Next week, I'm going out to Pittsburgh to meet Rich Trumka, the number two guy at the AFL-CIO and a complete shoo-in to take over the nation's largest labor federation when current leader John Sweeney retires this year. So what should I ask Trumka? Trumka's a former miner and a lawyer who grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania. One of the top officials in the United Mine Workers told me that he was happy that Trumka would be leading the AFL-CIO because, as he said, Trumka has chutzpah. He used another word related to the male anatomy
I've met Trumka before and he is very personable, but I find that, at least in public, most leaders of large organizations are personable.
Please, send me your suggestions. My question is whether unions have any ability whatsoever to turn around the flood of layoffs we've seen.
Posted by Jane Von Bergen @ 4:50 AM
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13 comments
They do not. No company is going to allow workers to unionize knowing what happens.
The idea of a union anymore is foolish. They have become all about themselves as an "institution" rather than a lifeline for the common worker. They've become way to wrapped up in politics as well, often causing problems within their own organization.
Hey Big Earn, I'm a union member and your sadly mistaken. You don't know what your talking about. My union bends over backwards to keep our employers in business and our employers appreciate our membership. Our employers prefer to be union.
Unions are only relevant in the area of artificially driving up the cost of goods. Let the invisible hand of supply & demand set the cost of labor and all American households would see a decrease in cost of goods. Unions destroy everything they touch and I go out of my way NOT to buy products made with union labor...
Hey jim4723, I know a little about Unions, my wife belongs to the do-nothing but take members money and give to lib dems for socialist crapola, AFSCME sucks!!! As most Unions do, they rely on a socialist agenda, that America as a whole hates!!!
ORGANIZED LABOR = ORGANIZED CRIME, and if you don't believe that, why the hell is the former AFL-CIO head now on board of the New York Fed, the POSER in the whitehouse is returning the favor for the thugocracy union support!!!
I despise the lazy unions so much, for the first time in my life I bought a HONDA over a GM = Gov't Motors, also see that GM and Chrysler didn't fare to well on the ill-conceived and even more ineptly run "Cash for Foreigners", no one wants to keep propping up the miserable UAW goons!!!
Unions are relevant. Look, without unions such as AFSCME, SEIU, Teachers, etc we would probably have Republicans as Mayor and city council, lower taxes, more efficient and courteous bureaucracy, lower prices for goods and services, fair and unbiased reporting in the media ad infinitum.
Labor Unions fought for almost all the qualities that make up the modern workplace! You morons take it for granted that you have a weekend! Unions have there problems no doubt but to loathe the labor movement just shows what a bunch of dopes you really are! Hey Mike s if you and your wife hate her union so much tell he to quit - go non-union - take a pay cut - get less benefits - less job security etc.... Drive your Honda to the unemployment line!
Good for you hexyscores! Mike S. is a moron! He should tell his lazy wife she's making the union look bad, and to do a fair days work for a fair days pay. I really hope he enjoys his Honda.
jim4723, I respect your views of the modern day union. My family (all floor layers) have been in the union most of their lives. I worked on many union jobs....in the shadows of course. I do like aspects of the union but it is NOT the same or DOES the same thing that it used to. I watched Directors tell their employees WHO to vote for in this past election. I've seen countless drug addicts sleeping on jobs. I see that large RAT on the roadsides telling people that the particular job is not union. I see countless old timers pack up tools at 2:45pm most days. Coffee breaks at 9:15 run to 10am. The worst thing I saw was the elevator union got 21 working days to finish a job at the shore and they were done in 3! Guess what they did the other 18 working days? But Jim, I don't have a problem with the good union workers....it's just the entire system that I have a problem with. God bless this country. I am truly blessed to be talking freely about stuff like this.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Unions ARE necessary in our society--what else protects workers rights? If you're hell-bent on improving companies productivity, how about tieing C.E.O.s' salaries to the success of their company measured in terms of employment and productivity? Only in the U.S.A. can you sink a company, receive your 20 mill parachute and then end up as a C.E.O. of another company after a couple years. Upper management incompetence and nepotism is the real reason we are losing our economic vitality
Without unions companies wouldn't have to avoid the child labor laws like they do by setting up their factories overseas.
Any talk about unions always brings the reactionaries out.I've worked both union and non-union and I'll always go for the union shop.Working people are in their most difficult economic period in the last 70 years, which the wealthy with their insatiable greed caused.My only problem with unions is that after 60 yrs of cutting deals with the bosses all they can say is vote Democratic.Neither party represents working people,they're just two different wings of the same Property Party.
13 comments
About Jane M. Von Bergen
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