Dickey, what I relayed to you absolutely happened. The reason employers fire folks for any theft whatsoever is to keep their options over. Another of the tenets of collective bargaining/contract administration is that discipline must be consistently administered. So they take that to mean stealing is stealing, with no mitigation of the consequences. That, of course, flies in the face of the "punishment must fit the crime". Makes for some interesting arbitrations. But the bottom line here is that workers, for whom job loss is often catastrophic in these times when living check to check is so common and necessary due to costs, should have an absolute right to a grievance procedure in which all mitigating factors come into play. The problem usually is that management wants to be accountable to no standards other than their own selfish, profit driven motives. It is a system of checks which prevents a return to times when whole families were destroyed at the whim of the capitalist.

Janie, I have pondered on these issues for a number of years. I suffer from the curse of being a street level organizer who also works at very high levels of the political process. I have suffered the elitist fools who dismiss actions as "the way of it" while I look at the faces of the families that will suffer from decisions that they have no hand in. It has radicalized me in the late stages of my career, much like I was in the early years. Individuals have little or no power against the powers of capital, and the stratification of wealth demonstrates that clearly. I have returned to the street level, as I believe that is where the battle will be fought, and I intend to be there in that fight. While the institutions of labor certainly are in need of a tuneup, they still represent the best hope of combatting entrenched capital. We have the knowledge, and we have resources. And most importantly, we have access to the workers. If we can knock the dust off, and organize internally as well as externally, return to the values of our early days when we were a movement, and respond to the conditions, we will be an effective voice in the new world economy. If we fail, the consequences will be historic.

Ramble off,

Mick