Labor Day

We celebrate working people today. People from all walks of life who toil doing everything that keeps this nation running. From manufacturing to store clerks, teachers, government and health care workers on, we salute you for standing up for your rights.

Only 9% of the country's work force is unionized. That has been a precipitous decline and it's having a profound effect on the workforce. Wages and benefits are suffering and workers are being abused and injured. Enforcement of labor law is about the same priority as the environment: the bottom of the barrel.

If you read the guest column published here the other day you read a horror story about a manufacturing plant upstate. It should be a wake up call for workers, unions, Party leaders and elected officials.

I don't think we can point the finger of blame for the decline of unions solely at Congress and this Administration. It's been going on too long for that. It's been a steady decline over the past few decades. The rules favoring companies definitely has had an impact. Some unions, though, have been their own worst enemies. The old bullying and intimidation tactics aren't effective with young workers. People refuse to be treated that way and those old methods have turned a lot of people against unions and against their own self interests. Unions haven't been good at adapting with changing times. Too many are still mired in 1960's mindsets. Politics has also changed with the internet and these unions have been very slow to take advantage of these new resources.

Locally the unions took over our County Committee last February. They stacked the meetings and elected one of their own. Then they abandoned the responsibilities that came with that obligation. They haven't come through helping do the day to day running of offices, events and campaigns. Heck, these folks haven't even figured out how to do email. I haven't received a single email from the County Committee since they took over. None of the people who traditionally volunteered are willing to help since the unions took over then abandoned their role.

If you insist on taking control then you've also assumed the obligation of doing everything guys. It shows a massive lack of responsibility. Let me give a good example. Today is Labor Day and every year Reading has a big parade. All the unions turn out and the Party has a big truck for the committee people and candidates to ride in. These morons couldn't even send an email out notifiying everyone when and where to meet for the parade. It's their Party now and their day and they can't communicate the most basic, essential information to anyone.

They have an email address but are clueless about how to utilize it. They couldn't produce any union people to help with any of the summer's fairs. One local union official approached me at a recent event and started vociferously complaining about the state of the county committee. I was stunned because it was the unions who took it over. He said they were going to start witholding money and support.

If these signs are indicative of what the unions have been doing it's no wonder the state of things for working people is so bad. Unions are critically important. They're an essential check on corporate abuse and misdeeds. We cannot progress without the unions. I hope they get with it and begin using the internet better to get their message out and organize better. It's an unbelievable tool for reaching people. It's amazing how easy it is to organize people through the internet. Let's hope the unions wake up before it's too late.