The Young People

[dotymed]

have to be informed.
I spent many years working as a carpenter, hearing all of the non-Union propaganda and believing it. At 35, I joined the Carpenters Union and realized how many years I had been duped.
My oldest Daughter will get her teaching credentials this year. She is so worried about the attacks on the teachers Unions. She should be.
Every since Reagan fired the Flight Controllers (Unionized) en masse, there has been an eradication of Unions and a huge and growing disparity of wealth in America. They started with the "blue collar" workers and turned worker against worker until we saw that what so many brave Americans had died for (collective bargaining, a living wage, etc...) was almost gone.
"They" have now become blatant (following their triumphs) and now their target is white collar Unions. The Educators and government employees Unions. We are seeing a strong (so far) resistance to the current Union busting. We need to realize how many of our citizens have already lost so much in the past 30 years. Hopefully, after we win this current assault on our Unions (and the increased disparity of wealth that it causes), Americans will realize just how much we have lost in these last decades.
Our Unions should represent every working man and woman in America to insure that we can still have "an American dream."
Many great Americans (not necessarily from America, but still great Americans) gave their lives and suffered horribly to get us to the prosperous times America enjoyed in the 1950's. Sadly, those things are hardly taught in our current education system. Maybe, after this is over, these heroes will be recognized again.
The wealthy, most of them were born into their wealth, must be made to pay taxes in relation to their wealth. The poor should never have to worry about health care and the basics needed to live and hopefully contribute to our society.
Maybe I should post this in the Science Fiction forum, because in the sci-fi movies, society has evolved enough to realize everyone is equal and there (usually) are no impoverished.
The young people are faced with a decision that many generations ago were faced with. I pray they fight for humanity and not greed.

[roguevalley]

1. agreed. and they have to work inside them. a union is nothing without

the active work of the membership.

[txlibdem]

2. Such a great post!

Thank you for bringing the truth. My only criticism of unions is that they have mostly become toothless tigers in the past 20 years. Take for example the Los Angeles bus drivers. Their union caved to management in the late 1990s to guarantee the current workers their higher salaries and benefits but the newly hired will start at a far lower wage (50% less) with caps on how high their salaries could ever go --and much worse benefits. The union threw its newest members, presumably the young, "under the bus."

[dotymed]

3. With the dwindling numbers that

the Unions represent, they are often faced with "caving" or losing more members. Realistically, they could have been made an offer they couldn't refuse...Unions, like all entities are as honest and representative as their members make them be.

[txlibdem]

5. Young people are getting shafted -- they need to stand up for their rights

This new generation is going to be the first generation to do worse, financially, than their parents generation. Young people need to understand that they cannot stand idly by and allow the older generations to cast them aside so easily. They need to stand up for their rights or they will not get any rights. That is my point.

You seem to be ok with the unions giving the young people the shaft "so they don't lose members" but I am not so sure that the young people would so willingly place their necks on the chopping block if they knew that we, the older generations, are selling them out just to keep our "cushy" lifestyles --lifestyles that the young people will never be able to have at this rate.

We are witnessing the slow-motion meltdown of Capitalism and the first victims are the young people. I just wonder if they will continue to be so willing to be sacrificed for the "good" of the old people.

[dotymed]

18. NO, I am in no way "ok

with the Unions giving the young people the shaft so they don't lose members."
My point is that in order to survive and be able to fight another day (hopefully, with people realizing how important it is to be able to Unionize), IMO, many Unions have made concessions which have been detrimental to every American.
Again, IMO, this is a (at least 3 decades old) CLASS WAR and we are losing.
The MSM has been able to manipulate the country to act against it's interests. I have 4 children, 1 of them gets her teaching certificate this year. She is just realizing that she must stand united and demand that the ruling elite disappear.
I intended to convey that with the (hopefully until NOW) people before profit paradigm, many Unions made (terrible) concessions in order to survive. We have to legislate that the wealthy (again) pay their fair share of taxes, allow every American to earn a living wage with good benefits, etc...
I agree that the young people have been shafted, and so have the rest of us. Fair trade, not free trade and people before profits are a good start. Health Care as a "right" instead of a privilege is a "no-brainer."

on edit- I wrote this OP and I responded to a post about unfair concessions a Union made. I do not understand how you interpreted that as me being okay with allowing the wealthy to fuck any of us, more than they already have...

