A story out of Indiana speaks of the UAW's attempt to organize a union for a company of fifty employees, who live in a small town, and who all were basically friendly with one another.
The organizing attempt was through Card Check, a labor bill that is being pushed by the Senate. Card Check means that if you want a union, you sign a card, if you don't, you don't sign.
The evil here is that everyone knows how you voted. The potential for disrupted relationships and broken friendships is patently obvious. Think of how friends are often divided after the divorce of a couple they know.
This is the unintended consequence of liberal zealots, progressive fundamentalists who pursue their Marxist ideology in the name of supporting the ordinary Jane and Joe. So what if we drive wedges into the daily lives of people we want to help. The union is more important.
As Lenin said, "if you want to make an omelet, you have to be willing to break eggs."
Some workers in Indiana were threatened, others were followed to their homes by union officials and pressured to sign the cards. Many, realizing how precarious their identities were in this small community, simply gave in and signed.
Though the Card Check tally formed a union, some workers nevertheless went to the NLRB and demanded their right, their right to a secret ballot to determine unionization. A right to a secret ballot that Card Check will eliminate.
Ths legal option was granted. After the vote, which was close, the union lost. As were friendships and relationships of the people living there, presumably in happy peace. The eggs of lives were broken.
These labor tactics are despicable and typically totalitarian, hallmarks of the evil, fundamentalist, bullying left.
Fifty workers!
Attacking these very small, often defenseless pockets of workers is reminiscent of the tactics that other totalitarian, progressive organization, the ACLU, used when they descended upon small towns and localities to terrorize them with lawsuits for practices they claimed violated the separation of church and state.
Strapped for money to defend themselves, many of these towns and churches simply caved and the ACLU marched away triumphant, these mighty legal armies having proudly pummelled their puny targets like a tank destroying a defenseless shack in its way.
And now Card Check activists are following the same tactic.
Republicans are mean? Pricks? Give me a break.
These people are vicious and evil. And it's typical of the side who says they're on the side of the angels.
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I work in an environment in which a union would be useful, and having it go public in terms of the vote would definitely generate a lot of hard feelings. At the same time, there do need to be better protections for employees sometimes, because in the academic world, the pettiness of an administrator who takes a personal dislike to a teacher can really harm an innocent third party being paid for/subsidized by the taxpayers,i.e. the students, by stupid politics, although then you have the politics of the union, which can be outlandishly dumb too.That you would have to see to believe. funny world, but a very good point that assuming you are totally right that "you are a worker so therefore must be in a union" is dangerous, and it has always been a problem for the modern left about certain types of issues. rated.
I ask you this honestly, what does the ACLU get out their lawsuits? They are not paid damages.
Also, how is this picture different from a WalMart moving into a county, forcing the closure of all the locally owned businesses and running through the local labor until it has been used up?
Surely there are parallels to these examples.
I do agree with you that labor activists can be overwhelming, but this is the case with any profession. I am sure that you have met directors, producers and actors who didn't do a good job. Maybe some of them have done a bad job. Should entertainment be done away with?
One can find an example to prove any rule. Unfortunately, some of the time that one example is the exception that proves the opposite rule.
http://www.slate.com/id/2213352/
What I find remarkable about your post is the complete lack of concern over attempts by companies to prevent unionization, including the many documented incidents of intimidation and actual firing of employees who are trying to organize. Your post takes the concept of "one-sided" to a new level, not to mention the foaming-at-the-mouth tone in which it is written.
I'd really like to hear a positive voice on this. Who (other than unions themselves) could be in favor and why?
It is no coincidence that the meteroric rise in income inequality paralleled a steep decline in unions. We do not owe the fat cats cheap labor. Henry Ford was once asked why he paid his employees so well, and he responded that he wanted someone to be able to afford his cars. The economy needs a viable middle class not an aristocracy.
Smells like Capitalism to me.
Marxist ideology is terribly ineffective. If you want an ideology that is proven in its ability to destroy capitalism try conservatism.
