Many of you guys do not understand unions, labor movements, or capitalism very well. It was the labor movement (including anarchists and communists) who fought and were executed by the government because they were fighting for an 8 hour work day. Not because they wanted goo-gobs of money, they just wanted to have an 8 hour work day, and got hanged for it. The incident is called the haymarket riot. The tactics the gov't used are called Facism.
There is alot anti-labor talk in here that is mostly based on revisionist history.
Panos: American car companies, and american companies in general go bust because American executives (who are rarely mentioned in peoples posts) have BY FAR, the highest salaries relative to the workers who actually build cars, than any other country. In other countries the numbers are far less skewed. Not to mention the fact that American cars are basically inferior products in commparison to most foreign cars. American CEO's easily make over 300 times what average workers make. Factor that into the equation and you'll see that it makes a huge difference in whether a product is profitable or not. And that is only one part of the answer.
TemujinKnick: Yes there is a price to pay for striking. There is a price to pay for any fight that is worth fighting. Would you have been telling MLK not to fight for civil rights because he'll be killed? Some fights need to be fought, and the fact that there are consequences, does not deter courageous individuals for fighting for what is right.
You have done a great job at making the argument for cowardice. The people who fought for the 8 hour work day were sentenced to death by the US courts. Aren't you glad they did that, so you (and your children) don't have to work 14 hour work days? Or wold you rather that they stopped midway because they were facing obstacles?
If the TWU is forced into unreasonable concessions (accepting decent raises, but selling out future workers with worse benefits, pensions, AND pay) what does that mean for the rest of us who are not in a union, or in a much smaller one? If the TWU wins, it is a victory for all workers. The city throws money away all the time, but they can't ever seem to find money for workers.
Lastly, this is not only about money and benefits. This is also largely about the safety of the workers, and US as well. 1000 people on a train with 1 driver who knows nothing about safety, terrorism, cpr, emergency life-saving techniques? It doesn't make sense.
A train station with a bunch of metro card machines and no workers? I wouldn't want my wife on the train.
There are issues here that CLEARLY impact our lives as riders on the train, but all anyone focusses on are raises, and the fact that they had to walk to work. Its much bigger than that.
Haymarket Square Riot
The growth of American industrial might in the 1870s and 1880s was paralleled by the emergence of unions representing the workers. Foremost among the early labor organizations was the Knights of Labor, which listed more than 700,000 members by the mid-1880s. Working conditions at the time were abysmal—little concern for safety existed in most factories, pay was low, benefits were nonexistent and the work day was often 10 to 12 hours, six days a week. The immediate focus of the K.O.L. and other unions was to achieve the eight-hour day.
On May Day 1886, the workers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. in Chicago began a strike in the hope of gaining a shorter work day. On May 3, police were used to protect strikebreakers and a scuffle broke out; one person was killed and several others injured.
The following day, May 4, a large rally was planned by anarchist leaders to protest alleged police brutality. A crowd of 20,000 demonstrators was anticipated at Haymarket Square, where area farmers traditionally sold their produce. Rain and unseasonable cold kept the numbers down to between 1,500 to 2,000. The gathering was peaceful until a police official, in contravention of the mayor's instructions, sent units into the crowd to force it to disperse. At that juncture, a pipe bomb was thrown into the police ranks; the explosion took the lives of seven policemen and injured more than 60 others. The police fired into the crowd of workers, killing four.
A period of panic and overreaction followed in Chicago. Hundreds of works were detained; some were beaten during interrogation and a number of forced confessions was obtained. In the end, eight anarchists were put on trial and seven were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Four were hanged in November 1887, one committed suicide and three were later pardoned by Illinois governor, John Peter Altgeld.
Clearly the ranks of the Knights of Labor and other unions were filled with many socialists and anarchists; some were committed to violent disruption of the capitalist system. However, no evidence was provided at the time, nor has any been discovered since, which connected the eight convicted workers to the bomb-throwing. Widespread fear of unionism and other radicalism influenced most of the public to support harsh treatment of the accused.
The Haymarket Riot was a signal event in the early history of American labor. It was largely responsible for delaying acceptance of the eight-hour day, as workers deserted the K.O.L. and moved toward the more moderate American Federation of Labor. For many years the police at Haymarket Square were regarded as martyrs and the workers as violent anarchists; that view moderated to a large extent in later times.
[Edited by - killa4luv on 12-21-2005 10:25 AM]
12/21/2005 6:51 PM