Rioting Across America - The Great Depression (video)

[LizzieMaine]

My own views are colored rather strongly by the time I spent working in a non-union clothing factory in the 1980s. "Leave those safety guards off. They slow down the machines." "That kid in the screen cleaning room doesn't need a respirator, he's retarded already anyway." "You got arthritis from pushing the presses and now you can't work anymore? Tough luck for you." In that plant and in that situation, things were little changed from 1930.

 

[Tomasso]

Same thing happens in white shoe law and investment firms... talk about sweatshops. And no union.

 

[Connery]

It would seem to me that there are those vocations where a union is needed for it's paternalistic virtues and guidance. The downside is that individualism is not encouraged and salaries are set.

On the other hand my understanding that there are certain fields where a union would only thwart the very purpose of the industry itself, such as the legal or the financial field, where making money is paramount and coming up with a new financial instrument or set a legal precedent is more than expected.

 

[Tomasso]

there are certain fields where a union would only thwart the very purpose of the industry itself, such as the legal or the financial field, where making money is paramount and coming up with a new financial instrument or set a legal precedent is more than expected.

You mistake the Union Stock Yards for Menlo Park.....

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I'm a Union Member, and am happy to be. I just feel they've really lost their way.

Unions are just like every other organization. For any organization to survive it must continually reinvent itself to make itself relevant. I dare say, that most union workers have it much better than their brothers in the 1930's, so the Union must keep thinking of "hmmmm, what is the next thing to do?"

 

[SGT Rocket]

My own views are colored rather strongly by the time I spent working in a non-union clothing factory in the 1980s. "Leave those safety guards off. They slow down the machines." "That kid in the screen cleaning room doesn't need a respirator, he's retarded already anyway." "You got arthritis from pushing the presses and now you can't work anymore? Tough luck for you." In that plant and in that situation, things were little changed from 1930.

Wow, that's just horrible. It seems like there could be an OHSA violation(s). It's my understanding that OSHA develops workplace standards and makes inspections to see if the employer is up to standard. If not, I believe they can penalize the employer.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They didn't worry too much about OSHA. Here's an example of why.

Another woman and I worked on an eight-head automatic screen press for printing t-shirts that were sold to a major catalog retailer - I won't mention the name, but it's one of the biggest, most upscale in the business. This press had to be set up and calibrated by hand -- you'd stand on a step stool, lean over the top of the machine, and adjust the calibration knobs that held the screen frame in place until everything was in register. The back of the machine had activation buttons on it for manual operation, and these were supposed to be protected by a guard cover to prevent tripping them accidentally. But fiddling with those covers took time, and the foreman had removed them, because Time Is Money.

My fellow worker on the machine was leaning over it, setting it up, and her knee tripped the activation button -- causing the printing squeegee to jerk forward under high pressure, pinning one of her breasts between the edge of the squeegee and the screen frame. I threw the release as soon as I heard her scream and got her out, and it turned out she was rather seriously injured -- the injury became abscessed and she nearly lost the breast.

She was told "don't say anything about this to anyone or you'll lose your job. Don't file a worker's comp report or try to make trouble. And they gave her a couple of hundred dollars "toward expenses."

Most of the women working there were poor, as I myself was at the time, and unemployment in our area was around 15 percent at the time. Jobs were not easy to get, and people were willing to put up with a lot to keep one. So she didn't say anything.

Neither did I, because she wasn't even supposed to tell me, and if I blew the whistle, she'd get fired as well as me, and she had substantially less prospects to find another job than I did -- as well as having two kids to support.

So they got away with it. If we'd had a union to fight for us they wouldn't have.

This was in 1987. Not 1897. In 1987 OSHA was a toothless beast and if an inspector ever set foot in that plant, I never saw him.

 

[Tomasso]

Awash with a myriad of the frivolous personal injury lawsuits and you two let that tort go unpunished.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Working class people in Maine in 1987 were terrified of lawyers. Everybody told us they were the enemies, like unions.

