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Scabs complaining about the steward not representing them
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<blockquote data-quote="TechGrrl" data-source="post: 978248" data-attributes="member: 4932"><p>Union membership peaked in 1979. In 1981, Ronald Reagan broke the Air Traffic Controllers Union, and conservatives followed that example by agressively fighting unionization.</p><p></p><p>In the last 30 years, the US economy has changed in many ways. Globalization meant that manufacturing jobs could be exported to low-wage countries, decimating the manufacturing sector. Woman joined the workforce, but concentrated in service sector jobs that were harder to organize. Employers went to the 'independent contractor' and 'part time worker' model, which meant they didn't have to worry about union organizing. They also 'outsourced' to temp help firms, which again helped make it harder to unionize.</p><p></p><p>FedEx has arguably used 'independent contractors' to fight off unionization. Go read the FedEx part of this board to see that there are lots of folks who think they are getting screwed. There are also more than one legal opinion out there (working their way through the appeals process) that FedEx is ILLEGALLY using 'independent contractor' status to side-step labor law.</p><p></p><p>Your questions about the 'business friendly' states of the south pretty much answer themselves. The Old Confederacy has always been a patrician, aristocratic based economy. After the Civil War, the ruling class pretty much set the poor whites against the freed slaves by threatening to use the cheap labor of the ex-slaves to undercut the work of the poor whites. "Divide and Conquer" is still a workable strategy today. Ask Scott Walker in Wisconsin. By law and custom, employees in the South have always been at a disadvantage to their employers. Painting this as a meritocracy is simply specious.</p><p></p><p>One thing is certain: a graph of union membership paired with median wages adjusted for inflation, goes DOWN in lockstep over the last 30 years. Productivity has gone UP over that same 30 years, but median wages have NOT. So the plutocracy continues to sweep more coins into their pockets, while the working people of this country get screwed.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, the Ayn Rand/John Galt crowd mewls about "makers versus takers", and thumps their chests about how they should just go on strike until the peons appreciate them more...ignoring completely the fact that entrepreneurs succeed in a matrix of a community that supports all of us with laws and infrastructure that has been built up over the years by the efforts of all of us. A true libertarian society looks a lot more like Somalia than it does like Galt's valley in Atlas Shrugged....</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TechGrrl, post: 978248, member: 4932"] Union membership peaked in 1979. In 1981, Ronald Reagan broke the Air Traffic Controllers Union, and conservatives followed that example by agressively fighting unionization. In the last 30 years, the US economy has changed in many ways. Globalization meant that manufacturing jobs could be exported to low-wage countries, decimating the manufacturing sector. Woman joined the workforce, but concentrated in service sector jobs that were harder to organize. Employers went to the 'independent contractor' and 'part time worker' model, which meant they didn't have to worry about union organizing. They also 'outsourced' to temp help firms, which again helped make it harder to unionize. FedEx has arguably used 'independent contractors' to fight off unionization. Go read the FedEx part of this board to see that there are lots of folks who think they are getting screwed. There are also more than one legal opinion out there (working their way through the appeals process) that FedEx is ILLEGALLY using 'independent contractor' status to side-step labor law. Your questions about the 'business friendly' states of the south pretty much answer themselves. The Old Confederacy has always been a patrician, aristocratic based economy. After the Civil War, the ruling class pretty much set the poor whites against the freed slaves by threatening to use the cheap labor of the ex-slaves to undercut the work of the poor whites. "Divide and Conquer" is still a workable strategy today. Ask Scott Walker in Wisconsin. By law and custom, employees in the South have always been at a disadvantage to their employers. Painting this as a meritocracy is simply specious. One thing is certain: a graph of union membership paired with median wages adjusted for inflation, goes DOWN in lockstep over the last 30 years. Productivity has gone UP over that same 30 years, but median wages have NOT. So the plutocracy continues to sweep more coins into their pockets, while the working people of this country get screwed. Meanwhile, the Ayn Rand/John Galt crowd mewls about "makers versus takers", and thumps their chests about how they should just go on strike until the peons appreciate them more...ignoring completely the fact that entrepreneurs succeed in a matrix of a community that supports all of us with laws and infrastructure that has been built up over the years by the efforts of all of us. A true libertarian society looks a lot more like Somalia than it does like Galt's valley in Atlas Shrugged.... [/QUOTE]
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