Hi Readers,
First of all a caveat from me, I have never belonged to a labor union,Drat it! I have only belonged to The Northern Lakes Co-operative Union(in Hayward WI) and now I do my financial business at Spire Federal Credit Union. I would have loved to join a labor union and have other workers have my back. But all my jobs were hourly paid jobs and I was always on my own to do negotiating with my bosses. I have never had the great feeling of having the union shop steward speak up for me. It made me change jobs frequently because I had no person to speak up for my rights! Without unions it's always the bosses that completely run the show! They have all the rights and the workers are only allowed the rights that their employers will let them have! It is UNFAIR!
Let me tell you a little about the history of unions. The Union Movement started in the mid-19th Century. In the 1870s and 1880s the first union was called, The Knights of Labor. That labor union ended when the membership dried up A new union started called The American Federation of Labor. It was started by Samuel Gompers. He led it until 1924 when he died. The peak union membership was in 1950.
Now days the two most powerful unions are The AFL-CIO and a split off form The AFL-CIO called The Change To Win Federation which started in 2005. Union membership is much more sparse in the USA(11.4% of the population) then Canada(27.7%). Germany has 18.6% of it's population in unions, but in Finland 70% of it's population belong to unions.
The reason Conservatives and Teapublicans are against unions is because they want their 1% buddies to have full control of the workforce. They also delight is rescinding the laws that made the workplace safer and more livable! The Teapublicans rub their hands with glee thinking about making the poor and middle class indentured slaves. You heard of Gingrich wanting poor students to be given latrine duty in their schools!
The scenes I saw of caucaus attendees look like middle class people. They have bought the Teapublican snow job! They reminded me of lambs lining up for the slaughter! This brainwash is generational! The main thing that feeds their lunacy is that they are racists and religion intolerant!
We must fight to keep our unions strong and our employees need more workplace rights! Richard Trumpka is now the President of The AFL_CIO. He has many great ideas and he is a man of the people. We must defeat all Teapubiucan candidates and vote for Progressive Liberal Democrats! Woe to us if we are forced to live in a Scott Walkerian World!!!