November 14, 2008
Labor & Civil Rights Working Group Mixer
Politics of Labor in post-election America
The Triangle Labor and Civil Rights Working Group (LCRWG) is pleased to announce our next meeting on “The Politics of Labor” on Wednesday, November 19 at 6:30 pm at the NC State AFL-CIO, 1408 Hillsborough St, Raleigh, NC.
Please join us for an engaging discussion with the following speakers over drinks and light fare:
MaryBe McMillan, Secretary-Treasurer, NC State AFL-CIO, will speak on labor’s role in the election of Barack Obama and the Democratic sweep in North Carolina and across the nation. McMillan will also address the Employee Free Choice Act, a path-blazing bill restoring workers’ right to form unions free from employer threats and intimidation, which is labor’s top priority for Obama and the new Congress.
David Zonderman, Associate Professor of History, North Carolina State University, will speak on the history and present status of public sector unions in North Carolina, including the Hear Our Public Employee (HOPE) Coalition and its ongoing efforts to legalize collective bargaining for state, county, school, and municipal workers.
If you plan to attend, please RSVP to Orion Teal: orion.teal@duke.edu
About the working group
The LCRWG seeks to foster greater dialogue between activists and scholars on issues related to civil rights and labor in the Triangle and beyond. Past events have included film screenings, discussions of pre-circulated papers, multimedia presentations, and performances on topics as diverse as prison labor in North Carolina, the legacy of school desegregation, environmental racism, and labor organizing.
Our third year is off to a great start, and Spring 2009 promises to be equally engaging, informative, and fun, so please save the following dates:
- January 28, 2009 at 6:00 pm
School Desegregation / Neighborhood Development with performance by Hidden Voices
Love House, UNC Chapel Hill (map it) - February 25, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Urban Planning and Development in the Triangle
Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University (map it) - March 25, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Latino/Immigrant Labor
Love House, UNC Chapel Hill (map it) - April 22, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Film Screening and Discussion
Love House, UNC Chapel Hill (map it)
Send an email to lcrwg@duke.edu for more information about the Triangle LCRWG.
At a time of such economic stress, there needs to be a close working relation between front line workers and managment. Unions are known to do just the opposite, creating friction and unrealistic expectations that drive jobs away, thus hurting everyone involoved. If anything, this meeting should discuss why Unions are killing United States Manufacturing. The Unions have already distroyed the US Steel Industry, almost distroyed the Auto Industry and we do not need them destroying what manufacturing is left in North Carolina.
Unions are not a third party that steps in between workers and management – unions are the workers. The key difference for employer-employee relations is that with a union, workers are covered by a contract.
Employers routinely enter into all sorts of contracts – contracts with suppliers, customers, distributors – even their own executives. Entering into contracts is par for the course in business. Why should it be any different for employees?
With or without a union contract, workers don’t decide what products to make or how to market them. That’s management’s responsibility.
In the American auto industry, workers were told to build gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs even as market demand shifted toward more fuel efficient vehicles. When gas prices soared and the economy tanked, sales dropped accordingly. How is that the workers’ fault?
When steel and textile companies closed their plants in the United States because bad trade agreements made it more profitable to move manufacturing overseas where people can be forced to work for pennies a day with little or no labor, health & safety, or environmental regulation, how is that the workers’ fault?
If you’re looking to place blame for the decline of manufacturing jobs in our country, look instead to the failures of management and policymakers rather than unions.
Unions may have served a purpose at one point in time and with certain companies. However, if you have a strong company that values every team member and the management is willing to take cuts first, in the hard times, unions are Not necessary. I have worked with unions and will not do it again!
In many cases, the unions are a third party that come in, collect dues, set up their own unproductive management (I’ve never seen a Union Officer do anything that helped the company) that has very little understanding of the entire business and end up driving the company that supplies a good living wage out of business. Your example of the SUV’s is a poor example, when you really dig into it, because the Big Three were doing their best to cover all of the legacy cost that had been created through poor negotiations with the unions. So in this case, you are correct, it was poor management that should have never given so much to the unions.
While I am no where the top of the food chain, I do know that if my company does not make money, it will eventually go out of business and then I lose my job! When I hear unions arguing that people need pay raises, because Corporations are making money, I think that all the Unions are doing is villainizing a Good Thing and the American Way. Both things that will ensure a strong future and steady job for me and others in my community. Profits are necessary for investors and to carry us through the down swings in the market.
If you think that the company that you work for is not paying you fairly, remember this is America and you are Free to change jobs any time that you like.
No contract is necessary for my labor and a contract that sinks my company sinks me!
I am sorry the writer (Terry)has such a negative opinion of unions. I think one misconception is his thinking on contracts. All a contract is, is the promises management makes “in writing” a man or company that is not willing to sign their name to a promise is suspect at the lease. Union are just as Jeremy says, no third party, but workers negotiating collectively. Just look around you, your church is a union collectively advancing their agendas. The company Terry thinks is being driven out of the county by unions are unions themselves. They are members of the Chamber of Commerce. That’s nothing less than a union of businesses banning together for the advancement of business and the suppression of your right to organize. This great country we live in is the greatest union of all. The UNITED States of America. Pay attention to the first name, United, that’s a union.
Again, unions are simply you and your co-workers bargaining with your employer collectively. Your contract is simply your word and the word of your employer in writing. I work at a paper mill were there are union workers and contractors on site. The contractors work at the will of his employer and is many times discharged for reasons that would not be a firing offense at a union job. Their pay is less and vacation, sick leave and many of the benefits of a contract are missing for them.
This could go on and on but I think I made my point. Look around and THINK
Leonard