Should we do a thread on positive union anecdotes?

[socialist_n_TN]

Since the RW has this meme about unions protecting bad workers, maybe we need to hear stories about SPECIFIC instances when unions have HELPED an individual. Olbermann has a personal story about a union helping him when he first got into the news biz on another thread.

Here's mine. I was a Boilermaker shop steward back in the early 70s at a shipyard. There was a sector manager that was making remarks, sexist and racial, about a black woman who worked as a welder. She came to me with a complaint. The problem was we couldn't get any other witnesses. He had everybody cowed and nobody would own up to knowing anything. Then one day another welder (a young white guy) came to me and said he'd heard the manager make some remarks, but he didn't want to get involved either. He was afraid for his job. After about a week, I convinced him to give me a first hand report which I forwarded on to the Chief Steward. The manager was demoted and moved to ANOTHER area of this shipyard. I didn't even know about his "transfer" until the complaintent came to me and thanked me for getting rid of him. I felt like my union and myself did a GOOD thing for that woman.

[rzemanfl]

1. I belonged to the Retail Clerks union from 1964 until 1971.

I graduated from college in three years with money in the bank and no loans thanks to Union wages (and living at home with my parents as an undergraduate). Those same union wages helped support me, my wife and daughter while I was in law school. Years later I was on the other side of AFSCME quite a bit and they won about half the time, usually because someone in management was shoving someone around thinking they could get away with it.

[socialist_n_TN]

2. Thanks.......

Unions help PEOPLE, not the corps.

[northoftheborder]

3. Good idea.

[martigras]

4. Got us maternity leave

When I first started teaching, we had no maternity leave. The Superintendent would call pregnant women into his office and bark at you that you had "six weeks, no more" to deliver your child and get back to work. Once we became unionized we also negotiated a two year maternity leave for faculty. The union helped a lot of little kids get a year or two of full time attention from their mothers. And that's a good thing.

[socialist_n_TN]

7. That IS a good thing...........

Great story! And this kind of story is why economic issues should take priority. This was an empowerment for women and families, a social issue that was a byproduct of economic empowerment.

[LoZoccolo]

5. When I was 14-15 I worked at a retail store that was a union shop.

It basically worked out that the union to which I belonged made sure that all the child labor laws were followed; I got out of work by 7 PM on weekdays and didn't get worked more than the legal limit of hours per week. It's important that we're not distracting our children from school at that age. I had a friend who worked at a restaurant who was getting worked late on school nights when he was under 16, so I appreciated that I didn't have to.

[socialist_n_TN]

6. Yeah, THESE are the kinds of stories that I mean..........

Positive effects that unions have had for real PEOPLE. Personal stories. I hope we get a few more. They're inspiring and counter negative propaganda of the ruling classes.

[AdHocSolver]

8. Good idea. K & R.

Start many threads to keep positive stories about unions alive for a long time.

[hvn_nbr_2]

9. Positive union anecdote from one who has never been a union member.

I've never been a member of a union, but I benefit every day from what unions have done.

Almost every job I ever had was generally a forty-hour work week. The forty-hour work week is the result of unions.

I regularly use the word "weekend." The very concept of a weekend is a contribution of unions.

I never worked in a place where 12-year-old kids worked six 12-hour days a week in unsafe conditions for pennies. Child labor laws, and their enforcement, are significantly union contributions.