Let me be clear from the get-go: I have never been a particular fan of Unions. I recognize their place in the world, but I still regard them with suspicion and suspect them of being fronted by the Mafia still. I get this attitude from my father, who works as a teacher and has for the past 30+ years. He used to tell me that the Teacher's Union was going to put a horse head in his bed (fun fact: I've always been a very literal person with an almost non-existent sarcasm meter, and horses were my favorite animal as a child) because he talked so much shit about them.

Not pictured: My childhood innocence disintigrating

In addition to my inherited dislike of the Unions, I was dating a guy who worked for a local unionized supermarket. We were two years into the relationship and had our troubles, but the whole thing really imploded when the Union decided to strike. For almost an entire year. The financial problems exacerbated underlying issues and the result was a pretty traumatic relationship explosion. I still blame the Union for not taking better care of him as they were offering a measly $400 a month for 80 hours of picketing. For those of you who hate math as much as I do, that's $5 an hour which was well below the California minimum wage and therefore next to worthless.

I also didn't like the Union's tight control over everything. Supposedly everyone had a voice and the Union had "voted" to strike, but as several large supermarkets were involved in the strike it seemed that most of the workers didn't actually remember voting to strike. Many of the workers lost their homes, their cars, and many relationships were strained and broken. Looking back on it, it's an eery echo of the stories of woe from the Recession. I guess life was trying to prepare me for the shit-storm that was looming on the horizon like a veritable turd-hurricane.

Word.

So now I find myself in the very odd mental position of being one of the more outspoken defenders of the Teacher's Union and Union's in general. I wrote earlier about all the bad stuff that I associate with Unions, but the truth is that most of the things we really like and see as absolute rights came about as the results of hard lobbying by Unions. A few of the things we can thank Unions for are safety standards, public education, universal sufferage (meaning that EVERYONE could vote... as long as you had a penis and were white that is), and getting rid of imprisonment for debt. One of the earlier Unions was even fairly progressive: The Knights of Labour welcomed women and black participants (despite sounding like something backed by the KKK and being extremely anti-asian) and is one of the first organisations of ANYTHING to begin to break the "color barrier."

Later proto-unions would waffle back and forth on welcoming blacks and immigrant laborours into their midst, but they did begin to diversify in terms of allowing businesses (small ones) to join instead of being restricted to only workers. America has slowly killed all but two of its political parties (Yes we have; the Libertarian Party is the vote-wasting party for the Democrats the way the Tea-Party was going to be the Votey McWaster party for the GOP) so Americans don't know (because we also don't pay attention in school) that Unions and Labour organisations continue to be politcal parties and powerhouses overseas... and that we once had our own Labour Party here in America.

Again, we in America apparently all got low grades in school so I'll remind people that Once Upon A Time, Unions actually fought for their rights. The Haymarket Riots are in fact one of the reasons (the non-pagan reason) that May Day is observed as a holiday. The others of course would be "The May Day Riots" and its association with workers rights, unionists, anarchists, and communists.

There was a bomb and Anarchists. Go look it up on

Wikipedia. I refuses to paraphrase the article.

Seeing as how Unions may be despicable Mafia organisations, they still seem to have done an admirable job sticking up for the worker. I could give several more examples of how famous civil rights movements were tied in with Unions (*cough* cesarchavez*cough cough* UFW*cough), but again... I'm not here to teach you what you should have paid attention to in eighth grade. I'm here to try and slap you in the face and ask WHAT THE HELL WERE WE ALL THINKING in response to the new wave of politcally motivated Union-busting that's making its hateful way into the mainstream.

The country is in dire straits, and since the Powers That Be are desperately trying to make it look as if cheating, greedy, campaign-donating folk are not the ones to blame (spoiler alert! They totally are), Unions are the new/old scapegoat. Companies that are NOT Unionized are consistantly in the media eye for shady labour practices, hiring/exploiting illegal immigrants, and good old fashioned gender/race bias (http://www.alternet.org/story/151303/five_of_the_nastiest_examples_of_wal-mart_evil/) and they are also making huge profits. The PTB look at them and instead of thinking "OMG, that's horrible!" these people think: "Huh... I should be taking notes."

And these are the people that support the politicos in their campaigning... so we get this:

Good job guys!

So... despite the fact I always thought it was impossible (barring the invention of the TARDIS) we have, in fact, as a nation travelled backwards through time. With the simple expedient of ignoring our history teacher and swallowing elitist propoganda we are now returning to the 1860's. I hope you weren't fond of your paid lunch breaks, because those are a product of the enlightened future.

I dunno about you, but my Irish-Anarchist blood stirs and is beginning to think it's time that someone threw a bomb up in here. Is that really what we're coming to?

Well, I guess it's true when they say "Those who don't

learn from History are doomed to repeat it."