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corysub -> RE: History of the Labor Movement in the U.S.A. (12/20/2008 8:30:14 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MzMia
quote:
ORIGINAL: thishereboi
That was a very interesting article. Thanks for sharing it. Thank the goddess we have labor laws now to prevent people from being used like that.
Many people are really clueless about the working conditions for "most" people prior to the labor movements and labor reform.
I wish a few of them, could spend a few hours back in those days, they would sing a different tune.
The "Triangle Fire" tragedy is a classic story that every generation learns and it was an important energizer to the formation of unions. The union that grew to represent those poor woman, the ILGWU, International Ladies Garment Workers Union, did a lot of good, as most unions do...but also a lot of nasty stuff. I had family members who belonged to that union and were taken advantage of by unscrupulus factory owners with the help of the "union representative". I remember so many times mom coming home and discussing how the "girls" would see their union rep go into a private meeting with the "boss" who and worked out the pay that would be received for each garment made. Every girl had their piece of work on the assembly line and got paid by the piece. How many times do I remember the sorrow in her voice as my mother would discuss the low piece work pay they would be forced to accept. In those days it was the poor Italian workers, than the poor blacks had their turn in the mills, and finally the spanish. Eventually, even cheaper labor was found in the south and New York lost the bulk of its garment industy.
The union saved no ones's job! Now, thanks to demcorat Bill Clinton's NAFTA, those jobs went first to Mexico, Latin America, and now China. So much for the democrat party and "job disintergration"...NOT creation for workers.
Now the unions are more or less totally in control of the democrat party labor agenda and will not just destroy an industry, but the economy. This naive, young "president elect" is going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on "green" industry instead of putting tax incentives into the hands of private, profit motiviated industry that would create REAL jobs, not government "make worki" projects that failed in the 1930's. Oh yes, and the worker that the democrat party supposedly cares sooooo much about is going to lose their right to a secret ballot to choose to have or not have a union shop. The worker is once again told to bend over and hold his ankles. Shame on these politicians..but more shame on the idiots that don't see the REAL reason why laws are enacted. The so called increase in the minimum wage did more to destroy job creation than Chinese job competition...forcing small businessmen to not hire or lay off young, entry level workers who don't support families but work in those hundreds of thousands of "first jobs" in local hospitality stores, from hamburgers to ice cream dipping.
Ask any small businesman you know just how negative the minimum wage escalation was in job losses....look up the statistics on just how difficult it was for teenagers to find jobs this past summer...and be prepared for an earful. Sure the economy was softening, but a forty percent increase in wages for unskilled, "first job"s, had a lot to do with it as well.
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