Desperate Workers and Insatiable Corporate Giants

[Manifestor_of_Light]

4. I'm wondering when workers are going to figure out they need unions.

my dad was a union organizer for the OCAW back in the bad old days of the 30s.
Said if you showed up on a picket line, at the refinery, you got your head busted open and dragged to jail.
And the one labor lawyer's wife in the whole city would bail everyone out, because nobody had $100 for bail in those days. That was like a good month's salary in the Thirties, according to Dad.

My first father in law worked at Dow Chemical. He griped one time about having to go out in the shop and do work when the union guys were on strike. Well, he didn't want to get his hands dirty because he had a Ph.D. so he was too good to do that work.

First thing out of my mouth, since I can be untactful: "Oh. You were a SCAB."
He said, "I'm an individual and I don't need a union to represent me."
Me: "Yeah, and they can throw your individual butt out on the street, too, any time they want to."

I think my old man was proud of me for that when i told him later. He voted for Norman Thomas in '32 and said that FDR basically implemented most of Thomas' Socialist platform, but didn't campaign that way in order to win.