Union Clout

[Arc Blast]

jim bunting means nothing to me. never heard of him.

[tolex42]

jim bunting means nothing to me. never heard of him.

He's all over the news today. He is the Republican Senator from Kentucky blocking Unemplyment Comp. for laid off workers. Typical Repiblican, screw the working people.

[Arc Blast]

ok thats crap, im sure all republicans don't feel that way. Here the thing Im union, i beleive i good pay and workers rights. But I vote republican each and every time cause I love guns and hunting and riding motorcycles on public land. My point is unless I have some good facts on what the republican party does as a whole to hurt unions ill never vote blue.

[wtdoor67]

Jim Bunning Foundation
On December 18, 2008, the Lexington Herald Leader reported that Sen. Bunning's non-profit foundation, the Jim Bunning Foundation, has given less than 25 percent of its proceeds to charity. The charity has taken in $504,000 since 1996, according to Senate and tax records; during that period, Senator Bunning was paid $180,000 in salary by the foundation while working a reported one hour per week. Bunning Foundation board members include his wife Mary, and Cincinnati tire dealer Bob Sumerel. In 2008, records indicate that Bunning attended 10 baseball shows around the country and signed autographs, generating $61,631 in income for the charity.[38] "The whole thing is very troubling," said Melanie Slone, Executive Director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.


He's a real peach. Google him. He's checking out after this term, reportedly. He and fellow Kentucky Sen. Mcconnell are supposedly bitter enemies. He's never done a damn thing. Usually interested in anything that effects baseball. Very important you know.

[wudwoker51]

Democrats listen to labor leaders and organizations, and generally support it's vision. The Republican party is backed by business and corporations and consistently vote against our agenda. Just look at an old GOP slogan "Free Labor, Free Land, Free Men." Pretty much says it, don't it? I know that business has influence in the Democratic party and there is debate. The influence on the Republican's is all from one side-corporations/business. The most anti-union President's in our nations history have all been Republicans, I could go on and on. Bunning was rejected by the party and is on his way out (the asshole will probably go to work for MLB) Under FUNDING TWO WARS (that have cost 1 trillion) sure as hell didn't bother him. Typical REPUBLICAN'T Puke. Arc Blast (now thats a good name for an apprentice just don't make a habit of it) you fell for their BS, but don't feel bad you hard hardly alone. Personally I've never voted for a Republican. As a working man why would you want to?

[electriklady]

ok thats crap, im sure all republicans don't feel that way. Here the thing Im union, i beleive i good pay and workers rights. But I vote republican each and every time cause I love guns and hunting and riding motorcycles on public land. My point is unless I have some good facts on what the republican party does as a whole to hurt unions ill never vote blue.

Arc, Here is some interesting history...Republicans are notoriously pro big business, so how could they care about the people Big business is trying to take more and more away from everyday? We dont line their pockets, and $$$$$$ and power is their bottom line, not that there is much difference between any politicians anymore. It's a me me me thing.

Labor - And A Whole Lot More
Ronald Reagan's War on Labor





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Amidst the continued outpouring of praise for Ronald Reagan, let's not forget that he was one of the most anti-labor presidents in U.S. history, a role model for the virulently anti-labor George W. Bush.

Republican presidents never have had much regard for unions, which almost invariably have opposed their election. But until Reagan, no GOP president had dared to challenge labor's firm legal standing, gained through Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the mid-1930s.

Reagan's Republican predecessors treated union leaders much as they treated Democratic members of Congress -- as people to be fought with at times, but also as people to be bargained with at other times. But Reagan engaged in precious little bargaining. He waged almost continuous war against organized labor.

He had little apparent reason to fear labor politically, with opinion polls at the time showing that unions were opposed by nearly half of all Americans and that nearly half of those who belonged to the unions had voted for him in 1980 and again in 1984.

Reagan,in any case, was a true ideologue of the anti-labor political right. Yes, he had been president of the Screen Actors Guild, but he was notoriously pro-management, leading the way to a strike-ending agreement in 1959 that greatly weakened the union and finally resigning under membership pressure before his term ended.

Reagan's war on labor began in the summer of 1981, when he fired 13,000 striking air traffic controllers and destroyed their union. As Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson noted, that was "an unambiguous signal that employers need feel little or no obligation to their workers, and employers got that message loud and clear -- illegally firing workers who sought to unionize, replacing permanent employees who could collect benefits with temps who could not, shipping factories and jobs abroad."

Reagan gave dedicated union foes direct control of the federal agencies that were designed originally to protect and further the rights and interests of workers and their unions.

Most important was Reagan's appointment of three management representatives to the five-member National Labor Relations Board which oversees union representation elections and labor-management bargaining, They included NLRB Chairman Donald Dotson, who believed that "unionized labor relations have been the major contributors to the decline and failure of once-healthy industries" and have caused "destruction of individual freedom."

Under Dotson, a House subcommittee found,the board abandoned its legal obligation to promote collective bargaining, in what amounted to "a betrayal of American workers."

