I appreciate the well thought out response, I especially admire you speaking exactly how you feel.
Firstly I would have to agree with the mob atmosphere that was a common occurrence in unions for quite some time, I myself was in one who misused our pension contributions. That was only 15 years ago, but quite a long time in the greater scheme of things. Over the past 15 or so years and especially under the Bush administration the sentiment has caused a backfire against all unions. Laws have been added and a sanitizing of unfavorable leaders has been on the rise, some laws are directly enacted to make the day to day dealings of the union more time consuming and it's unfortunate, not all unions are created equal. I would be the first to admit that some higher ups, just like in the Federal government have become displaced from the work force and forgot where they came from, but a lot of that is changing. Unfortunately, a lot of union members are complacent and will not seek out their rights and speak up for better recognition. Just like our own general elections, the civic duty starts on election day.
I sorta feel that they have sanitized the organizations who can help workers, in favor of giving the green light to even bigger organizations who have no stake in the well being of their constituents. I believe that if all were fair, if all laws created because of unions, labor friendly representatives and social activists were adhered to, that maybe a good number of unions would enter the "thing of the past" phase, but unfortunately the laws have been fragmented. While there are some good companies out there, your own included from what you have written, there is a disproportional amount who just don't seem to care at all. It isn't just the large corporations, it's the labor merchants and small contracting firms that get undocumented workers to fill the ranks, it's the tech firms that use unethical means to disqualify perfectly qualified US born and legal immigrants in favor of visa holders. These are some of the reasons that we all lose when there is not a thriving labor movement. They have capitalized on the anti-union sentiment, and all of us have lost in the interim. It's hard for good union and nonunion construction firms to bid on contracts nowadays. The blatant violations of US labor law, with little or no reprisals, are rising and we are in a world of trouble if this is not corrected soon.
I believe that there is a direct correlation between a weakening labor movement and the decision of people to shop at the big box instead of the mom and pop, those two factors allowed them to take hold and thrive, leaving us less rights and less choices. Competition was favorable to the buyer, it told John store owner' that we were important, now with less salary and less options, they just don't care. They have relieved us of the human factor of our shopping experience. We let them. It continues with every aspect of our existence, when they decided to give you less than a pound of coffee, when they lowered the weight of the 'half-gallon' of ice cream and when they started giving us 14 ounces in a pint of orange juice. I often joke about the dozen eggs with only 10 in the carton, and I just learned that the Big Box stores have started selling
http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/7cb84/all_12_packs_of_soda_have_disappeared_from_every/">8-packs of soda cans for the same price of the 12 pack. Again I ask, what choices do we have? Not many.
It is a very sad story to hear that you are not being serviced well by the customer service of your union supplier, I would ask to speak higher up the chain, I have routinely highlighted both union and nonunion merchandisers who use American workers on my website, one recent entry was
http://anti-union.blogspot.com/2008/10/found-denim-bibs-made-in-usa.html">Round House, who make denim work bibs and are actually expanding here in the US, another recent find (story is in the sandbox for further editing at my site,) is
http://www.americanmystique.com/carhartt-usa-ozark.htm">American Mystique, who has recently dropped Carhartt, because they couldn't be sure that they would get the union made products to sell, that's a real shame, it seems that they may have been having the same difficulties as yourself. If it's clothing made in America, they treat their workers with dignity and there is no union alternative, I wouldn't hesitate to endorse the product.
My message to union firms that aren't servicing their customers, step it up. I also have been waiting for one company to get back to me about creating a denim welding shirt for my fellow construction workers, I'm gonna have to call again. It's a little annoying that they aren't jumping through fire hoops to get a few thousand more customers and I'm getting a little pissed. I certainly am not blaming the workers.
I know I have been going on a tangent, but it's all on topic, I would wish to express my admiration of you explaining the misdeeds of wal-mart. It's unfortunate how many will fail to see the reality that the price we will pay will only level upward as competition gets crushed and the only possible conclusion is that there will only be crappy jobs left, limited valuable American industry and a handful of production jobs which will be filled by the lowest wage earners.
A reinvestment into our country is needed, a reinvestment in educating our children is needed, we are on the frontier of a new tomorrow, it's not too late for the United States to change it's course. All we need is for people like yourself to keep spreading the word, even when the responses aren't what you want to hear, we can't get discouraged, we must be heard and we must learn from everyone.
As I said, thanks a lot for posting, I really like to hear from people who are in business, I worked for a lot of people who went under in the 80's during the big rise of the big box, we failed them then and I feel terrible whenever I travel past one of the locations that is no longer there. I remember the high standard the customers always had, and as a worker they were almost always right, minus a few who either were trying to rob something or completely crazy. I miss always being right in a store.
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