Full title: BREAKING: Bernie Sanders just introduced the Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act — a bill to guarantee at least two weeks of paid vacation to every full-time worker in America. Over 90 other members of Congress have already signed on to the legislation.
I don’t understand why the US hasn’t got powerful unions to defend workers rights. Don’t people organise themselves!?
There is a long and storied history behind this if you actually are interested in learning why
Someone earlier informed me about the Taft–Hartley Act, which i had no idea about.
Check out the film Matawan. Based on real events in West Virginia. And that was just one event, and I believe the beginning of years of bloody clashes.
There were essentially wars fought within this country between unions and union-busting agencies (often backed by the US government) like the Pinkertons and Baldwin Felts.
Check out The Battle of Blair Mountain, it’s wild stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
It’s a real shame to see what states like West Virginia have become. Their union forebearers would be rolling in their graves to see what they’ve become. It’s shameful.
More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_coal_wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_United_States
Believe it or not, we have people who hate unions. Unfortunately it’s not without reason. Some unions are compromised and favor the company theyre made to oppose. It’s so crooked.
We have people in unions who hate unions. Apparently the propaganda Kool aid is a great flavor
I am a person who dislikes unions. There was a time when they didn’t suck and actually did lots of good. But these days, they are just looking to justify the over inflated union dues. They protect many shit employees. encouraging incompetence and lazy individuals while driving the cost up and up and up. Over regulating saftey to the point of just fucking stupid. Was on a job site recently, the use of a ladder over 5ft is forbidden, and you will be written up. You must have a fucking man lift. $200 ladder vs. $15,000min piece of equipment to change lightbulbs… nice.
Had to load a large piece of used equipment I bought from a union weld fab shop. I was over size so the trucking had to leave around 13:00-14:00 to make it back to destination before sunset. I had to have a truck they were loading pull out and have my truck back in. Great. My truck is in the shop, I get the piece rigged up and ready needed 5-10 min, guy walks over to me starts to lift the piece up. Lunch bell goes, walks away, and piece dangling in the air. Can’t get him to finish loading because it’s lunch… for fucks sake. Because of the lunch delay, I have to pull my truck out because they need the bay to load and wait. My truck doesn’t get loaded until 16:00 and have to guess what, pay for another full day of trucking.
Cry about it
First off, the safety rules are because people die without them. They’re there for your protection. The price of them is your boss’ problem, not yours, stop worrying on his behalf, you aren’t getting paid to do his job.
Second: You need to be angry at the boss instead of the workers. Why do you think they go on break at the exact time? Because if they spend 10 minutes helping you, that’s 10 minutes they can’t eat their lunch, and if they postpone their break 10 minutes, they’ll be written up or fired for not working. The problem is their boss, you’re angry at the abused instead of the abuser.
A union employee fired? That would be amazing to see.
You’re working the wrong job then
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft–Hartley_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law
And of course businesses regularly lobbying against unions as well as any form of regulation they can along with media outlets controlled by the ultra wealthy serving as their propaganda outlets against unions, among other things.
Thank you for this reply, i had no idea.
Union busting and killing protestors and semding the pinkertons after them is a long held tradition in the US