Unfettered Letters

Views on unions

How can Richard Clark (3/31, Voices) call union workers greedy? Is it greedy to want a decent wage (not what illegal immigrants are paid), health and dental benefits and a pension for one’s family? Union trade workers take pride in their work, work long hours and sometimes, like everybody else, no hours. They, too, suffer when there are fewer jobs, a lack of big building projects or a slow economy.

Union workers go through a three- to five-year apprenticeship program to learn their trade and safety requirements. They come out journeyman tradespeople and get higher pay. If they are lucky, they get on with a good shop and stay for the duration. Some do not.

My husband is the union painting instructor for District Council No. 3’s apprenticeship program in North Kansas City. He’s been a union painter for 35 years and an instructor for three years. Like other people in the workforce, he’s had to compete for jobs, and he’s been laid off, too. His hands and face show the years of hard work he’s done, just like fellow painters and tradespeople.

Greedy? I don’t think so!

Karen Zentz
Lee’s Summit

Shame on the carpenters and ironworkers who were fussing over a contract. Look around at all the thousands of people who have lost their jobs in our city. You should all thank God that you still have a job.
 
Maybe your companies should fire all of you and hire the many, many people looking for jobs.

Mary Dannaldson
North Kansas City

What’s wrong with secret ballots?

I wish Bob Kanatzar (1/14, Letters) would explain how it would infringe on the rights of workers to have them vote by secret ballot on whether to have a union represent them in negotiations with their employer.

It’s a secret ballot, Bob. Having the person vote for a union by having a card thrust in his or her face by a co-worker or union organizer and being told, “Everybody wants a union — you do too, don’t you?” is not secret. Pressure can be brought to bear by the union organizer or the co-worker who hopes to become the new union shop steward.

Having that signed card now take the place of the secret ballot is not attempting to level a playing field. It’s an attempt to railroad and pressure workers into joining a union.

Unions that want to organize a workplace make a lot of promises. The only one I guarantee they will keep is their promise to collect dues.

Mike Thompson
Sibley, Mo.

Unions' responsibilities

Unions protect workers’ rights

I have worked at union places and non-union places. The only places I felt intimidated were the non-union ones. The union’s fought for the 40-hour workweek, eight-hour workday, paid vacations, health care, time and half for overtime, and pensions. Companies have moved jobs overseas, and if your memory is not too short, you should remember how they treated their workers.

Yes, there have been some bad unions. There still are companies that are bad, too. I will always be thankful for the unions.

David L. Netz Sr.
Independence

Employers and unions must cooperate

This article “YRC, Teamsters work together; Two sides want to change labor agreement to help out the company” by Eric Palmer (11/29, Business) should be must reading for all other unions whose employers are having trouble due to the economy, especially the autoworkers. Everyone needs to give a little.

Remember the old saying “A half loaf is better than no loaf at all?” But companies are not asking that much.

Paul Newhouse
Shawnee

Don’t blame the autoworkers

I always chuckle at how Americans are so quick to blame the United Auto Workers and its supporters for the fall of the Big Three. They say we are overpaid crybabies who don’t deserve what we have. If that is so why are there people lining up around the block to work for Ford?

The union should offer concessions, you say. Maybe you should look at the amount of concessions our union brothers have made, while the Big Three continue business as usual.

Let’s not blame poor management and inflated CEO benefits. Let’s blame the American working man!

Daniel Robertson
Member, United Auto Workers, Local 249
Kansas City

Save secret ballot for workers

Why would anyone want to take away a worker’s right to a secret ballot regarding unionization? I am a small-business owner who knows that good employees are the backbone of any successful company. The old “us against them” mentality went out decades ago.

Unions have the “closed shop” legislation locking in membership, as well as “forced dues,” regardless of workers’ beliefs and wishes.

I have been involved in two unionization attempts. Cards were easily signed during home visits and a big free drink session at the corner tavern. When the secret ballot voting was completed, the union was rejected on both occasions. Each employee spoke without fear of intimidation.

I suggest we support our free enterprise system by all pulling in the same direction before there is nothing left to unionize. We must save the secret ballot for our workers.

Bob Cook
Mission Hills

Employee Free Choice Act

Joe Kramps (11/10, Letters, “Benefits of union membership”) states “While I am not familiar with the wording of the Employee Free Choice Act, I am sure that the unions would not push an act that is un-American.”

I suggest he familiarize himself with this act, because if it becomes law, it will take away the individual right to vote by secret ballot. To take away the right to vote by secret ballot is very much un-American.

