So What's Wrong With Unions?

[remember2000forever]

Restoring our unions will once again promote the forgotten middle class. The backbone of the fifties to the seventies was a result of workers able to earn a decent and fair wage. We used to call it, "Cradle To The Grave". Your comments?


4/25/08
Barack sets pro-union labor agenda
Barack Obama spent Tuesday courting union workers and veterans, both important constituencies in Pennsylvania, which holds its Democratic primary next Tuesday.

Obama, addressing the Building Trades National Legislative Conference in Washington, said, "Your voices will be heard." The Illinois senator promised that if he's elected he'll support union measures not backed by the Bush administration: the Employee Free Choice Act, giving unions more power to organize; federal government use of "project labor agreements"; and tax policies to discourage sending jobs overseas and reward the creation of U.S. jobs.

He said federal infrastructure projects should use union laborers who were paid prevailing wages and good benefits. "It's time we had a president who didn't choke saying the word 'union,'" he told a crowd that roared in agreement. "It's not that hard: union. See? It won't hurt you. We need to strengthen our unions, not weaken them, not tear them down. We need to build them up."

[midnight]

1. Nothing. The last eight years showed me that we need more of

them.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

2. Sarah Palin liked them remember.

[readmoreoften]

3. Nothing. Except maybe that most of them need a more radical and aggressive leadership.

Unions are all we got. Which is why we ain't got much these days...

[damntexdem]

4. You see, it's clear that for the economy to rebound, workers and the middle class must lose out.

Unless we can push them into the ranks of the poor, we can never compete in a free-trade (rather than fair-trade) world. And the necessary first point of attack must be on unions. But fear not -- all other supports for a healthy middle class and a prospering working class will be destroyed as soon as the unions are.

Hey, it's just some capitalists out to prove that Karl Marx was right, that capitalism must ultimately abase all workers.

[earth mom]

5. There is nothing wrong with Unions. But everything is wrong with corporations.

:puke:

[sarcasmo]

6. Republicans like Romney would tell you that they pay employees to much money and cost the

shareholders with their crazy free health care.

[Greyskye]

7. Many, if not most, Unions are great.

There are some however, which need drastic overhaul.

(Girding flame retardant clothing...)
The California Teachers Union is one such entity. That's not based on my personal knowledge, but on the experiences of my wife and my in-laws; all of which are (or were in the past) California teachers.

[Better Believe It]

8. What's wrong with workers unions? They are far too weak.

[Greyskye]

10. Not the CTU

They're too powerful, and protect crappy teachers who have no business teaching kids. If the CTU 'protects' it's members from all accountability, who protects the kids from incompetent teachers?



(edit for acronym typo)

[Omaha Steve]

9. I'm a voice for organized labor on the DU

No flame from me. I posted about an SEIU former president a few days ago. He stole from his members in the area of one million dollars. I'm always ready to smack this type of person. We have our problems. Strange next years US budget spends more watching unions, than it does on all forms worker safety combined. We came here to work, not to die. Work union, live better.

[terryg11]

15. you are right

there are many unions that do right by their members and others that don't. Was talking to my dad over the weekend and how some years back they didn't think they were getting what they were paying for from their current union and had it discredited (I think that's the correct term). He said it wasn't an easy process but they got it done and have been happy with the one that replaced it.

[MisterP]

11. don't fit the 18th-century illusion of the atomized Individual,

whose conscience is illuminated by God or Reason alone and thus should have no "barriers" to laissez-faire success. Oh, and there's no such thing as society :crazy:
this's been catapulted by Thatcher, Rand, Heinlein, many anti-New-Deal Cold Warriors, and the anticlerical clergy (don't ask) who agitated for New Spain's independence in 1808-21

[Tace]

12. I've Been A Member Of Three Unions... And A Shop Steward

I'm pro-union.

I was in the restaurant workers' union, as a busboy in a nightclub... then a member of the UAW as a Detroit auto worker. Then a member of the Wire Service Guild, local 222 of the Writers Guild. I think the Wire Service Guild is now the Media Guild. I was shop steward at the UPI New York bureau in the early 1990s.

All I'm getting at is that I've been fairly involved in unions, and I think they're wonderful (though surely not perfect in every case). I was pleased to see the arrangement in Detroit where the UAW is administering health benefits for its workers. I was considering a similar solution at UPI some 20 years ago.

BTW, most people don't know that Henry Ford encouraged unions in his factories to break the ethnic guilds that had sprung up early in the last century, with different ethnic groups dominating different parts of the shop floor.

Tace

[Johonny]

13. Union members vote against their own interest

One of the main problems with unions as far as I can tell is members of the union started voting against organized labor because they thought other issues were more important, only to find themselves fighting for a job later on.

[walldude]

14. Depends on who you are.

If you are a person who(and I stole this from Maddows show) showers before work there is everything wrong with unions. How can you make massive amounts of money off the backs of others if the others hold any kind of power?

If you are a person who showers after work unions are... POWER. They are your voice.

Sure there are problems with unions but they can be resolved. Busting unions makes us all slave labor. Working at the whims of the corporations.

[DainBramaged]

16. Nothing, unless you post in the Labor forum here, and then all you get are

Only a few of us here even bother to read or post in the Labor forums. And that in itself shows you how little the general membership of DU cares about Labor or the issues.

[malaise]

17. Unions need to promote themselves more

They need a regular voice in the media. The Chambers of Commerce and Manufacturers use big bucks to silence them.
Workers of the world unite.

[Fire1]

18. Not a damn thing!