Busting unions will 'wake sleeping giant,' local Florida boss says

[seafan]

Source: Palm Beach Post

Local unions are closely watching Wisconsin's public union showdown with an eye toward protecting their members from what some see as a movement sweeping the nation to limit bargaining rights.

"We're preparing them that they may come under attack for their bargaining rights and (they need to) be able to do something about it," said Barbara Watson of the Service Employees International Union, which represents Palm Beach County School District custodians, bus drivers and secretaries.

Florida is already a right-to-work state, which means unions can't require employees to be members. This year, the legislature will consider a bill that would remove the unions' ability to deduct dues automatically from members' paychecks.

"Those kinds of laws that are intending to break the unions and take away teacher voices are sweeping the country," said Robert Dow, president of the Palm Beach County teachers union. "It's not just teacher unions; it's all unions."

Read more: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/busting-unions-will-wake-sleeping-giant-local-boss-1282603.html

---

Information on the new Florida bill introduced by Jeb Bush operative, state Senator John Thrasher, that would severely limit the use of union dues, is here.


This is a nationwide, coordinated attack by the billionaire right wing and their front men in strategically placed governor's offices, to break up the last remaining power that protects the middle class in America, and that is the strength of our labor.

Remember, it's only called 'class war' when we fight back.

[Enrique]

1. that's a great article

I'll have to start looking at the Palm Beach Post. :thumbsup:


(...)

Long before Wisconsin's teachers, police officers and firefighters walked off the job to protest at the capital, Florida claimed a distinction of its own: the nation's first statewide teacher strike over funding for education.

It was 1968 and roughly a third of the state's schools were forced to close. Almost half the state's teachers resigned at one time or another, an attempt to get around the law preventing them from striking.

The national arm of the teachers union, the National Education Association, warned its 1 million members that working conditions for teachers were so poor that it could be considered "unethical" for them to take a job in Florida, according to Time magazine.

Teachers were not successful in getting more funding for education, but their act ultimately provided public workers with something far more powerful than a year's worth of additional money.

The state Supreme Court ruled that public employees have a right to collective bargaining. Ruling on another case a year later, the court solidified that position, finding that teachers have a constitutional right to collective bargaining.

(...)

[RKP5637]

2. I wish Americans would wake up that this is not just about unions, it's about ALL

workers rights in the US. Americans are so damn naive. Next will be cutting the minimum wage, health benefits, fair wages. Maybe when workers in the US are akin to slave wages, working all hours, struggling just to barely keep alive, Americans will start to wake up to what is going on. I get so disgusted. After 8 years of Bush one would think Americans would have a clue, but no. What a dumbed down society.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Methinks people are

we have heard anecdotal stories already of come to Jesus moments... you mean THAT is why GRANNY never voted for Republicans? DUH!

[RKP5637]

9. I sure hope so, we're running out of time. n/t

[RKP5637]

14. I've been watching the video streaming of the protests. It reminds of me the 60's. Hopefully

this will be the catalyst that wakes up Americans about a lot of things going on. I think the mass consciousness of how we are being f'ed over about many things is waking up. I just don't see how Americans can take much more of this crap.

http://www.moveon.org/wearewi/index.html

[mysterysoup]

26. Nope.

When the Wisconsin story first broke on Yahoo News, there were over 40,000 comments in the first hour and a half. The comments ran about 5 to 1 against public employee unions. This was too fast and too big to be orchestrated. It was a spontaneous expression of visceral dislike of unions in general and public employee unions in particular.

Sorry to stick a pin in your balloon. The US is headed for fascism. I take no pleasure in announcing this.

[Kingofalldems]

22. Yeah

[shanti]

3. damn right

and it's not just teachers, it is ALL government workers.

[ananda]

5. Remember the idea is to corporatize and privatize all public sector services.

nt

[LARED]

6. In other news local union boss awakes from his dream

that there is a sleeping giant waiting to awake and fix everything.

IMO the reality is that there is no sleeping giant. Something like 12% of people nation wide are union member and about 1/2 are government workers. The rest of us are paying out the nose for medical benefits (4000 to 8000 per years) and are getting pay around the same was government workers so I don't expect unions to get much symapthy outside of themselves

The Republicans know this, are painting a picture that non union folks are paying for union workers with their taxes for far far better benefits than they get.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. And yuo know they are lying and once they bust unions

prevailing wages will go down to slave wages. This is why they want to do that.

