Or, display giant inflatable rats to pester businesses. Whatever.
Federal regulators say union activists have the legal right to display giant inflatable rats outside companies during labor disputes.
The National Labor Relations Board says putting up a 16-foot-tall rat balloon is allowed even if the business is not directly involved in the conflict between the union and another employer.
Wait doggone minute. You mean the National Labor Relations Board, a board that includes the recess appointed union lawyer Craig Becker and is currently waging an unprecedented attack on Boeing, agrees with the unions? I’m shocked.
Unaddressed is the way the unions actually use their giant rats (the inflatable ones, not the union bosses): As big giant lies.
Eventually, if the public sees enough of these giant, inflatable rats, the public will mentally associate said rats with the unions that use them. Which is fine, actually.
Y’all need to look up the definition of “masquerade”
Or you might want to read the first line of this story.
Or, rats have no reason to masquerade as rats….
You might also find it amusing that “Scabby the Rat” (which is the official name for the inflatable rodents) is manufactured by a non-union company.
Bryan__ “Masquerade” means to dress up as something you are not. Therefore “masquerade” is not an appropriate usage in this case.
Try thinking it thru before you get snippy.
It seems to me that giant inflatable rats can be, well, deflated by what your community activist types would call “direct action.”
Just sayin’.
My thoughts exactly! A well-placed BB should do it.
I wonder if the businesses can retaliate by placing a giant, inflatable turd outside the local union HQ?
The National Labor Relations Board needs to be one of the 1st government agencies to be downsized to ZERO employees.
“even if the business is not directly involved in the conflict between the union and another employer.”
….So much for the NLRB’s adherence to Taft-Hartley
The ‘local’ jurisdiction should deem them as parading on the streets conflicting with traffic on the streets or sidewalks and….charge them $2,500 each for one hour of parading rights….in good ole union fashion!
I’m surprised you have a problem with unions. Your “arbitration panel” for healthcare cost reduction is either a massive top-down government invasion of medicine, a mandatory union every healthcare consumer must join and abide by.
Or it’s nothing at all but bloviating hot air.
Your family needs to get you on some serious psychotic medications…or secure you from any social encounter.
Yeah, Bryan Preston, go be an utter dickwad and slam organized labor, which fought for labor rights. Oh wait, the people who write for Pajamas Media don’t give a damn about labor rights.
“labor rights” my fanny. You mean the “right” to an honest two day’s pay for an honest(?) half-day’s work. Unions represent “labor rights” about like the Mafia represents “Italian rights.”
Your beloved unions are nothing but extortion rackets.
Stephen…. You need to do some serious historical study of the communist labor party, the socialist progressives, early protectionist mafia’s, later organized crime mob families and the labor unions as we know them today in America. Let me leave you with a couple of questions to entertain. Why do the labor unions belong (principle members) to all the mainstream socialist parties in America and several european socialist parties? Why have the labor unions hierarchy historically and in the present, endorsed the fundamental principles of Marxism espoused in all the socialist and progressive parties platforms?
Rather un-american if you ask me and millions of traditional american’s!
Why do the labor unions belong (principle members) to all the mainstream socialist parties in America and several european socialist parties?
I can think of exceptions like Samuel Gompers, one of the early “business unionists” who stuck to mainstream “bread and butter” issues such as wages and hours. If anything, Gompers was *at least* committed to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, a rather conservative slogan (by left standards in the 1900s and left standards now) which Karl Marx and the Industrial Workers of the World was critical of, preferring instead the “abolition of the wages system.” Of course, Gompers was also a racist and a nativist, which makes his commitment to a fair day’s pay for a fair’s day work rather dubious. Again, by left standards.
And I’ve yet to see Teamster leaders like Sandy Pope and Jimmy Hoffa accept political support from any one of the Leninist outfits that I can think of, whether it’s the International Socialist Organization, the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Spartacist League, the Communist Party USA, et cetera.
