Tag: Collective Bargaining

But First, A Little History

College of Political Knowledge

I think we have all about exhausted the story in Wisconsin….the situation and the reporting is becoming redundant…….there is not more we can saw about the issue…only that the people seem to be on the side of unions and the GOP is fighting it tooth and nail…..

I will let it go after I give a bit of history for those that are not aware of what the labor movement has done in the past……back in the early days of the 20th century there was a massive labor movement and yes there were some Leftists involved in it…….but without the fight for fairness in labor we would not have the situation we have today….we would NOT have the 8 hour work day or the 5 day work week or overtime or minimum wage or benefits or a safe work place or a ban on child labor and the list goes on and on….let me ask…what would you working life be like if NOT for the fight of unions of the past?  We soon forget the hardship and sacrifices that our people had to deal with in their work environment….but we should thank unions for the life we have today…..

But wait….history seems to be trying to repeat itself starting in Wisconsin and now moves on to Ohio…..

Another showdown on an Ohio bill to restrict the bargaining rights of public workers could come as early as Wednesday with a vote by a Republican-majority legislative committee whose chairman says he has the support to send the measure to the Senate.Worker rights and collective bargaining have sparked debate in statehouses across the country, most notably in Wisconsin, where a scheduled vote on a similar bill prompted Democratic lawmakers to flee the state.

A repeat of history?  Where?

In many ways, it’s the 1930s again. Just as then, workers and their political allies and other supporters are demonstrating, picketing, marching, striking and otherwise forcefully demanding the basic civil right of collective bargaining – the unfettered right for workers’ representatives to negotiate with employers on setting their wages, hours and working conditions.

Eventually, workers and their millions of supporters won the 1930s struggle. Congress, acting closely with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, granted the legal right of collective bargaining to most workers. Farm workers, domestics and a few other groups were excluded from the law, but all others finally had that vital right.

The 1930s struggle arose primarily because of the economic pressures of the Great Depression that led to massive protests, just as today’s struggle can be traced to the pressures of the Great Recession that also have led to massive protests.

There are key differences between then and now, however. In the thirties, the struggle was to win union rights for workers in the face of strong opposition from large financial interests, powerful conservative politicians and other anti-labor forces. Today, the struggle is to keep union rights from being taken away from workers by today’s anti-union forces. Their main targets are public employees and the pensions and other benefits they won in past bargaining with their government employers.  (Thanx to Buzzflash and Dick Meister)

Once again workers are having to fight for their right to work……it really comes down to the cash that unions and their members are willing to give to politicians that is the real story….it has little to do with the workers themselves just the influence that they can wield…….it is about elections NOT jobs!

Better Later Than Never

Yes, I will be talking about the doings in Wisconsin….and yes…again!

There is a report on a poll out today about the governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker…….

Wisconsin voters already have buyers remorse about electing Gov. Scott Walker (R).

In a PPP poll released Monday, a majority of registered Wisconsin voters say that in a hypothetical re-do of last year’s gubernatorial election, they would vote for Democrat Tom Barrett, whom Walker defeated in November. That finding comes as Walker continues to stand firm on his budget proposals that would strip most state public employees of long-held collective bargaining rights.

Fifty-two percent of respondents said they would vote for Barrett if the election were held today, while 45% said they would vote for Walker. That’s almost exactly the opposite of what happened in the election, when Walker won the governorship with 52% of the vote to Barrett’s 47%.

The huge shift comes, not surprisingly, from union members. In releasing the findings, Tom Jensen at PPP wrote:

Thanx to Talking Points Memo for the update…….

All I have to say about this is…..see what happens when you are lazy and depend on morons on the tube to tell you where to vote?  Maybe, just maybe  you people should exercise your most important muscle….no not the abs or the pecs or the penis……but rather the BRAIN!  If you would have used it more maybe you would not have the massive problem you have now…..if you pay attention to what you are voting for then sneaks and thieves cannot easily influence you……

You have NO one to blame for this but yourself and your damn laziness!  Ignorance hurts, huh?