When you clear away all the leftist debris, what remains at the core of this issue is that secret ballots are more democratic (decidedly with a small "d") and more likely to produce results based on freedom rather than coercion.
Yes, the unions have been good for people over the years. But as we all have seen there have been consequences when they demand too much. GM is the standout example. The unions demanded and GM caved over the years. They also made bad cars that no one wanted. Unions didn't help matters much over the years with their demands.
It always comes back to bite you.
Union organizers are not vicious or evil, John. For example, I helped to organize my workplace, and I think if you asked anyone here, they would not use those words to characterize me.
And, as mishima666's link shows, Card Check does not eliminate the secret ballot. It simply leaves that choice up to the employees, rather than management.
I don't rate bloviators.
And Blackfon, it is not unions who have ruined management's ability to manage. Management did that. Those same "bad cars" are made and sold across the river in Ontario.
"A right to a secret ballot that Card Check will eliminate. "
Perhaps you can provide the language that does that?
No? Didn't think so.
The organizing attempt was through Card Check, a labor bill that is being pushed by the Senate. Card Check means that if you want a union, you sign a card, if you don't, you don't sign."
Here are the first two paragraphs above. And here is GordonO below.
"Totally off point, BB. You're arguing union v. non-union. My statement relates to secret v. non-secret ballots. Surely you see the difference. Or then again . . ."
" The unions demanded and GM caved over the years. They also made bad cars that no one wanted. Unions didn't help matters much over the years with their demands."
The "they" above is indistinctly referenced. Do you mean they as in the union or they as in GM management? If the former, auto workers only make the cars they're told to build. If the latter--as I suspect is meant--then the commentary glosses over the fact that although the unions did perhaps get greedy in some of their negotiations, it was the management team of GM who gave the greenlight to generations of automobiles that no one cared for. It was management who opted to keep making gas guzzlers even when the petroleum-based writing was on the wall. It was management who allowed the quality of U.S. automakers to fall further and further behind the Japanese over the years. It was management who collaborated or outright bought overseas brands that could do nothing to stop the hemorrhaging of sales since the European companies' own quality and viability were lacking, as well (can you say Renault or Saab?).
Have unions contributed to their own demise in some ways? Absolutely. But you can't plant the downfall of the Big Three squarely on unions without fully examining the idiocy and hubris of the management every step of the way.
During that time, managment can require that employees attend anti-union meetings, and management can also intimidate employees, threatening to discipline or terminate them. Union representatives are not allowed on company property and, as I mentioned earlier, the union has no power over anyone's job. What do you think the result is going to be? (And if union representatives are going around threatening people, I do hope that these threats are being reported to law enforcement.)
Also, I think that, absent coercion from either side, the secret ballot itself might be redundant. If you have signed a card of your own free will, and management isn't allowed to intimidate you into "changing your mind", you're going to vote for the union. If you don't sign a card, you're not going to vote for the union. This is exactly what happened in my workplace. When the election was held, the number who voted "yes" equalled exactly the number who had signed cards.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/washington/25wage.html
Now that my ad hom cancels your ad hom, I'm glad to see that you admit the behavior in Indiana is reprehensible. Thank you for acknowledging that.
What would lead you, or anyone to believe, that this behavior won't continue, without a secret ballot. It's human nature to go with your colleagues if you're being pressured publicly to do so. Do you think these organizers have Ghandi in their back pockets? Hardly. They're as zealous to achieve unionization as jihadists are to accomplish their own goals.
The secret ballot is a check and balance against that kind of bullying.
John Leonard....the story is out there. Open your eyes.
I belong to a union and glad of it. My dad belonged to a union. Like anything else, they have their excesses, which I think have been harmful to the economy.
That aside, for another argument because it's irrelevant to this thread, the point is whether it is democratic to eliminate one of the most sacred aspects of our democracy -- the secret ballot.
The people I work with voted the same way in public as they did in private, even when they had the opportunity to change their minds for the secret ballot. That tells me that a secret ballot isn't really necessary.
