My father was a carpenter, a good one. He could and did build houses from the ground up and by himself. He did all the plumbing and wiring. He dug the foundation and he laid the floors.
However, carpenters have unions. For this reason he spent many hours waiting around the union hall waiting for a job. He had to wait in line, just like all the rest, regardless of the skill levels and regardless of experience. If they didn’t have a job for him, he came home.
One day, he was working on a two story apartment building. One of the new carpenters, a young man, refused to go up on the second floor scaffolding. My father tried to shame him. He said, “What’s the matter. I can walk on my hands completely around the building.”
The young man didn’t believe him. My father said he would do it if he agreed to work up there. To make the story short, the young man went up there and worked the rest of the job. Oh, by the way. My father was fifty-five at the time.
A short time later, he was taken aside by a union rep and told he needed to slow down. He was making the rest of the men look bad. Besides, they needed to make the job last a while.
I am not saying that unions are completely bad. They fought for safety, especially for minors and steel workers. They provided many of the things that labor takes for granted today, such as the forty hour work week. Certainly, they managed to put the kibosh on child labor.
However, the pendulum has swung the other way. They have become counterproductive. Those that work harder are punished. Those who turn in substandard work are protected. Wages and benefits have become prohibitive, to the point that US industry was unable to compete with foreign industry. The imported goods were not only less expensive, but better.
In effect, they forced the companies they worked for to go bankrupt. Then, American taxpayers had to bail them out.
It is no wonder that people have such a negative perception of unions today. They have had their part in destroying about every part of this country that was good. The school boards no longer run our schools. Everything is run by the NEA (National Education Association) even to the point that they determine what is taught and what is not. About the only way a teacher can be fired is if he or she says something bad about unions. By the way. May I point out that the US schools have gone from the best to some of the worst under the management of the NEA?
This would be bad enough, but union management has become self-serving. In a word, may I say… corrupt? They no longer represent the rank and file. They support candidates that support unions. Needless to say the government officials return the favor. They know they must or face the consequences.
We call it lobbying, but it is just a fancy word for bribery. The unions pay some of the biggest bribes, mostly to the Democrats. Besides their bribes, they outright pay for ads to support Democrat candidates.
In recent years, the unions have started losing their holds on this country. Businesses are moving to right to work states. Now, finally, The Supreme Court passed judgment on the government unions, essentially making all states right to work states for government employees.
As the unions disintegrate, as the union bosses are forced to find honest jobs, I can’t help but wonder. If they had only not gotten so greedy. They put themselves out of business simply because they wanted too much wealth and power. In a while, they will have neither. The government unions were their last stronghold. Now it is gone. More than that, the Dems too will suffer. They will no longer receive the bribes from the union bosses and they will no longer be supported by dishonest men.
bfrhodes99 