The axis of American history is not Freedom and liberty, it is cheap labor.

[sulphurdunn]

15. Maybe if you and the rest of the

non-unionized workforce fought for unions and your own rights to a decent cut of the action for your labor you wouldn't be paying out the nose for medical benefits. Maybe you could live again in a country where you could actually buy the things you make rather than importing them, and maybe one breadwinner could support an entire family again. Maybe your kids could get decent jobs that paid living wages right out high school if they didn't choose to go to college or you could pay for college if they did. Trouble is that American working people have been conditioned to believe that employees aren't as good or deserving as employers and should be grateful to work harder for less than their fathers did while fighting over scraps with other working people.

[LARED]

17. I can tell you from my experience that some unions

are often no better than corporations. I support unions, but not all thing unions bring to the table.

I have personally witnessed union leadership at a plant where I worked put the management in a position where they could not negotiate in good faith with the union when they were faced with a 'fix things now or go out of business situation'. Management (I was part of management) tried to explain that keeping the status quo would drive the company out of business. We live in a very competative world and have to compete with places whre life is cheap and wages are not much better.

Eventually the company was forced to break the union as union management would not budge and kept telling workers that everything would be fine if they stuck to their collective guns. It wasn't. It was ugly and unnecessary.

[sulphurdunn]

19. Unions are often no better than corporations?

Give me a break. OK? Fix things? Like what? Wages and benefits that are "overgenerous" and American lives that must become ever cheaper and impoverished to compete in a race to the bottom? Are you suggesting that unions resisting that "business situation" render management unable to negotiate in good faith so that it is forced to "break the union?" Organized labor takes a beating everywhere for the same reason. It's called union busting i.e the accounting of working people as costs to be cut on a spread sheet so as to maximize investor return. It has one hell of a lot less to do with greedy unions than with soulless corporations.

[socialist_n_TN]

30. Yes, it's the capitalist way. Bust unions and drop wages........

to Malaysian levels yet cost of living stays at American levels. The social safety net is shredded, so millionaires and billionaires can keep their tax breaks. Now THAT'S a formula for a stable society. :sarcasm:

Jeez, I'm not advocating it, but these people DESERVE the guillotine. Good thing I'm a Buddhist and don't want the Karma attached to that.

[ngant17]

21. State workers with the most benefits are typically non-union

i.e, higher-paid managerial or supervisory staff. These people will not be hurting as much if they have to pay into their pension plans. Because higher pay rates are typically found in that bunch, and more pay directly corresponds to better pension plans and better medical plans, they can afford to follow the Repugs' lead on this issue.

OTOH AFSCME union workers make much less than (non-union) management. So asking AFSCME workers to pay into pension and medical would hurt them considerably more than the other group. I really have to watch every dime and nickel I spend as a state worker. It comes to surviving each month paycheck-to-paycheck, not much different than private sector.

Also when I was in private sector, I had a BlueCross medical plan (pays 80% of costs). I was paid more in private sector so I could pay off medical bills a little quicker. However when I became a (lower-paid) state worker, my pay rate dropped substantially compared to previous job, it was much more difficult for me to pay my medical bills with same BlueCross plan.

I basically took the lower-paying state job because my private sector job required me to travel across the state a lot, and with gasoline prices at the level they are then (and especially now), I felt it would be better to find a job with less travel, even it it meant lower pay.

My point is that job positions in private and public sector can be more complex than just comparing insurance plans and pensions plans and pay scales. You have compare union and non-union pay scales in public sector, too. Also state workers typically make less than city and county workers in same job classification.

[mysterysoup]

27. How do you know this?

You only talk about your own case. How can you generalize so irresponsibly?

[ngant17]

28. I assume you can cite me numerous examples

where non-union management make substantially less than union workers in state government?

Obviously you can't, and your implication that my case is unusual and different, this is without merit.

My post only serves to show the obvious, of which only you are mentally incapable of grasping: higher pay translates into higher benefits. Duh!

[daleo]

25. If crabs in a bucket could talk

This is what they would say.

