To be a labor organizer under the ‘slave labor act’ otherwise known as the Taft-Hartley Act of 1946, the ideal organizer should have the essential talents of a variety of occupational specialties.
He or she should be part missionary, part salesperson, part politician, part counselor, part teacher, part psychologist while also being connected and be part lawyer. This is what is needed to be done. United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes ruled on the National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp 301. In his ruling, he said, “Long ago we stated the reason for labor organizations. We said that they were organized out of the necessities of the situation that a single employee was helpless in dealing with an employer that he or she was dependent ordinarily on his or hers daily wage for the maintenance of themselves and their family; that if the employer refused to pay him the wages that he thought fair, he was nevertheless unable to leave the employer and resist arbitrary and unfair treatment, that union was essential to give laborers the opportunity to deal on equality with their employer.”
All union members needs to learn labor law and all members should be on-the-job organizers when working along side of nonunion trades people, like electricians, plumbers, sheetmetal, drywall and so on. Talk to the nonunion workers about what unions are all about. Then give your nonunion co-workers contacts to the union electricians, plumbers organizers and so on.
Then maybe those union people will do the same when they are working along side nonunion sheetmetal or plumber workers. You can even stick up conversations with people when standing in line at a store. If they give you the standard, ‘I’m not going union,’ then ask them why they don’t want the protection and security unions offer employees.
If these ‘innocent’ conversations were held, the trade unions could put hundreds of organizers in the work place at very little costs, and even find people who are good organizers. This is another way to keep union membership up, save our pensions and get more union work with project labor agreements.
The trade workers need to sit down and plan this out with training our apprentices and journeymen.
The Right is actively and continuing to take these rights away, and with an unbalanced ideologue Supreme Court making finals decision against the rights of citizens in favor of corporations, union organizers need to fight the hell to keep what we have.
Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
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