Tag: labor union

“They lay there, clinging to one another and trying to shield the more vulnerable parts of their bodies from the blows of the nightsticks, while the police hauled them apart and dragged them bodily into waiting patrol wagons.”

  – NY Times, March 31, 1948

 Every once in a while an underdog defeats a Titan.

This isn’t one of those times.

  It isn’t the victory of an underdog that inspires us so much as it is the incredible courage it takes to even challenge the overwhelming champion.

 Sixty-three years ago the labor movement took the fight literally to capitalism’s door-step in one of the most lopsided battles in history. The name of the underdog that championed the cause was Merritt David Keefe.

cross-posted at the Orange Site

It’s final. GM files for bankruptcy tomorrow morning.

I would like to take a moment to let all the UAW members know how much I appreciate the strides they  made for many of us in the work force.

As UAW fades, so does a path to U.S. prosperity

For decades, unionized manufacturing jobs have been considered the surest path to middle-class prosperity and realizing the vaunted American dream for blue-collar workers.

The United Auto Workers helped make that dream a reality.

“We created the middle class in America,” said Olen Ham, one of the few surviving members of the 1937 “sit-down” strike in Flint, Michigan, which won the first union contract with General Motors Corp.

Later contracts brought paid holidays, pension benefits and health insurance, enabling blue-collar workers to buy cars and homes and to send their children to college.