[seafan]

8. Koch Front Group Americans for Prosperity: 'Take the Unions Out at the Knees'

Think Progress:

Feb 25th, 2011 at 8:15 pm

In a speech earlier this month at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual conference, Americans For Prosperity-Michigan Executive Director Scott Hagerstrom revealed the true goal of his group and its allies like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) efforts. Speaking at CPAC’s “Panel for Labor Policy,” Hagerstrom said that AFP really wants to do is to “take the unions out at the knees”:

HAGERSTROM: It’s easy to go out there and fight taxes and increased regulation, you know we send out an action alert on taxes to AFP and we get thousands of people to respond. You send out one on a more complicated issue and it just doesn’t quite resonate…We fight these battles on taxes and regulation but really what we would like to see is to take the unions out at the knees so they don’t have the resources to fight these battles.

.....

Taking “the unions out at the knees” has long been a goal of the Koch brothers and their many front groups. In the run-up to the 2010 elections, the Kochs worked with other anti-labor billionaires, corporations and activists to fund conservative candidates and groups across the country. Now after viciously opposing pro-middle class policies for years, Koch Industries is trying to eliminate the only organizations which serve as a counterweight to the well-oiled corporate machine.

Earlier this week, ThinkProgress reported on the Koch brothers’ integral role in provoking Walker’s showdown with Wisconsin’s public sector unions. Koch Industries donated $43,000 to Walker’s gubernatorial campaign, and Koch political operatives encouraged the newly elected governor to take on the unions. Since the showdown began twelve days ago, Koch-funded front groups like Americans for Prosperity — which is chaired by David Koch — and the American Legislative Exchange Council have organized counter-protests, prepped GOP lawmakers with anti-labor legislative talking points and even announced an anti-union advertising campaign. Even while local business leaders have called for Walker to end his assault on Wisconsin unions, Koch executives have said that they “will not step back at all” and pointed to the importance of their “grassroots” group, saying, “it is good to have them on the ground, in the battle, trying to help out.”

Video of Hagerstrom's statements at link, along with many links in text of piece.


These enemies of the people may have succeeded in whittling down labor union membership to ~8% of the work force, but now it is about to explode in a rebirth across the country.


Hubris and karma are a B*&@#, you F'ers.



These coordinated, vicious attacks on our labor will be what finally galvanizes Americans into an unstoppable force for our rights.


And there ain't NO amount of money that will defeat us.

[ldf]

10. hmmm.. maybe the freeloaders who automatically

receive everything the union members fight for, will now think it is a good time to join the union...

nah. what am i thinking? that americans care?

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. More cowbell to wake up that sleeping giant!

[Fuddnik]

12. Bring it on Scottie!

Although I'm a retired union member, in the private sector, I'll hit the pavement and march with ANY union!

[pasto76]

13. the most important block upon which unions stand is workplace safety

Part of the CBA always includes work conditions, and spells out the process for grievances. I dont have to remind anyone here that a collective bargaining AGREEMENT is a contract signed by the unions(labor) and management.

Anti union rhetoric and sentiment has been cultivated pretty well since the 80s. Part of this whole discussion needs to remind the country about how unions demand and provide a workplace that will not get you killed. OSHA is also a bad guy in their eyes, but empirically, workplace deaths have declined since it was created. The causes for that is like global warming, people will make up all kinds of reasons why.

another part of it needs to be that a Union LOCAL is called a LOCAL because we want to work in our local community, pay taxes in our local communities, and spend our PAY in the local community.

Dont forget that all these safety rules cost Management money up front. Well I guess if they can also kill workmans comp, then they save everywhere...

as an ironworker, the most dangerous trade in construction, I am much more productive when I am not afraid of getting hurt or killed. A safe workplace is a productive workplace.

[Kingofalldems]

16. Kick and Rec for pro-union news!

[sarcasmo]

18. Cranking up the class war is what Walker has done.

[CreekDog]

20. I hate the term "boss" --union leaders don't wield the kind of power the term denotes

but i digress. :D

[sarcasmo]

23. Kick.

[Kingofalldems]

24. Kick this to the top.

[TxVietVet]

29. K&R We've got the best democracy money can buy.