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OPEIU’s Goodwin Calls for ‘Back-to-Basics’ Unionism
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Unions can look to their history to rediscover ways to move forward and grow, says Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) President Michael Goodwin. In a recent op-ed on Crain’s New York Business.com, he writes:
“Unions are best-known for bargaining contracts, lobbying for legislation and participating in political campaigns. But when they were founded more than a century ago, they served other functions that continue to the present day. From the construction crafts to the maritime industry to the performing arts, unions set standards for skilled work, develop education and training programs to prepare workers to meet those standards, refer skilled workers to employers with job openings and collaborate with employers to promote quality products and services. Unions also pool their members’ purchasing power, often working together with employers to offer benefits such as health care coverage and retirement income that workers can take with them from job to job.”
He says with just 15 percent of the entire workforce carrying union cards, the labor movement is at a crossroads and unions must rebuild membership—and, in turn, workers’ power.
By assuming this stabilizing, service-oriented role in the nation’s industries, unions can become essential partners to business, labor and government and help them navigate a post-recession economy that will be a whole lot leaner and crueler than before the era of BlackBerrys and busted bubbles.
Read more on what Goodwin calls “back-to-basics unionism” here.
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5 Comments
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above all, we MUST get back into the mindset that unions represent and protect ALL workers for that is what really set the union movement in motion.
All organized Labor has to join forces and buy enough TV time to educate the American People about what UNIONS are really all about. 30 years of the Conservative Think Tank intentional revisionist history has truly dumbed down our population and people in schools do not know about the violence perpetrated on Labor by Capital which I suggest is currently still being used against workers by Lawyers and Politicians instead of Pinkerton thugs. For example, here in Oregon Intel has 12 hour shifts for the production and other staff and pays no overtime but expects us construction people to work 4 10s for stright pay. People,(including some of my relatives) were jailed, beaten and killed for the 8 hour day! At 62, those extra 2 hours get me pretty worn out and younger members have trouble arranging childcare that they can afford, if they find someone willing to take the kids from 5am to about 6pm. What good does this do for workers? NOTHING! but all the UNIONS say Yes Master at the Prelim job capitulation meetings. There is no overriding reason to forfiet the 8 hour day unless you’re trying to make 5 10s the normal shift.
It’s a good teaser story, but if you want to get the benefit of the whole story you have to sign-up for it at Crain’s New York Business.com which requires registering and receiving their newsletter. I’m not particularly interested in being inundated with more online newsletters with their offers, advertisements, etc. At a time when their is a shortage of ideas to revive the labor movement, the last thing needed are roadblocks to evaluating those ideas, whether good or bad. Can OPEIU President Michael Goodwin make the complete story available without the sales pitch?
I feel that is why a majority of unions are part of the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO can be the leader in this endevor to spread the word of unions in the service industries & other jobs. Then, we have to go after the so called right to work states & other anti union organizations! Solidarty!
Solidarity in my opinion needs to be revisited and addressed in the organized labor movement locally and across “THE COUNTRY”. We should have Marches of every organized trade union, In every state possible, one day out of the year. We need the attention of media and the middle class of America’s attention. The way things are heading, If there is one time in the labor histories movement that the struggling middle class of America and it’s working class people need to be understood, The time Is now!! This shouldn’t be a thought that’s forgotten or a wow ? that sounds good. This is something I beleive we should have been organizing yesterday. Are we going to wait till the FAR RIGHT tea party movement gets so notarized that we say OH GOSH maybe we should have started something sooner. Are we going to wait till our elected officials who we need so much to fight the republican party of no run out of ambition and public backing.I feel as though the lack of knowledge and nieveness throughout the labor unions members and the public is going to be our demise. Don’t get me wrong I am not pointing the finger at all our brother’s and sister’s and what ever public support we have had. I certainly do not exclude myself from it either. I have fallen prey to my opinion that I speak of in this respose also. I guess I just feel that if we could participate in this rally across the country at the same time and same day , that this could be one of the sparks that helps to get are wheels in motion and we are not going to sit idly and watch this great thing of ours collapse