I hear this talk in the Bay Area all the time.

Ultra-leftists and anarchists like to go on and on about it. It's their way of sounding like they are for the working stiff, while nobly trashing the only organization we have to fight for our rights.

Ultimately, it just plays into the agenda of the right though. It's too bad, if progressives had put more pressure in supporting unions, and repealing things like Taft-Hartley, in grassroots efforts, unions wouldn't have to be so cautious and careful with our future. Right now we are hanging by a thread on the whim of the Supreme Court, so we have to have a sure thing to help with that situation.

[AOR]

21. LOL...

No matter how many times you try to cite "leftist thinking" in your posts...it is all one big blob of melting, meaningless ice, that flows back into a large vat of capitalist reaction. The CPUSA and the "brand of leftism" you're putting forth - as having some kind of relevance or effect in building class consciousness and organization of the workers - is not "gauging the strength" or "working with the development of the working class as it presently exists at this precise moment in history." The CPUSA and your "brand of pragmatic leftism" is indulging in open reaction, blatant revisionism, and rank opportunism of the highest order.

"Left-wing communism" is indeed an infantile disorder, but Lenin - or Foster for that matter - would not for a minute entertain the notion... that building working class consciousness and the organization of workers - at this precise moment in history - flows through the channels of Hillary Clinton and the NeoLiberal wing of the Democratic Party. "Protecting our gains" is meaningless when nothing that could be called "gains" actually exist. The road of the CPUSA and your "brand of leftism has resulted in mealy-mouth negotiations, sellouts, and cave-ins to the owners at every turn that has neutered organized labor worse than it's ever been.

In the words of Lenin... that is a "compromise" that is really tantamount to the worst kind of opportunism, treachery and betrayal."

[dmosh42]

17. Life member CWA-Don't think many understand that most national unions don't have direct elections...

of national officers. The members elect their local officers who mostly represent them in the national conventions where they do elections.
Who the national officers say the union will endorse is mostly their own opinions, or maybe just the opinion of the national president of
the union. It's not corruption, just a difference of opinion between the top leadership and the members.

[Scuba]

18. Seems like some union leaders are putting their own interests ahead of their members.

That doesn't make the union corrupt, just the leaders who pull that shit.

[Cali_Democrat]

19. Somewhere the Koch brothers are smiling like the cheshire cat after reading DU. nt

[marlakay]

20. I love the union we are affliated with

From Bart in bay area. We have a good retirement with medical. If they tell me to vote for someone I don't like I just ignore it.

I fully expect they will go with Clinton since there is a lot of money in bay area.