Free Free Labor*

FREE FREE LABOR

I heard an NPR radio report that Florida and its wannabe Antichrist, Governor Ron DeSantis, eliminated, decertified, legislated out of existence the 43,000 strong public sector workers unions. It had an interview with the President of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (me, being a Electricus Emeritus, quite proud) and he said, and I quote; "There's nothing we can do." That will go in the drawer along with "My hands are tied", "That's just the way it is.", "Just thank God you got a job.", and the old evergreen, "I'll get back to you." Union leadership finally speaks publicly.

Many people have figured out, Staughton Lynd for example, that “workers" have more rights organizing as a 501(c)(3) social club than being in a AFL-CIO affiliated union. This is a unique opportunity for radical labor activists within the locals to quit kissing ass to the existing bureaucracy and form a group that improves their jobsite. The Club has nothing to do with your job, regardless of the fact 99% of the membership also work together in their "free" time. You are free to associate voluntarily, and yes, cry me a river, you are going to have to pay your dues personally. The group isn’t bogged down by bi-partisan Taft/Hartley and Landrum/Griffin regulation. Imagine telling your membership to vote forever-the-hell they want to vote for.

State workers are the Aristocracy of Fabor (false labor). I'm not the only one resentful of these people never missing a paycheck during the entire COVID hysteria. There was nothing to do, there was no paper to shuffle. A skeleton crew could have kept things going for three years and the scissorbills cashed every check while their neighbors’ lives were economically destroyed by The State. State workers are paid prevailing wage, and they collect while the private economy works to eliminate union jobs. They don't deserve that wage 52 weeks a year, in so many ways. Greedy bastards without backbone or heart, nothing new.

In decaying, decrepit Cuba Libre, there is no private economy. You are a slave for the State. That's your Union. The Polish Communists said, "If they pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work."

I did an interesting interview with a founding member of the United Farm Workers (UFW) and later involved with the forming of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for public workers in the State of California when Reagan was Governor. He claimed the politicians were all for collective bargaining. They saw it as way to shed over-ambitious administrative assistants, lawyers, left-brain managerial type people (lefties?) they didn't have jobs for anymore or wanted removed from staff without hard feeling. Ensuring the current politician’s political fiefdom, dispensing jobs and favors was their motivation. SEIU was an extension of management from the start. SEIU in California is The State.

Parents, be good teachers. If your child needs a good teacher outside the home, my bet is that teacher won't belong to an AFL-CIO affiliated union.

"There is nothing we can do." A Truth on NPR, how unusual.

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https://escapedwageslave.blogspot.com/2023/07/wage-slavery-compilation.html

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Greetings, Brothers

Make Sure You Vote

TV Station Broadcasts Biden-Sanders Results Day Before Election

by Colin Kalmbacher

A television station in Illinois broadcast results from the Joe Biden–Bernie Sanders Democratic Primary contest on Monday–the day before the actual election was scheduled to occur.

Paris, Illinois resident Sherry Daugherty noted the discrepancy in a widely-shared and commented upon Facebook post.

“While watching The Price is Right our station accidentally runs tomorrow’s election results,” she said. “It’s Monday our election in Illinois is tomorrow.”

Local CBS affiliate WCIA ran the graphic showing Biden leading on 50 percent of the vote with 986,341 votes. Sanders had 45 percent of the vote in the WCIA graphic with 893,249 votes.

After Daugherty’s post and other viewer-captured videos of the pre-results were shared,the network immediately caught an intense amount of flak online. Suggestions of vote-rigging and electoral fraud.

“Illinois station broadcasts the pre-rigged election results day before the election (Biden 50% Bernie 45%),” noted one viral Twitter post by Bethany James Winn. “#ElectionFraud.”

“Illinois released the results of tomorrow’s Primary a day before….” reads the caption of the post shared by popular progressive meme page Unofficial: DNC.

“It was an ‘accident’, showing Biden winning,” another Facebook user drily noted. “Oopsie-doopsies (not).”

