Sorry Joe, but I have a major beef with your comment. You say that since the membership votes for strikes so if you're on strike you can't bitch about losing pay. That is the biggest bullshit statement I've ever heard in my life! That makes is sound as if your union rotted your brain. I know you're good and pissed now. Fine. Let me tell you the side of my father working 43 years for one of the largest unions in the country and you can, or at least should, understand why I say your comment is pure bullshit.
First, my father never, not one single time, voted to strike; ever. He understood that there was never a possibility to EVER make up the money lost by being on strike even if the union got everything they wanted. Secondly, he quickly realized that his union was literally a leach killing it's host. The complete morons he worked with generally were single or divorced and really didn't care if they worked or not. My father had a family for which he had to provide. My dad crossed the 'picket line' to work because our family needed the money and they sent a union thug to slit the tires on our cars at our home.
I was in college then, home for the weekend, and had two other football team members at my house with me. We caught them and beat them so badly that the police were called, two ambulances arrived and it was on the news. We were not charged with any crime. My point is the union sent two of their dumbest and biggest thugs to teach my dad a lesson and make it personal. I fucking took it personal alright. That was about the time that my dad quit trying to defend the UMWA on anything and just wanted to finish working until his retirement.
That was back in the 80's. The UMWA had over 20k union workers in my state then. Now they have ZERO. They were so fucking stupid that they bankrupted their employers. Nearly every mine is back open and operating now with NON-UNION workers who make a good living with good benefits. When they announce they need to hire another 20 people, they generally get a thousand applications. Yeah, they are being abused and underpaid; worked like slaves. Right.
Now, how amazing, the UMWA has misappropriated all of the funds their members paid in for 30, 40, 50 years that was to provide for lifetime health care and pensions. After paying in for all of those years, losing tens of thousands of dollars for being out on strikes, my dad is now looking at losing his healthcare (pretty well already gone) and his pension has already dropped to around half of what was promised and he's received notice that they cannot continue to pay as much as they are. Fuck that union! I've also seen several other unions on the same path like a small one called the UAW. They bankrupted the largest automaker in the world and cost our country billions of dollars. Fuck them too! Don't give me any bullshit about union workers with families busting their ass, not voting to strike, doing everything they can at work not having any reason to complain about strikes. That anvil just doesn't float!
