Young people need new lessons about labor unions

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/all-column.6447469jun07,0,3857471.column

Donald P. Russo
June 7, 2008

I enjoy using Wikipedia, so do other people, and in all likelihood, the job of encyclopedia salesman may be non-existent. Recently, I looked up Wiki's definition of ''labor union,'' and it convinced me that the general public is losing sight of what it is and what it does. According to Wikipedia, ''A trade union or labor union is an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas such as wages, hours, and working conditions.'' I feel it is necessary to re-acquaint everyone with what a union is, because after decades of Republican rule in Washington, going back to Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, ''union'' has become a dirty word.

Big business and the Republican Party have done a remarkable job of convincing young people that unions are bad. The propaganda campaign has been a remarkable success. Young people working at low-wage, part-time jobs, with no health insurance, paid sick leave, paid vacation or pension benefits actually think that they are doing well and that it would be a bad thing to bring in a union. As an employment attorney, I am seeing situations that are slowly bringing me to the realization that ''union busting'' is now a full-time pursuit in the workplace. What is most disconcerting, however, is the split I am observing among liberal Democrats.

I divide today's Democratic Party into two camps. One is the Barack Obama elite, effete upper middle class, university liberal type. They have never gotten their hands dirty in a blue-collar job, have never eaten onion rings and steak sandwiches at the corner bar, and drive a brand new Volvo or Saab. The writer Tom Wolfe once referred to them as ''limousine liberals.'' This type of liberal does not always sympathize with labor unions.

The other type of Democrat is a blue-collar or pink-collar Democrat who works at a low-wage job, is comfortable in a working-class barroom, and who drives a Ford or a Chevy. I am generalizing, but one would expect union busting to be perpetrated by avid Republican types, not by liberal Democrats. Sadly, this is not always the case. There are effete, limousine liberal types who engage in stifling union organizing efforts right here in the Lehigh Valley. A lot of this anti-union activity is being pursued in organizations affiliated with government.

FULL story at link.

[ray of light]

1. That is TRUE! It's ironic that the young people who have healthcare thanks to

mom and dad's union seem to take it forgranted and are Republicans. Hopefully it's less now. But there is one neo-con girl at my work who has mom and dad's labor union insurance until age 25 and she HATES dems and is "afraid that they will make us have universal healthcare!"

[provis99]

2. Donald Russo, shut the hell up about limousine liberals

From my recollections of working shit-jobs in construction and at Wal-Mart, it was the "limousine liberal" university-educated liberals who came around and tried to educate us about the good things a union could bring us. Most of my blue-collar fellow workers were stupid, right-wing assholes, typical Reagan Democrats. Limousine liberals and intellectuals help organize unions, despite the grief they get from the people they're trying to help.

You think those construction workers that attacked liberals in New York City in the 1960's, praising Nixon, while the unionized-police laughed, or the idiot stagehands at the Oscars who booed Michael Moore fcr criticizing Bush while the "limousine liberal Hollywood Elite" led the fight against Bush, deserve praise? Or the idiot blue collar voters in the South, who vote for right-to-work legislators, are working class heroes?

Fuck you, Donald Russo.

[rusty quoin]

5. At least he says, "I am generalizing." And he is simplistic .

He is being like a certain segment, I mean most of the media.

[Juche]

3. Limosuine liberals?

I would easily qualify as a limosuine liberal and am a strong supporter of labor and even donate money to various union organizations.

I would recommend he learn the names of some of the unions that are supporting limosuine liberals. Obama has the support of over a dozen unions including the SEIU and Teamsters.

The author of that article is grossly misinformed and is driving a wedge between blue collar dems and progressives. The progressive I know (who are usually college educated) are very pro-union.

This guy is a fucking moron. Which is a shame because aside from his misinformed tirade against people like me he has a very good point that we need to inform young workers about the benefits of having a union.

[Omaha Steve]

4. WOW

Some people do pay attention here. I wonder about it from time to time.

[ngant17]

6. The best lesson is to do it, organize in the workplace!

and as for me, it was a unique experience that helped to further shape my character in a more positive direction.

I'm sure Obama knows where I coming from, he was doing this sort of thing, organizing workers, in Chicago.

Taking the initiative to organize ended up in me being (wrongfully) terminated from my job,
but in the long run, I was able to survive and presevere in other ways. It builds character, to say the least. You learn how human behavior works in the real world, and how quickly your so-called friends will leave you and ostracize you when the push comes to the shove.

I have by a twist of fate ended up in AFSCME now, I feel any job that has a union behind you, it is better than the same job without one (even if the other job is paying higher wages initially). You need to have some kind of insurance that you can be treated equally, and simply expecting it to come solely from the goodwill of the boss is no longer good enough for me.

Here is an excerpt of some of my notes that I took to record the experience:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 2006. I initiated a process to establish union representation in my workplace, which at that time was in a newbie, fiberoptic-based telecommunications company, based in the 'research triangle' of North Carolina, with a fielded workforce of about 30 technicians covering a number of residential construction sites, mainly in Florida but in various sites in the Southeastern US.

The company was being run by some small-time North Carolina country-bumpkins, with big dreams from being stoned off internet communications technology like VOIP and Video over IP.

A 21st century playback of the Andy Griffith show, they were unrepentant red necks with the Southern drawl and a dash of geek-speak, -- a Barney Fife here, a Gomer Pyle there, the whole 'Mayberry RFD' gang at work, that's pretty much summed up their narrow-minded philosophical mindset. Except I found them to be even more openly racist and bigoted, particularly with Hispanics. A strategic blunder for a service-oriented company that has targeted about 75% of their business here in Florida, with residential sites even higher in proportion of Hispanic populations. Moral: just because you are a computer geek doesn't mean you have the intelligence and prudence to respect other ethnic and cultural groups.

I felt there was sufficient grounds to build a local chapter of the CWA (Communications Workers of America). A lot of favoritism, discrimination, the aforementioned bigotry and other issues could not be resolved by addressing them to management independent of a worker's organization. After all, they were originating the problems to begin with.

To be sure, the CWA is not known as a historically-strong union, and even if it was, I did not expect any major concessions to come from my effort as the company had relatively decent benefits in terms of its insurance and other side benefits. But I felt it would help to produce a more positive environment in the workplace and for equitable treatment for all the workers. By federal labor law, I only needed 30% support in the workplace to bring in a vote. Which in this case would only be a couple of permanent hires.

They had to act quickly. By early August, 2006, three months from the day I first began openly organizing in the workplace for the CWA, the company conveniently found grounds to terminate me. "Disclosure of company information to non-company personnel" was one of their excuses.

In any event, they pushed me into a corner for my union-organizing but I wasn't going to back down from what I felt was the right thing to do. Although in the end I didn't remain employed in the telecommunications industry after this experience, coincidentally within a week, I found myself enrolled into a completely different job, albeit as an apprentice in the Iron Workers Union Local #808 here in Orlando, Florida.
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[Omaha Steve]

7. I was fired organizing for the GAU in 1980

I'm AFSCME now. My wife Marta was CWA for 18 years. She stayed out the full 3 weeks in 83. I had just gone back to work full time from being fired in 80. We need the Free Choice Act.

[Name removed]

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