The term “conspiracy” was sardonically/quickly trotted out.

“For all my conspiracy minded folks, here’s an Illinois TV station accidentally reporting the final election results of TOMORROWS primary TODAY!” another Facebook user said. “Why, it’s almost like our elections, our media, and our democracy are all just illusions held in place to keep us in line.”

WCIA reporter Mark Maxwell later reached out to Daugherty about the incident–insisting the graphic was simply a “test.”

“We do routine test rehearsals before every election to make sure the graphics work properly and to give directors some practice,” Maxwell said. “The error was in putting the dry run on air. That shouldn’t have happened and we’re looking into it.”

“Obviously, we never intended to give the wrong information or wrong impression,” he continued–pleading with Daugherty to include his explanation. “None of those numbers were based on any real polling returns. Since your post is being widely shared, I’d appreciate it if you would consider updating the original post so people don’t get the wrong idea.”

WCIA News Director Rich Flesch also reached out to Daugherty after her post garnered substantial traction and outrage on social media.

Beer Nut

There's a very good reason the media are silent about the Milwaukee mass shooting

By Andrea Widburg

On Wednesday, an angry ex-employee got a gun, put a silencer on it, went to the MillersCoors facility where he had once worked, and shot five people to death before shooting himself. One would expect to have a barrage of news stories about America's gun violence problem and the need to ban guns. After all, on Tuesday, before the shooting happened, the Democrat candidates were all over each other trying to explain why each would be more effective at destroying the Second Amendment. Instead, we got crickets.

The reason for the media's silence became apparent when the media identified the shooter: 51-year-old Anthony Ferrill was black. This meant that the media couldn't use its white supremacist narrative to justify grabbing guns.

... If the media were genuinely committed to gutting the Second Amendment, they would have promoted this shooting equally with other mass shootings. That they didn't is a reminder that Democrat values tend to be situational. Guns are all right in some hands but not in others.

For example, even though Democrat-run inner cities are a place of routine gun carnage, the media tend to ignore all the black-on-black shooting that takes place in those cities, despite the sad fact that those shootings account for most of the non-suicide gun deaths in America. This silence suggests that Democrats don't care about blacks, no matter how much they claim to.

Democrats are also loath to dwell on these shootings because they invariably occur in tightly gun-controlled communities and are carried out by people possessing illegal guns. Thus, anti-gun laws made no difference to the deadly outcome.

The media really get agitated when a person who is not a member of one of the Left's protected classes kills with a gun. The most agitating thing of all is when the person kills white people. In other words, because most media members are themselves white, they are most offended when their own kind is killed. Again, this has to do with situational, not actual, ethics.

Democrats are wrong to demand gun control. Guns out are there, making them a Pandora's box. Denying the legions of decent Americans the right to have guns for self-defense, whether against the criminal in their midst or (God forbid!) against a government gone rogue, is morally and constitutionally wrong. But what's even more wrong about the Democrats' antipathy to guns is that they really care about guns only when people like them are the victims and when the shooter does not belong to a favored victim identity group.

And that's why Anthony Ferrill's vile, criminal act is being memory-holed as surely as the media have memory-holed the fact that it was a Bernie Bro who tried to kill the entire Republican Congress a few years ago.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/theres_a_very_good_reason_the_media_is_silent_about_the_milwaukee_mass_shooting.html

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Shooter at Milwaukee Molson Coors had a long-running dispute with a co-worker

MILWAUKEE – The man who opened fire at the Molson Coors plant Wednesday, killing five co-workers and himself, had been involved in a long-running dispute with a co-worker that boiled over, according to law enforcement and brewery sources who spoke to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

...Ferrill was a licensed industrial journeyman electrician and a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Milwaukee.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/27/milwaukee-molson-coors-shooter-had-long-running-dispute-co-worker/4893244002/

The Finish Line*

The Finish Line

The rocking chair money has arrived.

