September 07, 2020 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized
Welcome to The World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc.
My name is Susan DuQuesnay Bankston. I live in Richmond, Texas, in the heart of Tom DeLay's old district. It's nuttier than squirrel poop here.
I am honored and privileged to know Miss Juanita Jean Herownself, hairdresser extraordinary and political maven. Since she does not have time to fiddle with this internet stuff, I type her website for her and you can read it if you want to. If you don't, she truly does not give a big bear's butt.
A lot of what I post here has to do with local politics, but you probably have the same folks in your local government.
This ain't a blog. Blogs are way too trendy for me. This is a professional political organization.
Remember to THANK A UNION MEMBER!
1Tha last time America’s wealthy class had the workers in a stranglehold, it took decades, hundreds of deaths and the union movement to push them back, a victory we celebrate today. They’re reaching for our throats again, with billions in Congressional donations to keep the laws on their side, and Trump as their standard-bearer. What will it take this time?
2There is one thing the labor unions did (I saw it done) that made them not liked any more…they became as crooked as the managers they fought against.
3L.Long: True, but not as corrupt as the corporations. Blue collar corruption is chump change corruption. Their trials typically involve local and national leaders getting caught stealing thousands, and once in a while millions from their memberships.
Corporations engage in massive, all-encompassing corruption, in the billions to trillions. They dedicate whole business units to it. They are greedy beyond the defining capability of words.
4I could never have gone to college, but for a union scholarship through the steel mill at which I worked. And while there were some famous examples of union/mob corruption, few can name any except the Teamsters, and only cases from decades ago (Jimmy Hoffa, anybody?).
The union I belonged to worked on safety and health issues, which were horrendous at the time. Men died and were mangled for life because the company could save literally a handful of dollars a year. Everyone started out at minimum wage for the first few months. The union helped make sure you could go home alive at the end of the day, with all the body parts your Mom gave you for your birthday still attached and functioning.
5A union organizer I once knew told me that when he talked to some younger workers at the Cat plant they saw no use for a union. The “ company gives me everything I need and takes care of me”.
Oh boy, guess these folks do not know history.
Remember the “ union labels” in clothing and the tv commercials?
6the union health insurance package my dad had from his work in an auto factory (and tank and fighter plane factory) saved his life and my mother’s. both needed heart surgery in their retirement years. The dollar cost at the tie was in the hundreds of thousands. Nowadays that cost is probably in the millions. As a result of that surgery covered by insurance, both lived to see their grandchildren and great grandchildren. They celebrated a college graduation and a graduation from nursing school and two beautiful weddings. After the age of 50 they ended up owning two homes consecutively. None of that would have happened if the union hadn’t been there to keep the company from holding employees to minimum wage or even less for years on end.
And always remember: the biggest union town at the time was Detroit, the Arsenal of Democracy. The unions helped to make it so.
7If it hadn’t been for my unions (IBU and MM&P) I would have been stuck in low paying jobs forever. I have been forever grateful for them.
8I’m sure that eventually a 40 hour work week, paid holidays, etc. would have eventually “trickled down” to the workers. After all, wasn’t the Gilded Age named for the hearts of gold possessed by the tycoons?
– Well, that’s what is says in my new history text from Koch Brothers Publishing!
9I am grateful that I worked for a Union Company for 11 years and have a pension. 401K? Yeah, I got one of those. It’s not a sure bet like a pension and it depends on how much you can contribute over your career. A few of life’s downs and you can’t save enough. I’d love to work for a Union Company again!
10Let us praise Frank Murphy, the governor of Michigan who refused the demands of the auto bosses to use the National Guard to shoot the sit-down strikers. (Murphy’s grandfather had been hanged by the British.) It cost Murphy his governorship but FDR appointed him to the Supreme Court.
Up to that time the principal function of the guard haf been to shoot workers. Since then, not at all.
Where we are replacing statues, let’s put up one to Murphy in every state.
11I proudly wore my PATCO hat all day
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