Good for Unions

[Tom Rinaldo]

They know how to play hard ball and they did. They have money and activists that Democrats need in order to win elections and Unions are not shy about pointing that out in Washington. Liberals and even moderate Democrats were anxious about blatantly double crossing Unions on health insurance when Unions forcefully objected.

Unions have whatever influence they still retain because generations ago workers organized and banded together to protect their common interests, prevailing against overwhelming resistance. There are still many basic lessons for todays progressive activists to learn from Organized Labor's history and from their role today.

[cornflake_31]

1. If only more people...

Would read up on the history of labor unions. People died for the simple right to negotiate a living wage, 40 hour work week, safe work environment, and overtime pay. Do a quick Google about the labor movement in this country around the turn of the 20th century. I'll be damned if I piss away what those people died for.

The corporatist have spent the past 30 years and billions of dollars demonizing unions. Unfortunately they seem to have gotten their monies worth. The word "Union" is synonymous with "Lazy overpaid worker", much the way they have turned "liberal" into a bad word.

How much longer can I, because I AM the union, put up with the lip service we get payed by the so called "democrats". How many times must we get burned by bad policy decisions (NAFTA). This country needs the EFCA just like it needs true healthcare reform.
Sorry about goin a bit off the OP's topic, but he really hit a chord with me. Glad that there are still people out there that don't think union is a dirty work.
Rant Off.

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. You didn't go off on a tangent at all. You made the point.

You wrote many things that I wish I could have. I posted this OP late at night and didn't have the energy to do more than make a simple observation. Unions were able to push back against the Senate centrists and at least partially protect their members interests because they are organized. Workers had to fight for and literally die to gain every inch of leverage that unions still have today. Direct action isn't a political term invented in the 60's.

There are very few checks on corporate power in America today. God bless the labor movement. It won't always be right on every issue, but who is? Certainly not todays Democratic PArty.

[LiberalFighter]

5. Many probably hate the union especially on the right because

the unions were there during the Civil Rights era supporting Dr Martin Luther King Jr and others.

[whathehell]

9. You are a hundred percent correct...and welcome to DU.

Unfortunately, for the most part, Labor history goes untaught in public (and parochial) schools...I learned about unions because my parents were union member yellow dog democrats.

I have a bumper sticker: Unions: The Anti-Theft Device for Working People

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. The corporatists are well-entrenched in our own party.

>>>The corporatist have spent the past 30 years and billions of dollars demonizing unions. >>>>

They go by way of psuedonyms like "school reformers" , but a hidden agenda is a hidden agenda and people who understand unionism should appreciate that.

There's a subtle sort of class divide within our own ranks... even on this supposedly "progressive" forum .... that becomes blatantly obvious when labor/union issues are broached.

What to do.

[Tom Rinaldo]

13. Breaking Unions is always their first order of business when possible

Yes it is possible for a given union to become too focused on the specific needs of their own members in this or that instance, and not enough on the general good, but at lesat there is someone who cares about those workers needs with Unions. By and large cororporations are focused on their bottom line and bottom line only, screw the workers if need by. Increasingly government gives corporations no resistance, that just leaves unions to do away with.

[rurallib]

12. One correction. I am 60 and unions have been demonized

since before I was born. Only since Reagan it has become a 24X7 assault.

[DisgustedInMN]

14. Yes they have...

... in much the same way as is now being done to "Liberals" and "Progressives" by the people we put in office.

And no, I don't want "a pony." I want a President with a spine, and a Congress that acts in the PEOPLE'S best interest above the corporations and I have zero use for anything less.

[Norrin Radd]

2. kr

[NNN0LHI]

4. Recommended

[NNN0LHI]

6. Wonder if any employers who fought unions tooth & nail are starting to regret doing that?

Because now they are going to have to pay for that decision.

Don

[DisgustedInMN]

7. Might I ask?

What leads you to believe that unions and "progressive activists" are mutually exclusive?

Wake up my friend, many of us are both. (well PRO-union, but since I can't find a job....)

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. I'm not that asleep, lol

I'm sorry that I wasn't careful enough in my phrasing. Of course they are not mutually exclusive, to me that seemed to go without saying, but of course it is better to say it. I was speaking only of progressive activists who are not active union members Unfortunately as unions have shrunk it now stands that most who call themselves progressive activists are not union members.

[DisgustedInMN]

10. Cool..

Glad you clarified, it's why I asked. Personally, I think way too much "pigeonholing" goes on, and results in major "triangulating" screw-ups by those that fancy themselves to be our "leaders." Too much of them "hearing" exactly what they want to "hear," and not nearly enough actual listening to us peons. I was very hopeful that this Administration would be better about it, but so far, have been deeply disappointed. That it takes threats from unions to get them to do the right thing, on this single PART of an issue, sends a VERY chilling message to those of us that never seem to have a voice in DC.

[maryf]

15. Wish they'd been concerned about the out of work and immigrants too, nt.