"Although, I am quite flattered that the thought of me going after unions has gotten you so riled up. : )"

Well I'm glad union-bashing is all fun and games to you.

wow, Draug hit it nail on the head.

maple - I still think that for the vast majority of people in those situations it would be easier and less expensive over the term of their career if they retained an attorney if they ever got into really sticky situations with their employer like that. You only need to pay a plaintiff's attorney if you win. Besides, I would hope that the majority of workers don't need to enter arbitration with their employer during the course of their career.

" Not that you keyboard commandos" That's Mr. Highly-respected Six-figure Senior Keyboard Commando to you, flunky.

"I feel like you may actually be upset by this, so let me assure you: bitching on this forum was the only action I planned on taking and foresee myself ever taking on this issue."

Sorry, this was a lie. I also wrote my check to the union out in magic marker, as a form of silent protest. But, I assure you, that is all.

Abge and all, we recently went through a phase at my college where an unenlightened board hired an unenlightened president who hired really bad VPs, some with dodgy problems in previous employment. They inherited a half BILLION dollars worth of bonds and proceeded to take gifts from the contractors that eventually earned them over 160? felony indictments (that number includes a local high school district that was also playing ball with the same contractors). In the midst of this they cut classes due to reduced state funding, BUT they cut them so much that they were able to GROW the reserves by a million dollars at the same time as they were cutting classes for the students. Duh, the reserves are for exactly such tough times as these and should be slowly spent down to even out some of the budget roller-coaster problems! So the students protested, five teachers attended the rally, and that evening armed campus police and a campus administrator went to each of those teachers' homes (plus the union president who they thought was at the rally but wasn't) to tell them that they were not to return to the campus until further notice. We had the local district attorney investigating them, our local congressman came to campus to speak (and they denied him a microphone), I got a letter from the president mailed to me after I sent a very reasonable global email--and he sent a copy to another teacher with the same last name because he thought he was putting pressure on my wife lol. The fired some admins and classified staff that dared to disagree (privately) with anything they ordered. Long story short, without tenure and our union to defend it, those administrators would have fired any teacher who dared to speak out against the class cuts.

"Depends on the type of intimidation. Link?"

Your moral relativism and extraordinarily specific situational ethical code is always fascinating.

http://labornotes.org/blogs/2012/06/alabama-poultry-workers-victory-vote-stick-together

Abge, my mom accidentally once wrote out some checks with a sewing pen, with disappearing ink. One of the checks was able to be read and cashed, but the other one was never cashed. lol

Thank you, Mujus, for that story.

@Mujus

So how were things resolved? It sounds from your story that several people were fired without cause and nothing happened to the administration.

Sorry wrong link - http://www.al.com/business/index.ssf/2014/01/mercedes_employees_accuse_auto.html

I note that Putin doesn't mind anecdotal evidence when it supports his views but bitches up a storm when it doesn't. Typical two-faced Putfuck.

Since data don't seem to have any effect on union hating thugs, and all of their hate stems from anecdotes, it appears that anecdotal evidence is the only thing they'll listen to.

And since when is an accusation the se thing as a conviction. The would be union is trying to intimidate Daimler. Doesn't mean they actual did what the labor union claims.

Still anecdotal evidence and, as such, unreliable.

@Putin

You'll notice how Tolstoy, Mujus, et al have taken this opportunity to create arguments in defense of unions, some of which were quite good. If you care about unions as much as you claim to, it would behoove you to follow their lead next time, rather than acting as you did in this thread. People are just as likely to disagree with you because you're an ass than for any other reason, which is a shame because some of your arguments are quite good, when you chose to make them.

Well gee, corporate-owned judiciary and corporate-owned NLRB doesn't convict their paymasters. What a surprise.

"If you care about unions as much as you claim to, it would behoove you to follow their lead next time, rather than acting as you did in this thread"

You say this after the OP and the commentary you provided in this thread? Rich. If you wanted civilized discussion of the merits of unions, you wouldn't have started this kind of thread which you even admitted was an unserious trolling attempt by you. So sorry I'm going to listen to your usual sanctimonious speechifying about having a kind and gentle tone.

