Beware a long post but an intersting & true enough story

As one who has worked in & out of constructions unions from the east coast to the west coast (US) to the Pacific Islands I think I've
earned a right o speak my mind on ths topic.

First to Mick, cause he knows personally how I feel about Unions, Mick well said & good for you for the above posts.

I 1st joined the Boston Roofers, Waterproofers & Allied Workers Local 33 in 1971. It soon became a very corrupted union (not cause I joined). The new officers soon were soon taking home the till, though it took a while for it to be noticed. Let me say now that my uncles had been charter members & I & my cousin were all union men & members. My cousin eventually caught on to what was going on & started a personnal campain against it. I was too busy to notice or bother, I was quite a wild young'n & was busy sowing wild oats when not working. Well my cousin took a terrible beating for his troubles & I was sought out as a way to convince my cousin to shut his mouth. I was also took a beating from the then president who had in the past served time for murder, not a pleasant bunch. I in turn took the President, Business Agent & the union into federal court. In the meantime I had to hide out in Austin, Texas because they (union officials) were debating to to put a mob contract out to hit me & my cousin. Eventually both the Business Agent & the President were sent to federal prisons for a few years (& I wasn't dead). By that time both my cousin & I went to work in non-union shops. The e-board found both my cousin & I to still be members in good standing & welcomed us back in. My cousin went to work for the MBTA & stayed there & is still there. I on the other hand continued in my trade but never went back to the union, there were to many people that owed favors to these two plus they had far more relations working there than I did & working on the edge of a 30 story building with some one I didn't know was to much of a risk. Anyway, as a union roofer learning other trades was out of the question (a fault that they corrected many yrs latter). As a non union worker I also became a fair hand at being (as long as it was assocated with the roof) a carpenter (parapit walls, decks & etc) a sheet metal fabricator (metal edges, flashings, etc), plumber (drains, scuppers, gutters, drain lines & leaders, etc), Masonary (chimneys, parapit & penthouse walls, etc), Iron work (repairing & installing metal decks & welding), Caulker, Painter & Rigger (for stagging). After leaving the field I went into business for myself & wore all the hats
involved, sold the buiness & went to work for the folks that bought it. From there I became management. I was the saftey officer, lead estimator, Job Super, negotiator with owners of the projects both private, government & public up to 5 million. Dealt with the unions,
(we became a union shop after my 1st few years), the architects & engineers, construction managers & supers. so I think my opinions here are valueable.

First, the unions were responsible for the common wage earning labor's life to reach a middle class were there once wasn't a middle class. The union brought up those wages of the non union worker alike. It brought in the 40 hour work week, which today's work force is losing ground with it also brought the 8 hr day & the 5 day work week, again ground is being lost here too as well as the overtime pay that it fought so hard to get. It brought in health benifits & retirement & pension plans, which again we see here ground being lost. It brought about sick time, vacation time, holidays & family days, time off for pregant women with out the fear of the loss of jobs. Well, it is dying, they did do all this but they're getting old now some say. They're not getting old they're are just being beaten down, since Regean took office thy've been run into the ground. Sure there were some nasty unions & probably still are but it's up to their members & supporters to fight like I had to. It's up to the public to see that they stay healthy. To honor picket lines, boycotts & refuse to shop at the Wal-Marts of the world. When you know that companies like Nestles treat their over seas workers like cattle & that they're pushing their substandard baby formular on 3rd world mothers & killing both Mothers & children you shold as a collective public take action & do something. This is the behavior that brought the South African government to it's knees & this is what would bring our work home from their outsourced overseas homes. This is what would bring our worker's living wage back to where it should be & their health, retirements & pension plans back to the levels where they should be. If many of these national, international, multinational & mega companies were unionized their folks would've been far better off & recieved more than a false gold plated golden handshake when it was their time to sail off into the sunset. Unions are becoming redundent only because the public is letting it happen & they're letting it happen because both the big business & the government are in bed together reaping in their criminal rewards while driving the middle class down into the poor & driving the poor into the graves.

Lastly, the unions aren't responsible for the demise of the auto industry & the airlines, etc, big business & the government is. The 1 nite stands the public could stand but all these marriages, please. On there own & left to themselves in their own capital worlds they'd mamage fine or make way for others but they make lously bedfellows both too greedy & self serving, too manipulating & way too interested in themslves. So in the end they've devorced the public & the public is the one that's getting laid to waste.

There, sorry it's been such a long post but I've put my own life on the line as a worker & a fighter & I just hate to see us go back to the days when business ruled with an Iron Fist as it appears to ready to do again.

Barry