Why are so many Americans fearful/resentful of unions?

[mntleo2]

23. Raised WOBBLY here, and disappointed ...

...IMO unions sold their souls to management, beginning with Reagan. I watched as union bosses went on fishing trips with CEO bosses and this would have been fine ~ but all too often they came back and their "packages" was about giving away benefits and wages and refusing to sanction a strike. Always they argued this would "keep jobs" but it did not. The jobs went away anyway. I have been in both private company unions and with the public sector. I will never forgive the rights those people took from my generation and now my children's generation that my grandfather saw people DIE to get. Whenever I spoke about the history I was taught, these union bosses laughed that off as if it were nothing.

In the mid-1990s and as an active union member in a state union job, I was shocked to discover that my union president had gone behind the worker's backs and gave away our Civil Service rights. This was simply so she could receive more money herself ~ to hell with the 30,000 + workers and their rights, whom she was SUPPOSED to represent.

The story is long and sordid but it actually preluded the problems people like me tried to warn would happen in places like Wisconsin with their anger at the loss of so-called "bargaining rights". Let me explain ...

Civil Service was important for ALL workers, whether they were in private industry or in government work. The reason this was so is that Civil Service rights are heueueuege. This was why it used to take next to an act of God to fire a government worker, because management had *better* cross all their t's and dot their i's before taking any action in that direction. When unions took their workers out from under Civil Service protection they in essence took away rights that take up an entire law library wall and the rights that remained, fit in one of their pamphlets.

My grandfather told me that the reason Civil Service was so important was because "if the government was not a decent employer, they would not up-hold labor laws for the private sector..." What he meant was that the laws passed under Civil Service was "an example" as to the work conditions elsewhere. I have watched my grandfather's words come to be true as I watched these rights erode from a time when a government employee could make a decent living down to the place where they are begging for food stamps after losing those rights ~ and then it "trickles down" to the private sector.

It has been all I could do to hold my tongue while watching the mayhem in WI when workers saw a governor essentially take away their wages and their jobs at the flick of his pen. He would never have been able to do that if their unions had stayed under Civil Service, but many of their unions followed like sheep to the slaughter when my union boss (925 ~ yes the same union that the movie was named after) began the process of taking away these rights in the early 1990s. As a matter of fact she helped to write the law in my state that began the process for this erosion ~ one of the first in the nation written in order to take down Civil Service. The man she wrote this bill with is Gary Loch and he became governor and is now ambassador to China under Obama so this was not a "Republican" movement. This was a bunch of "progressives" selling thousands (now millions) down the river and turning back the clock to where my grandfather's generation began. 20 years later my worst nightmares have some true, thanks to actions like this union president imposed on the rest of us. She had an obligation to her workers, but instead she led the way to the demise of the very reason unions themselves are struggling because, thanks to her and the rest who followed, they shot themselves in the foot.

On the surface it appeared that the "reasons" for taking away Civil Service SOUNDED good. Government unions are usually subsidized by the government along with the dues they get from workers. The problem with this is that because of these subsidies, if the specific union shop has not voted to become "closed" then the union HAS to represent a worker whether or not they pay dues. Unions wanted to force their workers to pay these dues without having to go through the process of urging shops to become closed. So taking down Civil Service seemed the "easiest" to do, since management was eager to do that and the unions stood to gain $millions more in union dues from their workers who did not pay.

As a good unions member (who voluntarily paid my dues), I and a few others tried to fight this erosion. We had to bring a lawsuit (not a small thing to do) against the state and the union. The reason we did this was because the boss had not only gone behind her worker's backs and negotiated Civil Service rights away, she was not even going to let her paid members vote on it in her so-called "democratic" union! It was one of the most painful times I have ever gone through as i was called a "union hater" by other union members. I eventually lost my job over it because this union boss had told her minions not to represent me when I began to get harassed after enduring an on-the-job injury (later admitted by my supervisor she was ordered to do by management AND the shop steward confessed he was also ordered to not properly represent me by the union).

But before I joined the lawsuit, I underwent a great deal of soul searching because of my own union roots. My grandfather used to say, "Stand with unions, right or wrong!" I really believed that. But I realized as I watched the shenanigans of this union that what he meant was worker's rights *not* union rights. Because unions themselves have become "corporations" and if they have to choose between their own survival rather than represent their workers as they are in existence to do, then they will choose themselves over their workers. As a matter of fact, the most ironical to me is that because of their own desire to survive, this union's workers had to belong to a union themselves!

I usually do not DARE to speak about this here as so many people do not understand how unions participated in taking away their rights and hurt themselves in the process ~ all in the name of $$$$$. They should have known they are Charlie Brown and the rest of the world is Lucy with the football, as this is WHY unsions are in existence. So while I can see plainly that the only thing left for the workers are these corrupt and self serving organizations, as long as people have to pay them in order for them to NOT represent them in exchange for a union's own existence, they will be angry at the reality they are not that well represented if at all. I will always be for worker's rights, however for good reasons, I will view unions with a jaundiced eye. Because I know they WILL sell you down the river if they have to choose between actually doing their jobs as a representative of you or to survive themselves.

If anyone reading this is thinking this was an "isolated" case, forget it. Believe me, I have watched the dominoes fall all across the nation. This was the beginning that I speak about here, but it has continued until now workers like the ones in WI are screaming for their "bargaining rights' because their REAL rights are gathering dust in some law library where few have them anymore. The few of us who tried to stand up to unions for worker's rights were mowed down like grass. I still believe it is possible to change that, but now thanks to the Powers That Be, this work is made harder. Because the terrible price my grandparents paid to pave the way has been destroyed for future generations for whom these brave workers hoped would never have to suffer as they did. I just wish people (and unions) would LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKES instead of trying to justify them.

Some solutions? Here are a couple:

* First of all, RESTORE CIVIL SERVICE (yeah right, while we know it can be done because it was, just TRY to get your union to support it, much less any legislator who stands to get money from those unions).

* Unions need money, this is true. But the conflict here is that if you pay them to be your representative, they will not do so if your rights threaten theirs. I am not sure what to do except that figure out a way where unions should never have to make that choice. They should be able to freely and vigorously represent their workers without having to hurt themselves.

So yeah, I am skeptical of unions, but it is not without good reason. I am not skeptical of worker's rights. It has to start with worker's rights IMO and unions need to somehow get back to that work instead of being run like a corporation where their own workers have to have a union.

My 2 cents ...

Cat in Seattle

PeeEss: About 5 years down the road after losing their rights, union members that called me and other's "union haters" later came to us hat in hand with apologies as they watched their rights (and union) go to seed. Oh the president did fine, she made out like a bandit (literally) and bought a fine home in an upper class old neighborhood. To this day because of the ignorance of so many about unions, she is still going around giving speeches about how wonderful she is. But her die-hard supporters realized they had been duped, however it was too late. They wanted to decertify the union for all the damage they had done. I had the grace to not say, "I told you so ..." but all I could say was "Go get 'em!" since I was no longer a worker there. However I knew, one of the poison pills that this ~ and other ~ unions gave themselves in exchange for selling their souls, had already stacked the deck even more than it was stacked against those of us trying to stop what we saw coming and these workers did not have a prayer ~ Cat