Great Quotes: ‘Only a Fool’ Would Block Workers from Unions
As Labor Day approaches, here are some great quotes reinforcing the value of unions to our nation. A big thumbs-up to Ramona for her blog on TPM, which includes quotes from leaders as diverse as Dwight Eisenhower, Clarence Darrow and Pope John Paul II.
Eisenhower sounds like he is endorsing the Employee Free Choice Act:
Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.
Union Movement Mourns Jack Henning
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The union movement is mourning the loss of longtime California labor leader Jack Henning, who died yesterday at age 93. Henning served as executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation for 26 years before his retirement in 1996.
Henning’s leadership produced some of the great milestones in California labor history. Almost immediately after his election to the top office of the state federation, he joined the struggles of the United Farm Workers, campaigning successfully for passage of the historic Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.
Henning also led the campaign to restore Cal-OSHA in 1988, a year after it was abolished by then-Gov. George Deukmejian, and he spearheaded a successful drive to reform the state’s workers’ compensation system.
Smithfield, Republic Wins Signal New Era—If We Act
Two victories by America’s workers last month are a harbinger of a new era dawning this year, writes Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College. At Republic Windows & Doors in Chicago, workers waged a six-day sit-in at the plant to demand back pay and benefits after management announced the plant would close. The workers, members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), won a $1.75 million settlement.
At the Smithfield packing plant in North Carolina, workers defied years of massive employer harassment when more than 2,000 of them voted for union representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). As journalist David Bacon writes in The American Prospect:
That stunning reversal set off celebrations in house trailers and ramshackle homes in Tar Heel, Red Springs, St. Pauls, and all the tiny working-class towns spread from Fayetteville down to the South Carolina border.
