Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Over at Madame Hoyt's place, from William Lehman, first on unions:

My dad was a teamster during the great Teamster strike of the early 70s. His team got along great with management, where happy with their pay and working conditions, and didn’t want to strike. But some big guys came down from Detroit in a couple Caddies, looked around and said “Dwayne, The union is all going on strike, youse gotta go on strike too.”

“But we don’t have anything we want to strike FOR.”

“Do it for youse families.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“How would youse feed your families if this place was to burn to the ground? If you was to be kicked out of da union, and your little boy was to get hurt bad, how would you pay medical expenses? Oh and youse guys gotta actually walk the picket line or youse don’t get your strike pay”

Then the goons in the caddies drove back to Detroit, and dad and the rest walked the picket lines. People who wildcatted that strike where hurt or killed… I remember one guy was hauling dynamite for the coal mines in KY. The sniper that shot his truck hit the load… It cratered the road.

Dad died in harness about 20 years ago. Mom got the princely sum of 28 bucks a month as survivor benefits until she remarried. Tell me why I should support the union?

And to the frothing "We want a revolution!" leftists:
Finally, I’m viewed by those aforementioned liberals as a rabid frothing at the mouth conservative. Well, I’m starting to feel like Marten L. King jr. on that. Because I hate to break it to the folks from both coasts, and the really big cities in between, (Denver, Austin, I’m looking at you here) but you folks really want to talk to me, because you DON’T want to talk to Malcom X.
I've met some Malcolm X types, and he's right: they really DON'T want to have to deal with them.

5 comments:

Dan said...

The only people who benefit from unions are the people who run the unions.....

Old 1811 said...

At one time, unions actually helped the workers. Both my parents belonged to unions at one time. But like almost everything else, it turned into a racket.
And I remember the incident with the dynamite truck.

Old 1811 said...

And, for those of us who don't know, you might want to either identify "Madame Hoyt's Place" or provide a link.

Jesse in DC said...

I have never seen any reference to the dynamite truck before. I saw the photo of the crater in the local newspaper. At the time of publishing it, they did not know (or admit maybe) what had happened. So, a near life long mystery solved. Thanks.

Phssthpok said...

See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L69YcXsdEg

*Milton Friedman; Who Protects the Worker?

Long but worth the time...