anti-union propaganda

[Anthony Ravenscroft]

We're not anti-union. We just feel that all dubious organizations ought to be outlawed, & we offer proof that unions are inherently crooked. It's up to you to make your own decisions. As long as you're smarter than a squashed armadillo, you'll agree with us.

Unions are bad because they're so sneaky. That's why we've cleverly discovered where they've hidden the names of their officers & delegates, in places like public websites. This is hard work. Send us money -- we're tax deductible.

We're not devious & sneaky like those evil corrupt subversive unions, so we'll tell you all about us. No, you don't have any right to know the names of our officers, our researchers, our hired bloggers, our sponsors, our major lobbying targets, or where we're located. Other than that, we're an open book. Ask us anything. Well, anything that we're willing to answer, & we will answer. Probably.

http://www.unionfacts.com/index.cfm

[tourdeforce]

My great grandfather Winston Alexander Rockefeller de Force used to say the only good union organizer was a dead union organizer.

[whistlelock]

It's a nicely designed website, I'll say that much.

[Pike]

Saw this and had to add some first-hand experience at how a union proved its true colors.

The SEIU tried to gain ground at the nursing home I work at last year. In fact, they shoved their way into dozens of nursing homes, mostly for-profit homes and a few non-profit homes like ours. When they started to organize employees, they met in secret, told people not to talk about it, and fed them many promises. Obviously they kept a lid on their actions because of the inevitable backlash from management. But as things progressed, their deceit grew exponentially.

First off, they told the employees that they could get everyone involved raises of up to $3.00 an hour. They promised them health insurance with full coverage and with a mere $17.00 out of pocket expence. They promised moer help - seeing how there's a decline in health care workers these days, and many other nuggets.

When management showed staff how little money existed in our facility, and that we were half a million in the hole due to weak medicare re-embursment, the union told the staff it was all smoke and mirrors. Then they, the union, sent out a recorded message to most of the local community saying that the management was performing illegal activities by barring the rights of a union organization.

That's the highlights of the games they played last year. The good news is that we fought them on their terms and with an investigation from the - sorry, major brain fart here - it was the governmental body that manages union and worker's rights. There investigation kept the union from ramroding us and delayed a vote enough that they totally lost steam.

Now, just within the last month, they've tried it again but from a kinder, gentler stand point. They took out a full page add in the local papers telling everyone that they knew the re-embersment ratio sucked and that nursing homes could not afford to pay their employees for that reason, so they would organize a push against the local and national congress to up the money, if the SEIU was allowed to move into the nursing homes without a vote! All they ask for was a mere 40% of the employees to agree and they move in.

Imagine if you are part of the 60% who didn't want them and a minority told you "tough shit". And you know what I really enjoyed? It was how the employees that were so gung-ho on the union not recalling the lies from before, or how they back tracked their posistion. Selective memories, right?

This is all from a man that was booted out of the teamsters under suspicion of stealing from the mouths that fed him, only to form a new union that under their constitution, allows him to use SEIU money as he sees fit, without any need for requistions, forms, notes, IOU's, or any paper trail what so ever. Does it stink in here or is it just me?

Pike

[Gary]

As a nearly 30-year member of a huge international union, I can testify to the fact that it was run by crooks and corrupt to the core. Unions have driven far more jobs offshore than management ever will.

[whistlelock]

OMG! You mean an institution created by people, and staffed by people has corruption, greed, and lies in it?

IN a Union?!?

I'm so...what's the word I'm looking for here...unsurprised.

And I'm sure that this would go away in the magical world where managment has total control.

Cause as we all know, Big Business has nothing but our interests at heart.

[Anthony Ravenscroft]

Oh, believe me, I've been on all possible sides of the union thing!

I'm currently union, & proud of it. Sixteen years ago, I was management at a non-union shop, & found myself caught between morons on one side & idiots on the other. I support union, I liked CWA, but I felt the loudmouthed workers cramming it through were doing it for the wrong reasons. At the same time, the idiots above me refused to take some simple steps to speak to the workers themselves, & in fact became a collective PITA, which made me want to root for the union!

