Have you ever been on Strike?

[Lowell]

I have. Twice. I’d like to hear about your experiences.



Nobody wants a strike, especially workers who see their incomes reduced to subsistence-level strike benefits paid out by their union. But sometimes you have to fight so the other side knows you can, and, more importantly, that you will, regardless of the hardships.

I came to Detroit to work. I rode the Warren Crosstown bus to the Rouge and the assembly lines of the Dearborn Engine Plant where I for three summer I worked my way through college.

Thanks to becoming a UAW member, and earning three times as much as the minimum wage jobs offered in the small towns where I grew up, I left university debt-free. Meanwhile, I saw the hard-working workers around me, able to live a decent middle-class life. All of that was possible because of the power of the strike.

As you might imagine, I am very thankfully pro-union.

Later, when I ‘quit school forever’ to be an artist, I was able to endure the years of that challenge by working as a Teamster 243 Sears delivery truck driver where I saw almost every street in Detroit.

We struck twice. The second went on for three months and into the winter. Impromptu shelters were built at picket sites and we huddled around fire barrels to stay warm. Later, I would recreate the camaraderie of those nights in the above painting “One Fire at a Time”.

[JBMcB]

I never had a chance to. The three unionized jobs I was up for at a university kept getting filled by relatives and friends of the union delegate. My boss wanted to move me in to a full-time position, but he kept getting overruled by the union delegate. After a year I left to work for a dot-com at a 50% higher salary.

[Ray1936]

Didn't really strike, as a strike is "unlawful" for government employees. But I took my turn at a 'sick=out' in the Detroit PD back around 1966 or so. There was great peer-pressure to take your turn calling in sick, so it was a no-brainer, really. The ten day sick-out worked, we got a $1,200 raise up to $7,000. That was a great raise, really. And it brought labor peace for well over a decade.

[Jimaz]

Note the photo prophetically captured the end of "SEARS, ROEBUCK AND CO." There are only 11 stores remaining today.

That should be an album cover.

[Lowell]

I didn't work directly for Sears. My trucking company, Signal Delivery, was contracted by Sears. Sears album cover should be, "How could we, who perfected mail-ordering, fall asleep and let Amazon wipe us out."

Note the photo prophetically captured the end of "SEARS, ROEBUCK AND CO." There are only 11 stores remaining today.

That should be an album cover.

[Richard]

I didn't work directly for Sears. My trucking company, Signal Delivery, was contracted by Sears. Sears album cover should be, "How could we, who perfected mail-ordering, fall asleep and let Amazon wipe us out."

because you went on strike so they could not make deliveries and they lost customers

Upon determining that certain carpentry work in petitioner's department store was being done by men who had not been dispatched from its hiring hall, respondent Union established picket lines on petitioner's property.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/436/180/

2019 alone unions collected $10 billion in dues ,divide that up amongst the amount of members and that’s the pay raise right there.

Ford was actually the first nail in the coffin for Sears,because they invented the car,so people could drive to a retail store,so Sears opened retail stores,then Wal Mart came in and hurt them,then Amazon.

Sears and IBM spent $1.8 billion creating the online sales platform in those days money,over 2 billion now and sold it for $200 million.


They could not compete because a majority of their suppliers were union shops that could not lower prices,like Whirlpool who used to be their Kenmore brand,so they switched to LG which is crap it was to late anyways.

Then an idiot destroyed both K-Mart and Sears.

But it always goes back to legacy costs for those 100 year old companies and cities,has a tendency to bite one in the rear.

My uncle was union with Ford Minneapolis truck plant,strangely enough the only thing I remember about strikes was one year Ford took away the employee car purchase bonus.

So he bought a new Cadillac and went in early every day early so he could park it in the front,next year employee discount was reinstated and that Cadillac went in the garage parked for 30 years until what was left of the pile of rust was scraped out in the 80s and into a dumpster.

