Revisionist History: Unions

[editec]

History should be unbiased and factual, but sadly politics and power often influence the writing of history more than it should and that in turn means more conflict.

It is pretty much impossible to write a history that is not biased one way or the other.

Even assuming that one is setting out ONLY to note facts as they happen, the selection of what facts are germane to the history is a bias.

Totally Unbiased history is a target to shoot for but not one that can really be obtained.

I agree, but that does not mean we should not try to target an unbiased history as possible. In this case of the OP and others, that is clearly not happening.

Of course not.

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?”
― Robert Browning, Men and Women and Other Poems ​

 

[Dragon]

As long as most people make their livings working for an employer on a W-2 (or foreign equivalent), we will need unions. That basic fact has not changed. Therefore, we still need unions. The decline in real wages over the past thirty years, as unions have declined, proves that beyond a doubt.

 

[Trajan]

at one time, of course unions or that is private sector unions were definitely necessary, no one is going to defend paying children to sow buttons on clothes for 10 hours a day for a pittance or at all in fact.

however there is a difference, private sector vs. public sector as BA said neither FDR or say walter ruether and I quote :"We are not going to operate as a narrow economic pressure group which says, 'We are going to get ours and the public be damned.'" would support public sector unions today.

the federal gov has created a plethora of organizations that speak up for any worker for just about any reason, handicap, color, nationality, gender etc. And anyone who is really conversant in union history knows that blacks were shut out of unions for decades.

unions took on such an adversarial bent in the 70's which they never let go of they helped strangle many a company.

Public sector unions now strangle the municipal purse.

Then there are unions created via fiat, say of the home care workers here in California who as individuals never wanted to unionize, but the union orgs helped by state mandates ( fueled by union money) made it a defacto rule. *shrugs* doesn't sound very fair to me.

Then there's the Davis Bacon act, where in any federal money disbursed to the states must be used to pay prevailing union wages for work utilizing that money.......whats up with that?

unions were created to provide a safe workplace, a sensible work week/hours, equitable wages..... and arbitration, which frankly is loaded for the unions as well. IN the private sector its been turned into an org. just as venal as the orgs. which it purports to negotiate with, while in the public sector politicos disburse largess in a you scratch my back I scratch yours environment absent any sensible thrift or any ethical public interest(s).

 

[JoeB131]

People believe that they are more capable of managing their own careers today, and to a degree, that's true.

"To a degree"? Explain, please.

You still can't get around a vindictive boss who is going to screw you over.

Go to another job. Right. Try to get a recommendation on that one.

 

[daveman]

As long as most people make their livings working for an employer on a W-2 (or foreign equivalent), we will need unions. That basic fact has not changed. Therefore, we still need unions. The decline in real wages over the past thirty years, as unions have declined, proves that beyond a doubt.

Given declining union membership, it looks like most people disagree with you.

This is where you say you know what's best for them better than they do.

 

[daveman]

People believe that they are more capable of managing their own careers today, and to a degree, that's true.

"To a degree"? Explain, please.

You still can't get around a vindictive boss who is going to screw you over.

Go to another job. Right. Try to get a recommendation on that one.

And how often does that happen? And what happens to a union member who can't get around a vindictive shop steward?

 

[Moonglow]

Organized labor is organized thuggery; always has been, always will be. Unions are the only legal criminal enterprise in America (aside from the democrat party, that is). Incidentally, need I point out that this is a Union sponsored book, and might be just a little biased?

Who brought out the thugs first? Wasn't that just reaction/self defense when the companies would hire "security" to break the strike?

not just hired security but National Guardsmen also entered the frey.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Little Love for Labor | The Nation

I didn’t learn much about the labor movement in high school. At best, it was taught like suffrage—a long-ago response to long-ago problems. At worst, it was taught like prohibition—curious, misguided, and painfully anachronistic. Most of the time, my history classes didn’t discuss the labor movement at all.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one.

Last week the Albert Shanker Institute, a think tank endowed by the American Federation of Teachers, released a report, American Labor in US History Textbooks, documenting the movement’s compressed portrayal in our major textbooks. It offers a stark assessment: “If, while driving to school, students happen to see the bumper sticker: ‘Unions: the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend,’ that may be more exposure to American labor’s historic role as a force for social progress than they will ever get in the classroom.”

Three historians wrote the report after reviewing the main high school history textbooks of the four chains that together dominate the industry (if you’re an American high school student, chances are your textbook is one of them). They found that the textbooks portray strikes as violent, disruptive, and socially negative, while downplaying employers’ role in instigating violently repressing job actions. Social and economic reforms like the New Deal are credited to visionary politicians and the critical pressure from labor protests is studiously minimized. Social movements for civil rights and women’s equality are divorced from labor concerns or participation. With the exceptions of the United Farm Workers organizing and air traffic controllers getting fired, unions virtually disappear from the textbooks after 1960—as does workplace injustice.

