By Abe J. I am aware of how the Unions originally sought to stop the robber barons of early 19th century America from exploiting their workers. I am aware of how people such as Carnegie and Rockefeller had strikers physically beaten. Nevertheless, this is the story of Unions in the early days. Allow me to tell you the story of the Unions in more modern times.
In the 1990’s the Unions tried to force a local supermarket to unionize its workers. I emphasize the word force since they literally threatened management of the store. They used their pull to coerce drivers to refuse to deliver orders. The point being is that Unions see no problem in using terror tactics of violence to increase their membership when possible.
A few years ago a Lakewood Police Chief was jogging when he discovered an on duty cop pulled to the road, while sleeping in his car. He had very little recourse he could take to discipline this cop since the cops are protected by the Union. The point of this story isn’t meant to detract from the fact that in general Lakewood has an incredible police force. The point is that Unions help people who deserve to be disciplined or fired from being rightfully corrected.
These are the stories of the nicer Unions. The more hardline Unions have set stores on fire, overturned trucks, and even tried to have innocent hard working Americans arrested on trumped-up charges. It is because of this history of the Unions that I say they are evil.
I cant believe thats all you have to say about the evil unions. To start, the reason most state and local gov’ts are failing is due to union contracts which they get by buying off politicians during election season using funds they steal from their membership. I say steal because their membership has no say (by vote) which candidate they want or dont want supported. They also use their power to block political contributions by corporations. So this politician who wants to be reelected agrees to contracts which would put any private corp out of business but they dont care because they wont feel the bite, some body filling his shoes in 20 years will. So for example we have garbage collectors or police or firemen who do great jobs but because of bad contracts we are actually paying today three salaries for this one fireman. HIs salary and the last 2 guys who filled his position because the retirees pensions and health care costs in todays dollars are costing us a fortune. Except for corporate executives name one non union company whos retirees are making what a retired gov’t employee makes. Truth be told even union corporate employees dont even do as well. Well lets talk about the union corporate employees. The unions destroy companies from within, granted the corporate management have made bad contracts but they were forced to by striking unions. Do you know that when gm closed some plants in the 90’s they were paying full salaries to some of their union workers for years. As a matter of fact, GM’s health care costs for retirees back then at $1500 per car was more money than they made per car. So now we get a union crony in the WH and the deal they carve out was to give the unions a huge stake in GM, the company they killed and the shareholders lost almost all their money. Look at any heavily unionized industry, theyve either started manufacturing abroad or closed their doors. And look at some non unionized companies such as southwest airlines, you might feel like cattle when you fly them but they are the most profitable airlines in america today. But their flight attendents also help with ticketing and baggage. Try to get a union chef to change a light bulb in the kitchen he’s working in. And the sad thing is, that although there are always bad bosses out there, for the most part union employees would do better without the unions today, unless they are lazy and have no work ethic. So it boils down to this, the country is bankrupt because of unions, production of goods is at a low in america because of unions, but politicians keep getting elected because of unions so nothing is gonna change. And if you have a private sector union job theres a good chance that your job might dissappear in the near future unless its in the service industry.
Let me finish by saying this. The union worker is not at fault whatsoever. For the most part they do great work and are truly appreciated.
The truth is the Unions were actually started by the Shirtwaist factory fire. There were many Jewish underaged girls trapped in the factory , one Shabbos morning. Their boss locked ’em in so they should’nt leave. After those girls perished. People were in uproar and child protection laws, minimum wages and unions were created. This article probably couldve been much more thorough. But everyone knows that the unions are a sort of Mafia. Why d u think the president gave them GM? Why Obamacare? Why all the wasteful spending? UNIONS! And when you even try to fight them , they are terrorists with their own little army. Yes our service workers deserve certain things , but we should abolish the Unions. Did ya ever see the Union Headquarters in Detriot? Prob. Costs hundreds of millions .
abe I believe that you feel abit guilty inside and because of this you have been compeled to explain yourself. Lets agree that the unions in whole are a great source of a necassary force in order to keep unscrupulous employers from treating their workers like third world countries do. As such todays employment laws are founded from the likes of the unions dominance. There may have been incidents in the unions history that taken place that were unfortunite but by no means are the norm of any union in fact laws were created to punish such future actions from unions. Unions do protect employees but not to the degree of being unmanageable. Employees are not invulnerable to punishments up to being fired. You are misleading in your demonstration on evil and union powers. The incident with the police chief you expressed is misleading too. You either are not fully educated on the circumstances or are delibrate in being misleading of the story. Regardless the unions are not in charge of management or buissness owners. And I dont know if you are a business man but some are down right horrible to work for and have no moral compass to care for the very laborers who make their businesses function.
Members of the unions who are paid what ever their salaries and benefits they get are offered that salary by the owners of those businesses. The unions have no power in dictating how much a person will be paid. The unions fairly bargain with business owners on remedies for increases or decreases in salaries. As proven with the E.M.S. dept. Did the unions prove to be evil in their defense? not hardly. The unions may have helped in negotiating a rememedy for their survival but Lakewood wasn’t set on fire and more importantly the people of Lakewood were not put in harms way at all while the unions fought townhall in E.M.S.s behalf. I end here by saying that you are a man who has never been a union member and have no idea how important it is to have a good union to protect and oversee employment rights.
This article is incomplete without any mention of Andy Stern, Cass Sunstein, Van Jones SEIU and the unholy alliance with the Obama Administration. I think your readers need to be informed at how dangerous these people are and the revolutionary ideals coming our way . H-ashem Yeracheim, Gd have mercy. .
while there is good & bad on both management & union side of issues
there needs to be a reasonable balance to have workers recieve a fare share of their efforts and also on managemnt side to be able to hire & fire those who are non productive and abuse the system also by not doing their job. The union /management balance has worked well with giving workers a stake in their future , we are now expierencing an anti ubion stance in the media because the “blamer” has to be placed somewhere on the poor economic situatuion that befalls many towns . While there is room for blame to be shared by all ,I do not see any pointing fingers of those who are in charge the leaders (management) of our communities, towns , state & federal for making poor decisssions with our money ,everyone wants to blame the unions for contracts that were obtained by a legal binding bargaining process which is signed by both parties as an agreement for the wages and benifits of its workers.
Unions are deemed evil for looking out for the interests of its workers ABSURD !!
When I see some of the leaders make cuts in their benifits ,they can talk right now they have no room to be pointing fingers at anyone!!!!!!!!!!!!
to Abe J ( afraid to use your real name ) your article could have been written and submitted as well as published by he editor without the bias or slander directed at the Lakewood Police Department. But as you already know we have broad shoulders and you can see all the comments both for and against your article, clearly have no need to even mention your one sided portion of your article.
TLS you should have a maximum amount of lines for comments. I am light headed. Maybe I should take an ambulance to the hospital.
Make sure the ambulance driver is unionized
Unions are the cancer in the American workplace. If not for unions we would still have factories in this country.
WHO CARES WHAT ABE J. THINKS? DON’T GET SO WORKED UP BY ONE PERSON’S BELIEFS…ABE HAS NO REAL INTERACTION WITH UNIONS ANYWAY AND CANNOT PROVIDE AN EDUCATED THOUGHT ON THE MATTER… THANK YOU
oh and it is the absolute right of the employees of any store or position to unionize its employees. the simple fact is that unions are created to protect the working class from the management…simple as that!!! what happens afterwards could be good or bad, but you can not generalize an opinion on a union because of a story you heard about one. don’t be so close minded…