Tatler exclusive: Union that’s pushing card check, fearing election defeat, suddenly all about ‘free and fair elections’
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) and the Association of Flight Attendants-Communications Workers of America (AFA-CWA) are locked in an election among United Airlines’ 20,000 to 25,000 flight attendants. The election will determine which union will represent United’s and Continental’s flight attendants. With the dues and support of as many as 25,000 workers on the line and one of the nation’s largest air carriers in the mix, this is an important election. Voting is underway and ends June 29.
Apparently it’s so important that, according to a letter we have exclusively obtained, the IAM is frantically pestering the AFA-CWA to stop “intimidating” the workers who are voting in the election. Yes, you read that right — a union that is affiliated with the AFL-CIO wants another union to stop intimidating people. Keep reading, because it gets even better than that.
The letter, dated May 19, 2011, and addressed from the IAM’s general vice president, Robert Roach, Jr., to Veda Shoock, president of the AFA-CWA, reads in part:
AFA-CWA has instructed Flight Attendants to call a phone number “to register your vote with AFA,” after they have voted in the United/Continental/Continental Micronesia representation election. How a Flight Attendant votes is a personal choice, and directing someone to reveal how they voted is a flagrant form of intimidation. Flight Attendants have already begun to register such complaints to the NMB.
Farther down in the letter, Roach writes (without a trace of self-reflection or awareness):
lefties always resort to tactics invoking liberty, freedom, individuality, free markets, etc. when they are trying to secure your votes/money
once they succeed it is easy to fall back into “default” mode then blame something else for the discrepancy
Here’s an idea: Instead of holding an election to see which union will be their collective pimp, how ’bout those 20,000-25,000 learn to seek advancement based on their own merits & performance?
What an idea!
Do they have a “none of the above” choice on the ballot? I don’t think taking a vote to see if you should be shot or hanged is much of a choice.
In related news, La Cosa Nostra harshly criticized extortion, “protection” and bribery, and the KKK denounced racism.
John Sweeney’s Spiritual Side!
http://wwwtwosetsofbooks.blogspot.com/2011/03/labor-and-laity-john-sweeney-and-hard.html
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New Citizens United Spot On Our National Debt by David Bossie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJPAQJ5ExfI&fe…
“The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.” George Washington
It seems that card check is for when a union is confronting an employer and an unorganized workforce to organize them, but secret ballots are for when unions confront each other for the certification to represent and the employer is looking on, shrugging its shoulders, because it might not care who wins.
Union thugs intimidating people? I’m shocked, shocked I say!
Question.
Just where do any of you anti union people on here think your parents or YOU would be had there not been unions standing against the likes of Steele barons, ruthless coal corporations or the countless other American corporations that used to work small children and others for 14-16 hours 7 days a week.
I want to laugh when pompous “work on your merits” at US companies people act as if this great USA wasn’t placed upon the world stage as an economic giant without SLAVERY. Especially the way they pretend like there would actually be a US middle class with good wages offered by the kindness of US corporations.
Forget where you come from at your children’s peril.
Hard to answer your question, but I like to think I’d be a fifth-generation Pinkerton, with a necklace of would-be organizers’ unwillingly donated teeth.
But even if this were not to be, at least it sounds as if I’d be living in a world with more productive children. Salut!
I KNOW where my parents and grandparents ACTUALLY were. One grandfather worked in “the schmatta business”, meaning he worked his tail off traveling the country selling suits and furnishings for men to department stores and clothiers in the heart of the depression. The other one was a manager of what would now be ranked as a 5-star hotel; a man with virtually no education, no English, and no money when he hit these shores. No union got him there; his hard work did.
My own father, rated 4F after trying to volunteer for WW2, founded a scrap metal business with $35 and an aging Plymouth car. He built that into a highly successful business. A business friend of his watched the unions torch his trucks after his workers voted AGAINST unionization. His answer was to find jobs for his people and shut the plant.
Next question?
John: Yes, unions helped many decades ago pre Nixon’s OSHA. But time for you to face fact that today union workers are looked on as the lazier in our society (freeloaders) who inflate wages and drive companies out of business.
I was forced in my early years (late 60′s) to join a union and it became abundantly clear that the majority that supported the union in our “shop” were slackers that I would never want to hire any of them should I ever start a company. They could care less about the success of our company. They were simply looking for maximum money for least amount of work.
I do hope that you’ve had adequate opportunity to work in a non-union environment (private sector only… government sector has its own freeloaders due to no competition). If not, try it. Will be eye-opening for you that you can work outside of a gang.
John, no one is saying unions did not serve their purpose at one time. It is time to quit living back in the years your parents did because there have been many advancements since then. Open your mind and you’ll be surprised at the world out there.
“The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.” George Washington
SLAVE OWNER…and descendent of Indentured Servitude
Le Cracquere ….well then, you should be able to explain why UNIONIZED Delta pilots are the highest paid in the industry, or why SW Cabin Crew are the highest paid in the industry at the most heavily unionized airline in America (did I mention they are ranked #1 in service by US consumers?)
Perhaps you can tell us why Delta has the highest paid executives in the industry compared to the lowest compensated Flight Attendants(after their 40% cut in compensation based on the Federal BTS stats) in the US airline industry?
Union dues? How about putting on the table Delta stands to keep over $250 million a year with low paid non union cabin crews (hey, million dollar executive bonuses have to come from somewhere)
Not quite sure whence comes your “well then”: nothing I said implied that I had come to explain what you ask. Still, as a former Deltard myself, I shall endeavour to satisfy.
In re the Delta pilots, I’d never deny that union tactics can increase the size of one’s paycheck; I’d merely contend that the increase is ill-gotten. In re the flight attendants/crews: if my boss pays me what he thinks I’m worth, and everyone around me has engaged in gangsterism in order to be paid more than that … yeah, I’d be the lowest-compensated guy in that crowd. And the only one who should be able to look at myself in the mirror without gagging.
As we eventually learn during the hard climb to adulthood, it’s not actually true that “crime doesn’t pay.” Throughout American and world history, unionist extortion and violence have often paid, and paid handsomely. You are not telling us anything novel or surprising.
How is this different form “exit polling” during national elections?
I still feel that exit polling should be made illegal.
Don’t deceive your readers.
That letter is not “exclusive” to your silly web site.
It’s been posted on this public page for days now: http://www.iamnow.org/general/voter-intimidation
Anyone on Planet Earth has been able to view it.
Sheesh.
Carry on.