I crossed a picket line today

In My Humble Opinion
41

Pray tell, what on earth does that have to do with this strike by these people over this issue? How is the history of unions relevant to whether or not I’ll support the cause of these greedy people who want the store I shop at to go out of business if they don’t get their blackmail money?

EVERYTHING? Really? Please.

NOBODY? You mean that you and every single solitary person you work with is a spineless wimp, incapable of negotiating a fair salary or protesting unsafe or illegal working conditions? Ok, even if I buy that, how is that my problem and why should I have to suffer either not buying groceries or having to go out of my way to find a non-striking store because they’re too weak to ask for a raise if they feel they deserve one?

You’d wish me an employment environment where I didn’t have an individual voice? Where my raises were tied to what everyone else in the company was making, regardless of outstanding performance? You want to hold me down and expect me to thank you for that?

That’s absurd. It’s in my interest to support causes I agree with. I don’t agree that the striking grocery workers have a legitimate grievance!

I don’t want their support!

GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!! Now I’m unAmerican if I don’t support this method of extortion?

What?! Supporting something I disagree with is right because it’s somehow good “overall”? This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Oh, gee, thank you.

This is what angers me the most. It absolutely infuriates me that these bullies are getting away with this tactic. How dare they hold their employers hostage and think it’s a legitimate negotiating means?

These people get no empathy from me. What they’re doing is wrong. I’m glad these bullies are being locked out. It’s what they deserve. I hope they lose their cush jobs because of it, too.

Are you calling me a liar?

To you, maybe. To my husband, it was frightening enough to insist I park our car clear on the other side of the lot so as to avoid the possibility of having it keyed!

They stay on the street corners! Do NOT block my way into my grocery store when I’m trying to buy FOOD to feed my family! Do NOT yell at me, glare at me or call me names because I don’t support your greedy cause. Picketing in front of the doors is by its nature a scare tactic. We had to pass by the most convenient store to our shopping yesterday because all the picketers there were a concern to my husband. I was so fucking mad that they had that power to intimidate us like that. I was so angry it almost caused an argument with my husband because he was AFRAID to cross them and I was not going to be bullied into not buying food!

Listen up, management at my local Albertson’s never stood outside Ralph’s and Von’s with intimidating picket signs, yelling at me that I should only shop at their store. So no, corporations don’t “limit my choices” (whatever that means).

Oh, puh-LEASE!

I’ll give you one guess as to whose perspective I think is limited in this thread.

And attempting to cause financial hardship to their employer is “bargaining in good faith” on the part of the employees?!

Stunning. Simply stunning.

42

I think (I can never make the quote thing work) the pro-union person who wrote about collective bargaining is a little wrong. Companies can’t get together and say “we’ll offer all our workers no more than x dollars”. That would be anti-trust or collusion or some such thing.

Workers are in a little different boat b/c there are more workers than employers, but still the idea of basically shutting down a company through a strike seems to be totally unfair.

As for being a teacher, your wage is determined more by supply and demand than you think. My job is 100% non union and I make a good buck. Why? Why would they pay me more than $5 an hour? Supply and demand. If you’re a decent teacher, even without a union, you’d be paid…it’s the deadbeat, can’t spell, can’t read useless teachers who are protected by the unions and it’s rules. Teachers can not be fired for any reason b/c of unions. Gee thanks. One reason why the US education system is so great.

Bottom line is workers want a living wage, blah blah blah. Well God bless them! Let them get a better job. Why should people (as one poster pointed out) who would work for $10 an hour be shut out because of these greedy people? Don’t they have a right to a wage too?

As for the CEOs, it’s unconscionable that they make what they do. We need laws allowing shareholders more stake in electing directors so they can limit salaries. But giving unskilled workers $20 an hour? And having them complain cause they have to pay some medical costs? They should thank God they have any insurance. Many people don’t. What about them?