His pay could not have been all that bad if he could afford to buy a Cadillac while raising a family in those days.

My father worked for a company until the union went on strike,100 year old company closed the doors,1 year before his retirement he lost 60% of his retirement.

For example, the average union member pays $432 per year in right-to-work states, but $610 a year in states with compulsory dues—41 percent more

https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-la...ries-non-right

Nothing like a monopoly to help raise the bottom line.

Can a union member go on strike against the union ? It does not seem fair that you would have to pay $200 more in dues just because you live in a state that does not have a right to work.

Which brings up the question of when Michigan became a right to work state did your union dues go down?

It would seem like it is more profitable company wise as a union to oppose right to work because you collect less in membership dues.

[oladub]

I've been a union member most of my life and grew up in a Detroit carpenter union household. I was never called upon to strike. I continue to pay union dues in my retirement, only purchase GM and Ford products, support tariffs as a preferred method of taxation, and side with American union workers against cheaper non-union labor at home or abroad. I was pro Hoffa when Bobby Kennedy reigned in Hoffa for being too independent.

[preserve]

I had just started my dream job at the Detroit Free Press, working for Betty Lou Peterson on the TV Guide when that awful strike happened I was asked to stay on because I wasn't officially in the union yet, but all my co workers were and if I had agreed to continue working, I would have been ostracized once the strike was over. I had to make the decision and find other work since I had a family to support. So, while I didn't "strike", I was out of work in sympathy. After that lengthy strike, I kept at my new job out of necessity and didn't look back. I would probably do the same thing today if given the same choices. Union forever. ps I replied even though Richard had to air his opinion - I usually stop reading posts when his opinions come up.

[Richard]

^ waaaa it makes it appear union members are whiny and if they do not get their way they try and shut you down.

I do not have anything against unions,just prefer to buy American and support American jobs union or not,I just do not agree with when a union says they are for the workers but as powerful and politically connected they are and in a position to stop jobs from leaving they do not.

Union membership peaked in the 50s and has steadily declined sense then ,it does not matter if it is a union job or not,an American working is an American working feeding their families and making us all stronger.

So There you go another opinion,that why I went on strike in my personal union because one persons opinion is no better then another’s.

[401don]

Note the photo prophetically captured the end of "SEARS, ROEBUCK AND CO." There are only 11 stores remaining today.

That should be an album cover.

Album covers went the way of Sears but I guess they're back with the rebound of vinyl so you never know.

[Henry Whalley]

The three unionized jobs I was up for at a university kept getting filled by relatives and friends of the union delegate.

Nepotism is ubiquitous in unions, entertainment, sports, churches, military, politics, finance, banking, brokerages, government, and probably even in gambling, drug dealing, pimping, and whoring, where you'd expect to find meritocracy.

Even in Heaven where God promoted his son and a few of the devils and angels, not to mention the boy's mother.

[Dan Wesson]

[QUOTE=Lowell;637073]I have. Twice. I’d like to hear about your experiences.





Ha
I was one of those guys and girls around that burn barrel on cold October, November days and nights.
It sat at the front gate of the Victor ave Sears warehouse.

During this time I met a young Lowell.

I was a young union radical in them days. Influenced by Hal Stack of Wayne State Labor Studies, Ken Paff of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union and a Election for Local 243 Slate of officers headed by none other than

[Dan Wesson]

I was approached by Sears management to start the process of decertification of the union. Thanks but no thanks wasn't going to happen.

I got some News coverage for drumming on a mailbox during a protest providing a cadence for the chanting.
The news clip was used in a court case for an employee accused of attempted bombing of a Sears store in Highland Park.
The employee was exonerated and did not lose his job.

[Henry Whalley]

...court case for an employee accused of attempted bombing of a Sears store in Highland Park.
The employee was exonerated and did not lose his job.

What year was that?

I'm guessing the would-be bomber was acting at the behest of Sears. At one point Sears probably was praying that each of its stores would be bombed or burned.

