note to a friend

Note to a friend: 

 

Ted,

It's a crazy upside down world.  But I was wondering about your comment that you are not a great fan of unions. 

If workers don't band together and stand up for their rights, safe working conditions, decent pay, and collective bargaining rights, what would you suggest in the place of unions? 

It's my observation that unions suffer from the same contamination that has permeated all of America. 

Capitalism.  This Virus has snaked its tentacles into every walk of life.  Rather than working together to improve their well being, union leaders jockey for power just the same as the corporate bosses.  The laborers become the pawns rather than equal partners. 

I remember being shocked years ago when I read that the Boeing Aero Machinists were planning a strike vote, but first the union president requested, and received, a large pay raise.  He then proceeded to work against the will of the majority of his members, siding with Management's claim that poor Boeing could not afford to share any of its great profits with the workers.  Most of those profits came from our collective pockets.  And those profits enabled Boeing to slam one competitor after another to the mat, costing thousands of jobs.  And then our great "built in America" aircraft company began outsourcing many of its parts manufacturing.  As a great big Thank You to the citizens of Seattle, and Washington State, who had underwritten Boeing by forgiving taxes and paying for land development that benefited Boeing, this caring company up and moved its headquarters to Chicago because Seattle finally could not deliver enough more of its blood. 

If not unions, how do we go up against unfeeling, cold, calculating monsters like Boeing.  Boeing is no longer an American corporation.  You think they wouldn't up and move their entire business to another part of the world if it offered them a better deal and cheaper labor?  And still they suck up your and my tax dollars as if they have a God given right and we have no business questioning their behavior. 

If ever we needed to reform and build strong unions, it is now. 

 

Curious Carl