As for Tolstoy arguing for unions, uh...not really.

Typical Putin. All the US is corrupt, but not his beloved former Soviet masters.

No, I didn't want to have a civilized discussion. As I said, I was just blowing off some steam. However, you could have taken this opportunity to force the debate and, since I'll readily admit you're more knowledgable on the subject than I am, could have made me look quite foolish.

Look foolish to whom? Your nasty and disgusting OP got 8 +1s as the forum's frequenters are the most extreme of the far-right that play webdiplomacy. If you're so far gone that you're happily talking about how it'd nice if MA was a RTW state then persuasion with you is useless, and it long ago became useless with the libertarian cranks who fawn over your union hating posts.

If you didn't want to have a civilized discussion then you can cease with your usual daddy scoldings about my tone. Thanks.

Hi Abge,
Well legally first: The ACLU and FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) threatened lawsuits, our local big-city DA filed those 160+ felony charges, but then someone pulled some expensive behind-the-scenes strings and got the case transferred to our local small-town court, a senior judge with a good reputation. But six months later, before the trial started, it got transferred to a new young judge who let it be known that she wasn't looking for felony convictions. Most had their multiple felony counts reduced to a single misdemeanor plea and community service, and two actually pleaded guilty to one felony count each--but at the sentencing, the judge reduced even those confessed felonies to misdemeanors. Politically, our union set up a PAC, collected an extra $100 from most of us (way over a hundred teachers contributed), found candidates for our board, and walked the streets canvasing for "our" candidates. Of interest to many was the fact that the governing board member who lived with our business manager and voted for all the contracts he recommended without recusing herself was given $100,000 in contributions from the contractors and their employees. We beat her anyway. But when anyone contributes a hundred mil in an attempt to buy a college board seat, you know there's money involved. The fired employees were all rehired, except one who had moved out of town in the interim.

@Mujus

Thanks. I'm glad your union was able to help you.

"If you're so far gone that you're happily talking about how it'd nice if MA was a RTW state then persuasion with you is useless,"

Why? 25% of the US is RTW. I don't even feel that strongly about it. I was just responding to the suggestion that I move states because of a part-time job.

In any case, this conversation has divulged into you making excuses for why you didn't present a real argument and me agreeing that's not what I was looking for anyway, so I'm not sure there's much point in continuing it.

I think you mean diverge, and I quite agree.

"I think you mean diverge, and I quite agree."

Well, see, that's at least 2 things we can agree on.

I'll repeat my ignored question. It's a good one. That's why the straw bosses don't want to answer it

If "Right To Work" is the answer, then why the misnomer?

What's with the sideshow?

Everybody knows it's about union busting.

Google "99 Day Ford Strike" and "Rand Formula".

@putin,

"'Depends on the type of intimidation. Link?;

"Your moral relativism and extraordinarily specific situational ethical code is always fascinating."

I was just being polite. I'm not going to take the word of somebody who calls all high school workers "scabs" that there was *any* "intimidation.* I wanted to see just how this word was being used. I would never trust you to distinguish between illegal (but perhaps unproveable) intimidation, and perfectly legitimate exercise of the employment-at-will relationship, for example.

Anyway, this story is not about an automotive company in Alabama or Ohio. Maybe you forgot, but your claim was that automotive companies in Alabama and/or Ohio used intimidation to suppress free speech. Did this actually happen?

(The story you linked is vague, one-sided hearsay with no specifics as to the nature of the alleged intimidation, but if the facts were all made out, then certainly I would condemn -- for example -- the use of law enforcement to harass union promoters who had not broken any laws).

I posted the wrong link at first.

"and perfectly legitimate exercise of the employment-at-will relationship, for example."

A nice euphemism for firing people for talking about unions, aka acceptable intimidation.

"I was just being polite."

Polite? No, you're parsing out acceptable tactics of workplace intimidation based on nothing more than the very lax and pro-employer labor laws we have in this country.