Look for the anti-union label!

A lawyer friend in another state recently had a couple of revealing conversations with his neighbor. The neighbor has his own contracting and remodeling business, which muddles along in the best of times. His wife has encouraged him to get a job with the local power company where some of their friends work, where he would make much more per hour, work full time and have good benefits. 

He refuses because, "That's a union job!" 

Unions, in his conservative fundamentalist mind, are equivalent to the devil's minions. I note that his wife, equally conservative and fundamentalist, does not see the problem. What she does see is the low income he produces which barely sustains them and their four children -- whom she home schools -- and the fifth one on the way. But in her religion, the husband makes the decisions.

Anyway, my friend was recently helping the neighbor with a project and the neighbor began to complain that carpenters don't get paid enough where he lives and works.

"Now in [insert name of large city in neighboring Midwestern state], they make two or three times as much! Why can't I get paid that rate?"

My friend calmly remarked, "Well, those are union carpenters, aren't they?"

The neighbor didn't respond, just hammered harder.

So many people who hate unions fail to see that their own difficulties might be alleviated were they able to have the support of organized labor. But they demean unions and vote for politicians who avow to destroy them, often under the guise of protecting the worker.