Posted on 09/21/2007 10:41:41 AM PDT by Big Labor Hater
Today’s Birmingham News (http://www.al.com/opinion/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/opinion/119027658977250.xml&coll=2) has an excellent article exposing union officials’ hypocrisy when it comes to “threats” against employees.
In Birmingham, United Auto Workers (UAW) union organizer and Honda employee Sheila Boyd recently complained to local media outlets that a letter sent by Honda executives "is trying to threaten us" and claimed that the letter is "just an intimidation tactic.”
So what does the “intimidating” letter say?
The letter, which the Birmingham paper quotes from extensively, merely points out that Honda has never had to layoff a worker in 30 years, something its competitors in compulsory unionism states can’t say.
Simply pointing out how laughable it is to call that letter “intimidation,” would be enough if union propagandists weren’t using such baseless claims as “evidence” that Congress should pass a law mandating coercive “card check” organizing drives. These types of unsubstantiated claims by union organizers were the exact basis for a 2005 study created for the union-funded and –financed lobbying group, “American Rights at Work."
But more to the point is the hypocrisy of union officials to complain about threats and intimidation, when every day they threaten millions of workers with termination, if they refuse to pay forced union dues (like 16 year old Danielle Cookson).
And the UAW has a particularly dubious history when it comes to actual threats and intimidation against employees:
Responding to actual threats, the National Right to Work Foundation hired round-the-clock private security guards for Thomas Built Bus employee Jeff Ward who was targeted for opposing the UAW’s unionization tactics at his facility. At a Freightliner facility in Gaffney South Carolina UAW militants threatened employee Mike Ivey that “things are gonna get ugly” if he didn’t stop opposing UAW organizers. In another case the UAW was forced to settle a lawsuit filed against it for its role in a violence campaign against workers at a Virginia plant who refused to walk off the job during a union-ordered strike. A lawsuit in that case charged several union militants with civil conspiracy and other counts for making death threats, shooting out windows, sending obscene mail, acts of stalking, theft of property, and harassing workers on the job to coerce them into quitting their jobs. And in a particularly vivid image of UAW intimidation, 55-year old Sucheng Huang was greeted early one morning with a bloody severed cows head on the hood of her car. So it turns out that UAW officials have no problem using intimidation and threats against employees. They just don’t like those employees being given any information that “threatens” the union’s ability to force workers into union ranks.
Every ten years or so they'd have a strike, and one of their favorite activities was to get on the bridge over the river that also was over our parking lot and drop bricks on the cars below.
Lovely people.
So UAW wants Honda to close up shop, huh? A primary reason these recent manufacturing jobs are going to the South is the lack of union control here. No Civil War pun intended.
If they ever do find the need to lay someone off, I might look at her "productivity" first.
Florida is a “right to work state”. Is Alabama?.........
While I do sometimes think labor deserves representation, I’ve never seen it happen without the typical union thuggery. Union officials seem to be some of the lowest common denominators I’ve ever seen. They just wreak of deceit.
Once a union is in, good luck.
On top of the usual intimidation, they mis-appropriate retirement funds. They back people who stand for everything you are against politically, with your money.
It’s really too bad there isn’t a clean above board rational union presence in this nation, but there isn’t.
I discourage unionization. It’s a bad trap to fall into.
Bama ping!
Unions are to labor what OPEC is to petroleum and DeBeers is to diamonds.
My dad worked as a production specialist at the GE Evendale Ohio plant. The plant made jet engines until the company moved the work elsewhere due to the outrageous union demands. My dad hated the unions for their laziness and thuggish behavior. He was not in the union so he needed to cross the picket lines. His strategy was to drive through the picket lines as a passenger with a woman driver. He said that the union thugs were afraid to harass female drivers because the women might panic and run over them. Perhaps those are bygone days. I doubt there is an chivalry among union thugs today.
after ruining gm, ford, and crysler
let them have a chance at honda.
“Florida is a “right to work state”. Is Alabama?......”
It is.
How come a RICO lawsuit has never been filed against the UAW?
Of course they want to unionise the place. It isn't for the benefit of the employee either, because they will bring home less money after paying union dues than they did before the union foced it's way into their workspace.
Unions need to maintain their cash flow. The unionized shop always see's a reduction of staff and business closures over time, therefore they must constantly be on the lookout for more places to infiltrate.
There was a time when unions actually did some good, but that time has long passed. The new "union" of today which has replaced the union of old is called the department of labor. The nanny state government itself has become the union which puts labor standards into law.
The competition for quality employees among employers sets the wage and benefits package they recieve for their services.
Unions are now obsolete, and have transformed into a left wing marxist political body, which, like no other, gets to extract donations to it by force of law from a majority of people in the workplace who neither supports it's views nor do they want to be a member and pay these dues.
Getting rid of them from the workplace is no easy task however.
When I was in college some 45 yrs ago, I worked for United Airlines. While I was there United bought Capitol Airlines. United reservation agents were not unionized whereas Capitol was. Many Capitol employees who had been working with them for several years had to have their pay increased $20-40/month in order to match United’s starting pay. Then they wanted United to unionize for the “benefits that unionization would bring.” Fat chance! If 50% of the employees respond to a request to unionize by law a unionization vote must be held even if all of the responses say “HELL NO”.
Ok, class, can anyone tell us why?
Toyota is building a big plant in Tupelo Mississippi. Another big truck plant just north of Jackson.
No union to be found of course.
Because unions are like a parasite/cancer that soon sucks the host dry?
If that sounds familiar to anyone, yes, that union's name starts with an S and ends with a U.
If you are an Ohio Honda Associate, you are a working man-prince, with great pay, fabulous benefits, REALLY fabulous benefits, bonuses, stock options, education, pension etc etc
But you are working next to Joe Bagadonutz, he's 45, a highly skilled worker doing exactly what you are doing, he gets $13.50-15.00/hour, (thats 60% less than you) NO (ZIP)benefits, and his hours per year are strictly limited. There is absolutely NO WAY for Joe to become an Honda Associate, even if every supervisor in the plant asks for him.
You are talking about 35% of the Honda work force. His paymaster is a temp agency that is owned 40% by Honda. And of course, he gets no vote in the union/no union election.
Rather than increase the official work force, Honda moves about the country looking for poverty pockets (make that White poverty pockets, because the Japanese are generally xenophobic to begin with, and can be quite overtly racist)and repeats the process. Sooner or later, some union will capitalize on this opening. It's a bit of a rock no one wants to look under.
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