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Sorry you got downvoted. A lot of people never studied the history of Unions (and I'm very pro Union, with several Union organizing relatives) to see how incred

Sorry you got downvoted. A lot of people never studied the history of Unions (and I'm very pro Union, with several Union organizing relatives) to see how incredibly corrupt they become. They have a long history of selling out to the agenda of the rich - and many famous strikes were initiated by the rank and file against the wishes of the Union - forcing the Union to pretend to be supporting the strikers while doing everything possible to undermine them. Just one example - Caesar Chavez's United Farm Workers was destroyed by the Teamsters, since the Teamsters were aligned with farmers (who are mostly big multinationals - hope you don't believe that "small farmer" myth.) So the Teamsters agreed to undermine the UFW actions (by taking away members and offering a short-term sweeter deal, criticizing UFW, then later giving them much worse deals after the Farmers gave them benefits to keep the truckers happy. Keeping Teamster management fat and happy.)

skookumchuck 8y ago
> Sorry you got downvoted. It comes with the territory. I rarely post popular opinions or popular facts. In this case I posted unpopular facts :-)
lucas_membrane 8y ago
There is something suspect about the rise of corruption in the unions. Back in the 1930's, labor was getting powerful and both starting and winning some big strikes, and communists were a significant part of the labor movement. The capitalist establishment's answer to this was the red squads (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Squad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Squad). These were branches of local law enforcement operating largely sub-rosa in collaboration with the big employers and even sometimes partially financed by contributions from anti-labor malefactors of great wealth. The strategy adopted by the red squads was (1) that a union run by gangsters was ipso facto far better than one run by someone who could change the status quo in favor of workers, and (2) local law enforcement could benefit substantially from a win-win relationship with organized crime. Corruption of unions became part of the American economy hand-in-hand with corruption of police. When the gangsters struggled with each other for control of a union, law enforcement might be recruited as the tie-breaker, helping whichever thug best understood the needs of the municipal power structure. The working class did not bring this on themselves.
- MrTonyD 8y ago
  You might be interested to hear that about 30 years ago I got myself invited to a "union busting" class. It was held at changing locations each week, with nobody giving their names (not even the instructor), and guest speakers from law enforcement, legal, and senior management invited to discuss their successful efforts to undermine unions. In essence, their recommended strategy was to slowly move assets away from the company - whether overseas or via contracts, then shut down sites while simultaneously bringing up other sites without unions in secret. As long as things were done slowly, the courts wouldn't recognize actions as anti-union. You could even move back into the same region in a few years without unions. Once you know what to look for, it's easy to see this technique being used over decades here in the United States. And it doesn't apply just to unions, it applies to anywhere you want to force lower wages. (In the early days of unionization big employers used to coordinate moving out of a region, driving local populations to desperation so they could move back in months later and pay wages where people were actually starving while they worked.)

skookumchuck 8y ago

> Sorry you got downvoted. It comes with the territory. I rarely post popular opinions or popular facts. In this case I posted unpopular facts :-)

lucas_membrane 8y ago

There is something suspect about the rise of corruption in the unions. Back in the 1930's, labor was getting powerful and both starting and winning some big strikes, and communists were a significant part of the labor movement. The capitalist establishment's answer to this was the red squads (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Squad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Squad). These were branches of local law enforcement operating largely sub-rosa in collaboration with the big employers and even sometimes partially financed by contributions from anti-labor malefactors of great wealth. The strategy adopted by the red squads was (1) that a union run by gangsters was ipso facto far better than one run by someone who could change the status quo in favor of workers, and (2) local law enforcement could benefit substantially from a win-win relationship with organized crime. Corruption of unions became part of the American economy hand-in-hand with corruption of police. When the gangsters struggled with each other for control of a union, law enforcement might be recruited as the tie-breaker, helping whichever thug best understood the needs of the municipal power structure. The working class did not bring this on themselves.

MrTonyD 8y ago
You might be interested to hear that about 30 years ago I got myself invited to a "union busting" class. It was held at changing locations each week, with nobody giving their names (not even the instructor), and guest speakers from law enforcement, legal, and senior management invited to discuss their successful efforts to undermine unions. In essence, their recommended strategy was to slowly move assets away from the company - whether overseas or via contracts, then shut down sites while simultaneously bringing up other sites without unions in secret. As long as things were done slowly, the courts wouldn't recognize actions as anti-union. You could even move back into the same region in a few years without unions. Once you know what to look for, it's easy to see this technique being used over decades here in the United States. And it doesn't apply just to unions, it applies to anywhere you want to force lower wages. (In the early days of unionization big employers used to coordinate moving out of a region, driving local populations to desperation so they could move back in months later and pay wages where people were actually starving while they worked.)