Spokane had a situation here a few years ago with a foundry called "Kaiser". It was a metal plant. What a mess the papers were and the violence to scabs was inhumane to the point the area had to be policed constantly. I don't know if you remember or read the papers about it but I will tell you the truth about the union which I am sure of you already know.

The union started out as a great thing. No more 20 hour work days for 7 days a week. No more forcing us to buy everything from the company store. A lot of blood was spilled so that we could have minimum wages and time off and I thank the ancestors of the union.

An influx of new workers came into Kaiser. Young men who worked hard at their jobs but had only been on for a few seasons. Kaiser was losing money so they needed to downsize. The management wanted to keep the young hard working guys and lay off some of the fat lazy slobs or have them all take a paycut. Unfortuneately for the hard workers the fat lazy slobs who had senoirity and outnumbered the younger workers didn't want to be laid off so they went on Strike. One year went by and the workers wanted to bargain now, but the scabs were making Kaiser money so the union workers were locked out for another year and then kaiser shut down because it could make more money selling power back to Avista the local power company. So everyone lost out and had to go find other jobs with their pensions going bye bye. Why didn't they all just take a paycut the lowest paid guy made $16 and hour and in Spokane you can live like a king on that money.

I tried to get help from the Union as well. You may have read about it in one of my post. What is really sad is that American's are by nature spoiled and rarely ever statisfied with what they have, myself included. But I don't want big fancy boats or stuff like that I just want some medial insurance, food, shelter. Things that a person needs before he can even think about nicer things. When someone who is making $26 an hour(as my friends in Kaiser were making) has the nerve to go on strike for better benifits and more money I applaud the investors and owners who shut them down. This does not mean I like to see families starve, scared and uncertain about the future. It just means they created the situation themselves. They could have avoided it by taking a paycut that is all the investors wanted. More and more big business are locking out strikers except for the major ones. In wich case the president can tell them to get to work or they are all fired ~grins~ Smells like unity and freedom too me ~winks~