After nearly 10 years, the workers who went on strike at the Detroit Newspapers are being vindicated. The newspapers decided to “renegotiate” their workers contracts back in 1995, offering terms so awful that the union really had no choice but to go on strike or basically send management a memo saying “please send more vaseline.” After being on strike (and replaced) for 2 years, the union made an unconditional offer to return to work, resulting in a lockout. They have fought their way through the courts, with most of the execs content to let it play out there despite their flagrant rules violations, because they knew many of the workers would be dead or have other jobs by the time the matter was settled.
Today, the Supreme Court rejected the final appeal of the Detroit Newspapers to overturn the NLRB rulings which said that the workers are entitled to reinstatement and back pay. Hopefully this will cost them and their parent companies a heft sum of money.
And a special “fuck you” goes to Mitch Albom and the rest of the writing staff at the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, who crossed the picket line and pulled most of the leverage out from under the striking workers. Especially Mitch, who continued to posture about how he was trying to negotiate with management to get the workers back. Fuck you, Mitch. You had enough name recognition at that point to go work at just about any other paper in the country, you could have helped the cause immeasurably by just leaving…
Consolidation of the newspapers has eliminated any competition. You can buy the newspaper in Detroit or not. newspapers across the country got involved in union distruction. They suceeded. We used to have 3 papers with somewhat differing views.
May the spirit of Eugene V. Debs forgive your sorry ass. If any of your friends or relations are working class and get bent over a chair and cheerfully buggered by The Boss, don’t forget whose side you’re on. Its a damn sight better to have a union and not need it than to need a union and not have it!
Well, if it’s anything like Florida’s election-roll purge, they wouldn’t necessarily have to be the same person who committed the crime to be unhirable…
No, no, no, you don’t understand. You see, back in the old days, companies used to treat their workers abominably because they held the power. But nowadays, due to magic, if the unions went away, those companies would treat their workers with the dignity they’re due. It wouldn’t be like the old days. Companies have learned their lessons! Don’t you believe in magic, luci?
Sure do believe in magic! Also believe in Jesus, and he says that he’s very fond of the meek and the powerless, and if I don’t take care of his children, he will personally kick my ass! Missing Sunday school, fooling around, stuff like that, he’ll let slide with a stern lecture. Screw around with the poor and helpless, and its your ass!
I ain’t pissing off Jesus! He may be just another radical-liberal Jewboy, but I ain’t taking any chances!
I get it, wave your hand and facts just disappear. Makes me wonder why someone would come to a place to dispel ignorance when they so piggishly revel in it and remain entrenched in perceived partisan retardedness. Enjoy your mental atrophy when you choose the union label!
Most of the issues in which corporations treated their workers “abominably” are now regulated legally. There is also far greater recourse through the legal system. In 1900 my great-grandfather was a school teacher who, because that job didn’t afford him near the money requied to raise his family, worked several other odd jobs. In one he cleaned out natural gas tanks when they were empty, one day he went to work to clean out an empty tank, and someone turned on the gas, filling up the tank and killing him. The company didn’t so much as pay for the funeral. If that happened today the corporation would be in enormous amounts of legal trouble for not maintaining safe working conditions, and my great-grandmother would become a very wealthy woman. Not only are there legal protections in place, every person in the country is aware that there is legal recourse for corporate wrongs, something that was neither as widely available or as widely known in 1900.
Companies wouldn’t revert back to working employees to death because there are restrictions on working hours now, requirements to pay employees overtime after a certain amount, requirements to maintain certain levels of safety, and etc. These aren’t things that you need unions to enforce because the government is there to enforce it. In 1900, these laws didn’t exist.
Your understanding of this issue is, apparently, borderline retarded. Have you ever done a comparison between union shops and non-union shops in the same field? You’ll probably notice the non-union workers usually “suffer” the misery of working more hours and making more money. And, believe it or not, they aren’t all being killed in dangerous work place conditions, being beaten by taskmasters, or denied the basic services that most corporations provide for their employees.
It wasn’t a secret that his link was to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.
That doesn’t change the fact that this statement:
Is a factual one, and if you believe it to be incorrect you can either present evidence that is incorrect, or look like a blithering idiot who just puts his hands to his ears when he hears things he doesn’t like.
Also, this Supreme Court ruling simply demonstrates that any business dumb enough to let its workers unionize in the first place gets what it deserves.
There have been many union actions that have been disgraceful. They have fucked up in many ways. They have at times used power arrogantly and inappropriately. They have hurt at time the people they have proclaimed to hate.
That is however human nature. You want to dismiss all unions because of the bad things they have done? Do you want to dismiss all groups becuase of the bad actions that have been carried out by some of them. Business leaders have and are doing terrible things all the time. A lot are honourable employers but there are also lots that aren’t.
The vast majority of union work is done in small ways. They put someone into a room to talk for possible uneducated people who don’t necessarily know their rights.
I don’t work in a union company and have not since I’ve been in my early 20’s. Luckily the company I work for now has a very good relationship with it’s staff and when they make hard decisions they make them fairly and I can understand those decisions. I have however worked for companies that have exploited people. They didn’t care if people left out of anger as there was always some poor smuck that needed the job and was willing to take the shit in the short term to just get by. They were powerless to fight this as the only organised group were management.
I’m not talking about money here. I’m talking about people being treated with common fucking decency. When a staff member(a person doing a job that made it simple to change her shift BTW) came to me in IBM and asked to be put on the day shift(9-5 mon-fri, rather than 4X12 hours night shift) for a few months so she could spend some more time with her dying mother, I brought the request to management. “Fuck her!” was the reply. How I wished for a shop steward that day. Instead I had to fight the poor girl’s corner on my own and cause myself some trouble in the process. When I told her she couldn’t have what she requested she walked away from the job to look after her mother.
Don’t be so absolute ** yBeayf**. There are goods and bad to everything. When you are a person without power, you may need some help. That is what unions do all over the world every minute of the day. They also fuck up. When they do they should be answerable in the same way business leaders should be.