And before you rail about the Teamsters having a history with the mob (which I grant you, is true), let me just point out that people *on the left* in the International Socialist tendency (which broke off into various Trotskyist groups including the aforementioned ISO, the League for the Revolutionary Party, the Revolutionary Socialist League, and Solidarity) and the Teamsters Democratic Union did their best to make the Teamsters mob-free and committed to workers’ rights and workers’ democracy.
Why have the labor unions hierarchy historically and in the present, endorsed the fundamental principles of Marxism espoused in all the socialist and progressive parties platforms?
Again, untrue. See again my above response which mentions the historical example of Gompers. The likes of Gompers backed the notion of “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s of work.” That idea was deemed as pretty conservative by the standards of people on the left then. For instance, at roughly the same time, earlier or later, the Industrial Workers of the World called for the “abolition of the wage system.” As even a reactionary like yourself can guess, T. Thomas, the abolition of wage labor, which is labor power (a human’s working ability) in its commodity form, pretty much means the end of capitalism since capitalism as a working system requires the commodification and exchange of labor power.
Heck, the times have become so backwards that *modern day rightists* like Bohemond don’t even support the idea of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Sadly enough, Verso, one of the best left publishers in the world, published a book on unpaid internships that argues for ….. a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.
Think about that for a moment.
A person at a workplace can’t hope to get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work in the contemporary neoliberal capitalist world that we all live in. And that person can be an intern, a sweatshop worker, a non-union service worker, etc. And one of the few organizations, like … a union (gasp!), that can help such a person gets snide remarks, slander and libel from people like Bryan Preston, Bohemond, grreed, and you.
Don’t get me wrong though, it’s a good book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/797-intern-nation
Stephen…First, I appreciate remarks of substance…thanks!
If you post a topic along these lines, I would love the opportunity to provide excerpts from many decades of historical, first-hand documents from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. I think you may be, at least in part, a victim of revisionist history. I have collected and chronicled labor union documents for nearly four decades. While I appreciated your response, it lost foundational continuity beyond; “…which Karl Marx and the Industrial Workers of the World was critical of, preferring instead the “abolition of the wages system.”
What is missing in large part, is that the foundational philosophy of Marx and the IWW has never really changed though, the path of least resistance become and remains a preferred approach of the many organizations that have evolved. The collective strategy is one within a circular continuum they hope one day, will evolve back to due north..the philosophical residence of Karl Marx and the IWW. It is within this context I believe, that a discussion should be had.
Labor unions [are] a critical component of the socialist movement and it original philosophical objectives. The social contract purporting fairness and protecting reasonable working conditions is but a fascade on that global circular continuum.
Lets take your ‘fair-pay’ argument. Nobody would deny that, that is a worthwhile social contract to pursue. However, what are the realities? Arbitrary and circular inflation for goods and services? You bet! Bottomline what does that create? Economic unsustainability? You bet! How does the economic base then compensate? Reduced employment? Automation? Outsourcing even if it means to cheaper foreign entities? The answer to each of those is ….you bet! Then what happens? A more vigorous effort to globalize unionized labor? You bet!
You starting to see that common circular continuum at work yet? Their objective is NOT fair pay and safe workplaces! Their objectives are synonymous to the socialists objectives. Regardless of the fascades (paths of least resistance) of the many socialists factions today, they all have the same [common] underlying philosophical objective. What common philosophical objective might that be? Lets discuss it in this context, using first-hand documents and see if we can connect more dots than we can with your premise. For certain you can lead me to endless numbers authors, mostly academics, who have written their interpretations and conclusions for whatever motive(s). However, I prefer to put all the documents in relative and chronicle order and let them do the speaking….especially, all the letters and those documents that are comparable to the federalists papers.
T.T. Thomas,
“If you post a topic along these lines, I would love the opportunity to provide excerpts from many decades of historical, first-hand documents from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. I think you may be, at least in part, a victim of revisionist history. I have collected and chronicled labor union documents for nearly four decades.”
Fair enough. Let’s see how we can start a new thread and you can post your primary sources in order to make your case.
