Casino67 Posted July 17, 2011 Share Posted July 17, 2011 LATimes:Amid efforts to limit the power of unions nationwide, labor activists try to galvanize members and recruit new blood by holding one-day Troublemakers School sessions that are part pep rally, part instruction.There was no room left so the students piled onto stools and folding chairs and sat on the floor, clogging the aisles of this stifling classroom on a recent Saturday morning.They shifted in their seats as the teacher, who wore his politics on his sleeve in the form of a red "We Stand With Wisconsin" T-shirt, started to lecture. At first they checked their cellphones, doodled on the pages of their notebooks, and munched on the free chocolate chip cookies and potato chips they were provided, uninterested."Who are the people here facing budget cut issues?" asked the teacher, Paul Krehbiel, a grizzled activist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valin Posted July 17, 2011 Share Posted July 17, 2011 munched on the free chocolate chip cookies and potato chips they were provided, What I want (no make that demand) to know was were they free range organically grown fair trade chocolate chip cookies? Or were they manufactured by evil (right wing) multinational corporations! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saltbag Posted July 17, 2011 Share Posted July 17, 2011 Ages ago, when I was 24, I was a salary shift supervisor at a paper mill with a (not surprisingly) highly unionized work force. This was in rural Louisiana. Median income in the area was definitely less than 8 bucks an hour. Top operators at the mill made over $25 an hour back then, and judging from my experience were hired to do crossword puzzles. Entry level people that just manned a water hose to clean up made $15 an hour. I had a conversation with the head of the union one time on graveyard shift, just him and I in my office. Here I am 24 years old, and he's old enough to be my grandfather. He's going on and on about the lies behind international competition, and truly believed that the downturn of our business was the management's intentional effort to create leverage to squash union raises, because they were coming up for negotiation. The mill was partially then completely shutdown a few years after I left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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