Victory Through Intimidation Or The Demise Of The Union

What will it be, victory through intimidation, or the demise of the unions in America?

Unions in America have in the past made great strides in worker safety, fair pay, and job security.

The results however, have not always been beneficial to their members. The sign you see at the right is often times more right than wrong. Unions are like every organization that gets too big, and too powerful through membership and of course membership dues. Over time, unions fall into the greedy hands of their leaders. Soon the representation of the individual workers, becomes lost in the shuffle. Individual members lose their voices, not only with the companies they work for, but with the union hierarchy themselves. Suddenly the members are just part of the collective. Just as suddenly the individual member loses track of why they joined the union in the first place. That was to have a voice, a seat at the table. The union takes care of that now, and once again the member at the bottom of the totem pole is forced to go along with the collective. Once in a union, disagreement with the leaders is not an option, individual members are forced, either by intimidation or sanction to go along with the collective. This is not at all what people really want. This is not what America was built on, remember freedom of choice, the chance to make good through one's own efforts. The opportunity to succeed or fail, the pursuit of happiness. With union membership, none of these are possible.

I was employed with a small west coast commuter airline, it was non-union when I was hired, but shortly after, we did ratify a union contract. It was a good contract, my wages instantly increased by 50%. My uniforms were now being paid for at company expense, my health care insurance only required a small share of my paycheck. Our hours were adjusted, overtime increased to time and a half, many of the rules regarding pay, and pay scales, days off and of course vacation accrual and holidays were also negotiated into a nice neat little package. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? It sounded good to me too, and it was for awhile. Then, the union dues increased, and they increased almost every year whether or not new contract raises were negotiated. I moved to a right-to-work state, the small airline I worked for was purchased by a big international and domestic airline who, for the time being will remain nameless. Along with the new airline, there became the reality of the huge union. It was about this time that the downside of union membership, and working under a collective contract with a company came to light. When I worked for the smaller airline, we were like family, everyone worked together, union members and management were still friends, although the relationship became strained at times, especially when union and contract grievances were filed against management, who only a year prior could have been worked out, without threats or animosity. Cordial relationships between management and bargaining unit employees were falling by they wayside. You see unions do not want the individual to be friendly with the management. Any differences and or ideas had to go though channels now, first the shop steward, then the president of the local, and then if the local didn't find your idea or difference worthy of their attention, you were shut down and shut up faster than if you had approached the management on a one on one basis.

The bottom line here is this, unions were originally formed to represent the voice of the individual worker, but what happened was the union became the controller of the individual worker. Union's care about numbers of members, the more members, the more dues are paid. The more dues, the richer union executives become. Many union presidents and vice presidents have salaries well above that of the CEOs of companies that their membership is employed by. That's right, most union members have no idea what their mandatory membership dues are paying for, and who is getting filthy rich off the membership. Keeping the membership under contract, keeps the membership quiet, in essence, union membership is just another entitlement.

Anyone who has ever been a member of a union for any length of time knows that one of the biggest downsides of membership is that they protect the deadbeat employee working along side you, or at least sometimes working along side you. Most often union members who have learned how to work the system, won't be doing the same amount or quality of work you are, and yet they can not be fired, and they can not be reprimanded, the union protects them, as well as you. But, you don't need protection, you have an excellent work ethic, you work hard, you do quality work, and now you're picking up the slack for that deadbeat. I didn't like that scenario, most people wouldn't. Most people don't! I also found that the member who did the least and the poorest work was also the union bully, the intimidator, he had the loudest mouth in the shop. He was 100% pro union. He had to be, because if he had no union, no union contract, he would also have no job. That never sat well with me, and it actually never sat well with most hard working members. Did anyone say anything? NO. Union shops have a twisted form of social justice, they will intimidate their members with as much zeal, if not more than non-members. Good little union members, do not make waves.

In Wisconsin, I'm sure there are many teachers that know, perhaps deep in their hearts that many members they share protest signs with aren't worth their salt, but those good teachers won't speak up for fear of retribution from the teacher's union, they are forced to belong to. It's really kind of sad, how so many educated men and women can find themselves in the union trap. Thinking individuals, whose job it is to teach children about honesty, integrity, self worth and self esteem, are now following along like lost sheep, while their union leaders laugh all the way to the bank.