The GOP’s Man Crush

By now we ALL have heard about the doings in states like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, to mention a few……if not then there is a rush by GOP governors to attack public employees and their unions….it seems to these types all the budget problems and shortfalls are ALL the fault of public employees and the unions……It seems that the GOP is still trying to negate ALL progress of workers that started back in the 1940’s………..conservs make it sound as if the public employees have somehow stolen their benefits….utter and total BS!

I am still waiting for these governors to focus on one of their major points that helped them win a large percentage of the vote….that point is…the creation of jobs…..somehow lower corporate taxes will create jobs….it has NOT in my state, which has some of the lowest in the country, and have been promised great prosperity will come with lower taxes….not so in the last 50 years…..nowhere have these elected officials created a job and their points they are pushing like furloughs, dismissals, etc….will create NO jobs  but will create a rise in unemployment….keep in mind you mental midgets voted for these people….are you pleased with your choices?

Anyway back to the man crush thing…….The darling of ALL conservs, Gov. Cristie of New Jersey today on MSNBC (which has a major man crush on this guy)…..Christie talked about the stuff he is doing in New Jersey he said that….”the unions were destroying thew Middle Class and that by pursuing them he was going to strengthen the Middle Class….(this is a paraphrase)……and of course Morning Joe was so9 pleased to hear that the public employees would be attacked that he could barely contain himself (after all he is a conserv and as such sees the evils behind unions)…….but after hearing his little mindless diatribe I have to ask……..

Just how are unions destroying the middle class, governor?  How would weakening or eliminating unions strengthen the middle class?

Since thanx to the work of unions, the middle class prospered and gave working people the opportunity to advance their standing in society…Thanx to the work of unions Americans were given the chance to live the American dream…Just how would Christie and his comrades strengthen the middle class?

These GOP governors are pursuing an agenda that they kept from the voter during the campaign….this is NOT unusual….but you would think that the American voter would be smarter by now……(pause here for raucous laughter)…….

Wal-Mart To Sign Collective Wage Deal

Yippieeeeee!  But wait!  Only in China!

Global retail giant Wal-Mart plans to sign collective labour contracts at all of its more than one hundred outlets in China by the end of September, according to the official Chinese media.

The announcement in the Workers’ Daily on 31 July came just two weeks after Wal-Mart signed its first collective wage agreement in Shenyang, which mandated an eight percent pay increase for all workers this year, with another eight percent next year.

This was soon followed by the signing of similar collective contracts in the Quanzhou store, which formed the first Wal-Mart union in China in August 2006, and close to 20 other outlets, including those in Shenzhen.

All the agreements reportedly covered remuneration, working hours and paid vacations, labour insurance and welfare benefits, and stipulated that workers should be paid more than the local minimum wage.

The contracts are the result of high level campaign by the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) to establish a mechanism for store-wide collective consultations between labour and management and to sign collective labour contracts at Wal-Mart outlets across China. Indeed, ACFTU Chairman Wang Zhaoguo paid a high profile visit to Shenyang a few days before the first contract was signed, presumably to ensure that the whole process went smoothly.

The ACFTU claimed on its website that Wal-Mart was singled out for the collective contract campaign because, as a major Fortune 500 company, its initiative would spur other foreign invested enterprises to sign collective labour contracts too. However, the high-profile unionization of Wal-Mart two years ago did not lead to surge in the voluntary unionization of other foreign companies and it is doubtful if this trickle-down approach to collective contracts will be any more successful.

The Chinese government and the ACFTU clearly see collective contracts as an effective means of safeguarding workers’ rights and regulating relations between management and labour. However, for the process to be truly effective, unions at the grassroots level will have to vigorously represent the interests of employees and fight for the best deal possible rather than simply go through the motions of collective bargaining at the behest of their ACFTU superiors.

To do business in China they had to make a deal.  Why cannot the US make these greedy little shits do right by their employees?

The Congress: HR 980

(HR 980): The Senate voted 69-29 to take up a bill granting limited union rights to police, firefighters and other public safety personnel in all states.

Is this a good thing?  well, it the organizations are allowed, hate that term, to negotiate then the members will benefit, as long as it is a true negotiation and that the shams that are being passed off as such these days.

If this extends to all public service employees then yes it could be a very good thing, but I doubt that it will pass as it is today…too many conservs that truly hate unions and the reps.