Teamsters, SEIU Decide to Bolt AFL-CIO (biggest schism since the 1930s)

Yahoo News ^ | 7/24/05 | RON FOURNIER

[counterpunch]

The Democrats are going to have a very hard time winning elections from here on out.
Or an even harder time I should say...
Ah, what the hell, they already don't win elections.

Another consequence of this is the Democrats will drift even further left, and may very well lose elected leaders like Joe Lieberman. The blue-collar unions were the only thing moderating the Democrats at all, and as their membership ranks shrink along with the blue-collar work force in America, their political influence shrinks with it.

The unions will be completely replaced by the likes of MoveOn.org in the Democrat party. If anyone is wonder what the future holds for the Democrats, whether they will continue to drift further left or if they will climb their way back to the political center, this should give you some good insight.

With the fracturing of their most important and powerful special interest group, there will be a vacuum left and no one to fill it but the kooks. they really have no place left to go but off the cliff.

[counterpunch]

You shouldn't be worried. AFL-CIO was indeed a dinosaur, and its fossil is finally disintegrating into dust.

But this union of unions still managed to augment the power of member unions. It actually made unionization appear more appealing. By breaking up, they lose their strength in numbers and most important their monolithic lockstep march along side the Democrats. Even if they all stay solidly behind the Democrats -- which one should assume -- they will be many small hands pulling the Democrats in all sorts of directions, rather than one big hand dragging them in one direction. The effect will be they have less influence which means they will each accomplish less of their agendas which means they will all be less happy with the Democrat party. All of this means fractured efforts and fund-raising.

The main thing here is that our economy has changed. It's not the same economy of the 1930s, the 1950s, or the 1970s. because of the ways the economy and employment has diversified in some areas while steadily shrinking in others, it is just impossible to have a single mindset and set of needs for workers. A smaller union is not going to be more nimble, its just going to be smaller.

The only mathematics in this equation is simple subtraction.

[Gondring]

Sound exactly like a STRIKE to me! And Sweeny doesn't like it

You make a very good point, Sarge!

Quite humorous...

[Hank Rearden]

The problem is, the unions are no longer run by real men, but rather by liberal psuedo-men who are much more at home at some Bohemian coffee house then they are in a steel mill or at a firing range

So what you're saying is that they have nothing in common except a propensity for extortion.

[Triggerhippie]

If all four boycotting unions quit the federation, they would take about $35 million a year from the estimated $120 million annual budget of the AFL-CIO, which has already been forced to layoff a quarter of its 400-person staff.

Is there anything funnier than Union Staffers getting laid off?

I guess they need better representation...

[Alia]

bookmark

[EricT.]

My grandfather was put out of business by a wildcat Teamsters strike

On the other side, my grandfather was screwed out of his retirement by the union he supported for decades.

[surely_you_jest]

Rats abandoning the sinking ship.

[libs_kma]

Abandoning a sinking ship is right. Look at what has been declining as a force over the last couple of years.

Network news, newspapers, Unions, Hollyweird, Liberal professors are getting more scrutiny, Terrorists and terrorist enablers and appeasers are getting scrutiny, United Nations is getting more scrutiny...oh, and Fidel is just a tumble or two away from taking a long communist dirt nap, so that counts as a decline too.

Pretty soon the cockroaches will have no more darkness where they can hide.

[demkicker]

Now if only teachers would abandon their unions, I would think I had died and gone to heaven already!

[showme_the_Glory]

Teamsters... They are soooo over. How's that pension fund?

[A CA Guy]

Unions aren't needed today because if they come up with a high wage during the collective bargaining, then the business closes because they can't compete in the market.

[Boondock_Saint]

A Union is just a group of people, in this case workers. The politics and corrupt leadership is what has made them bad.

[Hank Rearden]

A Union is just a group of people, in this case workers.

No, it's more than that - it's an attitude. An attitude of entitlement and extortion.

Let me sum up my interactions with union goons:

- "I can't do that; it's not my job."
- "You can't do that; it's not your job."
- "I'm on break."

Screw unions, union members and union supporters. I'm trying to grow a company, make my customers happy, create jobs and be efficient. Unions not only don't add anything to those goals, they actively inhibit them.

I will go out of my way to cross picket lines, rebuke union goons and do anything I can possibly do to harm union interests.

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

[Boondock_Saint]

You're painting a broad brush, and maybe our experiences are different. My company deals more with skilled labor, i.e; hiring contractors for certain jobs.
So I deal with union and non-union people. The union people almost always do a better job with less problems.