union

Organizational Endorsements
SEIU
There was talk that Clinton and Obama had dealt a huge blow to Edwards by blocking the will of the workers. John Edwards received ~55% of the votes in the SEIU strawpoll that is supposed to decide who SEIU endorses. However, the two largest locals are Illinois and New York, and they played politics to block the endorsement. The result? It appears to be a bunch of pissed-off locals who are making their own feelings known. The latest in Massachusetts.

California (656,000 members)
Washington State(103,000)
Massachusetts (90,000 members)
Michigan (70,000 members)
Oregon (46,000 members)
Minnesota (28,000 members)
Ohio (22,000 members)
West Virginia (4,000 members)
Iowa (2000 members)

In March of 2006, Continental Tire of North America carried through its plans to slash its payments for health care benefits for its retirees. For months, the company had been threatening to impose a $3,000 cap on payments for retiree health care. With the annual cost of family health care coverage costing retirees as much as $15,000, the implementation of this cap could be financially devastating.

Dear Triangle-area Supporters,

On Monday, April 16th at 7PM, former Smithfield worker Lorena Ramos will join a worker from a Tyson poultry plant and a farmworker to describe the unjust, dangerous and sometimes unlawful practices of Wal-Mart's food suppliers. This free, public event is part the the Wal-Mart Food and Agricultural Worker Tour. Don't miss your chance to hear stories behind Wal-Mart's everyday low prices! Sponsored by Duke Students Against Sweatshops and the Duke Muslim Student Association, this event will take place at 7PM in Old Chemistry Building, Room 116 (West Campus) on Monday, April 16. Here's a link to a campus map with the Old Chemistry Building highlighted: http://map.duke.edu/?bidw06

This started out as a comment over at this John Edwards diary, in response to this comment by SPLib.

Edwards: "...ban the hiring of permanent replacement workers."

So, workers should have all the freedom to come and go as they please, but a business cannot choose who to hire and how long they work for them?

If you want to strike, you take the risk of being replaced.

Sure, most people think they are irreplacable at their jobs, but what if everyone KNEW they couldn't be replaced? That sure is a non-motivator for excellence and productivity. Sounds like France.

To understand my comment below, I think you really have to understand my history with unions. I was raised in a coal mining county, everyone mined coal and the sound of Triaxles slowing down with their Jake Break was a constant backdrop to my life, as they flew down our mainstreet about every 10 minutes all day and all night long. The boom was great, the pay was great, everyone had a new car and went on vacations and painted their houses, pools were built, cookouts were common, all the kids had new cleats and baseball gloves each summer. Then, Reagan was elected. Steel moved overseas and with it the need for coal. Soon, even the power plants stopped asking for coal, because they found it cheaper to buy it from China. But, a few die-hard coal companies still existed, and even one or two still exist today as a shadow of their former selves. A company that remained was the one my dad worked for, and one day the Unions came to town. They wanted the workers to hold a vote on whether to allow a union rep on the premises to talk with the workers. The owner called my Dad in, who had worked his way up from a bulldozer operator to be a higher-level foreman. He told him, "Bill, if they vote yes, I'm shuttin' her down. I've got my money, I've got money put away for the kids, and right now we're just breaking even. I can't afford a union."