Unions
Income Inequality
“That is not fair!” How many times have we heard that from our children or perhaps at work? Human beings are hard wired with a sense of fairness-of what is right and what is wrong. Most people believe that they should be fairly compensated for the work that they do. Most workers believe that a Corporate Executive Officer (CEO) of a company should get a little more than the average worker since they run the company. But over the last sixty years, a little more has turned into a whole lot more and we should be very concerned about this.
Since 1950, the ratio of ...
FINALLY…A BREAK FOR WORKING PEOPLE
Near the turn of the century and into the 1930’s, in order to feed your family and put a roof over your head, workers had to endure six day workweeks, twelve hour work days and marginal time with their families. After decades of mistreatment, workers had enough. They formed unions and asserted their rights and dignity in the workplace. But the struggle for fairness and equality in the workplace did not end there and also continues to this day.
In 1938 labor unions were instrumental in getting Congress to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act which introduced the forty-h...
UNIONS ARE LIKE FAMILIES
When one mentions the word family, the first thing that comes to a person’s mind is the group of people you grew up with-father, mother, siblings and perhaps your grandmother or grandfather. Perhaps your definition of family is your immediate family-yourself, your spouse/significant other and your children. But stop and think about it. We have many more families in our daily lives than what immediately comes to mind. We also have our work family, our church family and our community family just to name a few.
Human beings do not live in isolation. We are very social ...
UWS OUTSOURCING: WAS IT WORTH IT?
In the first article on University of Wisconsin-Superior outsourcing of their custodians and groundskeepers we looked at what happened to the laid-off workers and the situation for the incoming new workers. It is obvious that any “savings” for the taxpayers came from the reduced wages and benefits of workers.
In the second article, we asked if taxpayers actually save money from outsourcing. For many reasons, taxpayers often do not benefit.
This final article looks at the difficulty of finding real numbers, puts the projected savings in perspective and asks, ...
MESABI IRON RANGE STRIKE
By John Spiegelhoff
Northern Minnesota-circa 1905. Immigrant miners primarily from Finland, Italy and from Eastern Europe work twelve hours a day and seven days a week mining iron ore on the Mesabi Range for the Oliver Mining Company. The immigrants mostly do not speak English. The Oliver Mining Company pays them pennies for their work. The working conditions are dangerous: explosions, dust inhalation and falling rock. Debilitating injuries and death are common. There is no workers compensation. If you are injured and cannot work, you and your family starve. To add ...
WITH UNIONS, EVERYONE BENEFITS
WITH UNIONS, EVERYONE BENEFITS
The concept of Unions, workers banding together to improve their wages, hours and working conditions, has been the great equalizer for workers in the United States for over one hundred years.
Only since 1971 have the public sector workers in Minnesota had the right to bargain collectively with their employers. A group interested in forming a Union goes through an election in the workplace. If a simple majority of eligible voters decide that they want a union, then everyone must be represented equally. Workers can choose not to be a ...