The NLRB settled only about half as many complaints of employers' illegal actions as had the board during the previous administration of Democrat Jimmy Carter, and those that were settled upheld employers in three-fourths of the cases. Even under Republican Richard Nixon, employers won only about one-third of the time.

Most of the complaints were against employers who responded to organizing drives by illegally firing union supporters. The employers were well aware that under Reagan the NLRB was taking an average of three years to rule on complaints, and that in any case it generally did no more than order the discharged unionists reinstated with back pay. That's much cheaper than operating under a union contract.

The board stalled as long before acting on petitions from workers seeking union representation elections and stalled for another year or two after such votes before certifying winning unions as the workers' bargaining agents. Under Reagan, too, employers were allowed to permanently replace workers who dared exercise their legal right to strike.

Reagan's Labor Department was as one-sided as the NLRB. It became an anti-labor department, virtually ignoring, for instance, the union-busting consultants who were hired by many employers to fend off unionization. Very few consultants and very few of those who hired them were asked for the financial disclosure statements the law demands. Yet all unions were required to file the statements that the law required of them (and that could be used to advantage by their opponents). And though the department cut its overall budget by more than 10 percent, it increased the budget for such union-busting activities by almost 40 percent.

Union-busting was only one aspect of Reagan's anti-labor policy. He attempted to lower the minimum wage for younger workers, ease the child labor and anti-sweatshop laws, tax fringe benefits, and cut back job training programs for the unemployed. He tried to replace thousands of federal employees with temporary workers who would not have civil service or union protections.

The Reagan administration all but dismantled programs that required affirmative action and other steps against discrimination by federal contractors, and seriously undermined worker safety. It closed one-third of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's field offices, trimmed its staff by more than one-fourth and decreased the number of penalties assessed against employers by almost three-fourths.

Rather than enforce the law, the administration sought "voluntary compliance" from employers on safety matters - and generally didn't get or expect it. The administration had so tilted the job safety laws in favor of employers that union safety experts found them virtually useless.

The same could have been said of all other labor laws in the Reagan era. A statement issued at the time by the presidents of several major unions concluded it would have been more advantageous for those who worked for a living to ignore the laws and return "to the law of the jungle" that prevailed a half-century before.

Their suggestion came a little late. Ronald Reagan had already plunged labor-management relations deep into the jungle.

Copyright © Dick Meister

[Pootnaigle]

Neither should we forget how regan imposed limits on wages increases for all labor,Union or not........ Umm he didnt impose those same restrictions to corporate profits.
Naturally Republicans will publicy support guns,Motorcycles,use of public lands etc..,If they didnt people like you would vote Democratic and then where would they be? Trust us young fellow your future as well as that of your childrens hangs in the balance. Republicans are directly responsible for The corporate monster that sends jobs overseas to save a dime, Reward their Ceos with bonuses for losing money,Screws employees at every turn to cut costs.
Wanna see just how out of control they are?? Just look at the hardest most stressful job in the world........ Yep President of the United States.... pays 400k a year while Corporate heads for the most basic simple corporations make 20 times that every year.( and may give themselves a bonus) Be assured they show their appreciation when its time to fund political campaigns because they know Republicans will allow em to keep doin it.

[MI-Lineman]

Ya know, it's actually funny to listen to you Union people....All 7% of ya in the American workforce, bitch about how "unfair" life is to ya, and Of COURSE...the "workin man" in general.

There's a shitload of Americans, in our trade, in Utilities, Munis, Co-Ops, that are just happier than pigs in shit with "their Lot in life". Not to even mention all the other trades in america,.... without bein union.

Ya know, I've never really understood the "union mentality", till this mf'er became president. Ya'll both got the same direction. Only thing is....he's LIED to You guys Too!!

But...He sure has "woke up" America.
Come NOVEMBER......

Life hasn't been unfair to me? It's just happened! BUT I'M NOT GONNA LET THE CROOKED ASS CEOS OF THE WORLD RUN DOWN MINE OR EVEN OTHERS INCLUDIN NON-UNIONS TO MAKE THEIRS BETTER! Forgot why this country was founded Swampy?

You know "It's actually funny" also to read sh!t from conservative UNION lineman who never seem to b!tch about the good wages, benefits, etc. that the republican pukes they support ARE TRYIN TO TAKE AWAY??

YOU'RE THE ONE "WHO JUST DOESN'T GET IT"!! We want ALL LABOR (Union or not!) to get their chance at the "American Dream" for all the hard work they put into their lives!!

[cantwait]

Funny how us 7% set the wage and benefit scale for the working people of America and a low life piece of shit RAT like swamp who's done nothing but tit suck off our work and ball suck the bosses talk down to us. F U swamp

[MI-Lineman]

Funny how us 7% set the wage and benefit scale for the working people of America and a low life piece of shit RAT like swamp who's done nothing but tit suck off our work and ball suck the bosses talk down to us. F U swamp

WOW!!! Ya gotta point!