10 Lessons for Verizon Strikers
I’ve altered the title of the article that I’m linking to, because I think those who support the strikers at Verizon (I do!) should know about these facts and study them. One of them is this: in 1937, when the economy crashed again (like it will now, now that Obama and the Republicans are cutting government spending), there were 4,740 strikes. In 2010? Ten. Time to study history, people.
Read the entire list at the Workers Action website. The title of the article is Ten Lessons for Today’s Unions from Labor’s Militant History.
Wow, I thought I coined the phrase “shovel-leaners!” I really did. So what’s the point? Unions are good because they don’t make you work so hard? They’re making top dollar in the unions. If it was a union full of minimum wage people, it’d be a different story. They should work hard. No one thinks they should be worked to death, continuously shoveling sand. But they should work hard for the good living they make. You work hard, you make good money. You don’t work hard, you get less money. We’re about as blue collar worker as you can get. As you know, Kurt installs flooring. I have cleaned people’s toilet bowls, shoveled shit, and worked on an assemblyline. So it’s not that I don’t have empathy for the guy shoveling sand. I just see too many of them not doing their jobs. I’m not the only one who sees this. That’s the problem and that’s why, if the unions were smart, they’d start policing themselves and then they’d get more support. And I’m not saying that all people in all unions don’t work hard. Kurt says the guys in the flooring union work just as hard as he does. Maybe you won’t be so mad at me if you know that even though I feel this way, I still support the unions and don’t like what happened to them in Wisconsin.
And that’s not to say that I think it’s right a CEO makes millions of dollars. I think that should be equalized too but that’s a whole other story.
Walmart is the company store that’s in “The Grapes of Wrath.” People have to work for Walmart because they put everyone out of business and they can’t afford to buy their groceries any place else. They’ve expanded to drugs and haircuts and there’s a bank inside Walmarts now. I should reread that book. Very timely nowadays.
I’m not mad at you, Debi – I’m saddened. What’s the point? The point is that unions, for all of their faults (and there are many), are the only institution capable of countering the power of the ruling elite. Unions, like political parties, reflect the desires of their members. If the members tolerate corruption and insensitivity to the plight of the working class, then that is what happens. A fired-up membership, which is likely to happen in the years to come, will demand more from the ruling elite, because they are tired of getting screwed by the elite. Always remember the truth of the old saying, “United we stand, divided we fall”. By using derogatory phrases such as “shovel-leaners”, you are playing right into the hands of the ruling elite, which wants nothing more than to see a divided working class working against its own best interests.
Until the Unions start getting after the “shovel-leaners”, people are not going to support them. I’ve been explaining to people what you pointed out, about how we should ALL be making what Union workers make and they’re not the ones we should be mad at but the wealthy CEO’s who get paid hundred of times more than what the regular Joe in the Union gets paid who works harder. But people are tired of seeing them on the side of the road leaning on their shovels, and tired of crappy teachers who get away with doing a bad job because they are in the Union. If only the Unions would face this, they would have so much more support.
“All that serves labor serves the nation. All that harms is treason. If a man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool. There is no America without labor, and to fleece the one is to rob the other.”
–Abraham Lincoln–
I agree with that totally. I just want the shovel-leaners to do their jobs.
To be frank, Debi, your use of the derogatory phrase “shovel-leaners” offends me. You might do some research on the origins of the phrase and then read this blog entry to see why I feel as I do.