Produced by:
KBOO
Program::
Air date:
Mon, 03/28/2011 - 8:00am to 9:00am
Young Emerging Labor Leaders
Hosts Celeste Carey and Cecil Prescod speak with Allie Medeiros and Nick Gaitaud of The Oregon AFL-CIO Young Emerging Labor Leaders (YELL) which mobilizes young union members to become leaders and activists for social change within their unions and communities at large.
YELL provides networking opportunities and resources for young union members to engage in social gatherings, conferences, and events.
Comments
Labor Unions in the US
The discussion would seem to cast labor unions as the perpetual 'white knight' of the US worker. Some of us have had a drastically different experience with 'organization' on the job. The discussion would also seem to be quite memory selective as per union corruption and the exploitation of workers by the union. How much do you pay for the privlege of having a part-time minimum wage job? The union would count itself as deserving of more of my wage than both federal and state government combined.
Fact is the labor unions have made themselves another layer of government in the form of cooperative colusion for it's own sake as a very profitable BUSINESS. I was young enough and nieve enough to stand up in a meeting where the union hoped to secure their portion of our paychecks and told people, "Have you read the documents provided you?" "We have the right to organize!" "We do not need the local 222 to take our money to secure this right." Later I was informed that such talk was dangerous to my health, by the very people so interested in my wellbeing as a worker. I was fired from this position because I refused to allow the union to take my money.
Sorry to say, but the fine line between the activities of orgainzed crime and organized labor unions is to often a simple matter of semantics. The American Labor Unions should be reoganized by the workers themselves with an emphasis on volunteer involvement by the workers and the glutt of capital be removed to stop attracting sharks. So needed and so corrupted are my biggest issues with the union.