43

Man, tclouie, I just can’t seem to stop shaking my head today over your crazy, biased, and entirely self-serving post. I mean what a set of cajones you have to spew such selfish ugliness, and giving as cites comedians! You do get that these people aren’t political experts, but rather entertainers, right? I mean would you get how silly your post was if I quoted Mallard Duck?

44

The fact is, even $20 an hour is not what I would consider a living wage.

Depends on where you live, Stomp. If either me or my husband made $20 an hour, the other wouldn’t have to work, we’d own a house and a car AND be able to send our daughter to private school.

$20 an hour probably isn’t much in San Diego. What does your wife (husband?) make, though?

45

Thank you, Bill H., for taking back your unkind comment. When I teach about current events, I do try to present both sides, including elections, wars and labor issues. By the way, most teachers are pro-union, so I hope that doesn’t disqualify us!

And yes, I do owe all my material and economic progress in life to the union. (I’ve only been a teacher, I’ve had no other full-time jobs.) To be more exact, I have also succeeded as a result of my education, my work and my character, and my parents helping me start college, but it is the union that has transformed those advantages into material gain. It’s like Arnold saying “Everything I have, I owe to California.” You might think it’s a sweeping statement at first, but a little reflection could lead you to conclude that he could be absolutely right. (And yes, I’m still anti-Arnold, as you can tell from my other threads!)

Shayna: I really think you are becoming overwrought about this issue. I don’t know what kind of deep-seated grievance you have against unions, but your emotionalism has not refuted any of my arguments, especially since you have ignored the nuances in my statements. (I am not generally given to extreme, sweeping statements – but in this thread, you are.) Any reasonable person who reads my post, whether the whole thing or the excerpts you pulled out, would conclude that I have reasonable arguments, even if they didn’t agree with them.

Also, stop begging to be insulted. I did not call you a liar; this is not the Pit. What’s more, I don’t even think you’re a liar, because you are mostly talking about your own emotions and feelings, and how can a person lie about those? But, you still have not answered my question: did the picketers actually threaten you, or actually engage in verbal aggression towards you? I mean actual threats, not just “seeming threatening by being there.” Not that verbal aggression never happens on a picket line – some teachers did it too, in our last strike. But I think a fellow picketer or organizer would tell them pretty quickly to shut up, because that’s counterproductive. So just clear things up once and for all: what, exactly, did they do or say to you? If there was a real threat or real harassment, you should call the police.

(By the way, being in front of the entrance is OK as long as they don’t physically block public access. That’s why most cops on “strike duty,” as well as most picket captains, would tell the strikers to “keep moving.” Actually standing or sitting in a way that blocks the doors would be illegal. Again: call the police!)

If you or your husband choose to feel threatened by a legal picket, that is totally up to you. People can feel threatened by anything in the world, including a strange man walking in their direction on the sidewalk. That does not mean, however, that there should be a law preventing strange men from walking in your direction, much less that walking towards you is morally wrong! Your feelings are your own responsibility, up to a certain point. Legal pickets do not pass that point. Don’t mess with my First Amendment, please!

I have already explained why union tactics are not coercive bullying any more than corporate tactics, and why unionism itself is an outgrowth of the free market and free association; but I guess there’s no convincing you.

If this strike wins, it will win due to workers withdrawing their labor and using public sympathy to influence people’s buying decisions in a free market; and if the strike loses, it will be due to the company being able to function without that labor as well as influencing public sympathies, in that same free market. As long as both sides behave themselves and obey the law, the only “coercion” possible here is governmental, and so far that is not in play. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for unfettered capitalism, but a truly free market would have room for both corporations and unions rather than giving all the economic leverage to the corporations. As Milton Friedman might say, all’s fair in love, war – and economics!

So calm down, OK?

46

Snoopyfan,

http://www.nctimes.net/news/2001/20010925/62015.html

47

I dont thin it’s a matter of assumption, it’s a matter of neccesity. Working spouses don’t just appear out of thin air when you need them. Plenty of people, for one reason or another, have no choice but to raise their family on one income.