The question is - why? Why is this happening?

Then of course I wonder if it's easier to lie about history when generations are fragmented like never before.

Little Love for Labor | The Nation

The unions have a violent history BDboop, it is what it is but that doesn't mean the unions are the same today.


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS_RYLCDnSU]Scepter of Union Violence, Big Labor Persuasion - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Si modo]

Apparently Boop doesn't know about the Molly Maguires.

 

[konradv]

Apparently Boop doesn't know about the Molly Maguires.

From the article. Sounds like they could have been set up.

The Molly Maguires were accused of kidnapping and other crimes, largely because of the allegations of one powerful industrialist (Franklin B. Gowen), and the testimony of one Pinkerton detective (James McParland). Fellow prisoners also testified against the alleged Molly Maguires, but some believe these witnesses may have been coerced or bribed.

 

[Si modo]

Apparently Boop doesn't know about the Molly Maguires.

From the article. Sounds like they could have been set up.

The Molly Maguires were accused of kidnapping and other crimes, largely because of the allegations of one powerful industrialist (Franklin B. Gowen), and the testimony of one Pinkerton detective (James McParland). Fellow prisoners also testified against the alleged Molly Maguires, but some believe these witnesses may have been coerced or bribed.

True, they may have been set up. They started out with an honorable cause - stopping egregious oppression of honest workers - their means were abhorrent, IMO.

 

[Old Rocks]

The Mollys did what had to be done.

 

[DaGoose]

Unions: they destroyed the US Auto industry and laid waste to Detroit worse than an atomic blast.

As usual you have no clue as to what the fuck you're talking about. Dipshit.

The tentative agreement, reached Wednesday, creates up to 2,100 new jobs and promises $4.5 billion in investments at U.S. plants.

"If it was not for the UAW bargaining, all these jobs would be going to Korea and China and Mexico"

Chrysler, UAW finally agree on new contract - Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL Home

 

[Si modo]

Unions: they destroyed the US Auto industry and laid waste to Detroit worse than an atomic blast.

As usual you have no clue as to what the fuck you're talking about. Dipshit.

The tentative agreement, reached Wednesday, creates up to 2,100 new jobs and promises $4.5 billion in investments at U.S. plants.

"If it was not for the UAW bargaining, all these jobs would be going to Korea and China and Mexico"

Chrysler, UAW finally agree on new contract - Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL Home

And, somehow you think that disproves what Frank said (less the obvious hyperbole of the nuclear holocaust)?

I'd say it rather supports it.

 

[DaGoose]

Unions: they destroyed the US Auto industry and laid waste to Detroit worse than an atomic blast.

As usual you have no clue as to what the fuck you're talking about. Dipshit.

"If it was not for the UAW bargaining, all these jobs would be going to Korea and China and Mexico"

Chrysler, UAW finally agree on new contract - Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL Home

And, somehow you think that disproves what Frank said (less the obvious hyperbole of the nuclear holocaust)?

I'd say it rather supports it.

Then you have a big problem with reading comphrension. The ability of the UAW to bargain collectively in the interests of the workers AND the automakers prevented jobs from being sent to Mexico AND adds thousands of new jobs for Americans all while turning a profit for the automakers.

Yep, it sounds like they "destroyed the US Auto industry and laid waste to Detroit" all right.

 

[midcan5]

Unions more than any piece of legislation, made America's middle class.

"Corporate propaganda directed outwards, that is, to the public at large, has two main objectives: to identify the free enterprise system in popular consciousness with every cherished value, and to identify interventionist governments and strong unions (the only agencies capable of checking a complete domination of society by corporations) with tyranny, oppression and even subversion. The techniques used to achieve these results are variously called 'public relations', 'corporate communications' and 'economic education'." Alex Carey 'Taking the Risk out of Democracy' [see also Democracy after Citizens United | MIT World ]

http://www.usmessageboard.com/economy/50913-american-unions.html#post617599


"You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years — which it has — that’s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions." Paul Krugman

 

[BDBoop]

The unions have a violent history BDboop, it is what it is but that doesn't mean the unions are the same today.

I think the reason they have a violent history is because there was no other way to get the point across. And it's happening again, today.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Business has only itself to blame for unions.

 

[rightwinger]

Unions: they destroyed the US Auto industry and laid waste to Detroit worse than an atomic blast.

Is the problem with US cars that they are too expensive? Last I checked, they cost less than foreign competitors yet are losing market share

Is the union responsible for designing cars? Marketing cars? Positioning cars in an international market?

That is managements responsibility and they have failed miserably

 

[Immanuel]

They will blame Obama for their lot (despite the fact that this whole Trickle Down lie has been championed by the Right for 30 years).

Obama is overseeing trickle UP poverty.

I call it "flood the basement" economics. It, too, is an abject failure. Just like everything else he touches.

Immie