Posted on 06/12/2005 11:21:26 PM PDT by neverdem
Five labor unions that are highly critical of John J. Sweeney, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., are planning to announce this week that they are forming a coalition aimed at unionizing large numbers of workers, several union officials said yesterday.
Labor leaders said they were planning this move because they want to form an aggressively pro-growth coalition and because they believe the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is doing too little to organize nonunion workers.
This new coalition will be formed by the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, the laborers, the food and commercial workers and Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers, two union officials said. These officials insisted on anonymity because they feared some union leaders would be angry at them for disclosing the plan before it is announced Wednesday, after union leaders meet in Washington.
The five unions represent more than one-third of the membership of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., an umbrella federation of 57 unions and 13 million workers.
The union officials said the new coalition - tentatively called the Change to Win Coalition - would not compete with the federation. Rather, they say, it will complement the federation to give new energy and excitement to the flagging labor movement. Just one in 13 workers in the private sector is in a union, down from one in three a half-century ago.
But federation officials said yesterday that they feared that this new coalition would be competition and create an unnecessary distraction. One official questioned how effective the coalition would be in unionizing workers, considering that four of the five unions, except for the service employees, have been losing members.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It's desperation and might show people more what crooks these organizations are.
If anything, strong unions will appear as a threat to anyone with capital.
Why create jobs for people if they one day will essentially steal part of what you've built?
Great, just what we need...another bureaucracy.
That's the thing with unions, and bureaucracies in general. They form huge "coalitions," and raise money, but there's so much red tape...what exactly are they accomplishing? I'll bet this "merger" will accomplish nothing at all...no good or bad affects.
How would this big merger "help" workers anyway? By taking and wasting their money, while putting pressure on their management so that they can't afford to give any raises?
Wow .....I wonder if illegal immigration and all this cheap labor from other side of the border is hurting the unions and causing them to go to such extremes ? .........:o)
This cannot be a good thing. Unions are not about the worker's fair treatment and working conditions. They're all about increasingly out-of-control political power.
Unions must die. Die, unions, die! Die, die, die.
I live across the street from a Catholic Church and school which sold off some of its adjacent property for a new apartment building that's supposed to cater to Orthodox Jews with an elevator that stops on every floor on the Sabbath, so that those who are observant don't operate modern machinery on the Sabbath.
That probably stems from the Church's homosexual priest pedophilia/pederasty scandal.
The laborers seem to be from south of the border, but they also seem to include a skilled bunch from Portugal, some of which talked to me.
There's no doubt that Service Employees International Union would like to to organize these workers, and have them registered to vote, but doing so may be a double edged sword. Did you read the story about Social Security: Migrants Offer Numbers for Fee (Aliens rent Social Security numbers to defraud US) >fees for social security numbers?
No good and all bad really. How would they "help" you ask?
By demanding "free" healthcare, amnesty for illegal aliens, "living wages" and then, like France - a 35 hr week. How about 12 week paid family leave? How about a computer for every worker to bridge the "digital divide"? Or capping a CEO salary and disbursing it among the employees, advocating transportation...gold watch...cable TV...
If you look at ceo salaries many seem out of control and some definately are..
But one example that the unions use is Lee Scott at Walmart's 12 million dollar salary. If you divided it up and gave it to the workers..
It would amount to an extra 10$ a year for each worker.
How can the unions appeal to private sector workers by supporting a tax code, regulatory bureaucracies, and ridiculous litigation costs that makes private sector workers less competitive in world markets?
If unions want to make an impression on private sector workers, common sense regulation of the powerful and profitable U.S. Litigation Industry would be a good place for union bosses to start.
The SEIU is merely leading the way in radicalizing voting blocs of Americans, and it is in the vanguard of recruiting a bigger mob regardless of whether or not they actually produce anything. In their case, labor is the vehicle, not the pigment.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.