48

If I’m not mistaken, part-time workers at Starbucks can get benefits as well, though I’m not sure the health coverage is fully paid for like it seems to be in this case. I checked their website but it was not specified which workers got which benefits. Otherwise I would have to agree, I’ve never heard of that before.

Heck, I work in a hospital and I have to contribute monthly for health, dental and (if I wanted to have it) eye insurance coverage. I grew up in an upper lower-class family, both parents were union members, husband is a union member, but none of us ever had health insurance that the company paid for completely. I can’t sympathize on that issue.

49

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Bill H. *
**I just can’t seem to stop shaking my head today over your crazy, biased, and entirely self-serving post. I mean what a set of cajones you have to spew such selfish ugliness **[/QUOTE}

:rolleyes:

Uhhhhh…maybe you ought to take a good look at your own posts. Talk about “projection”!

“Self-serving”? You’re an anti-union corporate exec, right? I would guess it’s very much in your economic interest to characterize pro-union statements in such a way.

**and giving as cites comedians! **

Franken is the only author I cited who is considered a comedian. Even so, comedians have just as much right to comment on current affairs as anybody else. One becomes a “political expert” by studying the subject in depth, and comedians do that too, so they are just as well qualified to comment as the vast majority of posters to this board, including you. I mean, if Arnold can be governor…!

By the way, the books by Franken, Moore and Zinn are chock-full of footnotes and endnotes, so next time try refuting those instead of relying on an ad hominem argument.

bri’s gratuitous insult against teachers and the US educational system is not worthy of comment, except for a factual correction: teachers can be fired, although more often they are simply harassed out of their jobs by vindictive or incompetent administrators.

Collusion among employers to limit wages: not sure if that’s illegal, does anybody have a cite? It does happen in a de facto way without the need for a formal agreement, because in many industries businesses quickly follow the leader when an influential company sets a standard for wages, prices or other business practices. All perfectly legal, it’s called an “industry standard.”

As for just leaving your job if you don’t like it: why not just change conditions at the job you have? That’s what union action is all about! And if it works, it works. Fortunately, it works often enough that we unionized workers don’t have to be semi-permanent nomads! So yes, we often will complain instead of just leaving. :slight_smile:

A word about “greed”: it’s actually “economic self-interest.” Almost everybody makes decisions based on it, including workers, business owners and people who disagree with me in this here thread. It’s why people cross picket lines, too. :slight_smile:

A lot of the anti-union comments in this thread seem to be based on jealousy or sour grapes over what unionized workers already have. Well, instead of sour grapes, why not fight to improve conditions for everybody?

50

Hello, I am Stomps wife. While my husbands statements may be passionate, they are not just emotionally based. He is a college graduate, a member of MENSA and has studied American labor history as a requirement during his apprenticeship. This is something that directly affects him and I am pleased to find that he has found a place where he can voice himself.

 I have noticed that many members here who have chosen to reply to this thread are ingorant to the fact that they refuse to see the bigger picture. I too agree that their are some limited prespectives at work here. You have been led by our society to take things in safe bite size pieces. Is it really so hard to comprehend that one man can make a difference in our world? What are you people really afraid of? You figure that it doesn't concern you, that the big guys will "work something out". To you I say.. get off your ass, open your eyes and shut your mouths. Then maybe we can talk. 

 Now, I may not understand fully the politics of organized labor, but I know that if anything happened to my husband I would have the right to ask any damn questions I wanted..and get answers, heck, they would even open an investigation if I so wished. I would have a death claim, his pension and annunity. Not to mention all of his investments. It would be made sure that I was well taken care of. That is a comforting feeling. 

 Tclouie, I would be honored to have you educate our children. I think your arguement was right on the money. It saddens me that these people are so close minded and self-absorbed. I am further saddened to think of how their children will fed fatuous hopes. I have respect for other peoples opinions and beliefs, but I weep for the future.
51

In my school system, teacher assistants (part-time workers) can have their coverage partially paid for if they work 4 hours. (That’s since about 1991.)

