Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for April 01, 2013

Good for you, Clark!

I’m another retired union man (IBEW Local 1245 — power plant operator for 30 years). Solidarity forever!

He’s going through labor.

ESC Local 20, 17 years.

The employer of tipped workers doesn’t need to pay a lot, they just provide the opportunity for workers to collect tips which is their primary income. If you think tipped workers are underpaid, than be a generous tipper (20% minimum).

Striking workers are called what? An oxymoron. Their replacements are called what? Workers.

ABVV (General Federation of Belgian Labour), 38 years.

Clark, luckylouie, & DaBoogadie – I Been Eatin’ Worms!(from the IBEW Little League teams, c. 40-some years ago!)

I was in AFT for 14 years. My parents were in NEA about 40 years each.

ah the joys of capitalism. i just don’t understand why serfs/workers/employees have any desire to better themselves/earn money. don’t they get it/ that management is out to make as much profit on them and they are replaceable, anytime any where.

that’s why we have immigrants! to never have to pay a living wage to Americans. those “illegals” are there to blackmail workers/show how worthless they really are.

such naivete, these Americans

Skanks— Justin Bieber and Paris Hilton are crossing the picket line!

@GuardSGT: probably just an accidental oversight, but you seem to have left the last two words off your slogan:

FOR LESS!

Isn’t a scab part of the healing process?

The fact is many American’s will not take a hard labor job at twice the minimum wage rate. Why should they when the socialist government will provide for all their needs and they don’t have to get out of bed.

When working for tips the folks earn ever penny. And it must pay well in certain restaurants. See Joe Bastianich Mario Batali’s restaurant group skimming a take from the tip jar.

I am a cook. I make more than minimum wage. I make more than any proposed minimum wage increase. Most servers and bartenders make much MUCH more than me. They don’t NEED a raise. They don’t need any scumbag union thugs to extort even more money from their employers.

I belong to the the Florida Retired Public Employee Council of AFSCME – American Federaton of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO. Down here in Florida, we were not overpaid – of the fifty states, we were next to last, at least in my department.

the Koch Bros via Rupert Murdoch have spread the lies about unions for years…………..and you know what happens when you repeat a lie enough

SEIU 23 years. Went right back to work. No union. Definitely see the difference,.

That’s one thing that always intrigues me to see – someone condemning another person or organization for not doing something the critic didn’t want done anyway.

I think we need more Union workers, so that there can be more retired Union workers, rather than non-union workers having to keep working long past retirement age.

I must be a real anomaly. I have never been in a union, and wish the h*ll I could be. Instead, I have already given up hope of ever seeing retirement, have no health care despite many health problems (that I just have to try and ignore) and just keep plodding along till the breathing stops.

It would be rather surprising if those who “hate/despise/degrade/insult unions” were current members of them…

I have been a member on and off, and think unions have done, and still do, a lot for their members, though more in preventing victimisation and ensuring good working conditions than pay. But they have also done a lot to hold up progress, particularly in the past. The first time I wrote for a magazine, I offered to send them a (5.25"…) floppy disc with the copy. Oh, no, they said, it has to be rekeyed by NATSOPA members (the then UK union for typesetters). Total waste of time.

It took, I really hate to say, Rupert Murdoch (spit) and a strike at The Times over here in the 80s to modernise the industry. And yes, “scab” labour to do it. There comes a point where a union is being so stupid that breaking a strike is the only sensible thing to do.

Right to Work – Freedom of Corporations to RAPE the workers, rob us all blind.

Union efforts provide better working conditions for all of us. Thing Unions fought for that we all enjoy – 40 hour work week, minimum wage, weekends, sick time, ending child labor, workplace safety, and 8 hour work days. Are you so eager to go back to 12 -16 hour days, 6 days a week for poverty wages, like my grandparents were forced to accept?

I understand Guard Sgt.. it harder to own something.. As the union belongs to the workers.