After two months of this, I resigned, I walked out the door & only came back to pick up my last check.

Three months later they were a union shop.

Three months after that, the company went belly-up.

I blame the union. But I also blame the workforce for being such easily-led sheep as to listen to a clutch of loudmouths. And I blame management for being such a bunch of "professional" jerks.

It's not an either/or issue. I am deeply suspicious of anyone who tries to reduce it to that level. And when I find an example of the Self-Righteous going up against the Evil Conspiracy -- especially when the Righteous are clothed in the very secrecy they say is a Bad Thing & clear proof of Evil Intent!! -- the hypocrisy simply demands to be shared.

FWIW, for the addlepated &/or uninformed, the single major reason for the offshoring of formerly U.S. jobs was NAFTA. This was crammed down our throats by the Gingrich Army's Congress, aided by Bill Clinton -- the single best Republican President of all time. Unions almost unanimously fought "the giant sucking sound" (as Perot called NAFTA), for which they were excoriated -- the no-neck Red Rightists telling the sheeple all about how getting rid of them low-rent jobs would result in a boom, hear me, a BOOM in high-wage jobs in the ol' Yoo Ess of Ayyyy.

Anyone who says otherwise is a willfully deluded pinhead.

[Pike]

OMG! You mean an institution created by people, and staffed by people has corruption, greed, and lies in it?

IN a Union?!?

I'm so...what's the word I'm looking for here...unsurprised.

And I'm sure that this would go away in the magical world where managment has total control.

Cause as we all know, Big Business has nothing but our interests at heart.

When I see comments like this they always crack me up. It's a point and fact that no matter where you work or what you do, there'll be people there only interested in earning a paycheck, some there to socialize and get paid to do it, and others looking to use and abuse any provilege they can.

You're right; any organization is poised to fall based on the people involved. Our own government, the UN, unions, local businesses, even public schools are full of people looking to line their wallets without any regard for those they screw over.

My comments on the SEIU aren't subjective but tempered by my distrust of any organization that claims to give you gold if you'll promise to give them a few bucks on a monthly basis.

Admittedly, their have been plenty of times in our history when the worker has needed an advocate, and that advocate came through. For those who have been assisted, I say fantastic. But to others that are getting a raw deal, I say they should have looked more closely at the fine details.

Human nature is our greatest ally and foe. If everyone just played by the rules then we wouldn't be having these discussions... but then it would be a boring world indeed.

Pike

[robeiae]

Anyone who says otherwise is a willfully deluded pinhead.Or perhaps actually has more than a passing familiarity with economics.

[Anthony Ravenscroft]

Or perhaps actually has more than a passing familiarity with economics.
Y'mean like a BSci (& grad work) in stats-heavy sociological methods...?

I mean, if you're gonna dicksize this conversation, you should probably at least unzip.

[blacbird]

Or perhaps actually has more than a passing familiarity with economics.

Like them Enron and Tyco and Adelphia and WorldCom dudes?

caw

[Opty]

Y'mean like a BSci (& grad work) in stats-heavy sociological methods...?

I mean, if you're gonna dicksize this conversation, you should probably at least unzip.

"Stats-heavy sociological methods?"

What the hell is that?

I'll tell you what it isn't.

It isn't "a BS (& grad work)" in "stats-heavy" economics.

Were it at least a degree in Economic Sociology (which most undergrad sociology programs DON'T offer), then I might believe that you know what you're talking about and aren't doing something more than trying to bullshit your way to "mine's bigger than yours" credibility.

Sociology (or, as you ambiguously said, "sociological methods") is not the study of economics nor does it involve heavy study of economic theory (unless you count "Prospect Theory," but even that's psychology and not sociology).

I suggest you "zip up" before you embarass yourself even more.

[whistlelock]

How the hell did you get offended by that, Spork?

[robeiae]

Y'mean like a BSci (& grad work) in stats-heavy sociological methods...?