While I basically left the Wage Slave Plantation in 2008, I still had to eke out an existence. I did it with no State help, refusing CA Unemployment Benefits even when I was able to collect. Some might question that decision, but I'm living an independent life and not a Ward of the State.

I qualified for those benefits by working a few payroll jobs out of the union hall. When the local boys can't fill the job requests they filter down to likes of me, "the traveler", even though I have lived in the jurisdiction for 8 years. I got several jobs this way and milked them for all I could. These contractors didn't get much work out of me and I can proudly say I ended my electrical payroll career getting fired on a double time Sunday in the middle of the day.

I worked off my truck being helpful to my customers. Older, likable folks I hardly charged for my services, others I charged a lot because of their bad attitude. It was a word of mouth, business card promoted type of work, sometimes it rained jobs but I also enjoyed the droughts. Always paid my taxes like my fellow citizens Amazon, Google and Exxon do. I'm my own worse Boss, but I survived.

As a young man starting in 1979, I joined a group that was full of life. We worked hard, drank hard, played hard. We built buildings, big ones. The apprenticeship wasn't easy. The trades are difficult, the people are difficult, and electricity is dangerous. So are ironworkers dropping their spud wrenches. There were a lot of traditions I was supposed to go along with and I found that difficult, like showing up for work on time. Once the journeyman's card arrived, I felt as if I could go anywhere and do anything electrical to earn a living - and I did. From nuclear power plants to installing data systems, I did it all. Paying off three mortgages, raising 3 children, putting them through college, our family benefited. I carried a cockiness and confidence, down right arrogance sometimes, everywhere I went. We all did, the trades do that to you. You are as good as your last day of work, separation and rejection are an integral part of the business. Being nice wasn't a job requirement, but doing your job was.

I went through the class of the first woman taking an apprenticeship. A nice person, I bet she had a fine career, I'm sure it was tough in a lot of ways. Affirmative Action paralleled my whole working life. I learned to take second shift calls for minority contractors so we could fix the work of the day shift at a better rate of pay. I learned to understand that an address in the city or a lack of penis or a skin color allowed one to step ahead of me in line waiting for a job that's what my white privilege got me. Being 'union' finally meant Hooray For Me. The Federal government made that happen. No disrespect to many women in our local but the joke was, "she knew EEOC law, sexual harassment law, workers compensation law but she didn't know Ohm's Law."

Some of the characters I was in daily interactions with defined my attitudes about work and life. I think of them most fondly, us working and battling shoulder to shoulder for the rank and file in internal local struggles, and enjoy the occasional phone call from a long ago friend. My heart does nosedive when I see one of their names on the 'Less Donkeys, More Hay' memorial list the local puts out monthly.

After 25 years in construction, I thought it time to pick up a maintenance gig and glide out gracefully from the hard work world. Was I ever wrong. I was hired at a major university and thought I had gone to heaven. Change light bulbs and ballasts, push my cart around surrounded by co-eds, an easier experience I couldn't find. Parachuting into a gang of 15-25 year veterans, forever the 'new guy' and getting played on long time feuds and personal hatreds, it was a toxic place to work. I had no experience with office politics short of punching someone in the nose. I also had to deal with a time clock which I never had to before. That piece of of workplace life, so familiar to some, was a psychological hammer used against all of us. I really missed my independence.

I lasted exactly three years and left with my hair on fire. I lost my confidence, my ability to see anything without anger, my love of my fellow workingman. It was a low point in my life. To be fair to those miserables I left behind, my personal life was filled with alcohol and emotional abuse. I am responsible for my words and actions, nothing happens in a vacuum, but they were some rotten sonsofbitches, mostly. Some of the worst people I ever worked with and I worked with some real assholes. So began the Escaped Wage Slave blog.

