I'm not disagreeing with you Bruce, the companies made the promises they aren't fulfilling. My beef is that the Union leadership KNEW it then and did nothing about it. They went back to the membership and said "Look at these great new things we've gotten for you", knowing damn good and well that they'd never get it.

I don't doubt that. That's what happens when the membership just go along and let the other guy get involved.

How about also taking your union money and giving it to political operatives who you don't support.

That's illegal. There are separate deductions you can make for political action, that's strictly voluntary and listed separately from dues.

I believe they do it anyway.

I'm sure you do, but if you have any proof, then go to the district attorney and file a complaint.

I was thinking more along these lines:
http://www.fraudfactor.com/ffunionfraudintro.html

If your swallowing that bullshit, you're not thinking.

Union bombing of non-union construction sites between 1907 and 1911? C'mon.
Union leaders endorsing, and calling for members to vote for, political candidates they feel will benefit the members the most? Well, duh.

Unions have done more for the working people, especially women and minorities, than all the labor laws put together, which would never exist without them.
They have allowed workers to move up to the middle class with the bosses, and curtailed abuse by the robber barons that regulated the workers lives on and off the job. Without, unions and the laws they got passed/enforced, everyone's job, if not life, would be like being in the military.

The benefits of the unions in this country are reaped by everyone even if they've never belonged to a union. Do you think the non-union employers would give you a 40 hr week, your wge scale, or any benefits, if they didn't have to compete with unionized employers for help?

let's get serious here, unions are groups of people, and have all the warts and failings that people do. But the bottom line is they do an order of magnitude more good than harm. :headshake

I get your point. It is the same thing I tell people about the military and people who serve.

Yes, being in the military would drive me full metal jacket, but I'm sure as hell glad, there are people who can adapt to it. We'd be in a world of hurt without them.

Nah, we could just reasonably discuss our differences anytime we have issues with someone. The military is just organized thuggery.:right:

WTF?

Depends on just how necessary you think a cross-border enforcement arm really is.

Libertarian though I am, I think an army is still a necessity, particularly as long as anyone else out there does too. It's analogous to a deer's antlers: they have an appreciable metabolic cost to the rest of the deer, but they are a protection to the integrity of the rest of the body. In this, an army's societal function is most like that of the police. Either sees use in restoring order, regardless of who or what might disturb it nor how much. Where an army differs from a police force is that it transfers destruction, from its home precincts to foreign areas. Police forces are not constituted to do that.

Joke guys. thus the :right: smilie. not much of a pacifist myself, if you've read any of my previous posts.

Sorry about that, should have know better [sarc]lookout[/asm].:blush: