I just read David May's piece (March 3)
opposing the unionizing of city workers. It is not surprising
that the president and CEO of the local Chamber of Commerce
opposes the unionizing of workers. Isn't the Chamber of Commerce
a union of business owners?
Lest we forget, the blood of men, women
and children was spilled during the early 20th century in order
to bring us the 40-hour work week, the weekend, overtime pay,
vacation time and health benefits; as well as unemployment
insurance and the end of child labor; all of which are now taken
for granted (and rapidly disappearing).
Remember the Ludlow Massacre in 1914 when the
Colorado National Guard attacked striking workers in Southern
Colorado with rifle and machine gun fire, which killed 22 of the
strikers; 12 of the casualties were children. The miners were
striking for better pay and better living conditions, which John
D. Rockefeller did not want to pay because it would cut into his
profit margin; or as May puts it, "costs are likely to go up."
The National Labor Relations Act was
passed by Congress in 1935. Section 7 says: Employees shall have
the right of self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor
organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives
of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities,
for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or
protection.
Business organizations, such as the Better
Business Bureau, have opposed the organization of the labor
force because collective bargaining magnifies the individual
voice of workers and makes them equal partners in the decision
making process rather than subjects to the often abusive will of
management.
In 1948, the U.S. Congress ratified the
United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which
makes it the law of the land.
Article 23, section 4. Everyone has the
right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his
interests.
The blood of union battles fertilized the
ground that was to produce the middle class phenomenon that
emerged after WWII and produced the most powerful industrial
society the world has ever known; but the elitists and the
oligarchs have resented having to share the wealth with the
riffraff common folk and have worked tirelessly to destroy the
unions and the civil rights that are a byproduct of collective
bargaining.
It is a testament to the power of
propaganda that the poor and the working class are often
convinced to vote against their own best interests. The Chambers
of Commerce of the world would be delighted to return to the
good old days of the Gilded Age of the Robber Barons where there
are rich and there are poor and only the enablers and the
merchants in between.
Government has been bought and paid for by
the concentrated wealth of the international corporations. City
government "re-brands" itself in a corporate image without
admitting that corporations are totalitarian hierarchical
structures diametrically opposed to democratic governance.
The union movement in Fort Collins is not
about money. It is about keeping what we have because it is
being eroded away through inflation and reduced benefits; it is
about having some participation in the decision making that has
direct effect upon the environment within which we spend half of
our waking life, the workplace.