I don't think the EFCA would be necessary if management didn't intimidate employees during the time between the initial signing of cards and the election, or if the secret ballot election was held without the need for the signing of cards first.
But those things are never going to happen.
DJohn, you claim that the Democrats aren't really for the working man. That may very well be true. But, I'm glad you didn't make the claim that Republicans are for the working man. Because that would be an outright lie.
Gotta hand it to you for putting it out there, John.
Either way you cut it, it's going to touch off both sides...open up some heated discussion about the Unions...and the tactics both sides play with regard to loss of privacy and membership rules where one's private life is exposed and potentially tarnished. Was only in a union once for a few years...did have to cross the line once.
Very emotionally charged stuff. It is what it is.
In theory there is nothing wrong with collective bargaining. In practice it has been often violent, run by organized crime, or destroying the very company members worked for.
So now unions and strikes are to stop cops, nurses, sanitation workers from working so they can blackmail the public into great pensions and benefits with the threat of public safety and health a bargaining chip. Nice.
Often the people they are outcompeting do the same thing, but not as well. So Marshalls, KMart, Target all scramble for the same business.
Maybe Wallmart is owned by conservatives, which is the real reason they are hated. Just the fact that they aren't wildly overpriced like Starbucks or Apple suggest the company isn't owned by progressives. They believe in quantity over a high profit margin which is passed on to their customers, rather than rewarding customers by raping them on price like Apple.
Yes, Starbucks is putting other coffee shops out of business. But many of them are also obscenely priced as well. Like Apple, they beat them on Public Relations, and a free ride in the press.
Something you all may find amusing that was making the blog rounds last week: The Republican National Committee explicitly disallows the secret ballot for its non-election decisions. Why are Republicans such vicious, evil bullies, even to their own?
Conservative Republicanism is a failed, intellectually bankrupt, morally indefensible ideology. Tryng to divert our attention from that reality with this pathetic whine about unionizing is grossly absurd.
I don't think it was the question of ballots, secret or otherwise.
I think the real sticker here are the "evil" and "Marxist" words.
They don't really apply, and are bound to turn up the heat a bit.
Besides, you should be careful when throwing around such words. I typed your post up backwards and got 3 paragraphs of the Satanic Bible and the foreword to Das Kapital.
Are you using a subliminal device to gin up a few recruits to Godless Communism?
I'm going to keep an eye on you, Komrade.
As Lenin said, "if you want to make an omelet, you have to be willing to break eggs."
And let's not forget that Hitler said, "Whoever has experienced war at the front will want to refrain from all avoidable bloodshed." Enjoy your egg-free breakfasts.
Why did the rise of union membership, and collective bargaining parallel the rise of the middle class, and why did the collapse of union membership parallel the collapse of the earning and standard of living of the middle class? Why do we live better with a 5-day work week, and workplace safety if unionism is so detrimental to freedom? Please explain with specifics.
When it puts the public in jeapordy, it is nothing but blackmail. Refusing to teach, clean the street, do hospital duties, enforce the law, put out fires. They hold a gun to people's head. All private industry unions do is threaten to not make profits, not leave heart patients unattended, streets with garbage piling up.
Clinton even signed a bill making it illegal to hire scabs, which give unions almost total control.
"Why are liberals such vicious bullying sadists to anyone to the right of Hillary Clinton?"
You're joking right?
Conservatives are the most amazing whiners. They whine about being victimized even though for the past 8 years they controlled the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court ... and destroyed everything they touched.
Conservativism is a backward looking, losing philosophy. Current Republican conservatives dirty the name of conservativism even further. The Democrats hate you? Why shouldn't they; it's hard to think of anyone who has done more damage to this country than Conservatives.
Think about. When have Conservative Americans every been correct about anything? At the nation's founding they were Tories, during the Civil War they were slave owners during the Depression they were the cause, in the Second World War they were isolationists. They opposed virtually every program, law or principle that has made this country great. Rather than whining about victimization, they should be ashamed.