What ever happened to the stand-up, straight forward individual teacher in America? I'll tell you what happened, not unlike many professionals, they've been swallowed up by the unions that were formed to protect their individual free speech. It's time for teachers around the country to look deep inside themselves, find that individual that lies within, and take a stand for individuality instead of collectivism.

PRAY FOR THE PEOPLE OF JAPAN

PRAY FOR AMERICA

Sincerely,

"The Watchman"

NOT ONLY ARE AMERICANS EXPECTED TO TOLERATE TERRORIST BASE CAMPS IN THE U.S., BUT....

YouTube - How Are Your Tax Dollars Supporting Mosque Makeovers?

How many of you already know that the U.S. State Department, i.e., one Ms. Hillary "Rob'em" Clinton, under the direction of Barack Hussein Obama is spending three quarters of a billion dollars of your money to build and or refurbish mosques in the Middle-East and other Muslim countries? That's right folks, $770,000,000.00 million taxpayer bones.

I could have swore the left wing was big on their "separation of church and state thing." Perhaps this is the Progressive's way of letting the rest of us know that we're not the only ones who are aware that Islam is not a religion at all. In fact, Islam is a theocracy, a self-governing belief, complete with their own law (Sharia). According to Hillary Clinton, this is America's way of combating terrorism. Through some warped sense of logic, the understanding is to be: If Americans spend millions of taxpayer dollars building and refurbishing mosques around the globe, the Muslim community will gain respect for us. Make no mistake, Islam is gladly accepting the American moolah, (not to be confused with the Islamic Mullah). This misplaced generosity by our state department must have every Imam in the world laughing uncontrollably at America's stupidity and weakness. Because at the same time, as a nation we are on the verge of bankruptcy, thanks to the exorbitant spending by Barack and the beltway boys. Of course America's generosity to Islam comes only at the expense of our borrowing the money from China, or some other ruthless benefactor. My personal opinion is that Hillary Clinton, in her misguided wisdom actually thinks that Islamic terrorists can be bought off, instead of defeated. (Good luck with that strategy.) Meanwhile the president is continuing his endless embraces of Islam and Sharia, while at the same time insisting that he is a Christian. Let's get just one thing clarified, one can not be a Christian and embrace Islam or it's teachings there of! Just as one can not be Muslim and embrace Christianity. Islam, the Qu'ran and Mohammad are the total antitheses of Christianity. Therefore Islam in and of itself is in no way compatible with any other religion or form of government, especially the government of the United States of America. We, (America) are a constitutional Republic, of the people, by the people and for the people, (at least for the time being.) Again, America's way of governing is antithetical to that of Islam. It must be understood by all Americans that Islam's intention is NOT assimilation with the west, but DOMINATION of the west!!! Regardless of what president Obama says, Islam is NOT a religion of peace, the Imams and Muslims in America are NOT our friends. What they are, if in fact they are staunch followers of the Qu'ran and the teachings of Muhammad (the sole author of the Qu'ran), potential ticking terrorist time controlled explosive devices (bombs), who are anxiously awaiting the fatwa (order) to begin their jihad. By their own admission, if you can actually find a Muslim who will be honest with you, there are NO moderate Muslims. They are all in favor of Sharia Law, and none of them, and I mean none of them, can or ever will be loyal or obedient to the laws and rules set forth in the Constitution of the United States. It is written in their Qu'ran that followers of Islam must not submit to man made law.

Taking all that I have just written into consideration, how on earth can this country have 2 Muslim congressmen, one from Minnesota and one from Indiana? I know for a fact that Congressman Kieth Ellison from Minnesota didn't run for office using his Muslim name "Hakim Mohammad" and I have my doubts that the folks in Indiana were very familiar with Andre Carson's Muslim name "As-Salaam-Alaikum" either. The troubling thing, is which oath are these two Muslims going to be loyal to? Where exactly will their loyalties lie, with Allah, or with the Constitution of the United States of America? After all, according to the Qu'ran, they can only be obedient to Allah, as the Constitution is a man made law. They both are obviously deceiving either Allah or We The People?

Sincerely,

"The Watchman"