State of the unions

State of the unions

How public opinion turned so sharply and suddenly against worker groups

This summer, something remarkable happened: 45,000 Verizon workers went on strike, and no one — save a few customers dealing with service interruptions — much cared.

The communications behemoth wanted more than 100 concessions on health care, pensions, sick days and outsourcing. Unions representing the workers said Verizon sought to void 50 years of collective-bargaining gains for middle-class workers, despite posting a 2.8% jump in revenue in the second quarter, up to $27.5 billion.

Thirteen days later, those on strike went back to work on good faith, the company guaranteeing nothing other than continued talks.

It’s an indictment of how anemic the labor movement in America has become, how irrelevant to the average worker that, even in this ever-contracting economy, the lower and middle classes couldn’t be agitated to care.

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State of the unions

What better way to celebrate Labor Day than pointing out what despicable CRETINS unions, union supporters and union members are?

How far have the unions sunk when a New York paper takes them on? How much importance have they lost?

Unions, like a few other things, were needed and actually did a lot of good in their original inception, but once the corruption set in, once *The Mob* took over, once the *No Show* job was instituted, Unions became as useless as useless can be defined. Think Teamsters, AFL-CIO and SEIU. Think Richard Trumka and Jimmy Hoffa. Think corruption and voila, unions in America…

And speaking of Jimmy Hoffa…

Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa had some profane, combative words for Republicans while warming up the crowd for President Obama in Detroit, Michigan on Monday.

“We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They’ve got a war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner. It’s going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We’re going to win that war,” Jimmy Hoffa Jr. said to a heavily union crowd.

“President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong,” Hoffa added.

Obama addressed the crowd shortly after Hoffa. SOURCE with Video

Hoffa warmed up the crowd for Barack Hussein Obama, a union supporting cretin, a community organizer and the WORST POTUS in American history, bar NONE.

Unions have shot themselves in the foot over the last few years, and that’s a good thing, it keeps them from shooting innocent Americans, it keeps them from burning businesses down that refuse to sign up with them, the unions, by their past actions, as well as their unrealistic demands, are as responsible for the demise of American business as anything. Unions are responsible for American industry shutting down, and for the importation of foreign goods, cheaper in quality, but far cheaper in price too.

Union have priced Americans OUT of a job. Unions are why we have *out sourcing* and why when you call most customer support numbers you get someone in India, Pakistan or the Philippines that speaks English, but is so heavily accented that it’s nearly impossible to understand them.

That is what unions are good for today.

From the original post from The New York Post:

And why should they? Private-sector unions in the US are nearly extinct, having long ago abandoned an unwinnable fight against big business. Meanwhile, public-sector unions are thriving by comparison, even though public opinion has been on the decline since the rise of unions in the 1930s, when 72% of Americans had a favorable view of them.

Oh, wait…is their a PRO Union statement being made here after all? The author says, “an unwinnable fight against big business”, is that a slam against *BIG BUSINESS*? Maybe saying that *BIG BUSINESS* has no right to fight the unions? You decide for yourself, but I personally see a bit of a slap against business people in that statement.

How did this happen? How is it that the average American worker has come to view unionized labor — which, by definition, was meant to protect and progress each generation in ever-greater ways — with such contempt?

“At a certain historical moment, they had a real role to play, but they haven’t added to that,” says Jim Stergios, executive director of nonpartisan think tank the Pioneer Institute. “[They’re more concerned] that they meet their members’ needs at a time when the country is in a really rough spot.”

All a UNION is concerned with is making money for THE UNION and lining the pockets of the guys at the top, and they make that money off of the sweat of their members.

For New Yorkers especially, the prevailing attitude toward unions is akin to rent-stabilized apartments: great for the people who happened to luck into them, deeply unfair for those left to the vicissitudes of the free market.

And the unions, once self-branded as “the folks who brought you the weekend,” have only themselves to blame, long ago becoming the province of the few.

I can’t speak to the *feelings and beliefs* of New Yorkers, I won’t even try, they are a different breed from folks here in Texas.

I DO know this, Texas is a *RIGHT TO WORK* state, no one can be forced to join or pay dues to ANY union, and that is as it should be. The unions, on the other hand, don’t see it that way. They believe that non-union employees are *leeching* off of the so-called *gains* that union members have gained.

So, I have to wonder, after 13 days on strike, and going back to work on nothing more than a *promise* of talks, does the CWA or IBEW or whoever it is that represents Verizon feel that they GAINED anything or do they see 13 days of LOST pay? Did that strike give their members a reason to celebrate or do they now begin to see unions for the waste of time and money they have become?

How much of a raise in pay and/or benefits does a union strike have to bring on to offset the LOSSES accrued by the guys and gals on the *picket line*?

Strikes were, once upon a time, an effective method of getting your message across to management, union efforts were needed. I know what many faced in the middle part of the 20th century, my mother has *burned out* on nursing and had gone to work for Herrin Transportation, my father worked the docks and drove a truck.

The office came under a whole different set of rules but the dock workers and drivers were Teamsters, and they needed to be. Drivers were hurt and killed on an all to regular basis because they had to load the trucks, deliver the freight, reload for a return run, unload again and then take a few hours off before doing it again. They were exhausted, they were falling asleep at the wheel, they were poorly paid and were quite often abused and taken advantage of by *the company*.

The Teamsters came in and truly made a lot of difference in the way freight was handled and drivers and dock workers were treated. Then the Teamsters climbed into bed with the Mafia and the Teamsters, in an effort to keep up their payoffs TO the Mafia, have now priced themselves almost out of a job and into near extinction.

“There’s a big difference between a movement in the interest of the people, and an institution collecting dues and advancing the interests of its members,” says Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the modern-day classic “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.”

“I think,” she adds, “that unions continued to go on with business as usual, and didn’t realize that things had gotten a lot meaner.”

Unions are interested in collecting DUES and keeping their hierarchy living in the lap of luxury. If some poor slob down the line makes a few bucks over it, they are OK with that, as long as the dues poor in. Let me ask you this; do you suppose that ANY of the union leaders representing Verizon in their recent 13 day strike missed any meals or paychecks?

And don’t think for one minute that the unions don’t know what *MEAN* is, just listen to the words of James Hoffa, he is no different than his father, well, except that he’s not *missing*…

Yeah, I know, that was mean…sue me.