Anyone who strays from the inflexible monolithic party line is brutalized and disowned as Whittiker Chambers, Harry Stein, David Horowitz, Tammy Bruce, or Bernarld Goldberg can attest, who swayed on one issue and found the most vicious mean spirited attacks from the left.
"Bear in mind, the boldest liberal move ever made was to establish a constitutional democracy in a world full of monarchies. The conservatives of 1776 sneered at the thought, saying only an elite ruling class could handle power and that giving the people a say was pure folly (granted, even we didn't have the balls to let everyone have a say at first). But like you say, it's inherent in the definition of conservatism to hate change.
A conservative is like a fallen angel. We call fallen angels demons but really they are just repressed angels. Likewise, conservatives are repressed liberals. Naturally they try to hide their sin by demonizing the true people and by trying to claim God loves them because they know that can't be so after rejecting the truth of who they are. Their lives are one long propaganda campaign meant to paint others with the sins they can't admit."--Harry Homeless
http://open.salon.com/blog/bill_beck/2009/03/25/liberalism_uses_facts_who_will_defend_conservatism
How many comments is it going to take to get BB, our resident dunce, to understand that he is the one who is lamely attempting to change the subject to the general merits of unionism as opposed to the thrust of the original post--card check v. secret ballot.
Walker is quite correct in noting that no one, certainly not BB, has addressed this issue. Could it be that no rational argument can be mounted against a secret ballot?
I'd like John Boni to address the point that his statement above is incorrect, as John Leonard correctly observes. Saying that "the story is out there" is simply a nonsensical response; there's a lot of stuff "out there" that's simply wrong. Thus the point GordonO raises is a false dichotomy.
The contradiction between the secret ballot and card check is so universally recognized that I believe it is up to you, not John, to explain your position. We hang on your every word.
Let me repeat that for you. Google card check and indiana.
If that's too difficult, here's one of the links.
http://www.indianagazette.com/articles/2009/03/15/news/10012463.txt
You may be a libertarian, Jim, but you clearly aren't that bright. Show me one time when a liberal has made an attempt to pass the death penalty for voting Republican.
And while I think it's certainly an idea worth considering, it's pretty impractical. How would we know who voted Republican? We have a secret ballot...
Hey dummy! I know you're still basking in the glow of your thirty second bit part as GUY in a lifetime network show (Seriuosly, how in the toilet is your career that you're proud of that! "WHat's that Lassie? John Boni's career fell down a well? WHere do you expect talentless, third rate hacks to end up?") but i just googled it, and none of the news articles are more than 15 hours old, which is well after I asked for a link.
I know you republicans are all lazy douches, but generally, it's not that hard to provide a link.
This is the kind of ridiculous statement that makes me go, eh, whatever. Saying things like that makes me think that you are not interested in a real discussion.
Hopefully, this will be the last time any of us has to say this: The EFCA does not eliminate the secret ballot.
For future reference, when someone publishes a post it is a standard practice and common courtesy for the author to include links in the body of the post so that readers know which specific articles the author is talking about, and also so that they know that the story is not just an internet rumor. It's not a matter of the author being a nanny, but of the author being an author, whether conservative or liberal.
If the author neglects to do that, that's fine, but then it's considered rude to ridicule people for asking for the links that the author should have provided in the first place. Again, the same standards of decorum apply to both liberals and conservatives.
You have a point. The story was all over the tube that I assumed that most people had seen it.
I apologize to those I mocked for asking for the link.
March 25, 2009 09:36 PM
Let me clarify for you. The GOP did not control congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court for the last 8 years. Simce the 2006 elections the democrats have vontrolled the House of Representatives and the Senate.
And if you wish to continue blaming the GOP for this financial mess you may want to check the historical record and look into who it was that stopped the Bush administration from tightening the rule son Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and Chris Dodd.
Yes, the GOP has it's share of blame in this mess but are not totally responsible.
"Yes, the GOP has it's share of blame in this mess but are not totally responsible."
That's just what Herbert Hoover said.
