yes, I certainly remember that ! Most incredible health coverage ever ! If you were an employee who signed up for the Sante Fe Hospital plan you were given a card to carry with you. Anytime you needed medical care, anywhere, all you had to do was show that card and everything was covered. Everytime, period.There was a Santa Fe Hospital in Temple TX that is now part of the Scott & White conglomerate. I for one had no idea how lucky I was in those days…
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Every time I turn around I see Kamala Harris or Tim Walz at a union event. The other day I saw Tim’s wife at one as well. Walz in particular is knowledgable and enthusiastic about labor union issues. My guess is Harris is going after the white working man vote and that is why Walz was selected. He seems to be one of the guys down at the union hall white male workers can identify with. He doesn’t have to win a lot of the white working class men who dominate the MAGA movement but if he wins a few percentage points Harris wins easily.
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I wish candidates’ records mattered more. Unfortunately, many working class people will vote against their own best interests.
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America could have led the way in Renewable Energy and transportation. But the CEOs were too lazy to innovate and decided to stick with nuclear power and committed to make bloated SUVs and kill all clean energy initiatives.
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When it was really Mourning in America.
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President Jimmy Carter’s goal of achieving energy independence from an unstable Middle East — signaled when he ordered solar panels installed on the White House roof — was undermined when his successor Ronald Reagan ordered the solar panels taken down, a move that presaged the events of that decade: a return to large, gas-guzzling American autos, the growing popularity of even more fuel-thirsty trucks, continued intrigue in Middle East politics, and a popular culture transfixed by the exploits of Wall Street corporate raiders and the scheming oil oligarchs of the TV drama Dallas.
The abuses in the energy sector reached a corrupt climax with Enron, whose securitization of the California energy markets foreshadowed and mirrored what soon would occur in the housing and finance sectors.
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I don’t claim to be an expert in election law, but I suspect that Harris and Walz winning his vote now might be illegal.
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One of the first things my sister (who was my father’s executor) did was make sure that my father’s name was purged from the voter roles to guard against any voting from beyond the grave by my father (with assistance from the Trumpian side of the family)
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Great post with the personal elements really bringing it home ! Short sighted management greed has always been at the bottom of so many of our economic woes and none so much as those in manufacturing. Yet somehow they managed to hornswaggle the general public into thinking it was the unions’ fault. My final union was IBEW for ATT and with Texas being a right to work State many of y coworkers remained scabs, enjoying union benefits without having to pay for them. And if asked why they didn’t join it was almost always not wanting to pay union dues. But when I retired end of 2018 dues were less than $50 a month and our hourly pay was right at $42 an hour. So they were saying one hours wages wasn’t worth all the many benefits that came thru collective bargaining. So short sighted stupidity wasn’t just on the management side.
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They were saying that if they didn’t have to fork over that hour’s pay to get all the benefits that came through collective bargaining, they wouldn’t. This is one of the many ways in which the law has been stacked to make life more difficult for unions. (Imagine if you told a company that they had to offer all the same perks and incentives to people who were buying someone else’s products.)
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Tim Walz is talking to union folks in Minnesota and Wisconsin today.
Acyn (@Acyn): “Walz: As President, Trump blocked overtime pay for millions of workers. Why pay the bills, he doesn’t pay his own.” | nitter.poast.org
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Thank you, as a former member of the United Steel Workers union, it used to irk me no end to hear people say we don’t need unions anymore, or that the Democratic Party abandoned the working class.
I wrote this essay right after JD Vance beat Rep. Tim Ryan from my hometown to win the US Senate seat in Ohio. It touches on those themes:
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Right, the unions were still obligated to represent non dues-paying workers.
Basically, Right to Work gave people permission to stiff their union and come out smelling like a rose — and not a scab.
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Not according to the Justices Operatives on the Court. Corporations charge People for goods or services. Unions must provide a service free of charge.
…by law, a union is required to represent all the employees in the bargaining unit whether or not those employees,(are a) dues-paying union members. This legal obligation is called the “duty of fair representation.” Without those fees, the union is forced, at great cost, to represent nonmembers for free.
Strip search Sam thought he could wipe out the Unions with this totally f*cked up decision. Did not happen
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"… For Trump, he is the context.
"In Donald Trump’s mind, he is the frame of reference that everything else enters.
"Trump isn’t meeting a kid who killed people, that kid is meeting him.
"Trump isn’t with an orphan. That baby is part of his photo op.
"Trump isn’t standing over a grave. The tombstone is a piece of his campaign for president.
“And that’s why, in every one of these pictures, Trump is wearing the exact same smile and giving the exact same thumbs-up. Because to Trump, there is no context but Trump.” – Jonathan V. Last, The Bulwark, on the narcissistic sociopath Malignant Loser’s go- to “thumbs-up” pose in any number of pictures, regardless of the context.
"… This is a serious problem for Trump’s coalition. He has always posed as an ally and champion of veterans. This is a key aspect of his general attempt to convince people that his motive for running for office is selfless — he no longer cares about his own wealth and happiness and wants only to create a better world for Americans.
"But Trump doesn’t actually care about the country. The whole idea of caring about the country is difficult for him to fathom. He believes in the gangster ethos that people are universally selfish, that those who claim to uphold higher values are merely hypocrites, and the only exception are the saps who get conned into risking their lives for strangers.
“His goal in the Arlington visit was to smooth over his political liability by creating the false image that he actually cares about the honor of fallen soldiers. Instead, he confirmed once again that he doesn’t.” – Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine, on the dishonorable orange buffoon Malignant Loser’s desecration of Arlington National Cemetery, as well as his comparing the Congressional Medal of Honor with the civilian Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Why would anyone believe that a guy who refuses to pay contractors for work done would support unions at all?
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