Hello and welcome to another Labor Diary Rescue. Diaries are below the fold.
It's been a long time since I've done this, but if there's any senior management from the Stella D’Oro Biscuit Company, please play the following video for instructions. Pay very, very close attention to the chorus:
Now that that's out of the way, here's the rules:
The Labor Diary Rescue is done every Monday and Thursday evenings, barring a bad internet connection, my insane schedule, or what my union contract refers to "Acts of God". In order to be rescued, you must have a pro-union diary with less than 100 comments, with the word "union" or "labor" in the tag line, and not been on the rec list or part of any other front page diary rescue.
Seabos84 gives us Freedom is Fair Working Rules for EVERYONE.
I think competition is fine. Fair competition can bring out the best in us. If someone invents a google or a warp drive or penicillin, I’ve got no problem that person earning enough to cash out and sit on a beach forever sipping gin and tonics. However, competition without fair rules is NOT fair competition. When the competition is structured so we all break our butts for the benefit of those at the top, and the best doormat, boot licker, butt wipe, sycophant and back stabbers are the best, we end up with the crap we have today. When the people with money make the workers' rules about competition, the competition benefits those with the money. The winners of the daily foot races of productivity get false promises and the senior management pockets the surplus. For every inventor of a google or penicillin who gets their deserved rewards, there are how many of those from money - the trumps, gates, hiltons, bushes ... who are ushered into all the right doors with all the right opportunities, and who rarely invent the wheel or reinvent the mouse trap, but who do spend their efforts staying in charge?
Paul Delehanty writes SEIU at a Crossroads: David Moberg, In These Times. It takes a critical look at the SEIU and cautions that it's not working as hard for the people as they should be.
There's a crucial passage in David Moberg's essay in In These Times covering the recent UNITE-HERE convention in Chicago, Solidarity Reunited?:
UNITE HERE wants to be seen as the bottom-up, aggressive alternative to SEIU, which [UNITE-HERE President John Wilhelm] described as the top-down, cheap contract union.
"Now we find the labor movement at a crossroads," Wilhelm told the convention. "There’s a top-down strategy that stifles creativity and begs employers to let us organize. That strategy requires, by definition, crushing union democracy. Look at the turmoil in SEIU. The labor movement can’t succeed with a top-down strategy."
Employee Free Choice Act shows us a politician who is backing American workers in Mayor Larry Gilbert Stands on the Side of Workers.
Mayor Larry Gilbert is one of the many public figures that have stepped up to voice support for the Employee Free Choice Act in Maine. "The reason why I support the Employee Free Choice Act is because I remember the working conditions as a patrol officer, when I just started. They were terrible." Larry continued "I feel that if employees wish to join a union they have that right."
Union Review has two good diaries about workers who had gone for years without a union contract and have just gotten their contracts ratified.
The first one is After Five Years, A First Contract is Ratified!
This is about a group of workers who organized five years ago ... and went the last five years without a contract. A week or so ago, they ratified, unanimously a three year agreement. This diary is me tipping my hat to these workers, come join me.
The second diary is Almost 16 Years With No Contract, Smithfield Workers Proclaim Victory!
It is important for people to realize how badly the Employee Free Choice Act is needed. Most organizing campaigns in this country are met with severe harassment, intimidation, firings and bullying. I have not been part of too many organizing campaigns that went very different. This is the kind of BS that the Employee Free Choice would prevent.
Today I am tipping my hat to the workers at Smithfield. For nearly 16 years these workers have been organizing, mobilizing and rallying for better wages, work rules and a voice at work. This week they ratified their first ever contract and deserve a well-done round of applause from everyone who cares about working people in this country. They really are a symbol of independence day!
Tasini also has his own take on the Smithfield workers in Victory At SmithField: An Independence Day Symbol
One of the ugliest fights for worker justice has taken place in Tar Heel, North Carolina, which is about 80 miles south of Raleigh. For 17 years, thousands of workers, who labor under some pretty brutal conditions in the largest pork processing plant, have sought a modicum of justice and dignity. And they just got it.
Skylewalker tells us a shocking secret: Senator Ben Nelson is going against his own party's platform because he's being bribed by lobbyists. The diary is called $1 Million Campaign To Kill EFCA Targets Sen. Ben Nelson
As Al Franken prepares to assume his place as the 60th Democratic U.S. Senator in a theoretically filibuster-proof majority, it appears desperation is starting to take hold amongst corporate special interests fearful of efforts to create a fairer playing field for employees that actually respects their right to organize in the workplace.
The first wave of their last stand to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act is starting tomorrow in Nebraska with an ad campaign specifically targeting business-friendly Democratic Senator Ben Nelson for the one vote they need to break ranks with his Democratic colleagues and to turn his back on the American worker at this time of economic crisis.
Well in this case it's an ad campaign, but whatever.
That's it, guys. Enjoy the diaries and treat the comments section as an open thread.