Unions

I was listening to NPR on the way home, and they were talking about the proposed "Employee Free Choice" act.  

Let me preface my comments here by stating an obvious fact.  I am all for unions.  

I believe that they enrich the middle class lifestyle by securing fair wages and equal benefits.  They also help to make sure the job you got hired to do, is the job that you do.  

The republicans are saying that this bill will hurt workers.  They say it'll hurt them because their choice won't be secret anymore.  

Okaaaaayyyyyy. 

How could that possibly hurt the workers.  Do the politicians not realize that the places where this will have the most impact is in right to work states?  Do they even comprehend the meaning of "right to work"?  

Let me break it down for you.  All that right to work means, is that you are employed "at will". That means, you OR your employer can terminate employment at anytime, without reason. (Did you catch that last bit, WITHOUT REASON.)  It also means that you don't have to belong to a union to work for certain companies or in certain trades. 

OK, now I worked for a grocery chain back in Arizona that I was trying to get organized.  That entailed having meetings with total strangers at my house, calling on people I knew at other stores to try to get them to sign on too.  Things of that nature.  Now, since I did this all on my own time, the company couldn't say anything to me about it.  However, I got one of my friends from another store to sign up, and they fired him.  They told him it was because he was a Department Manager, and therefore, he was not able to sign a union card.  

Mind you, all this happened, and we didn't get a union.  Once they fired my friend, everyone else was scared.  That's what big businesses do.  They treat their employees like children, and expect loyalty and respect in return.  

What these politicians also don't realize, is that this is not going to affect EVERY industry.  (I work in an office, and I don't think that there is a United Office Workers Union in a right to work state).  This is going to affect certain service industries, and manufacturing industries.  As it should.  These sectors have long been underpaid for the hard work that they do.  (I'm talking Commercial Food Workers, and Janitorial services employees, not Carpenters, Plumbers and Electricians.)

How, especially now, is it bad for employees to make more money?  I know that the first place companies go when they want to make cuts is labor.  They always cut at the bottom though, and now, all those cuts later, they are toppling.  

Big business is finally getting its comeuppance.  I know that this recession is hurting small businesses as well.  It all boils down to greed in the end.  Big corporations and banks are the worst purpotrators of that all consuming greed.  They spread it around like jelly on toast, and infected the working class with their avarice.  

I am so glad that I didn't fall into that perilous position.