The GOP is totally to blame: their President, their Congress, their Supreme Court, and, most importantly, their failed PHILOSOPHY. Every single thing that was done was rooted in the philosophy of the Republican party, was introduced by the Republican party, was endorsed by the Republican party, and was voted for by the Republican party.
Nice try attempting to shed responsibility for this disaster, but it belongs to Republicans, in addition to the disaster in Iraq, the disaster in Afghanistan, the disaster in New Orleans, the disaster in Abu Ghraib, the disaster in Guantanamo, and various other disasters as well.
Don't forget, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been run by democrats for most of their existence.
As far as Katrina goes, New Orleans was a democrat disaster before the hurricane ever hit. Just like those wonderful cities pf Detroit, MI and Camden, NJ which have been turned to rubble by liberal policies for the last 60 years.
Rob asks for a response to the factually incorrect assertion of this post:
”A right to a secret ballot that Card Check will eliminate.”
No response has come to this challenge. I checked into this issue when this post first appeared, and found that the current method of unionization does not use a “secret-ballot” unless the employer calls for one after a favorable vote for a union.
The new legislation, as I understand it, would take that power away from employers, leaving it to employees to call for such a secret-ballot vote if they want one. That, of course, would give more power to employees, leveling the playing field just a bit.
Ohhhhh, that evil left-wing conspiracy …
"BOTH parties share responsibilities along with the people in the financial sector."
No, they don't. Which of my factual claims about the Republican party do you disagree with?
It was their President, right? Of course.
Their Congress? Yes
Their Supreme Court? Right.
And, most importantly, their failed philosophy? Absolutely!
You certainly can't deny that the enabling legislation was introduced by the Republican party, was endorsed by the Republican party, and was voted for by the Republican party.
The least the Republicans can do is take responsibility, the way that adults are supposed to take responsibility. They were wrong about the effects of de-regulating the banking industry, 100% wrong.
But, of course, we shouldn't be surprised. Republicans have a bad habit of creating depressions and recessions and pretending that it wasn't their fault. Hoover did it. Now Bush will do it. That doesn't mean that the rest of the Republican party should follow them off a cliff.
The real problem with the contemporary Republican party is that they are fundamentally un-American. They think they are elected only to govern their constituents. They are haters of the first order: they hate gays, they hate minorities, they hate atheists. They have absolutely no respect for the Constitution, except for the Second Amendment. I could go on and on.
Conservative Republicanism is a blight on this nation. It will go down in history with Hooverism and McCarthyism. Not surprisingly, they were Republican, too.
Dr. Amy has some cojones and she's swinging them around the neighborhood. Swing Amy, swing.
And Amy I am so impressed. I knew you had it in you.
The title of this post is enough to set me off. The "evil" of us? Hah! I am so over the ludicrous mentality in this country that seems to ebb and then pop up like a metastasizing cancer in this country. I'm done.
I am gone. Sayonara. Adios.
Sadly, these sorts of wonderful forums too often devolve into who can shout the loudest about which party is the best, much like two petulant kids arguing whether Spiderman is better than Batman or vice versa. It may feel good to vent, but the reprobative milieu solves nothing.
Yes, the last administration was disastrously incompetent on many levels. As much as I admired Jimmy Carter, so was his administration equally inept. Clinton was an agile president, but even die-hard Dems must admit that he and his White House were not squeaky clean. Nixon was a rat, as were many of his advisors. My point is this: only a zealot fails to acknowledge failings within his or her own belief systems. And it is that zealotry which leads to the biggest failures within our government regardless of who is in power. Hyperbole is always counterproductive.
Indeed, the issue has nothing to do with being pro or anti union, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat or one administration vs. another.
It is an issue that, I think, lies at the core of our Democracy -- the secret ballot, the right to vote our consciences as we see fit, a right that transcends all the above categories.
Threads are always hijacked. The salesman's expression, 'goes with the territory' is apt. It's what happens to all internet forums left to the devices of the posters.
Again, thanks.