Today sees a decidedly different picture of labor unions and workers
Labor Bosses Control Congress and POTUS Now, But Not Forever
Labor unions were great 75 years ago when slave shops were as plentiful as fast food restaurants are today. The unions were badly needed back in the 1920s and 30s when labor abuses such as using children and women and working each well in excess of what should have been allowed. Men’s working conditions weren’t all that great either and many men who fell ill while working would soon find themselves on the outside looking in due to a severe shortage of jobs caused by the Great Depression of the time.
I was a young boy at the time with older brothers and a father who toiled for long hours for very meager compensation; however lest I erroneously present a distorted picture, let me explain that while wages for workers were far below what we call a “living” wage these days, costs for goods and services were also at a drastically low level as well.
I can remember our 5-bedroom house with a full concrete floored basement, a finished attic, roofed front porch, and a garage at the back of the average residential sized lot, all of which cost about $2,000. Bread was .05c a loaf; hamburg meat .05c to .07c a pound; just to give you an idea of costs that had to be met from the sparse wages. Basic clothing was relatively inexpensive as well.
Small wages accompanied by small cost of living items managed to provide for satisfactory living conditions, if not excessively gaudy.
But the eternal desires of humans were always prevalent and like today, people wanted more; they seldom got it, but the desire was always there.
Unions came along at first to alleviate the harsh conditions of factories, mills and dangerous work such as coal mining where men went well down into the bowels of earth to hand dig coal loose from the ground and load it on to carts which were then either pushed back to the surface of hauled up shafts by hand. Coal mining was probably the most punishing and dangerous work in existence those days.
To say that the workers of the day needed help in reforming work conditions, not only in the coal mines, but in many industrial plants across the nation was to say that a person stranded in the desert needs water.
My first memory of a labor union boss was a man named John L. Lewis, who was active at his profession as early as 1920 but became very powerful over the next few decades. He brought about much needed changes in conditions and compensation for the low standard of living for coal mine workers, bringing them into the daylight, so to speak, from the darkness of the deep, foul and dangerous coal mines.
Living close to the coal mine area of Pennsylvania, I was a witness to those brutal days of inhumanity and the shining results that labor unions brought to the workers. The lives of untold thousands, perhaps even millions considering all forms of savage type labor jobs in industries as well, were saved by the work that the unions exhibited in showing their care for the workers.
That was then; today sees a decidedly different picture of labor unions and workers. The workers today are basically much better educated and able to speak for themselves in negotiations with industries. Conditions are so much improved from what the early 20th century worker encountered at his workplace that they are rarely a factor in employer/employee bargaining.
Today the emphasis is on what has always been on the front burner of all negotiations, more money! And, more time off, and less daily work hours, and promotions based solely on length of employment as opposed to qualifications for the job and various and sundry other “feel good” types of benefits.
The current crop of unions have jumped in to take advantage of these workers’ desires and have made them pay off for themselves along the way by skimming the dues charged to the worker members for their own high standards of living and compensations. Every blessed gain that the unions are successful at securing in the name of their membership has an accompanying benefit to the union bosses.
These positions have become so lucrative to the holders that they go to extreme lengths to remain in place for eternity if possible. Getting excessively exorbitant compensation for little on no actual physical work is a hallmark of union leadership.
But there are even greater benefits that recent times have brought when the union bosses realized that by skimming their members’ dues just a little bit more each pay period, they could build a nest egg to donate to political persons and causes and gain an additional perk: POWER; whether the membership approves or not.
Today, they are in a position where they can dictate to Presidents as to what they want done and as our current occupant is learning, they had better get it or the support is withdrawn.
The one failing point in all this chicanery by labor union management is that they can only control ONE party at a time. In that they have been more strongly supportive of Democratic causes and persons over the years, Republicans are left out of the distribution of the workers’ dues monies.
This will at some point in time jump up and bite them on their posteriors – BADLY!
This is the year for it. I can’t wait.
| | Jerry McConnell
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Jerry McConnell is a longtime resident of planet earth with one half century on the seacoast of NH. He is a community activist but promises not to run for President and he feeds ACORN’s to the squirrels. He can be emailed at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with complaints or the editor at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with favorables.
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