General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: If I can't have a pension and decent benefits why should they? [View all]magical thyme
(14,881 posts)First, let me say that I wanted Barrett to win as much as the rest of you. I support unions, always have, even though I have never belonged to one.
I never had the opportunity to be in a union. I have been without benefits most of my adult life, and frankly I ended up better off without them. Even now, given my current situation, if I were to get seriously ill and lose everything, I would consider myself better off without them. But that is me, and I realize that most of you want the benefits and what they bring. That is fine.
But -- and this is the crux of the matter -- throughout most of my working life I have been treated badly by individual union members. Even worse, in many cases there was an opportunity for them to help me with just a simple lead or contact info, but instead I got contempt. This is a simple fact.
Back in the 80s, when unions came looking for support, I supported their candidates and was vocal about it. Every time. I bought American too, for as long as I could. I didn't even enter a Walmarts until I'd been unemployed for over 2 years. I admit I did buy a foreign car (Honda) in the 90s, but I simply couldn't afford the American cars at that point. I blamed management for bad decisions, though, not unions. 16 years, 44mpg and 215,000 miles later, that car is still running and is my lifeline. Not your fault, but America didn't catch up on cars until after I replaced my falling apart, unreliable 70,000 mile chevy subcompact.
When I said there were no unions to join where I was, the "nicer" union members told me to start one myself, but not one person gave me a tip or a lead on how to go about doing that. I won't write what the less friendly union members said, although it was mostly their tone.
When high tech started going through its downturn in the 80s, when I asked union-members for help, I was told in no uncertain terms it was our own fault for not unionizing. Again, with contempt and without any leads or suggestions on how to go about forming a union.
When I relocated and had a building project, the wife of a union member sabotaged the deal that I had set up for the building project and then weasled her husband into it. This was not a big business deal, but a small backyard project I was seeking help on originally from (no longer) friends. But he acted like the stereotype of a union worker. In the end, I think he realized his mistake and he only charged a small amount of money, but the project ended up taking many weeks longer than it should have and I ended up wrecking both my elbows due to tricks played by his wife and brother. But his wife acted like they had done me a huge favor and that I somehow screwed them over when I told them to charge whatever because I was so grateful for their help and then paid them in full on the spot. So after having sabotaged me from the beginning and throughout, she libeled me extensively (and I found out later was still libeling me 7 years later) in a forum where I had been cultivating relationships with free consulting in hope of eventually establishing a small, sideline business.
I still support unionization. I do think the roots of the problem are at least partially due to the way some union members have treated non-union members, at least in the past. The GOP exploited that.
When individual members were rude to non-members, blaming them for not being in unions, it left people with a bad taste in their mouth. It created an opening for the GOP, and they ran with it.
I honestly don't know how you go forward from here, because now I imagine that many non-union members have had experiences similar to mine and are pitted against the unions. The blanket of advertising just reminds people of that; that they are "outsiders" who are not welcomed by unions.
From my perspective, when the unions are taking a hit, they come begging for help. But when non-unions are hit, they don't offer any help.