CAUTION: ADVICE

Do what you love and love what you do. Never put up with jerks, put-downs, or authority insecurities. Learn what you need and practice it for yourself. Don't pretend to 'love your job' when you don't. Work is joy, if it isn't, make it joyful. There are a lot of people out there that need your help. If your job is to make someone else a lot of money, let them do the work. Helping others is your job.

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The Invisible Rainbow*

https://escapedwageslave.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-invisible-rainbow.html

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Professor Doom

http://professorconfess.blogspot.com/

8 Reasons Not To Go To University

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/electrician-shortage-six-figure-salary-job

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Room With A View II*

Room With A View

I went to Labor Notes in Dearborn, MI this year. I was last there to promote labor/working class television to the labor movement 12 years ago. I was still trying to sell them on the wonderful technology of The Television over the weekend. I'll be back in 12 years to deliver the same message, I'm afraid. I understand the "How to Make a Flyer" workshop was well attended.

There is a stressful undercurrent among these folks. From the system tweakers to the bread and butter unionists to the Anarchist party on the Penthouse 14th floor because, after all, "they have the biggest vision.". A beautiful suite overlooking west Detroit, it was.

I went to the Building Trades bitch-a-thon. I'm glad I did because when it came time for me to speak, I vented 25 years of disgust of the way tradesmen treat each other. I informed them that their worst advertisement was themselves and asked, "Did you ever see you yahoos out in public with your union jackets and phony, tough guy, rude attitude?" This meme I held all weekend was to promote the idea the American working class is mentally ill, in the grips of some Child Abuse Syndrome, siblings quieting any dissent, dysfunction should be behind closed doors, systemic internal abuse in the hazing of apprenticeship, or the stated fact of Lisa, (I believe an IBEW electrician from Boston), that "after thirty years on a career track they hated, 55 year old white men are miserable." It was nice for a Sister to have my back after I had just told the lot (and they still think they are in a union) that they are mentally ill.

The discussion did spur some interesting stories as there were several women of the trades, apprentices and even a contractor from NYC. (... does not compute...) A brave ironworker apprentice from Nevada (?) told an awful story of an abusive teacher at the apprenticeship school and how she, and only she of a class of 28, stuck up for the one sorry target that this Bully choose to isolate. I called her classmates "cowards" (I knew I should have shut up then and there, but oh no) and stressed that this category is the most emotionally beat down group of workers at this conference. I mentioned the work of Kevin Lynch and Dr Donohue at the 134 IBEW and the 6hrs of seminars on "Emotional Intelligence" taught to the 3rd year apprentices.

Far and away, trying to change construction culture is the most neglected work being done. The labor movement doesn't need more members, it needs better quality of people and the Building Trades has a long way to go to be an asset if there ever is a "movement" in labor.

It felt good to vent, and I let out a blast of hot air at the Pension worry-a-thon. There is still a deep faith, especially among the State workers that pensions just need to be reformed. These gentle folks don't see a Ponzi Scheme when it slaps a wet mackeral across their chops. It's flipped, people with pensions are to be resented in this New World Economic Order. The ship has sailed on this issue, it's all swirling down the toilet in my opinion, and I agreed with the UE rep that wanted to form financial institutions of our own, sans Wall Street, and go back to pre-Taft Hartley Proudhonian thinking. It was interesting learning how through long process in the beginning of the century having health care and, possibly, a pension if tied you to your paycheck. It doesn't have to be that way. These patronizing dependence wage packages make a slave. You earn it, The Trust steal a clip on every hour worked. Put it all on the check, me and my friends in Mutual Aid will take care of ourselves, thank you.

After two hours of this jabber, it occurred to me that no one brought up the idea that stopping war funding might be a stimulus package and save their Golden Years assess. It worries me still how little the wars were even mentioned throughout the conference. Antiwar buttons and a workshop, for sure, but no out and out End The Wars appeal. It could be that I just wasn't there, too. US Labor Against the War (USLAW) did represent but the madness continues as the International Longshoreman and Wharehouse Union (ILWA) is forcing locals on the West Coast to handle Hot (Scab) Cargo. It seems further away from the idea of labor having any impact on the War Machine. If they are forced to handle hot cargo, they will be handing munitions and supplies for the duration, it seems to me. Antiwar group should be aware of the details in this case.

