I am from Canada. We have a history of Union organization here as well, and also like you in the US, a massive backlash against Unions that is happening at this time of economic strife. A few of the pictures in this diary are from theWinnipeg general strike of 1919. -pale
Do you hear the anti Union Rhetoric ramping up? When talking to people lately, I find the ignorance shines through. The anger toward those in the unions is palpable, anger that someone may be making a bit more, with benefits. Its all rather backwards.
In the US, when the automaker bailout was going on, the think tanks, Republicans, corporate hacks and a complicit lazy trad media were telling flat out bald faced lies, which were swallowed whole by an angry populace in economic pain. The $70 dollar an hour lie still gets me.
Instead of blaming the real culprits for declining wages and living standards; the Government deregulators the corporate union busters and think tanks who despite their "independent" labels are hard core neocons?
It became the Unions fault, all those high wages doncha' know. People with pensions for all their years of work and loyalty. Simply evil.
It Becomes clear that those who hate the unions; Big corporations and conservatives are working hard behind the scenes to destroy any inroads that unions made in the last century and to crush them for the future. These forces play the PR game, to pit those working in the private sector against those who belong to a Union. They feed on fear, bigotry and jealousy. From 1919, it's an old game....
The Tribune took pains to note that this latter woman "had a pronounced foreign accent." Where possible, the newspaper preferred to designate women involved in the riots as foreigners. The woman who set fire to the streetcar on Bloody Saturday "appeared to be a foreigner." The Tribune
added
Many women of this ilk refused to budge when the special constables were clearing the streets, until they were forcibly pushed down side streets. Profanity from these women were not unusual in these cases.
If true, these statements reveal the resentment that minority women felt toward a prejudiced majority. However, the Tribune was no doubt less interested in providing factual information than in denigrating immigrant women by naming them as pyromaniacs and users of profane language, and by implying that it was they, not "white" women, who caused trouble during riots.
1919 Winnipeg General Strike.
It also becomes clear that many who do not understand that they have so much more to lose without unions. There are many who simply do not get that they owe any job security, benefits and labour standards they may still enjoy to those that they say they so despise.
They also do not understand that the reason the economic ground is eroding beneath them at the moment can also be attributed partly to the destruction of collective bargaining in the last 20 years.
1919 Winnipeg General strike
It is harder to find a full time job now, they keep the hours just below that level. It is hard to find a job that offers actual benefits nowadays even if it is full time. We see Provincial governments like in BC tearing up contracts that were bargained in good faith, simply because they think they can.
Companies like Walmart spend millions of dollars to keep unions out. Profit over people. Always.
This week at A Creative Revolution we will be exploring the history of the Union movements in North America. A long overdue history lesson it seems.
We know that many died for us in wars overseas, so that we should have freedoms.
But other people also gave their lives, or risked them so that we could have safe workplaces with decent wages, so that child labour became a thing of the past, so that we have rights that so far they haven't managed to take away. The 8 hour day has not been around all that long.
Why are some so eager to Crush one of the only things standing between them, and a return to serfdom?
First up in our series: We have found you wanting. The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire.