AFL - CIO split, Karl Rove's tremendous blunder and Summer's eventual end.
The unions are splitting. 5 large unions are seceding from the AFL-CIO and one of them happens to be the Teamsters, my stepfather's union. He says their union delegate told him it's better for them, because all the AFL-CIO is interested in is politics. We debated for a while about the pro's/con's of splitting the labour movement, and how it'll weaken the movement nationally. The split is mainly caused by a desperate need to put more focus into organizing, get more employers to allow workers to unionize, gain more members, retain the right to collective bargaining and to reform the structure of the AFL-CIO. On the flip side, weakening the labour movement is a scary decision at this point in time, when unemployment rates are high and a lot of local governments are taking away the union's right to collective bargaining for health benefits, wage stability/increase, time off and etc. Some say solidarity is needed, but my mother and I have a couple of accounts with the local unions who order flowers. We've known a lot of the local unions' top guys for a long time as customers, and my grandfather has known the guys from being a school bus driver, taxicab driver and limousine driver. Unions are dirty, underhanded and sometimes downright fucked up to the worker's they're supposed to be protecting. In the years that Sweeny has been president of the AFL-CIO, nothing has changed, and I'm not at all happy about solidifying a base of union executives from these guys. The goals seem positive and productive for the labour movement, but in reality, what's stopping the presidents of these local unions from becoming even more corrupt? Just last week the president of the Local 1181 in Queens (a long time customer of ours too!) was arrested, along with other top executives in his union, for having mob connections, and embezzling money out of the Unions health insurance fund.
In the long term, these unions have become as capitalist as the capitalists it sought to protect workers from. They've become a microcosm of the same hierarchies and underhanded politics that go on in our society as a whole. I'm all for revolutionizing and re-socializing the labour movement, forcing it back to it's grassroots beginnings... but who knows what will become of this split? From the workers eyes, it's just some top executives getting mad at some other top executives and catching the little man in the middle, with neither option being better. That's as much as my stepfather and I could conclude. Him being a shop steward doesn't help his company's other union workers very much, because he's supposed to be able to explain this, and he doesn't even know which side to support. Even being pretty well informed on this issue, and having lived in a family of union workers my entire life, I can't come to a conclusion either.
Fucking hell. I keep being reminded of the Rancid song... "Solidarity, love and unity, set me free with a bullet and a gun." for some strange reason, whenever I think about the AFL-CIO thing.
In other news, I'm still confused about Karl Rove. I read an article knocking the CIA's covert program as being malicious and evil throughout it's entire history, and have religiously listened to Randi Rhodes scream to hells gates about him. Traitor or Journalist? What the fuck do I know. I can't pick a stance and so I'm keeping my mouth shut about it. I don't even know how to begin to talk about all the facts, but I know that Randi usually does her research and she's never said anything disagreeable to me before, but I'm always wary never to immediately trust anything I hear. I do know that it's making my head spin after this week's issue of The Nation and Randi's broadcasts over the past few weeks. Rove's tantrum on CNN doesn't clear anything up either.
Well, summer's coming to a blisteringly sweaty and sunburned end. I've been spending it; drunk, with my head in some political mag or another, my ears glued to 1190, parties, shows, annoyance, tending to sick relatives, busting my ass at work, trying to fix things in my head and my heart, and one of the longest zombie movie kicks I've had in a while. While everyone around me was breaking up, I was out on the prowl and was (for the most part) unsuccessful. Harry Potter 6 came out, I read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy in the form of 5 novels, and while the universe came to a abrupt and untimely end, I have not, as of yet, found an adequate alternative universe to hide in. School will start, I will bury my head in the books, skip a few classes for mental health, fight with my family a lot during the holidays and the year will come to a close having been as it always is... fitful, eventful, stressful, but ultimately and always a learning experience. Though, there has never been quite so much grief in the past years as in this one, I won't jinx next year by hoping it wont be as bad as this one has been. I've been trying to pound into my head that in bad, there is always some good lurking... but you know, it's never the kind of good you want. It's always some kind of experience, or lesson learned, but not a revenge or a shiny happy moment, or a lusty romance, or a moment of clarity. Usually it's just the delusional moments of clarity during intoxication that slink their way in, posing as hope. I keep thinking, "We'll see, we'll see" and hoping I see a Vonnegut tattoo again sometime soon (I kid, I kid).
