David,

I actually am ACUTELY aware of the judicial deterrent, and how it is INTENDED to work. The whole point of a judicial process is to reveal the truth. Latin: Trial=Truth. So of course the discovery is exactly what the corps don’t want. I’ve experienced that in a most painful real life way.

However, unless I’ve totally missed your reasoning, I don’t see how your six little words, or that appended language to Civil Rights Legislation, provides any guarantee that discovery will ever happen. That is particularly the case in states where ‘right to work’ laws exist, and even more so the case in the Oligarchy structure that currently exists as our form of government. When the State and the Corporations are one and the same, the practice doesn’t follow the theory.

That said, I DO get your point, but it’s based on the premise that the Civil Rights legislation that so many people died for, *does* indeed promise and guarantee the intended results. In reality, it simply does not, for the same reasons that I’ve already stated. The corps can and generally DO find some other ostensible reason for the dismissal of a worker, that clearly avoids the underlying reasons, and even discovery doesn’t always bear out those underlying objectives.

That said, I also enjoy and appreciate your work.

reply to purplegirl:

You have strong feelings about unions.  I began my association with unions in the ‘60s as a member of the AFT, an arm of the AFL/CIO.  For more than 30 years after that, I belonged to Nat. Associations, unions by another name but without affiliation with the AFL. 

My total experience was that the unions had little or no effect on my earnings, very little on my working conditions and little else.  In fact, teachers, as a group are doing worse financially then ever before, if you factor in added requirements made on them by towns and states and the Feds to be and remain certified, NCLB’s required highly qualified status being among the most recent.

It soon became clear to me, since you had the choice to be a member and pay the dues or not be a member and pay an agency fee equal to the dues that the main concern of the union brass was to be employed by the union bureaucracy and to fatten its coffers.  Granted, being a public employee and a union member was conflicting to begin with.  School board hands were always tied by town finance committees and slight gains that were made were generally re: working conditions, not compensation. 

As the economy worsens, the likelihood that teacher unions will ever benefit their membership is quite slight, but dues will continue to increase almost annually.

My guess is that your husband has a similar story.  To me, union membership is little more than a shakedown of member’s for their money.  The mechanism has been in place for decades and even though unions have lost their effectiveness, the shrewd people have found managing one to be, in a lot of ways, a great occupation.

Kind of like being in congress or the white house.

Maybe there are union experiences out there that are beneficial.  I don’t know about them.  Nor do I know why Sirota pushes to make union membership a civil right.  If all workers joined unions, it would make unions even wealthier and workers, if my experience is normal, poorer.

Best wishes to you and your husband.  It can’t be easy for you in MI the way things are going here.

Born & Raise in MI and married to a Union Carpenter (which holds no security or guarantees of continued employment). The assasination of the average worker was not only th ehandy work of the Corps, but to their hencemen and co conspirators who claim to be union leaders.
The Same ‘Good Ol’ Boys’ with their ‘Rich get Richer’ doctrine have Betrayed not only the Workers But this Country.Many were more thatn willing to back down so they too would profit from the ‘Trickle Down ‘ Economic Policies started by the Union Buster Reagan Administration. And the So Calle dunion leaders have been working hand & hand with the greed machine of the Corps top brass ever since.Not to mention the ‘Public Servants’ who have paved the way through tax evasion loopsholes, helping the Wealthy White Collars and psuedo Blue collar leadership.Why is Mi the Buckle of the Rust Belt- becuse CEO’s asked for it, Politicians legalized it and Union leaders handed them the tools to screw the Rank & File out of their jobs.
All these Criminals should be prosecuted for TREASON!
it is time that Politicians who have Proven their Allegience to this undermining of America Be exposed. Decades in DC means complicity- regardless of what color you camoflague yourself in....Sen Levin.Corporationism and Greed over Patriotism are Not exclusively Republican doctrines, Stratedgies, or High Crimes.

As Michael Zweig suggests, it will take corps. being socially responsible to arrive at some kind of balance in the management/worker relationship.  I think this can’t happen because of the importance of the profit motive in the equation.  Boards of Dir. and stockholders will win out every time. 

Every union worker knows, since The Great Ronald Reagan, that there are scabs waiting in the wings, or worse, hungry people overseas who’d love to have their job and a corp. that can’t wait for a reason to outsource it.  This country is anti worker and anti small business and making it a civil right to belong to a union won’t help anyone but union brass and their coffers.  In some respects, unions are as bad as the government in exploiting their members, which in part is why they’re struggling.

What good does it do to belong to unions if the courts, for example, allow corps to cut bennies and pensions in their “reorganizing,” which often means selling out to an equity co. which will ultimately dismantle what’s left, leaving the worker high and dry? 

Better to teach the millions of workers in this country how to call, en mass, a general strike when their government betrays them and to stop spending and paying taxes until the government straightens up.  This will happen someday, when things get bad enough, and if the government doesn’t take corrective action.

The six little words, IMHO, are about 30-40 years late, when they might have had a chance to do some real good.

As an Ex-Union member I can unequivocally say that the failure of unions is also two-fold. One is that the workers seldom go to union meetings even with raffles being used to gain attendance. Secondly is the corruption from business managers that water at the elite watering holes and only at strike meetings will they swill beer with the minions of labor.
Look at how many people voted for the Right To Work laws. The Southern states have always resented unions and look at the coal mine owners for the beginning of anti-unionism. The car manufactures of the 20’s and 30’s used machine guns to quell unions...now corporate lawyers do the same thing aided by graft politicians. The repugs aren’t alone plenty of corporate owned dimmos doing their bidding.

The stigma of being a “worker” and/or “working class” much less needing the assistance/support of a union appears to run deep, even though employees by my observation are forced out of jobs all the time by what amounts to “adverse working conditions” (frequently given the option to quit first—how generous—to not spoil their resume and make it “voluntary").

Love your work David!

Six little words- impeach George Bush AND Dick Cheney!

Not to be a kill-joy or anything..

BUT, the craftiest among the corporations (and the minions who do their bidding) are always careful enough to create some OTHER reason besides ‘union activity’ to fire the union activist. It’s the same way with ANY discrimination.

And, they aren’t all that worried about being sued either, especially when they control the judicial system in their areas as well. I have a lengthy list of lawsuits against corporations for labor discrimination at every level. 97.3 of them LOSE against the corporation.

Since 2000, they don’t stand a chance, unless they luck up on a lone wolf judge, and they don’t stay around long either. We’ve already seen what happened to all of those US State Attorney prosecutors would wouldn’t go with the criminal agenda.