I mean, if you're gonna dicksize this conversation, you should probably at least unzip.
Okay. :)

FWIW, for the addlepated &/or uninformed, the single major reason for the offshoring of formerly U.S. jobs was NAFTA.That's nothing but a sound bite.

1) It's silly to attempt reducing changes in labor markets to a "single major reason." There isn't one.
2) I'm not a big fan of NAFTA, but that doesn't mean I'm prepared to dump any and every change in the economy in its lap. For a perspective exactly the opposite of yours, and somewhat consistent with mine, read this (https://cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4074). Oh my goodness! Manufacturing jobs didn't actually decrease, at all:

"Since 1993 manufacturing output in the United States has risen at an annual average rate of 3.7 percent, 50 percent faster than during the eight years before enactment of NAFTA. The number of Americans employed in manufacturing grew by more than 700,000 in the first four years of NAFTA, from January 1994 to January 1998."

3) There is still such a thing as a business cycle, despite Clinton's proclamation.
4) What the hell does NAFTA have to do with labor outsourced to India and China, for starters?

Now, what have you got to back up your opinion, other than rhetoric?

[WarrenP]

Unions can serve the greater good; problem is they seem to often be run by humans.

[Opty]

How the hell did you get offended by that, Spork?

Because I get offended when anyone tries to be a bigger dick than me, tour, billy, or bravo.

It also irks me when I see someone (besides me) try to make a very weak case seem credible or authoritative by throwing around big, scary, smart-sounding words (like "stats-heavy sociological methods") that they're hoping no one else actually knows the definitions of lest the person be exposed for being full of crap.

Gotta put the posers in their places, ya know?

[Joe270]

I hate to take this to a serious look at unions, but here I go stuffing my foot into my mouth.

I worked for several unions, starting with a printer's union. Then seafaring unions, which are so important.

At sea, you can't just quit and go to a lawyer to settle a grievance. But this is a rare neccessity.

The problem with unions is that, normally, only one controls the manpower. It's a manpower monopoly controlling many companies. If the unions had competition, then the negotiations would be fairer. IMHO, any union in control of a sector should have a competitive union prior to contract negotiations.

Example: UAW has GM, Ford, Chrysler, Jeep, etc. for manpower, but the companies can only go to the monopoly of UAW.

Doesn't sount too fair, does it?

[Anthony Ravenscroft]

Oh, Sporky, you almost sound like you have a mind of your own....

I was challenged, doofus, on the basis of some sort of imaginary "expertise," with no attempt made to offer some sort of countervailing expertise.

In short, we're two guys arguing politics at the bar.

When one guy's entire "argument" consists of yelling "Bullsh1t!!!" then the whole things kinda pointless. (At best.)

But Robeia took my wisecrack in the spirit offered, & came up with a darned good response -- & apparently not needing the patented Sporky Butt-Pat in order to do it.

My college was very good about allowing fringe-related coursework, so I've got studies on all sorts of abstruse stuff like content analysis, distributive justice, price theory -- & yes macro/micro.

If I had the Holy Doctorate in Economics, I sure as hell wouldn't be arguing unionization with a bunch of bozos on a writing site. What's your excuse?

R, for the moment I gotta finish my chores & toddle to bed, but I'll be back to it. I do though stand by my statement that it cannot be reduced to black/white. I was in one shop where half was one union, half the remainder another, the third-biggest group non-union (& not required to pony up dues), & there was a clutch still holding on to the union that'd been there when the company started. Sure, it was a mess, with a whole spread of benefits & such... but truth to tell, they all seemed at least as happy as any all-everything shop (union or not) I've ever seen. (I'm seen as a troublemaker by some unions, because I've proposed letting people opt out without the punitive payments.)

[Opty]

If I had the Holy Doctorate in Economics, I sure as hell wouldn't be arguing unionization with a bunch of bozos on a writing site. What's your excuse?

Guess I don't have one.

[astonwest]

4) What the hell does NAFTA have to do with labor outsourced to India and China, for starters?I want to hear the answer to this one, myself...