Dick Gauert
Trimble, Mo.

Benefits of union membership

George Benjamin (11/6, Letters) said that as a teenager working on the docks of Maryland he was threatened by union organizers. I am not familiar with the dockworkers union. But I am sure that most docks in the U.S. are unionized, and that when you go to work on a dock, agreeing to join the union is part of the employment requirements. If Benjamin and his friends were not informed of this or were anti-union, I can see where the problem is.

I am a retired union man with 50 years of membership. I always received fair wages and health and welfare. Part of my hourly wages went into a retirement fund, which I now receive, along with the union health and welfare as my Medicare supplement.

I did have to pay union dues to the members who negotiated our contracts and made sure that the union rules, which included a day’s work for a day’s pay, were followed.

While I am not familiar with the wording of the Employee Free Choice Act, I am sure that the unions would not push an act that is un-American.

Joe Kramps
Lee’s Summit

Keep union voting secret

In regard to the card-check bill (Employee Free Choice Act), E. Thomas McClanahan had it right (10/26, Opinion, “A disastrous power grab by unions awaits”). Why are people so against business these days?

Obviously, there have been employers that told workers not to join unions, but the threat of intimidation by labor members is the real threat. Many times people have thrust petitions in my face and made it seem like I would not be in their circle if I refused to sign.

Can you imagine Jimmy Hoffa types carrying petitions in the workplace? The person who refuses to sign still has to work side by side with the petition carriers. This is an untenable situation, and recent letter writers (11/5) are way off the mark.

I hope freedom to vote in secret will be preserved for everyone.

Chris F. Anderson
Basehor

I am all for “free choice” for employees to form unions. What I do object to is the statement in this act that says all one needs to do is sign a paper saying they want a union. A secret ballot, currently the law, is not required by this act, thereby allowing for union intimidation of workers to “just sign this little piece of paper.”

Doesn’t seem quite in keeping with our right to a secret ballot on major issues.

Steve Bailey
Fairway

Act would let unions coerce

The Employee Free Choice Act should be renamed the Employee Slave Act. Robert Minor’s letter (11/3) shows a lack of understanding of the act as written and the coercive tactics used by the union organizers to get people to sign cards for a union. The process deprives people of the sanctity of the secret ballot, a basic premise and foundation of a free society in a democracy.

The act makes the working men and women victims of another hand in their pockets. It takes money for food and gas from the people the unions claim to represent in the form of dues, which start out small and grow.

I was in my late teens, working on the docks in Maryland, when a union organizer wanted my friends and me to sign cards to join the union. We said no. The next day he returned with two goons and said we should reconsider and sign the cards, or his friends would help us sign. We said no, and the fight started.

With only signed cards required to certify a union as a bargaining agent, and no secret ballot, this sort of union strong-arming will be the norm.

George Benjamin
Olathe

Employee Free Choice Act

Columnist E. Thomas McClanahan predicts a “disastrous power grab by unions” if the Employee Free Choice Act becomes law (10/26, Opinion). Corporations have wielded enormous power over employees in recent decades, thanks to a spineless National Labor Relations Board and toothless employee protection laws.

A table needs at least three legs to stand. Society needs at least three legs as well: government, corporations and strong organized labor.

McClanahan decries the possibility or probability of intimidation by union organizers and peer pressure. Surely he is aware of the intimidation to which corporate representatives have subjected individual workers and the mandatory meetings workers must attend to listen to threats and warnings against unionizing.

I am hopeful that a new administration will appoint to the NLRB persons with spines. I am hopeful that Congress will give the NLRB legislation with teeth.

The U.S. needs the Employee Free Choice Act — and an NLRB with integrity.

Ted Schroeder
Kansas City

As usual, E. Thomas McClanahan is expressing his low regard for the working-class people of America. His current target is the Employee Free Choice Act. He says unions “undermine productivity, the source of rising living standards.”

These last eight years, I guess the 12 percent union workforce has been responsible for the horrible — sometimes criminal — condition our standard of living is experiencing. Under the current conditions, corporations are able to intimidate and pressure their employees (face to face) to vote against unionizing. Corporations also have the ability to drag the process out without having to negotiate in good faith. The EFCA will restore the balance to this process.

The working people of America have seen what corporate greed has done for them in the last eight years. Many of them expressed their dissatisfaction with the current system when they voted yesterday.

Bob Kanatzar
Gladstone