So, of course, the District employs many of them at 3 hours. So what else is new?

52

Bill H. wrote

Apologies on that one too; I’ll try to settle down a bit.

tclouie wrote

Yes it is. However, I have the proud right to boast that I’ve personally created hundreds of jobs in my life, jobs that wouldn’t have existed if I weren’t here. These were all well-paying jobs, and in fact several people who have worked for me became millionaires as a direct result. You may point out that I did it for my own selfish interests, and you’d be partially right, but it doesn’t change the good that was done, and it doesn’t change that in fact it was partially done because I believe it’s a good, decent, moral thing to do.

Now on the other side, unions take away jobs. It’s micro-economics 101. When one worker gets paid more than the market feels they should, someone else gets less, or more typically doesn’t get a job.

Well, Franken is the only funny one who’s considered a comedian. I was referring to Moore as well in my reference.

Of course they do. And even when I disagree, I enjoy political humor. But come on, you don’t quote those guys as sources.

You quote; I’ll refute (or at least as much as time and interest allows me.) What you cited was not enough. For example, the only actual number you’ve mentioned to date (from a book called Dude, where’s my country?; hardly a serious work being studied by law makers for inclusion into our laws) was

And I think you’ll agree there’s not enough meat there for me to refute. Give me the web address of the supposed Business Week cite or the New York Times one, and we’ll talk.

My mother is an elementary school teacher. And though I love her, and though I have a lot of respect for teachers in general, I have very strong feelings about what unions have done to the quality of our schools. The simplest example: Anyone with money sends their children to a private school. Which is about as basic a proof as you can get that private schools provide a better education than public schools. The most important component of an education is the quality of the teachers. Yet in private schools, the teachers are on average paid less than the public school teachers. How can it be that the lesser paid teachers are the higher quality ones? It’s very simple. The public ones are represented by a union that makes it near impossible to get rid of the bad ones (thereby giving the good public ones a bad name), and delivers more money to them than the market dictates that they deserve.

In fairness, I should say that my mom has a very different opinion on this. But she’ll be the first to admit she wouldn’t want to teach at a private school as she knows the work is harder and pay is lower.

53

Point taken. But I also wonder if it’s necessarially wrong that what we consider a comfortable middle-class lifestlye today is not easily attainable for a single-income family typically.

I also have a hard time with these discussions because people always say how much more expensive it is to live in the city. As a country boy, I don’t always have a grasp of what it means to live in a major metropolitan area. (but then, if an area is too expensive, why not move)?

54

tclouie wrote

Exactly. And who made the 4 hour rule happen, forcing the District to only employ people 3 hours? Your beloved unions.

I’m sure those limited to 3 hours will be happy to know that union members got lots of perks though.

55

I’m disappointed that nobody has bothered to do this yet. I’m actually interested in the effect that the Union has on the bottom line, good or bad.

but I will add this: Any company that tells employees who have been working there for 30+ years that they are going to change the pension plan to their detriment suck. The highest pension payins occur when you have the highest salary, which is after the 30 years of work. So all of a sudden, you’re 10 years from retirement, and you’re expecting $X to go into your retirement account for the next 10 years, leaving you with enough to retire on. But all of a sudden they only put half that in, and you only have 10 working years to make up the difference…that’s just not right.

-lv

56

Well, I don’t think it’s that easy. A lot of these companies are part of other companies which don’t release their results for individual units. Plus, Krogers may have some union stores, some non-union, etc. Gets a bit muddled I think. (Hmm, I wonder if muddled is a word…)

57

I have no problem with the idea of unions. I have no problem with open shops, where unionizing is voluntary. I am fully aware of the historical importance of unions. I am less convinced of their continued relevance in many areas of modern American society.

The mentality of entitlement just bothers me – to be so far out of touch with the economic realities of society as a whole as to contend, with a straight face, that $20 an hour is not a living wage. To take the position, as many union workers do, that the union contract sets forth what you have to do and, by God, you’re not doing one single thing not required of you, no matter how obviously it needs to be done, no matter how easily you can do it, no matter how much it furthers the goals of the organization of business as a whole.

