Labor's disarray echoes loudly for Democrats (Harold Ickes frustrated)

Cape Cod Times ^ | May 14, 2005 | RON FOURNIER

[JulieRNR21]

"A frustrated Ickes said he knows labor needs to change, he's just not sure how."

These Dem consultants ignore the fact that the people flocking to many of these 'Megachurches' have the moral values NOT supported or endorsed by the Democrat Party.

Schadenfreude........Julie

[Dan from Michigan]

I'm sure a pro-abort leader will play well in the megachurches. Riiiiiiiight.

[JulieRNR21]

Infuential Democrat Harold Ickes (FOB) is 'frustrated' over decline of influence of Labor Unions.......PING

[sgtbono2002]

I wonder if any of the Unions woes come from Republican members of unions getting a damned bellyfull of their Union disenfranchising them by always voting for Democrats. I know mine disgusted me this way and their Pac can kiss my rosy red azz.

[Sam the Sham]

People flocking to the megachurches are Joe Sixpack regular guys who are the children and grandchildren of New Deal Democrats and the greatgrandchildren of Williams Jenning Bryan Populists. They are not at all laissez faire libertarian types.

They are very open to an economic populist appeal.

And those whooping the decline of organized labor should take note that NAFTA and CAFTA and H1Bs are direct results of the diminished power of organized labor to fight for American workers. Would these things happen in the days of Reuther and Meany and Hoffa ?

[blackdog]

Villifying American corporations might play well to the union crowd, but it's consequences are self defeating. Sucking up to a Clintonista state department who'd internationally outsource or offshore breastfeeding to the Chinese if they could and use taxpayer subsidies to do it to boot. Bitchslapping the religious right at every turn in order to pander to the leftist base. Abortion on demand at all times and stages of pregnancy in order to prevent legacy creep from migrating into the murderer catagory.

Just how far does Ickes have to have his little gremlin shaped head up his a$$ to not understand he's gotten exactly what he asked for.

[telebob]

The unions are locked into 'progressive' politics and will continue to pour their members' money down the rat hole of the Democratic Party. They have no choice. The SEIU is the worst when it comes to blindly pursuing 'social justice' issues and ignoring bread and butter issues.

It's a sure sign of desperation when lefty union bosses think they can reach out to churches, 'mega' or otherwise, to attempt to shore up their waning power.

Good riddance...

[JulieRNR21]

"Harvard professor Robert Putnam, author of ''Bowling Alone,'' said labor's membership declines coincided with the steep drop in all community and civic activities starting in the 1960s. Once part of a worker's social network - with crowded union halls and other activities - organized labor now has a purely transactional relationship with workers. ''They're merely bargaining agents,'' Putnam said.

He suggests that union leaders look at fast-growing churches, where leaders give worshippers a higher purpose and small-group communities - valued commodities in exurbia, where virtually everybody is new to the neighborhood. Labor needs to fill that social capital void, too, he said."

---

With a re-read it looks like the Unions are advised to become a 'social network' to provide 'small group communities' with a 'higher purpose' based on the successful example of the megachurches.

[blackdog]

Hey Ickes, there are some things you just can't fix by lawyerin' up. All the union muscle, union pension funneling, rent-a-mobs, and telling grand juries to go eff off when asked to teatify cannot change one thing. That is that free will/free choice inevitably results as the outcome when you've been less than honest with the public for fifty years. There is no turnaround at this point.

Watching Ickes twist in the wind is better than sex. If he's become useless to Hillary, he had better hire a union loyal food taster.

[WHATNEXT?]

There is certainly no decline in the Federal, state, county, and municipal unions across the country. They and their pensions are eating us alive.

[JulieRNR21]

The unions are locked into 'progressive' politics and will continue to pour their members' money down the rat hole of the Democratic Party. They have no choice.

And they give their members....no choice. They take the members' money & give it to the Dems. In the 2002 FL Governor race, the FL Teachers' Union mortaged their Miami Beach Hdq. for 2 million to support Dem loser Bill McBride!

[mmercier]

>> The federation's largest partner, 1.8 million-member Service Employees International Union, is threatening to bolt unless the AFL-CIO commits to a dramatic reorganization. The SEIU wants the AFL-CIO to cut its budget by more than 50 percent and use the savings to increase organizing by its member unions.

My union, The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, left the AFL-CIO. Carpenters are by nature conservative for the most part, and we don't need them. In fact we were there before them, and all those other trades need us well before they get work. I think it saved the brotherhood $50,000,000 a year to leave the AFL-CIO.

McCarron has made needed changes, and did not endorse a candidate for President in 2006. We are still crawling with rats, but only in the eboards and staff; the carpenters who actually do the work are for the most part conservative or not concerned about politics.

Other trades will either follow the carpenters lead, or they will continue to diminish until extinct.

Organized labor has its place, but that place is not to side with political forces that ultimately seek the destruction of civilization. The true "unions" that are the largest and ultimately controlling are the "public employees unions". They somehow convinced true labor unions to follow their lead.

Their control (government employee unions) is fracturing as their policies, candidates and protests destroy the livelihood's of the rank and file workers.

Carpenters siding with environmentalists, communists and anarchists, give me a break.

[JulieRNR21]

"There is certainly no decline in the Federal, state, county, and municipal unions across the country. They and their pensions are eating us alive."

BINGO.....Exactly right...with their decline in manufacturing industries...the Unions have organized in government & education where they can get whatever they scream loudest for by browbeating taxpayers!

And the liberal media supports their efforts!

[RJL]

The AFL-CIO laid off 167 employees this month

LOL... I guess the union workers will have to unionize against the heartless union bosses.

[JulieRNR21]

Other trades will either follow the carpenters lead, or they will continue to diminish until extinct.

Hope your prediction comes true!

[gobucks]

" LOL... I guess the union workers will have to unionize against the heartless union bosses."

Ditto - what a total irony...

[kennedy]

Maybe the unions would not be losing so many members if they stopped spending their members' money on far left-wing liberal causes that most of their members' opppose?

[The Old Hoosier]

and Republican tax policies that squeeze middle-class incomes

What the hell? Shoddy writing and reporting. Can anyone find a Republican president that raised taxes on the middle class? What alleged policy is this referring to?

Middle class people's taxes keep going down, and according to the liberals they're supposed to be upset that other people's taxes went down as well. Makes zero sense.

[ClaireSolt]

I think that unions lost their way when they throught they could get their way through politics better than they could by organizing and representing their members. I spent Mother's Day with a bunch of retired civil servants from New York. They are the richest people we know. One woman kept telling me how happy she was to have so much money, until I finally reminded her that the rest of the country has had to bail out NYC twice in my life.

Someone with an entrepreneural sense will see that there is opportunity in these numbers.

[Hank Rearden]

Rotten, corrupt, mobbed-up, overpriced, lazy bastards.

Unions must die. Die, unions, die. Die, die, die!