SAINT_MICHAEL

I understand that the history of America shows that organized labor had its purpose and place. But as response to a seemingly common idea running through this thread, I say it is a mistake to relate modern day unions exclusively with hard, blue collar workers and vice versa. It’s the ethic of the person that makes a hard worker, not a union. I've got family and friends in both teacher and refinery worker positions (both heavily unionized) and to say that union workers are synonymous with hard workers is a crock. In fact, the opposite is often true because non-union contract workers are frequently self employed and more motivated because they don't have the safety net of a high profile, politically motivated, due funded, lawyer advised and represented union to fall back on.

I know for a fact that unions dissuade teachers in at least one local district here in the bay area from having extra open office hours before or after school or from spending weekend unpaid time on their own with students. Their union has specifically told them that those hours are not in their contract to provide and therefore not sanctioned by the union and should not be participated in. So, this blue collar, hard working teacher union basically tried to deny a teacher a weekend field trip to a local museum with her class even though it was on her time and dime.

I've been paid for many labor jobs and sweated through many 12-hour workdays to pay my way through college without joining a union. So don't act like the workingman claim is strictly for pro union members. I worked hard to get money for college, worked hard to get my degree in college, and I’ve worked hard once I got out of college to make a career. To me, the idea that a group of people can have a monopoly on a work skill and demand that anyone who is employed in that skill pay them money so that they can represent them is extortion and as Un American as denying someone freedom of speech or religion. Didn’t the Corleone family kinda get started out like that?