“While I appreciated your response, it lost foundational continuity beyond; “…which Karl Marx and the Industrial Workers of the World was critical of, preferring instead the “abolition of the wages system.” What is missing in large part, is that the foundational philosophy of Marx and the IWW has never really changed though, the path of least resistance become and remains a preferred approach of the many organizations that have evolved. The collective strategy is one within a circular continuum they hope one day, will evolve back to due north..the philosophical residence of Karl Marx and the IWW. It is within this context I believe, that a discussion should be had.
Labor unions [are] a critical component of the socialist movement and it original philosophical objectives. The social contract purporting fairness and protecting reasonable working conditions is but a fascade on that global circular continuum.”
The “circular continuum” that you’re claiming to have an existence, whether in abstract conceptual terms or concrete historical reality, in the labor movement and leftist politics simply doesn’t exist. Even when the Communist Party USA (barely a significant force on the US left since the 1950s, a near-decade prior to the rise of the New Left), the Revolutionary Union (now the Revolutionary Communist Party), and the International Socialists (which broke up into various Trotskyist groups) tried organizing in workplaces, they were caught in the dilemma of being for reform or revolution (a dilemma for the left anyway, although interestingly enough it doesn’t seem to a problem for the right, especially given that the US House of Representatives has a Tea Party majority), namely whether they should make their political identities and aims private and thus subordinate themselves to day-to-day “bread and butter” concerns. Additionally, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, one of the constituent labor organizations in the AFL-CIO, expelled Communist activists who were instrumental in its establishment. Even one of the leading historical Russian Social Democrats, Vladimir Lenin, wrote that workers were and are merely capable of “trade union consciousness,” which is to say that trade unions actually keep workers bounded within the capitalist system.
Although my personal political leanings lie somewhere to the left of Lenin’s, I’m inclined to agree with the “trade union consciousness” thesis and I think it is reflective of the fact that the “working class”/”proletariat” is part and parcel of capitalism and thus any talk of ending capitalism in favor of socialism will mean the *abolition* of wage labor via the *self-abolition* of the working class.
Bohemond:
More like a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.
Oh, and the big business entities of the 1800s hired Pinkerton thugs to shoot trade unionists. Think twice before making insinuations of crime.
We don’t need pinkerton you guys shoot yourselves now.
Try learning to write properly.
Knock off the personal attacks or you’re banned. Your choice.
So how do we get one of these scabbies … er, charmingly decorative hotair extravaganzas … planted in front of the NLRB offices? Suggestions anyone?
These ‘rats’, have spent years, working up to deserving this moniker. Lazy, sloppy products, giving the public the middle finger, and chasing business to foreign shores.
NEVER, will a ‘Union Made’ product garner a dollar of mine.
Stehpen….["Fair enough. Let’s see how we can start a new thread and you can post your primary sources in order to make your case."]
Thanks! Should be interesting! However, I have a busy month for most of June and parts of July. That is our TX, OK and KS harvest season and we always go back for that so I can be a kid again and play with all the new toys Deere provides on their lease combines to us.
So, if you will, kindly make a note for August and lets have some good dialog.
Alright, let me know how I can post a topic and stay in touch with you.
Stephen…..I would suggest you coordinate such an effort (topic) through Bryan Preston or others more inclined to cover organized labor and socialist ideologies issues on PJM.
From legal journals as a starting point, I would prefer to address the topic around Marx and Engels ‘scientific socialism’ say from U.S. 1866, “socialists who had been heavily influenced by German immigrants helped create the National Labor Union. Their efforts led to an 1868 statute (15 Stat. 77)…. the National Labor Union disappeared a few years after the death of its founder, William Sylvis, in 1869, but the ties between labor and socialism remained.”
I will be back late July and you can look for me on here and let me know what you’ve accomplished and go from there.
T.T. Thomas,
Well, okay, I can try coordinating such a discussion in conjunction with one of the bloggers/writers here. That, or we can exchange email addresses.
I’m game with either option.
We’ll be in touch.