Thanks to; Jane for sending me a postcard from the Philipinnes, Denise for listening to my insane rambling all summer, and anyone and everyone who bought, stole, or 'borrowed' a drink for me. No thanks to anyone who's; broken my heart, taken my liquor without my knowledge, been insensitive, been a dick to one of my friends, made me feel uncomfortable or unwanted, and was rude or nasty to me.
Oh, I saw Must Love Dogs last night. It was crap, but it was amusing crap. John Cusack carried the entire thing, even though his role was nowhere near as prominent as Diane Lane's role. I wish he would just write another movie for himself to act in, because he's too fantastic to be playing other people's shitty parts, and turning them into the only good character in a badly done film.
In the long term, these unions have become as capitalist as the capitalists it sought to protect workers from. They've become a microcosm of the same hierarchies and underhanded politics that go on in our society as a whole. I'm all for revolutionizing and re-socializing the labour movement, forcing it back to it's grassroots beginnings... but who knows what will become of this split? From the workers eyes, it's just some top executives getting mad at some other top executives and catching the little man in the middle, with neither option being better. That's as much as my stepfather and I could conclude. Him being a shop steward doesn't help his company's other union workers very much, because he's supposed to be able to explain this, and he doesn't even know which side to support. Even being pretty well informed on this issue, and having lived in a family of union workers my entire life, I can't come to a conclusion either.
Fucking hell. I keep being reminded of the Rancid song... "Solidarity, love and unity, set me free with a bullet and a gun." for some strange reason, whenever I think about the AFL-CIO thing.
In other news, I'm still confused about Karl Rove. I read an article knocking the CIA's covert program as being malicious and evil throughout it's entire history, and have religiously listened to Randi Rhodes scream to hells gates about him. Traitor or Journalist? What the fuck do I know. I can't pick a stance and so I'm keeping my mouth shut about it. I don't even know how to begin to talk about all the facts, but I know that Randi usually does her research and she's never said anything disagreeable to me before, but I'm always wary never to immediately trust anything I hear. I do know that it's making my head spin after this week's issue of The Nation and Randi's broadcasts over the past few weeks. Rove's tantrum on CNN doesn't clear anything up either.
Well, summer's coming to a blisteringly sweaty and sunburned end. I've been spending it; drunk, with my head in some political mag or another, my ears glued to 1190, parties, shows, annoyance, tending to sick relatives, busting my ass at work, trying to fix things in my head and my heart, and one of the longest zombie movie kicks I've had in a while. While everyone around me was breaking up, I was out on the prowl and was (for the most part) unsuccessful. Harry Potter 6 came out, I read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy in the form of 5 novels, and while the universe came to a abrupt and untimely end, I have not, as of yet, found an adequate alternative universe to hide in. School will start, I will bury my head in the books, skip a few classes for mental health, fight with my family a lot during the holidays and the year will come to a close having been as it always is... fitful, eventful, stressful, but ultimately and always a learning experience. Though, there has never been quite so much grief in the past years as in this one, I won't jinx next year by hoping it wont be as bad as this one has been. I've been trying to pound into my head that in bad, there is always some good lurking... but you know, it's never the kind of good you want. It's always some kind of experience, or lesson learned, but not a revenge or a shiny happy moment, or a lusty romance, or a moment of clarity. Usually it's just the delusional moments of clarity during intoxication that slink their way in, posing as hope. I keep thinking, "We'll see, we'll see" and hoping I see a Vonnegut tattoo again sometime soon (I kid, I kid).
Thanks to; Jane for sending me a postcard from the Philipinnes, Denise for listening to my insane rambling all summer, and anyone and everyone who bought, stole, or 'borrowed' a drink for me. No thanks to anyone who's; broken my heart, taken my liquor without my knowledge, been insensitive, been a dick to one of my friends, made me feel uncomfortable or unwanted, and was rude or nasty to me.
Oh, I saw Must Love Dogs last night. It was crap, but it was amusing crap. John Cusack carried the entire thing, even though his role was nowhere near as prominent as Diane Lane's role. I wish he would just write another movie for himself to act in, because he's too fantastic to be playing other people's shitty parts, and turning them into the only good character in a badly done film.