I was sent this from one of our volunteers, Bill Gimbel from Virginia...
Do we as a country need the employee free choice act? Yes and here’s why. Let us examine recent history and what do we see, bloated Executive pay, while workers salaries have fallen or at best stagnated. This phenomenon exists while productivity is up. How can this be? One word comes to mind “Greed”, I don’t believe I need stress this point just look at the mess we are in today.
Yep those old deregulation tools really are serving us well! During Bush’s tenure or shall I say “terror” an all out war on working peoples rights took place and we are still dealing with the fallout now, it was packaged with the war on terror. NSPS it’s cornerstone like the Patriot Act used 9-11 as an excuse to trample all our rights, while waiting in the wings were private industry. Once the rights of the Civil Servants were done away with private concerns would have gone to even further extremes than they currently are using to suppress workers.
Countless union /management contract negotiations in recent years have all had concessions as the main theme. Concession bargaining at floundering work places may be a necessary evil but are unconscionable at places making Billions of dollars. When our Brothers and Sisters dared to petition the NLRB with unfair labor complaints, we were trampled underfoot by Bush’s minions. On the federal level the very same thing occurred at the FLRA and Management took full advantage of it. We saw blatant disregard for the law, for contracts and just poor moral conduct in general in our dealings with Bush’s people. My Brothers and Sisters in private had it just as bad, this I know as my local was petitioned for help continually by locals in healthy and shaky industries alike.
I have read the Better Business Bureau’s recent article in the paper and on the internet and I have little sympathy at this point with their view. I always like to cite a favorite point of historic value when getting into debates with the radical right element. Back I believe in the early 1900’s Henry Ford developed the automobile production line. He found that by increasing production using this means about halved the cost of his vaunted Model T. Henry though discovered staffing problems occurred because of the boring repetitive nature of the line and to solve this he did something that just floored his competitors, he paid his workers 5.00 a day, unheard of at the time, double the going rate. Henry also found that by solving somewhat his production stoppages it also had an interesting side effect, his own workers could afford the Model T. This anecdote is just a microcosm of how a middle class of people in this country came about. Henry later put up a determined battle against unionization which lasted I believe till sometime in 1937. The reason for these battles were many faceted but the one I like to cite was the maiming of workers that occurred on these lines and of course just basic needs of workers. The point about worker safety is something workers take for granted today, as well as health care and the 8hr. day, they are fruits of the labor union struggles paid for in blood.
In closing, if Business and Management are doing such good jobs by their employees than why would those polled that are non-union reply yes when asked if they would join a union given the chance by a 7-10 margin. What keeps these folks from being in a union now? Tactics used in the last 20ys or so have become very blatant as well as sophisticated and they add up to what amounts to economic terrorism. I will just cite a few: Firing oforganizers, captive audience sessions with firing and layoffs being the underlying theme, threats to move or close down and the good old just don’t recognize the union as a voice even after an election ,refuse to bargain. Level playing field, are you kidding me! I must tell you it saddens me to read supposedly intelligent people using the same scare tactics as Mr. Carl Rove and company used to get people to elect in my humble opinion the worst President ever, in my 52yrs. (FEAR) To my friends at the Better Business Bureau crank up that 200 million add campaign knowing full well the working people will do their part as usual and more to make sure the truth gets out.
William J. Gimbel III Franklin Lodge 2135 IAM&AW I am 20yr member of the IAM and currently a Recording Secretary of my local. When I was growing up in Pa. my father and grand father were in the auto retail business Gimbel Hopkins Ford, many of my conservative values are derived from them and my parochial schooling. I have been earning my living as a machinist and small business owner for the past 32 yrs. I am a fiscal conservative and social centrist so please neo-cons don’t put me in your cute little box marked liberal lefty.
