Don’t get me started: Union Busting

As I watch events in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and other states, taking note of the attempts by Republican and some Democratic governors, legislators, and more than a few local governments to undermine organized labor, I see two noteworthy trends of truly remarkable stupidity taking an even deeper hold on this country.

Before I get into that, however, let me clarify my personal feelings about unions. I have never belonged to a labor union, have never wanted to belong to a labor union, have never seen or heard of a labor union I particularly liked. The problem with labor unions is that they became big business and—just like big business—they started thinking they were about money instead of about people, products and services.

That being said, labor unions had their uses and, thanks to the way big business is running things, their time will come again. But big business is just part of the problem, and I’ll get to them later.

First, however, I want to tell every non-management blue, white and no-collar worker in America who wants to see public employees lose their bargaining rights or take cuts in pay or benefits: you are shooting yourselves in the foot!

It’s not bad enough that you sit idly by while one elected body after another gives more and bigger tax breaks to corporations and wealthy business owners; or that you’re so forgetful as to zone-out the obscene profits and the outrageous pay, benefits and bonuses of the leaders of one major industry after another; or that it’s our tax dollars that went to bail out so many of those businesses while we lost our homes and jobs; nor is it that you've twiddled your voting levers for the trickle-down Reagonomists who promised us new jobs for over a quarter century while shipping our old jobs overseas—noo-oo-oo, you have to clamor for the last bastion of decent pay and labor rights to be brought low so that there is nothing left to show for American labor's century-long struggle.

Are you out of your minds? Do you think “misery loves company” is actually a functional employment plan?

On top of that, these are the people that work for us. Do you want the cheapest police officers, fire fighters, teachers, EMTs, dam operators and bridge builders that money can buy? ‘Cause I sure as heck don’t. I want the best people working for me.

Besides, it's not that public employees make so much money, it's that private sector pay scales have fallen so far behind over the last 35 years; American workers had to shift to borrowing money as their paychecks shrank in relation to business expansion. When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, it didn't take two working parents to provide a good home and private parochial school for four kids. Now it's the exception when both parents don't work, and still quality of life suffers; American workers today put in more hours annually than they did 30 years ago.

Get your act together. You’re being sold a load of swine swizzle and you seem to like the smell.

As for big business, your problem is that you think it’s all about money. It isn’t, but you know what? It’s a subtle topic, I’m going to have to work very hard to make it simple enough for you to understand and, right now I’m tired, and I couldn’t care less.

What a bunch of ... ah, the heck with it!

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