Here’s where the NEA union legal fund is being used right now:
School Staff Indicted, Police Search For More Possible Victims
The Cherry Creek School District is paved with gold. This is where John Elway’s kids attended school.
While the usual barriers to unionism apply, UFCW does organize in the grocery and retail sectors. CWA organizes a lot of clerical and call center workers, and SEIU is also out there. It’s taking time, but I think the idea of unions outside the heavy trades is coming back.
2 Likes
I have to use the term ‘house-breaker’, because it’s the only one available. It’s ALMOST like burglary, except we’re more thorough and we’re not nearly as messy.
When a house changes hands, what happens to all the stuff? You can hire tweekers to throw things into a dumpster, but they’re kinda unreliable. So, you hire an ‘Estate Sale Service’, who pays their laborers cash under the table in order to be your lowest bidder. We come in, sort the wheat for the chaff, and have a giant yard sale. We split the proceeds with you and leave the house empty, but undamaged.
I’ve had a customer literally buy a hoodie off my back, a coffee cup that had my cold coffee grounds in the bottom, this Saturday, 3 different people walked into the dark, closed garage and tried to test-drive MY CAR!
These are jobs that require more physical strength than any ‘man’s job’ - the days of a roofer carrying a bundle of shingles up a ladder are gone - but homeowners will only pay women’s wages, so I wind up hauling 100+ lbs of furniture up basement stairs and smashing it with a sledgehammer to make it fit into the dumpster.
Edit: And yes, I have a Bachelor’s, and even all the coursework required for a Master’s, a resume chock-a-block with skills both general and rare - but the only jobs being offered right now are part-time, minimum wage, and with deliberately unpredictable schedules to prevent holding more than one job.
My ‘super-power’ is being genetically pre-determined to die of a massive, unpreventable coronary before I reach the age when I can draw Social Security. By opting for a job where I can get paid cash and all of the big services know each other and ‘lend me out’ in slow periods I can keep waiting for a skilled job to open up. I’m also not losing money to a retirement fund I’ll never get to use. I looked at my options, and this was the least of the evils.
2 Likes
If the laws are routinely flouted, and the department of labor is swamped, then they effectively don’t exist.
I, personally, an waiting for the law office ads, looking to collect the fines: 'Were you paid cash? Call the attorneys at…"
2 Likes
There are so-called ‘pink-collar unions’, that organize in areas that are traditionally dominated by women.
ILGW, who organize people who sew garments and other items requiring stitching. IOW, seamstresses.
My union is substantially clerical workers and their supervisors; we have a lot of women.
Teachers’ unions have already been mentioned.
3 Likes
While it’s probably more like a tarnished silver lining, binding arbitration could theoretically be very bad for a company if the aggressor was an equally psychopathic corporation or a very stalwart union. Yes, only a lunatic sues someone for something like $35, but a couple thousand of those in arbitration with repeated asks for larger amounts, would actually be quite burdensome.
How much of this can we blame Ronald Reagan & Jimmy Carter for?
3 Likes
Well, I first started getting paid under the table and being told that benefits were for ‘Managers Only’ during the administration of Bush the Elder, who was the ventriloquist hand up Reagan’s wooden butt, so…yeah, I’d start sniffing around the Reagan administration.
1 Like
You’re kind of all over the place here, friend. You made the point that “big unions” don’t accept women as members and I pointed out that the teachers’ unions are a clear counter-example of that. The fact that three educators somewhere in Denver are in legal trouble doesn’t seem to be addressing that issue in any way.
1 Like
I’m saying that teacher’s unions might not be the best example.
I just don’t follow this at all. Teachers’ unions are made up predominately of women. They are one of the most effective unions out there, as evidenced by the hatred the right has for them. The fact that three educators may have diddled some kids doesn’t change any of that.
Look at what these unions have accomplished in just the last few months in places like W. Virginia.
2 Likes
Read the link. Three union administrators (mandated reporters of child abuse) refused to report a union teacher’s repeated INTERCOURSE (statutory rape) and suspended the student for reporting it to them, after cornering her without a parent or legal representation present, and bullied her into apologizing to her rapist and giving him a hug. A grand jury indicted them, and the union is sparing no expense in their legal defense.
Thank God the teacher/rapist emailed a picture of his junk to her phone…hard to argue with that.
Funny, I was a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) for years. As an office worker, my mother’s office organised under the Teamsters.
There are unions that will come into those jobs if enough employees on-site show interest. The problem is that people have been convinced that it’s not in their best interest to show interest (anti-union propaganda is both subtle and blatant threats), or they have been convinced (like you seem to be) that the unions aren’t interested.
Unions are, first and foremost, people. It takes work and effort to create one from scratch, sure, but workers still do.
5 Likes
SEIU, UFCW, and of course the IWW all organize some of those categories. While I won’t deny there are huge issues of gender equity in the labor movement, it isn’t nearly as stark of a gender divide as you are saying. https://www.epi.org/blog/union-membership-density-2017/
3 Likes
Yes, but…when did your mother’s office get organized? I’m betting that it wasn’t during this administration.
[lights Trump fuse, runs away]
…It is if you’re not even allowed to get a job in the field. Sure, once you’ve already been hired, you get to join the union, but what if you can’t get hired into these jobs because you’re the wrong gender or wrong nationality?
You’re moving the goalposts. First you’re blaming the unions for refusing to accept women, then when we are showing you examples of the opposite, you’re blaming the government.
As for my mother, it was back when work was a hell of a lot less acceptable thing for women and there were no “protected classes” when it came to discrimination. The Teamsters could have easily refused and no one would have blinked.
4 Likes
Again, this changes the fact that teachers’ unions are predominately made up of women and also pretty powerful…how, exactly?
I’m not even sure what you’re arguing at this point, to be honest.
2 Likes
I said at the very beginning - unions were for another generation and another gender. Your mom was from another generation. The current unions are for another gender.
Funny, because the bulk of my jobs (including the one I have now) have been unions, and either predominantly female or highly balanced.
You might be surprised what jobs are union, or have union shops.
Same generation, same gender. Unions don’t tend to refuse membership. It’s bad for the bottom line.
2 Likes