The company, at least, is no longer in business. Some small matter of illegal disposal of printing solvents apparently caught up with them -- in Maine, you see, owls and seagulls are far more valuable than workers. And as for that beloved, warm-and-fuzzy catalog retailer, they get their t-shirts printed in China or Bangladesh or some such place where there's neither OSHA nor unions, and all the smiling workers are just too happy to get the jobs.

 

[rue]

Oh my God Lizzie! I can't even believe I just read that. I'm sorry for that woman and sorry you had to work for those horrible people.

 

[Story]

National Guard in action during Republic Steel strike.
Youngstown, OH, US 1937
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=d172e019cd101b5c

 

[Story]

Chicago: Memorial Day Massacre of 1937

"The Memorial Day Massacre of 1937 took the lives of 10 steel workers and injured 105. The Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) organized a peaceful protest that was to take place on Memorial Day in 1937.

The Trib's account -

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...ays-republicsteelstrike-story,0,7125620.story

 

[LizzieMaine]

Oh my God Lizzie! I can't even believe I just read that. I'm sorry for that woman and sorry you had to work for those horrible people.

Actually, although I hated every day of the year I spent there, it was a very educational experience for a 24-year-old to have -- it taught me never to take a good job for granted, and it taught me to take with a very large grain of salt the views of pundits and commentators and other such ones who claim to know what's best for working-class people.

 

[Connery]

The Trib's account -

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...ays-republicsteelstrike-story,0,7125620.story

Thank you, Story. Very interesting.

From your link:

By the time things calmed, 10 marchers lay dead. Forty police officers were injured. At least 60 marchers were hurt or wounded, some shot from behind. Police said they were fired upon by the strikers, but hospital reports showed no gun wounds among the police.

In the aftermath, charges and counter-charges flew. Police said the march had been well-orchestrated. The demonstrators said they had acted spontaneously, stirred by anger over the number of people hurt by police during the prior confrontation. City and police officials denied charges of police brutality and blamed the whole incident on communists and radicals.

A Paramount photographer captured some of the mayhem, but the company refused to release the newsreel, saying it might incite audiences to riot. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an account of someone who had seen the suppressed film, describing the police firing on the marchers without warning and beating up the marchers in a "businesslike" way. A congressional investigation later condemned the police for using excessive force.

 

[rue]

Actually, although I hated every day of the year I spent there, it was a very educational experience for a 24-year-old to have -- it taught me never to take a good job for granted, and it taught me to take with a very large grain of salt the views of pundits and commentators and other such ones who claim to know what's best for working-class people.

You're an unusual person to take something good from that experience and use it. Most people wouldn't. Good on you

 

[Marc Chevalier]

They constantly say 'you don't get paid more for working harder'

Actually, you often don't!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Just like many pieces of society, they're forgetting their roots and what they stand for.

One reason is because the big bosses of the autoworkers' unions ended up supping --and staying-- at the banquet table of the auto company bosses. Eventually, both types gorged from the same trough. "When you can't beat 'em, co-opt 'em."

 

[Marc Chevalier]

It would seem to me that there are those vocations where a union is needed for it's paternalistic virtues and guidance. The downside is that individualism is not encouraged and salaries are set.

Then again, mechanical assembly line work was never meant to be individualistic. Humans were supposed to act as efficient, repetitive, unvarying machines for hours on end. God help us if a mechanical arm on a robotic assembly line today began to act "individualistically".

 

[LizzieMaine]

One reason is because the big bosses of the autoworkers' unions ended up supping --and staying-- at the banquet table of the auto company bosses. Eventually, both types gorged from the same trough. "When you can't beat 'em, co-opt 'em."

Walter Reuther, the leader of the UAW during the campaigns of 1936-37, is a notable exception to this. He was a man of unquestioned integrity who led his union with distinction until he was killed in a mysterious plane crash in 1970 -- one of the truly great Americans of his generation, and a man who is unjustly forgotten today.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Walter Reuther, the leader of the UAW during the campaigns of 1936-37, is a notable exception to this. He was a man of unquestioned integrity who led his union with distinction until he was killed in a mysterious plane crash in 1970 -- one of the truly great Americans of his generation, and a man who is unjustly forgotten today.

I had the chance to meet Walter Reuther...and I agree. After his death..things took a different turn. Then began...the down hill slide..IMO.
HD