on the merits of sticking SOLIDARITY stickers all over my face

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

Will the protests further stoke the resentment many harbor for public worker's unions? Or will the backlash in reaction to Republican attempts to throttle organized labor be the bigger impact of these events? What about people like me, people who have criticisms of some aspects of public unions but generally support the idea that public workers should have decent wages and pensions? (Really all people should have the opportunity to work for those things.) Are these events making "nuanced" positions invisible?

I mean... I'm ticked off enough to start sticking SOLIDARITY stickers all over my face. (Will that help?) yet, I don't feel this accurately represents my views on the essential, yet easily corruptible role of unions in this country. *sigh*

Comments

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

What I fail to understand is why people are focused on unions anyway. I barely know they exist. They don't have any power in GA.

Do we have them? Sure, I guess. There's the IBEW (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBEW), which has no power whatsoever and can't even set standards or prevent electricians from fradulently representing themselves as IBEW-certified. The Lockheed people sort of have a union, but last time they tried anything (over a decade ago), Lockheed just fired them all and hired strikebreakers immediately. Illegal immigrants were happy to be picked up by the truckload for that one. The former Bellsouth Union died around 2005 and is totally toothless. Our teacher's union (if one still exists) is powerless and has no bargaining powers whatsoever.

If Wisconsin doesn't like unions so much, why don't they just become a right-to-work state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law) and depower them that way? Under right-to-work, unions become pointless.

[fleaplus.livejournal.com]

> If Wisconsin doesn't like unions so much, why don't they just become a right-to-work state and depower them that way? Under right-to-work, unions become pointless.

Actually, since that would be a non-budget bill, I wonder why the Republicans don't end up just passing something like that while the Democrats are out of the state.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

My guess: This would depower the unions in the manufacturing sectors of the Wisconsin economy, which would anger the Republican workers who are located in those private unions. The food processing industry is heavy there; the unions in that business are pretty powerful and would take ill to a right-to-work law.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

When Lockheed was based in Ca I recall the union being pretty strong. Until he went management, He was a strong union guy and even a rep (iirc). But then the aero-space industry isn't what it was back in the 60s.
Strangely enough, as strong a union man as my dad was, he was rabidly anti union in his second job.