What gives… workers want unions and peace--- they get fired and they get wars.

Alan L. Maki

Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor, pointed out very often that unless workers know they will be protected by the government when they organize, very few organizing drives take place.

I had a meeting a week ago with the head of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED)... their office is full of publications they send out to employers (even when not requested by the employer) booklet after booklet teaching employers how to stop union organizing drives and campaigns. The employers are taught how to fire workers under Minnesota's (and some 28 states have similar legislation) "at-will hiring, at will firing" legislation. In other words... as long as the employer gives no reason for firing a worker the firing is considered legitimate and legal.

So, I asked the Commissioner: "Where are the publications you distribute to workers teaching them how to organize?"

For asking this this question, Mr. McElroy told me to leave his office.
At first I thought he was joking since we hadn't even begun to discuss our business... but, when he called security I knew he was no longer joking.
The "state" is aligned against workers and workers know it... and this is what gets passed off as "democracy."

I brought this issue of the need to repeal "At-will hiring; at-will firing" before the State Convention of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party on two occasions in the form of a resolution from the floor since several other times, even though the resolution was supported by over 150 precinct caucuses, it was never authorized by the resolutions committee.

Guess who the primary opposition came from? None other than Ray Waldron the then President of the Minnesota AFL-CIO who told his labor delegates to remain seated and vote "no." Only two local unions had their delegates rise in support.
Waldron later told me at the MN AFL-CIO convention that he really supported my resolution (ya... sure, you betcha) but that its passage would have destroyed the MN DFL because labor only has about a quarter of the delegates and big-business and professionals and small business the rest.

 
CUPE Saskatchewan published what I think is one of the most important books any working person could ever read. The book. "Class, State and Power: The Struggle for Trade Union Rights in Saskatchewan, 1905-1997" written by the late Glen Makahonuk who served CUPE in various capacities and was the President of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour... from whom I think this book can still be obtained.

It seems like union organizing should be such a simple task, yet because every worker understands they are bucking employers backed by the "state" organizing a union remains one of the most difficult tasks--- even when the majority of workers want the union--- its kind of like the entire Nation wants these dirty wars to end and one would expect the democratic will of the people to be supreme... but, real life offers up something completely different to the democracy that is preached and boasted of by both the U.S. and Canadian governments--- the two greatest bastions of democracy in the world to hear these hypocrites tell it.