Welcome to Labor day, or as we refer to it this year: August 33rd, just about
the earliest Labor Day there can be. I'd even call it September 2nd because it
has been an exceptionally cool day here today with the high only reaching 82 -
thanks to drizzle on and off all day and dense clouds to temper the sun. The
chances of rain tomorrow are being put at 70% so rather than smoking
something, I'll be trying to duplicate my method of smoking some ribs but
using an indoor oven. Since I don't have a backyard pergola to keep the rain off things.
Since we're celebrating Labor Day in a time when the Teacher's Unions are coming to the forefront of union abuses of power, I thought it would worthwhile to use a "blast from the past" re-post of something I originally posted in 2013.
The Bloody History of Organized Labor
I enjoy my extra day off this week as much as anyone, but the history of the American labor movement that led to this day off is a pretty bloody history. Most of us are probably aware of the recent incitements to violence and riot, such as the problems in Wisconsin in 2011, when legislation to attempt to get control of the state budget led to confrontation in the state offices. Remember this email, sent to several State Senators by a union supporter because lawmakers were going to ask union members to simply contribute to their benefits plan, instead of it being 100% paid for by taxpayers?
Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your families will also be killed due to your actions in the last 8 weeks.
Please explain to them that this is because if we get rid of you and your families, then it will save the rights of 300,000 people, and also be able to close the deficit that you have created. I hope you have a good time in hell. ...
We have also built several bombs that we have placed in various locations around the areas in which we know that you frequent. This includes: your house, your car, the state capitol, and well, I won’t tell you all of them because that’s just no fun…
Please make your peace with God as soon as possible and say goodbye to your loved ones. [W]e will not wait any longer. YOU WILL DIE!!!
In what world is it acceptable to threaten killing someone and their family, and not expect any negative consequences for it? Only in the upside down world of labor unions. Daniel Sayani at the New American puts together a short history of union violence in this country. The first blood spilled by union activists apparently goes back to the Haymarket Square massacre in 1886, in which:
... striking union workers threw a bomb at Chicago police, killing eight police officers and countless civilians, after being incited to their lethal rampage by socialist Samuel Fielden (not unlike how Marty Lamb was beaten after the crowd of unionists was inflamed to violence by “progressive” Rep. Capuano) [Note: explanation of Rep. Capuano reference in that article from the New American - SiG]
Because of their enormous influence in the Democratic Party, unions have
specifically gotten themselves exempted from laws the rest of society must
follow. You probably know about the exemptions from
the anti-trust laws, and extortion laws, and that they're trying to
exempt themselves from Obamacare. (just one example for each of those). And, of course, you know
when unions physically assault conservatives like
Kenneth Gladney
there never seems to be any consequences for the union thugs.
Unions are progressively more desperate because membership in non-government employee unions is down. Only government workers' unions are growing, where no true negotiation takes place because there are no parties at the table risking anything. Unions like the SEIU and the AFSCME are the beneficiaries of fat government contracts. They get more union dues which they siphon off to contribute to getting Evil Party politicians elected who will negotiate new, fat contracts with them.
(source)
While I could tweak things here and there in text, it's pretty good as it
sits. It's showing its age a bit with references to efforts to pass a $15/hr
minimum wage and it mentions the SEIU instead of the American Federation of
Teachers - which in way just underlines the persistence of this problem.
The thing is, some unions were actually founded to help the members, and did so, like the railway workers unions that got a lot of safety stuff and care after being invalided on railways (used to be, working on or around a railway was an extremely dangerous job, almost as deadly as bakery workers (no, not kidding, bakery workers in the day died from flour-lung (black lung, but flour based) and from flour explosions a lot.) The Grange societies also did great work for their members.
ReplyDeleteBut, once the issues that the unions or societies were created for were solved, the organizations became corrupt and taken over by supposed-socialists who loved the huge amounts of money that fell into their laps.
This, by the way, is seen in even conservative organizations. Just look at the way Wayne La Pierre and his merry band of cohorts robbed and raped the NRA for years. $10,000 a month for clothing allowance? Really?
But, yeah, workers of the world unite, rah rah rah...
Never forget "featherbedding" on the railroads, courtesy of the union.
DeleteThere's one of those "laws of human nature" you see from time to time that goes, "any organization not specifically created to be conservative by it's rules will become liberal over time." The idea of unions, as a way to negotiate for better working conditions (mostly pay) strikes me as not a big deal. After all, big companies don't buy anything without some amount of negotiation.
DeleteThe problem is that's an idea that isn't necessarily reality. See also, "pricing your services out of the market," and "invoking state power to keep the company from optimizing its business." It's the tight relationship with political parties, swapping money back and forth to fund each other under the table, that's the problem.
I got my "life membership" in the NRA when it was on sale some years ago, and as they slipped farther into Wayne's World, paid less and less attention. I donate to the 2AF (and others) with nothing to the NRA. Now that some amount of self-correction has started happening, it's time to pay some more attention to whether they get any better or not.
At one time, in my naive youth, I worked in a unionized job and was a union member. As eyes opened, I started to avoid such places.
America, especially in the Southeast, had the most productive and best run fabric mills the world had ever seen. Then the Unions killed all that. Now all you can see of America's once-great textile industry is empty shells of buildings.
DeleteSame with America's garment manufacturers. Destroyed by the Unions.
America's auto companies mostly killed by the Unions.
And who can forget the Unions purposefully killing Yellow Freight in order to force UPS to a very unfortunate contract?
But it's for the workers, right?
How many unions have members who vote conservative yet all the union money goes to the Democrats?
Yeah, kill them all.
To add about the textile mills being superior.
DeleteMaybe five years I read through a series of comments on a seamstress forum.
Don't know why I was there, maybe about stitching sailcloth.
Anyway, the comments were about lamenting the sale of those wonderful looms and other machinery. At bargain basement prices, those machines were bought by foreign nations eager to have them.
In several cases, those countries scraped all of their machines to make way for the American machines. Not just to make room but knowing their machines were maintenance pigs and inferior.
Many of those American machines were at or near one hundred years old and ran very well.
Later, when some co-ops in the States tried to buy some back, no one would sell them.
It looks like unions are down to about 10% of the workforce in 2024. My experience with unions has been that they now take care of the union staff, but not the workers they are supposed to represent. They probably always have been a political lobbying force as well. The Teamsters did endorse Reagan in 1980 for example.
ReplyDelete