[mmonk]

4. At the rally I was at yesterday, I wish I had seen more young

people involved. A lot of us old folk were carrying the day. The street had been cordoned off for the rally and the young people I saw were mainly sitting at out door tables eating that had been set up by downtown restaurants. They were too incurious of the fight that is going on. It was bothersome and so different than when I was younger.

[txlibdem]

6. Are you referring to the solidarity rallies that happened all across the nation?

It looks like the young people aren't engaged because they know that their futures are being sacrificed to maintain the lifestyles and "benefits" of the older generations.

[mmonk]

7. How so?

[txlibdem]

9. Look at GM for example

The newly hired employees of GM auto plants will only make $14 an hour, half what the existing workers make. Who are the new hires? Mostly young people? Isn't that an example?

[mmonk]

10. I don't understand what that has to do with my statement.

[txlibdem]

12. How so?

[mmonk]

13. Because instead of fighting for higher wages for Americans, they were sitting

on their asses while we were fighting for it.

[CTyankee]

8. OTOH, the benefits their parents and grandparents receive in Medicare and SS

saves the younger worker a lot of expense and worry. Before Medicare, the younger people had to take care of their elderly. Dignity in old age was hard to come by if you couldn't afford to live decently and have medical care.

So there's the trade-off...

[txlibdem]

11. OTOH, those are benefits that the young people will not get so where's the good for them?

I see your point and I agree that all citizens should be able to live in dignity. The problem I see is that those great benefits that people are receiving now will not be given to the young people when it is their time. So they are getting the shaft, being forced to pay for older people to live a better lifestyle than they will have when they are old.

It just doesn't seem right. Can you justify it somehow?

[CTyankee]

14. I would not justify taking away from one to benefit the other.

If I had my way, we would have a socialist economic system with a constitutional democracy. I see Germany today as a model for us.

If we don't change our system, we will ALWAYS have fighting between the young and old, the poor and the near poor, etc, etc. It is no good for us. A just economic system is the ONLY way to go. Otherwise, the rich get richer and let the rest of us fight over the crumbs.

[txlibdem]

15. Me too

The current economic system cannot be saved and I won't cry at its grave marker. You are right that we need to look to socialist nations for an example to follow. Greed and American Capitalism is going to destroy the world and us along with it if left to its will.

[dotymed]

19. Bullshit

that is the best reason to get "engaged" that I can imagine. A Union is as strong as it's weakest member. "I won't fight because my future will be sacrificed?".....
That is WHY you fight!!!!

[tabbycat31]

16. I was a baby when Reagan took office

And I grew up in a Democratic, but strong anti-union household (my parents are still staunchly anti-union to this day) and never really had much respect for blue-collar workers.

I rallied in Trenton with the unions on Friday, met with much resistance from my parents (I will probably defend that decision for the rest of their lives) who use every opportunity they get to bash unions to me. They tell me that unions had their time and place and it is now gone. I've countered them by saying now we need unions more than ever.

[txlibdem]

17. I voted against Raygun in the first election I could vote in

I voted for Jimmy Carter to have a 2nd term but bullshit and blowing sunshine up everyone's skirt wins elections a lot better than telling us the grim truth (that we need to get off of foreign oil).

Pres. Carter had put in place an energy plan that would have had us 100% energy independent by the year 2000. I suspect that once the American spirit got put into it (as happened with the Moon Landing and the Human Genome Project) we would have found a way to not only succeed at the goal but far surpass it. The Human Genome Project was completed years early and well under budget because of innovations that were invented along the way towards the goal. And everyone knows that we wouldn't have any of the technological advances we now enjoy if not for the Moon Landing project.

When Ronny Raygun took office he set about ending every energy idea Carter had started. Ronny made damn sure that his corporate masters wouldn't have to worry about decreased oil profits that's for sure. Solar? Killed by Raygun. Wind Turbines? It was a burgeoning industry but Raygun ended all subsidies and it died before it could really get going. Synthetic Fuels? Killed dead by Ronnie Raygun. Subsidies for energy efficiency in homes and commercial buildings? Killed by Ronnie Raygun. Carter had it all in place and the only thing we had to do was to finish the hard work. But... our sovereignty was also killed by Ronnie Raygun.

Yeah, Raygun did everything he could to kill off any union possible -- he destroyed the air traffic controllers union. Just look at the sorry state of this country and that will tell you that we need unions today more than ever. Or no unions and a little bit of the Tunisia/Egypt action here. Marching in the streets and shutting down the polluters, banksters and crooks. Unions were the only thing holding the thugs from pushing the masses too far. Now that unions are all but gone...