Than it is just walk through the door punch a clock and not worry about how much you are getting screwed. Isn’t that the America you want to live in…

I’ve only been a union member once, and it was a pretty lame shop, but overall, unions have ensured better wages and working conditions for ALL workers. Most employers don’t voluntarily give benefits, they give them to compete. The LA Times paid better than theLA Herald-Examiner so they could keep the unions out, so the unions indirectly benefitted those workers as well.

“Skanks” is also acceptable (in my best Alex Trebek voice)

Ironworkers local 790 still hanging and banging after 33 years.

“The workers are just pawns paying through the nose to make the dreams of others possible.”

Thanks for helping make our point, GS…and it’d be even worse…without the protection of the Unions !

People want to blame unions for the shape of American car companies and for Hostess’ demise. It goes a lot further than that. Management wanted their “share” and did things to hurt the company after they were retired. They also promised labor “pie in the sky” by offering pensions that they couldn’t pay for at the time.

We have to remember that “Management” has to get paid better and have better medical and pensions than the peons. It was an ever expanding spiral. What is sad is that in the greatest country in the world, the working class does not enjoy the same standard of living as many countries in the world.

No ones pay should have to depend on “tips”. The employer should pay a living wage. “Tips” are a gratuity/compliment for exceptional service, not pay. Substituting tips for pay is just miserliness on the part of the employer. Just another way to take advantage of the worker.

‘Raising the minimum wage will just put a lot of people out of work’.I’ve heard the rightwing make that same argument since the minimum wage was $1.25 an hour.

The President lied to us & failed to call an attack on our embassy a terrorist act! I’m talking about Reagan, of course.

“How many union workers have had a real vote to change or remove a union?”This is where it’s obvious that you live in a bubble. It’s actually pretty easy to vote out a union or switch union affiliation. Voting completely out is very rare,but switching is not unheard of. If employees feel like their union is not representing them, either union leadership gets voted out or a new union is selected.http://galloway.patch.com/articles/galloway-township-employees-vote-to-switch-unionshttp://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-union27-2009feb27,0,3173207.storyhttp://www.browndailyherald.com/2012/10/16/bds-employees-vote-to-switch-union-representation/

$1.75 million in bonuses to managers who killed the company, yet you blame the union. Maybe if management had taken buyout offers when the brands were still worth something, the employees wouldn’t have lost their jobs. But then the managers might have been out of jobs or never seen those bonuses.http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/30/business/la-fi-hostess-20121130

I was a proud member of the AFT for over ten years, and an officer to boot!

Unfortunately, the Republicans now make it take 60 votes to get anything to pass through the Senate.

Have YOU!

Hostess employess had given back wage increases and took a hike in the amount paid for insurance once already. Management got pay hikes to stay. Management came back and asked for more pay cuts and more for insurance premiums. And after going bankrupt, they got the judge to allow the company to raise tihe pay again for remaining management to keep them from jumping ship at the first offer that came along. That is how management was woitking at Hostess,

No one ever asked for work rule changes in the bakery. Teamsters were asked/told that their commissions on sales were being taken away along with any pay cuts.

OH and for what its worth. I was for over 29 years a proud unoin member, FOP working the mean streets of the city, that everyone thinks aren’t safe enough for money that everyone thinks is too much, watcfhingfriends die for you. Only to have my pension now the target of the very politicians and people I protected ever day.

My grandfather was butcher and in the meat cutter’s union.

They paid his health care, and when he retired, they not only paid his pension, they kept him covered medically. They made sure he knew about changes in health codes. When the store he was working for closed they found him jobs covering other stores when some one called in sick or needed to go on vaction, which was just as helpful for the grocery stores as him and his fellow union members!

Maybe, you should go on strike until they meet your demands.

Whether BD likes it or not, he has turned Walden back into a commune. He lets Zonker stay there, even though he doesn’t need a babysitter anymore. Ray is paying $1 a day in rent. BD is just a softie and a latent hippie.

Shame there are not many unions left anymore.

Why not? They have everything else!

My husband was never so grateful for anything in his life as he was the day he moved out of the union (IBEW) — buncha crooks.