Hate Fest 2011
Spent all day yesterday at Union Steward training, it took nearly twice as long this time than the last training for the "Republicans are evil" diatribe to start, the first shot was 38 minutes into the training. We then got a healthy dose of Companies are more corrupt than Unions.
Let me preface all of this with the following, there are good companies, there are bad companies, there are good unions, there are bad unions, same goes with Democrats and Republicans, Conservatives and Liberals, what torques me off is the complete lack of intellectual honesty on the part of many.
Highlights ;
- "How many business leaders have been put in jail over the last few years, only 4 Union Business Managers in the last 15 years have been in the news for embezzling funds and so forth"
Let's see, we were told that there about 800 locals in the union, what percentage is 4 out of 800 and what about other Union Officials other than Business Managers, how does this compare to the percentage of CEO's to hundreds of thousands of business' in the US. I don't know but I really don't want to put the time into finding out. Also, how can we talk about embezzling funds like it's no big deal, this is stealing from our union brothers and sisters by the folks who say there only concern is taking care of us labor folks.
- We got an anti-NRA plug because the NRA tells you how to vote, not the Union.
I have read by Union magazine, I'm pretty sure that all the political articles in there are designed to try to influence my vote.
- "Unions don't tell you who to vote for without telling you why"
See the above, I understand that the Unions support certain candidates on Labor Issues, I have never once seen a history on a candidate the tells me their past performance on Labor issues, only that they support Labor, how ? The anti-NRA rant above said that they don't tell you why to vote for certain candidates, bad news, I've been an NRA member for years and I've actually got candidates voting records on gun issues through the NRA.
- "No state candidate ran on a right to work platform but they call got to the state house and that's all they've worked on!"
I received a lot of "Right to Work" flyer's from multiple candidates on Right to Work issues during the campaigns, heck I'm still throwing alot of that stuff away, it wasn't a surprise to me, or did we just not take the time to watch what both sides were doing.
- Right to Work means that employee's get Union Representation with out paying dues.
Not even close to being true, yes a non union employee will probably get the same pay and benefits but in our contract they do not get to have Union Representation or protection and they pay an amount to the union that is equal to dues for the privilege of working in a union shop without being a member. (This is a great example of the intellectual honesty I was talking about, we don't call it dues we call it something else so we can say they don't pay dues.)
Also they company does not have to pay the same union scale to a non union employee, many time they choose to for ease of accounting, but they don't have too. My position on this has always been that there are 22 Right to Work states, the unions have not ceased to exist in any of them, the unions need to be just like any other group that want members, provide a value that people will want and the members will come, there is no need to fear loss of membership if you are providing the service that the labor force wants.
- Possible my favorite quote of the day, "All those family values voters don't want you going home to see your family".
Really ? I am a family values voter myself, I want to go home to my family too. This was part of a forced overtime discussion and the fact is this, there are laws to govern this and the laws apply to union and non union workplaces. Do non union places get away with this a bit more, sure they do, this goes back to my make yourself valuable to workers and you will get more members.
Disclaimer: The actual training part of the training was pretty good, learned lots and got some stuff hammered home that I hadn't thought about in awhile. I just wish everything didn't have to turn into political BS.
Let me preface all of this with the following, there are good companies, there are bad companies, there are good unions, there are bad unions, same goes with Democrats and Republicans, Conservatives and Liberals, what torques me off is the complete lack of intellectual honesty on the part of many.
Highlights ;
- "How many business leaders have been put in jail over the last few years, only 4 Union Business Managers in the last 15 years have been in the news for embezzling funds and so forth"
Let's see, we were told that there about 800 locals in the union, what percentage is 4 out of 800 and what about other Union Officials other than Business Managers, how does this compare to the percentage of CEO's to hundreds of thousands of business' in the US. I don't know but I really don't want to put the time into finding out. Also, how can we talk about embezzling funds like it's no big deal, this is stealing from our union brothers and sisters by the folks who say there only concern is taking care of us labor folks.
- We got an anti-NRA plug because the NRA tells you how to vote, not the Union.
I have read by Union magazine, I'm pretty sure that all the political articles in there are designed to try to influence my vote.
- "Unions don't tell you who to vote for without telling you why"
See the above, I understand that the Unions support certain candidates on Labor Issues, I have never once seen a history on a candidate the tells me their past performance on Labor issues, only that they support Labor, how ? The anti-NRA rant above said that they don't tell you why to vote for certain candidates, bad news, I've been an NRA member for years and I've actually got candidates voting records on gun issues through the NRA.
- "No state candidate ran on a right to work platform but they call got to the state house and that's all they've worked on!"
I received a lot of "Right to Work" flyer's from multiple candidates on Right to Work issues during the campaigns, heck I'm still throwing alot of that stuff away, it wasn't a surprise to me, or did we just not take the time to watch what both sides were doing.
- Right to Work means that employee's get Union Representation with out paying dues.
Not even close to being true, yes a non union employee will probably get the same pay and benefits but in our contract they do not get to have Union Representation or protection and they pay an amount to the union that is equal to dues for the privilege of working in a union shop without being a member. (This is a great example of the intellectual honesty I was talking about, we don't call it dues we call it something else so we can say they don't pay dues.)
Also they company does not have to pay the same union scale to a non union employee, many time they choose to for ease of accounting, but they don't have too. My position on this has always been that there are 22 Right to Work states, the unions have not ceased to exist in any of them, the unions need to be just like any other group that want members, provide a value that people will want and the members will come, there is no need to fear loss of membership if you are providing the service that the labor force wants.
- Possible my favorite quote of the day, "All those family values voters don't want you going home to see your family".
Really ? I am a family values voter myself, I want to go home to my family too. This was part of a forced overtime discussion and the fact is this, there are laws to govern this and the laws apply to union and non union workplaces. Do non union places get away with this a bit more, sure they do, this goes back to my make yourself valuable to workers and you will get more members.
Disclaimer: The actual training part of the training was pretty good, learned lots and got some stuff hammered home that I hadn't thought about in awhile. I just wish everything didn't have to turn into political BS.
posted by K.R.Baxter at 11:38
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