Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Frankiez' Brief History on Labor ...

Perhaps a brief history of the LABOR movement will enlighten those who are reluctant to join it-however they are a part of it like it or not.
Note those who sacrificed their own safety to insure their brothers would have protection against the greedy corporate barons.supplemented today by the inept-but still as greedy.

DON'T SHOOT the MESSENGER

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1678.html

4 comments:

frankiez said...

To 3floor(aka Xman) and any others interested.
Why did this company guy(me) turn so quickly to being a labor supporter?
Here's my history.Came from a labor family background.Father and brothers in the Boilermakers Union,Baltimore Md.
Yet I chose another path.College graduate with post graduate studies I decided not to pursue.
Extensive sales and sales management and business ownership experience.Overall successful by my standards and the companies I was associated with;got all the trophies and atta boys to prove it.No real $$$$ just the pat on the back and the trophies.
After deciding not to complete law school and being fed up with the ineptness of the company I was with I decided to make a radical change in my life.
By chance I saw the Viking yard in San Bernardino,walked in,applied for a dock job and the rest is history.
Was treated well and fairly-been here 21 years,guess that's testimony enough.
Now,as to why I turned.
Was employed part time with New Dixie Lines in Richmond,Virginia just before and awhile after I started college(Virginia Commonwealth University).A junk yard dog freight company if there ever was one.All straight time, and you were exploited to the max e.g.the supervisor attempted to scalp my pay(paid in cash)for a few bucks.I called the Labor Board and had my money waiting for me at the end of the day.That didn't bother me since I knew I would be out of there in a matter of time.
But, the real genesis of my attitude towards fairness was Archie.
He was a Black guy,although they didn't refer to him as that-we're in the cradle of the Confederacy here-and me considered a Yankee to boot.Archie was hard working,been with New Dixie over twenty years.Was the company gofer.Archie was the guy you went to for anything.Like Radar in M.A.S.H.
Well one day they called Archie into the office and informed him that his services were no longer needed.Goodbye.
I and another guy going to college were standing outside when Archie came out of the office.And, although he and his race were no stranger to being treated this way,he was stunned.Not even a cheap watch as a token of gratitude.He didn't cry,although you could tell he was holding tears back.
We attempted to console him as much as possible but it was a meager effort in light of what had just happened to him.
I.as it turned out, was mentally stunned by Archie's experience and it has never left me.Had a profound effect on me as a matter of fact.In that whenever I see injustice or people being treated unfairly I respond.Don't even think of the consequences and since I've made it this far in life I guess I've made the correct decisions in my life.I'm satisfied with them.
Thus, in response to what has,and is happening to us at Fedex my Archie response kicks in.We're all,"ARCHIES',now.
So that I don't have to continually utilize my Archie response I've elected the TEAMSTERS to respond to unfairness for me,hope I didn't bore you with this but it's the truth.

Anonymous said...

andy lessin cut my job from orders from the higher ups back east.
andy why do you follow orders from these people when those people back east don't even know what its like to work here on the west coast????
how do i explain this to my family??
how do you explain your actions to your kids?

Anonymous said...

I never thought the day would come that I'd make this post, but it has.

The beginning of the year has brought with it the many changes we all have been sweating about. We clearly had good reason to sweat. Has anything positive come out of this mess?

Anything?

Goodbye, Viking. It's been a long and rewarding journey. All good things must come to an end.

The future is in our hands. Does anybody here think we will ever be able to retire without a Teamster pension?

frankiez said...

Many of us don't realize that our middle-class status originated in the labor struggles in the past. Once, every respectable newspaper had a "labor beat," and editors closely followed labor struggles.
This is from an article by Dave Brody in the San Francisco Chronicle,2001.
Thus, as stated previously,we're ALL part of the LABOR MOVEMENT dircetly or by proxy.
Sooooo,if your not part of management-even then you may still be-you're part of the Labor Movement.
The first step in a few recovery programs is acceptance/acknowledgement of the facts.
Do the first step and join us in the ORGANIZING EFFORT at Fedex to get the Teamsters to represent us.Think of it as,You + We =US.