Always in the lib/lab/lefty event world, a swirl of absurdity held center stage. The organizers of the event held a protest against the Hyatt Hotel chain on behalf of the scabbed-out 100 Hyatt Hotel workers from Boston, in the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel of Dearborn, MI where the conference was being held.

The bi-annual Labor Notes conference should be credited in its promoting face-to-face interaction of like minded people that have some deep seated need to fight the alienation of the modern workplace. Small personal stories of bravery were quite inspirational. It takes a bit of diplomacy and presence to be with so many people all with different spots on the political time line. It was good for me to define myself amongst them, talking verbally with inflection and nuance, enjoying the facial expression of whom I'm speaking, and wonder how and when the next generation will slip down the digital matrix. When their personalities will merge through the USB port in the back of their heads. The final Tweet rapture.

When will the idea of computer software programs saving the working class wear out its shine?Another e-mail on the way to the Revolution ain't making it happen. The military created the Internet, they can make it all go away, too. Big Brother is here and the IBEW installed it. Cyberspace is so nebulous, making the photo erasures eliminating the foes of Uncle Joe historical narrative, seem like crayons in literature. Digital imagery is pure illusion, filter what you see and hear, doubt your senses. Data can go away to NoWhereLand, JeeBus, I'm still digging 10 year old Labor Note rags out of the back of my desk drawer. The difference of a good handshake/hug and a FaceBook friend is an issue and a reflection on what is needed in future struggles. So much of technology has alienated us from each other ever more, seemingly while emancipating us. The illusion is complete.

Only one place for discussion for what the world is going to look like in the future and I had to take the freight elevator to the 14th floor to find it. One obvious anarchist lifestyle attendee from Madison, WI stated he was in the Socialist Party branch. Asked politely, "How does that work?" He said he and his two friends joined and immediately had a majority and took over the group. This is an example of the great Red Threat existing in America today.

(Re-published from 2010, EWS)

I Am Not A Farm Animal

There is one local union that is attempting to correct the long held traditions that make their workplaces misery zones. LU 134 IBEW has seminars for 3rd, 4th and 5th yr apprentices on Emotional Intelligence teaching them to think correctly for themselves and not to accept the actions of the abusive House Slave Straw Boss, called the foreman in the industry, and his or her insecurities and lack of human skills as the last word. They pointed out to the contractors why their segment of the industry is dying - supervision is awful, and offering a solution to the problem is to the local's credit. While it may take some time for the payback of training young men and women to disperse into the workforce, overall the jobsite will become more tolerable and compassionate. Dr. Donohue and Mr. Lynch started this program after years of stories concerning abuse of apprentices by those returning to the school training course of several weeks a year. I, personally, went through over a dozen shops in my apprentice time because I never took well to being treated with disrespect and the coordinator at the time seemed to think I was a malcontent. He supported the systemic cruelty of the system and would have never questioned the contractors choice of who was running their work, no matter how psychotic a person it was, we were supposed to take orders. I feel this program of EI and possibly other courses of the mind taught to all members of the local would only improve interpersonal relationships and make the union stronger. They are on the cutting edge of the labor movement and I salute them. 

 

 I have removed myself from all worksites because of the attitudes I'd been fighting for over 25 years were continuing to be impressed upon me as normal. I was treated like a farm animal and I have no more interest in being one. These workplace interactions, my struggle for respect over the years, and the sadness that came upon me realizing the hell we put ourselves in during the workweek welled up and left me, not without much mental pain. I will not return to the mindset of a slave, unquestioning and dutifully silent. It made me a incredibly negative person and someone not to be around. Finally, I see a program that may change the working people's mindset and a little hope goes a long way in my personal journey. 

 Suggested reading: 

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/danielgole285397.html