[Dan Wesson]

What year was that?

I'm guessing the would-be bomber was acting at the behest of Sears. At one point Sears probably was praying that each of its stores would be bombed or burned.

September 18, 1978 until November 29, 1978,

[Henry Whalley]

September 18, 1978 until November 29, 1978,

Thanks. I'm sure the bomber was planted by Sears. Otherwise, he would have been fired.

[Dan Wesson]

Thanks. I'm sure the bomber was planted by Sears. Otherwise, he would have been fired.

Naahh...

He was liquored up pretty good.

[Lowell]

Good memories. I don't recognize you from your screen name, but then that's why we have screen names.

I was one of those guys and girls around that burn barrel on cold October, November days and nights.
It sat at the front gate of the Victor ave Sears warehouse.

During this time I met a young Lowell.

I was a young union radical in them days. Influenced by Hal Stack of Wayne State Labor Studies, Ken Paff of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union and a Election for Local 243 Slate of officers headed by none other than

[Dan Wesson]

Good memories. I don't recognize you from your screen name, but then that's why we have screen names.

I was a Sears Service Tech and I know you were with Signal Delivery am I correct?

Sears was farming out the Maintenance Agreement work. A whole department of mostly women was eliminated. The rest was just for
”mo money”.


I remember the strike vote where approximately 15-20%. of the membership took the rest out on strike.
The Teamsters really didn’t encourage strikes and a rowdy few threw a curveball at Coy and Esser.

Signal Delivery was a casualty of that vote, right?
Was Signal 243? I remember Signal was not part of the vote to strike.
Edit: I reread earlier posts where you answered those questions.

Okay, let me ask this since Signal did not vote to strike and the warehouse was shut down, were you layed off?



I’ll see if I can dig up a picture…

[Dan Wesson]

When it came to the election I was one of TDU’ers counting votes and monitoring the process for integrity.

Yes, good memories.

Learned a lot.

[Dan Wesson]

The most enduring thing I learned from that time and later on in life is,

Unless you own the means of production you will always get the short end of the stick.

[jackie5275]

I was never on strike per se. I did walk an informational picket a couple of times at Metro Airport when I was in AFSCME at Wayne County in the 1990s. We were at a stand still in negotiations & wanted to have the public hear our pleas. We picketed on a Saturday morning in early December. It was stupid as we were cold. There was hardly any passengers, so little public support. We had no other unions out walking with us. I also walked in support of the newspaper workers back in 1995 when they picketed the printing plant on Mound Rd trying to stop the Sunday papers from getting out. That's all I have.

[1953]

Personally, I cannot imagine having a job where I say I am the same as the other people I work with and that I want to negotiate as one with them; it seems to me a career is made by being different and exceptional, not the same.

[Lowell]

Thanks for doing that. I sometimes wondered if we, or some of us, actually won. Not from the vote count that was transparent, but from the custody of the ballots before that. We had no access to the membership/retiree voting list, monitoring of the sending out, or custody and security of ballots upon return.

With a couple on our slate getting 45%, in spite of that, it raised questions. But we didn’t have the money for lawyers to get through the labyrinth of first running the required appeal through the then-corrupt Teamster process and then beyond to the civil courts.

When it came to the election I was one of TDU’ers counting votes and monitoring the process for integrity.

Yes, good memories.

Learned a lot.

[JBMcB]

Nepotism is ubiquitous in unions, entertainment, sports, churches, military, politics, finance, banking, brokerages, government, and probably even in gambling, drug dealing, pimping, and whoring, where you'd expect to find meritocracy.

Maybe, but it wasn't in any of the subsequent jobs I've had. I'm happy to be out of that original job. I have a bunch of friends who stayed on, eventually quitting as the workplace got worse and worse. They could fire 75% of that department now and not much would change work-wise. Nepotism is the least of the problems it has now, but is one of the root causes of them.