So here’s the deal. Shouldn’t the UA be launching an all out smear campaign against this “TOOL”? I mean really, watch the video then explain to me who in the hell is listening to this clown……

Got this link to day, I’m going to paste in the description from the video page, but you need to go to the page and read some of the comments others are leaving… mind boggling what one plumber has to say about his BA

“True story of sheet metal workers in Phoenix working for a mechanical contractor named W.D. Manor who already has a union agreement with the UA plumbers and steamfitters union. When the employer found out the employees wanted to organize the fear and intimidation tactics began including TEN terminations and outsourcing their work, forbidding them from talking with other union employees etc. These violations of Federal labor Law are currently before the National Labor Relations Board. These employees have NO chance at a fair and free election BECAUSE of the employer’s actions!”

Check out this organizing video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAxvOYvwL5M

The regular monthly union meeting is coming up on Tuesday April 7, at 7:00 pm. Come one out and see what’s going on.

I’ve seen several good videos and/or blog posts about EFCA and the idiot, Joe the plumber the last couple of days… anybody interested in links to see?

“Apathy is a lack of emotion, motivation, or enthusiasm, deriving from the ancient Greek term Apatheia.”

So what gives, every one too busy watching “Dancing With the Stars?”
I have emailed this site to other co-workers and nada, zilch. So what gives, you afraid of sounding stupid or getting you feelings hurt? Then get a cat.
Otherwise, get on here and say something, sounding stupid and getting your feelings hurt is part of the great “WORLD WIDE WEB”. Just ask online daters.

Gallup poll from March 17 link to follow. I forgot I had this link… should of posted it a lot sooner.

Gallup poll

Interesting piping configuration

heat exchanger piping

The video is several months old but the theme is the same. Are today’s unions oblivious that there is an actual “movement” per say to annihilate them? Or is it an arrogance that it “wont happen to us”.
This article is interesting, read it and then your thoughts.

Bust a Union…Crash a Global Economy

Posted by: carolsim in Organizing, Economic Justice on Dec 1, 2008 Print PDF

­­­Race to the Bottom­­
Meet Michael J. Lotito of the firm Jackson Lewis LLP. He was among the many individuals in expensive suits who worked very hard to bring on the current global economic disaster. Michael J. Lotito did not peddle subprime mortgages in hardscrabble neighborhoods. He didn’t sit in a bank and lie to people about the advantages of interest-only home loans. He didn’t hawk bundled exotic securities in the global marketplace. His firm, Jackson Lewis LLP, isn’t even located on Wall Street. Their New York office is on Staten Island. It’s not a mortgage lender, an investment bank, or a stock brokerage house.

Michael J. Lotito’s contribution to our nation’s economic woes was of a different sort all together. Michael J. Lotito is a union buster and his law firm of Jackson Lewis LLP is one of the best known in the business. Lotito advises companies on how to lie to employees about unions, how to frighten employees so they don’t join unions, how to stonewall negotiations with unions, how to fire union organizers without legal repercussions and lots of other similar advice. It was “helpful” advice such as this that has helped drive union membership to an all-time low in the good ole USA.

Michael Lotito and his colleagues are part of an old and ugly tradition. Lotito fights unions with PR and PowerPoint presentations. In the old days, union busting American-style took the form of naked class war with desparate street battles, massive jailings and workers sent to early graves with bullets in their bodies. By way of contrast Michael Lotito never has to worry about washing blood off of his expensive suits. I suppose that counts as “progress” in the eyes of some.

But of course it took more than the Michael Lototito’s to leave our once proud labor movement battered, gasping and barely hanging on to the ropes. The massive shift of manufacturing to the 3rd world, our endemic racial and gender divisions, a hostile government and our anti-social culture of rampant individualism all played a part. It also didn’t help that much of the labor movement got lazy and complacent. Once champions of social justice for all, the labor movement slid closer and closer to becoming just another special interest, looking out for its own members instead of working class people as a whole.

But as bad as things got here in the USA, we should count ourselves lucky. Union busting in much of the world means military dictatorships, mass executions, concentration camps, torture and exile. It seems that the free market extolled by large and powerful corporations means freedom to murder when deemed necessary. Next to that, Michael Lotito looks like Winnie the Pooh.

But what on earth does union busting have to do with crashing an entire global economy?