I realize that on one end of the continuum there is the exploitation of workers, and that is certainly not a place we need to revist. But I believe that too many unions have gone too far to the other end.

58

The supermarket strike is getting big headlines, but Los Angeles is also experiencing “Blue Flu” wherein the police department is calling in sick, so

might not be as easy an option as you might think.

To top it all off now this: MTA Union Leader: Strike Likely

Explain to me how cripling a major city and leaving them unprotected is

:confused: :mad:

Kathy

59

I finished my last two year of high school in Los Angeles and had one true nutball of a teacher. You name the conspiracy theory, he believed it, and taught it to us as fact.

When my parents and I went to the principal, who was a great guy who ran a good school, he said he couldn’t do a damn thing about the guy because of the union.

Teacher’s unions are the one type I am leery of. But I suppose as long as teaching is seen as a low-end sort of job, they’re going to continue attracting a percentage of idiots who get into the union and then are untouchable afterwards. :rolleyes:

On the whole I am in favor of unions, though I admit some go too far. And I probably wouldn’t cross a grocery store picket line, but I have to wonder if these people realize just how replaceable they are?

60

tclouie, you did, in fact, call me a liar when you said, “I do not believe anyone tried to “scare,” “bully” or “frighten” you.”

You do not get to define what scares or frightens me by declaring that it didn’t happen “unless they threatened [me] or inflicted some other form of verbal aggression on [me].” The fact is, they did inflict verbal aggression on me and their presence in the doorway carrying bigass sticks posed physical intimidation.

I have, indeed, refuted your arguments, whatever those were supposed to be (I think it was something like, “we should support unions and picketers because of the “overall” good and because it’s as American as Apple Pie!” :rolleyes: )

I’m sorry, but I don’t conclude you have reasonable arguments, even though I disagree with them. I think it’s entirely unreasonable to frighten and intimidate customers and hold employers hostage over the issue of employee participation in family healthcare coverage. I think it’s unreasonable to tell me that dozens of people massed together, yelling and hollering and carrying big sticks, attempting to keep me from going into my grocery store doesn’t qualify as frightening, scary or intimidating.

Your contention that my feelings are my own responsibility is erroneous, when, again, I’m faced with masses of people carrying bigass sticks and yelling at me at the entrance to where I wish to shop. When someone tries to scare me and they’re successful, that’s their responsibility, not mine.

You haven’t explained why union tactics aren’t coercive at all, you’ve merely said how they’ve given you everything you have in the whole wide world, so I should support them, just because.

And I’m perfectly calm, thankyouverymuch. I’m just annoyed by people like you who call me unAmerican and a liar, and people who wish to intimidate me because they’re unhappy with their employer. I think it’s crap.

Additionally, your characterization of jealousy or sour grapes is laughable. I have a job I LOVE, making great money, in an enviroment I’m VERY happy in, with awesome hours and a great boss who’s extremely accomodating regarding occasional long weekends, vacation time, etc. Not to mention that you’ve never once inquired, nor have I stated, whether or not I’d support a strike if I believed the employees were justified in their demands. For instance, if pilots were being required to work back-to-back 12 hour shifts with only 4 hours rest between flights, which not only severely impacts their own physical health, but puts the public at risk as well, then hell yes, I’d picket with them.

How about you stick with the facts about this strike by these people over this issue instead of calling me unAmerican, lying, jealous or filled with sour grapes, merely because I disagree with you.

Mrs. Stomp, you’re obviously not a registered member here, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and some helpful advice. We have a registration requirement in order to post here. Though it isn’t spelled out specifically in the user agreement, the administration has historically not allowed people to post here using someone else’s identity, even if it’s a roommate or a spouse – it simply leads to too much confusion. Additionally, we have different fora here for different purposes. The place to call people closed-minded and self-absorbed is in The Pit.