Just so you know we used to have a liberal version of Tea Partiers. They were called unions

[NNN0LHI]

Back when my union the UAW was a million and a half strong, politicians were too scared to be fucking with any unions. Someone fucked with any union members, and it didn't have to be our union either, we had the buses loaded up and on the road. We were some militant bastards too. Just the kind of people you would want on your side when the chips were down no matter what your liberal cause was.

Anyone else remember those days?

Don

[handmade34]

1. ok, I'm in... "Union Party"

[still_one]

2. Yeah I remember those days, and I remember when a lot of them voted for reagan to, and they are

still paying consequences for that one

[NNN0LHI]

10. Only union that I recall backing Reagan was PATCO, who ironically were fired by Reagan

Wonder what those goofs were thinking?

Don

[still_one]

11. My impression was a lot of tradition blue color support went to reagan, and I assumed a good percent

of that demographic was union.

I remember a reagan add, where a Union worker did a commercial for his election. I don't remember the Union he was with

In the next election, that same Union worker did a commercial for the Democrats, against reagan. I suspect he lost his job during reagan's first term

Either way, as of late, both parties have not been the greatest for labor, though the republicans are far worse, it would serve the Democrats well to rebuild that alliance

[BlueCaliDem]

3. Unions have diminished so alarmingly quick, much to the detriment of working Americans

and the simpletons who have zero clue they're catering to the corporations, cheer this on. I don't understand it.:shrug: How can anyone defend giant conglomerates against our unions? What's wrong with these people??

[lonestarnot]

4. Yes. I remember.

[Reader Rabbit]

5. Now Democrats are just as likely to screw unions as Republicans.

It's a sad, sad state of affairs.

[TBF]

6. I painted strike signs with my dad back in the 70's -

he always said that unions weren't perfect, but without them workers wouldn't have anything. We see now he was correct.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. No, trade unions are not, never were, and should not be much like the Tea Party.

The Tea party is an unfocused political movement - anyone can join, but only if they hold certain political views; electoral politics is its sole function and there are a whole range of unconnected policy positions it backs.

Trade Unions are alliances of people in a given job. To join a plumbers' union you have to be a plumber, but you can hold any political views you like. Involvement in electoral politics is very much a secondary function of unions (their primary function is to provide support for their members in terms of things like training, backing disputes with employers and the like), and their involvement in politics tends to be focussed on a fairly narrow range of issues with immediate relevancy to their remit.


A much better analogy would be with the postwar civil rights movement or the Cold War era peace movement.

[NNN0LHI]

8. Progressives fall too easily into thinking of unions as a "special interest"

http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/001150.shtml

September 05, 2003

Labor's Support for Civil Rights

Unions and Civil Rights: Progressives fall too easily into thinking of unions as a "special interest" while ignoring the core role unions have played in the whole range of progressive social activism and legislation passed this past century. Nowhere is this truer than in the area of civil rights, where unions were the indispensable actors in mobilizing the grassroots and political power to win most civil rights battles in state and national legislatures. As importantly, they were the vehicles for economically and socially empowering millions of black workers to be able to fight for their rights more broadly.

Yes, many union locals, especially in the building trades, were racist themselves in treatment of black members, but it's too easy to look at the partial failures of unions to live up to their ideals while ignoring the forest of civil rights leadership most unions and union leadership took. It is from the higher ideals unions publicly set for themselves that they failed, since throughout most of this period, they were far more integrated and more actively involved in fighting segregation than almost any major institution in society.

Funding the Movement: When in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. and the children of Birmingham put 2000 protesters in jail, it was the union movement leadership -- and not just the liberal wing but leaders like AFL-CIO President George Meany often seen as more conservative -- who paid the $160,000 to bail them out so they could march again.

Bayard Rustin, the chief hands-on organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, was on union payroll in New York and using a union office when he did his organizing for the March. Reverend King himself worked out of the national UAW headquarters himself during planning of the march. Sometimes forgotten in history is the July 1963 Detroit march for civil rights in July proceeding the national march, where 200,000 people marched down the streets of Detroit with UAW head Walter Reuther leading the march with Martin Luther King. In fact, the march's official name was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Unions like the United Auto Workers bussed in large numbers to the crowd that day.

Crucified on a Picket Line: Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in Memphis in 1968, yet many people forget why he was there-- to support a unionization drive of black Memphis garbage workers who were organizing under the auspices of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which had made the Memphis struggle a national cornerstone of their organizing efforts in southern cities.

[Overseas]

9. K&R ! //nt

[eleny]

12. This is a "V-8 moment" for me

You're exactly right. This hidden in plain sight fact needs to go viral. Maybe write to Rachel and Lawrence? Just a thought but if it's in your Subject header it could get their staff's attention.

With American jobs shipped overseas, the unions were bound to collapse. But our political union history is well worth pondering.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. I remember 1970 when our "no right to strike" union did anyway and Nixon brought in the troops.

The 1970 postal strike. Nixon brought in troops to sort and deliver the mail. Soon after that fiasco, the unions were officially recognized and being a postal worker became a good job to have rather than the low wage, part time, refuge of college students working their way through college working nights.

[rustydog]

14. Comparing TBagging idiots to union representation is a bit of a stretch

Unions had worker safety-and fair-pay concerns. tbaggers are anti-union because......They are too fucking stupid to see the benefit for workers and America through a strong union.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

15. K&R