Let’s take the USA first. It doesn’t take a Ph.D in economics to figure out that people will do what they need to do to survive. As union busting became a national sport here, wages remained frozen or even declined. But our financial system came to the rescue with that magic plastic we called credit cards and that magic paper we call loan contracts.

Maybe you couldn’t pay your medical bills, buy clothes or food, or get your car fixed so you could make it to work. Maybe you wanted to buy your kids a few presents at holiday time or take them out to the movies and an ice cream sundae once in a while. Maybe you just needed a little fun and relaxation yourself. Well, there was always Visa or your Mastercard to the rescue.

Couldn’t afford a decent place to live? Well by gosh, your friendly local mortgage broker was there with all kinds of poisoned loan candy like balloon mortgages, subprime mortgages, interest only mortgages and other exotic answers to your shelter needs.

Debt went through the roof. All it took was a downturn in the soggy debt-laden U.S. real estate market to bring the entire global economy to the brink of collapse. That doesn’t even begin to describe the dangers ahead in the credit card business as huge card balances come due at a time of layoffs and wage cuts. Debt has become the new slavery. Chains of iron are replaced by chains of plastic and paper.

Now you tell me. Was it such a great idea to go on a union busting rampage and pay workers with credit cards and dicey loan contracts instead of decent wages, benefits and low interest loans? Are you listening Michael J. Lotito & Company?

Now multiply that by the global union busting efforts that are a major factor in the starvation and destitution that grips much of our planet. The gap between rich and poor is not a natural disaster like a volcano exploding or an earthquake leveling a city. A recent economic report from the United Nations makes all of that very clear. The massive global debt to commercial banks, the World Bank, the IMF or whoever is a human-made disaster borne out of greed and stupidity.

So thanks a lot Augusto Pinochet, Roberto D’Aubisson, Ronald Reagan, Margeret Thatcher, P.W. Botha, Wojciech Jaruzelski, Alvaro Uribe, Robert Mugabe and all of the politicians, generals, death squad members and torturers who made union busting a global enterprise.

Modern civilized societies need labor movements just as much as they need transportation, water, electricity, food, hospitals, firehouses and so on and so forth. Labor movements are made up of people who organize, work and often fight to make sure government and private enterprise live up to their responsibilities. Here in the USA abolition of child labor, minimum wage, unemployment compensation, social security, civil rights laws, public education, workplace health and safety standards etc. would have been well nigh impossible without the labor movement. So would most of the best social legislation on the rest of this planet.

And so much more remains to be done…

You don’t have to be a union member to take part in a labor movement, but unions are the beating heart of any labor movement. Without unions a labor movement is virtually helpless.

Labor activists often call unions,” The folks that brought you the weekend”. I would add that without them, modern civilization would be impossible.

Whether armed with slick PowerPoint presentations or something more lethal, Michael J. Lotito and his other union busting counterparts are the barbarians among us.

It makes you wonder why we ever opened the gates to them.

Had a discussion today that reminded me of one of our bylaw changes that I take exception to. Was going to lay it out here and see what you all thought about it.

The bylaw in question is the one that pertains to how the bylaws are modified. In the past, our bylaws could be changed simply by having a member in good standing present a proposed change to the recording secretary. Then the change would be read at three consecutive meetings and voted on after the third reading.

I’m pretty sure not many members knew the bylaws could be changed that easily, which is a good thing, because we could have gotten bogged down by endless proposed changes.

The new, recently approved, method for changing our bylaws requires a proposed change having the signatures of 25 members- members in good standing. Then the proposed changes go before a bylaws committee. A committee of five members hand picked by the business manager. This bylaws committee then decides if the proposed change, signed by 25 or more members should be allowed to go before the body for its three readings and a vote.

It seems to me we have gone from one extreme to another. We’ve gone from making it ridiculously easy to propose changes to putting the power of making changes into the hands of a very small, select group of members.

Thoughts?

Maybe we should go back to bashing repubs

OK, I’m game, lets bash em. Watch this You-tube clip, from Fox noise, and at the 2:30 mark or so check out the stat…….then ask yourself one simple question, you pay dues, you belong to a union, why would you ever support a party hell bent on destroying the organizations that helps set the standard for the middle class…….I have never paid a bill with “IDEOLOGY”, only with currency. I sure as hell dont want to make less so others can have more just for the sake of having more.

Milwaukee business round table discussion

We have prospered because of the unions.