An unhappy anniversary for my love Marta

[Omaha Steve]

It was an early Sunday in 1983. Marta went on strike against AT&T at midnight, just like Verizon last night. The strike lasted 3 weeks. That was the last nationwide strike before Judge Green broke up AT&T. I had just gone to work as a seasonal worker. It was the first real job I had after being illegally fired for union organizing in 1980: (pdf) http://mynlrb.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45800b8166

It was the Reagan recession and I was a union trouble maker. Marta's union pay and benefits were all the kept us afloat for over 3 years. Very dark times for us. My first check was held up by red tape. I got my first check for 6 weeks pay in the middle of her strike. It helped.

If we had to, we would do it all over again. When you don't stand up and fight money grubbing CEO's, you tend to lose everything in the end. As unions have lost to Reagan, NAFTA, W, and more, average pay and benefits for all workers have stagnated while stockholders and management enjoy continuing good times.

The CWA like all other organized labor has been on the decline thanks to Reagan firing PACTO two years before the CWA strike! It is time to rally with labor across the US, just like what has happened in Wisconsin this year. If we don't, the middle class will surely come to an end thanks solely to conservative politics paid for by the Koch brothers etc.


15,000 air traffic controllers strike. President Reagan threatens to fire any who do not return to work within 48 hours, saying they "have forfeited their jobs" if they do not. Most stay out, and are fired August 5 - 1981



http://www.unionist.com/big-labor/today-in-labor-history



Some 675,000 employees struck ATT Corp. over wages, job security, pension plan changes and better health insurance. It was the last time CWA negotiated at one table for all its Bell System members: divestiture came a few months later. The strike was won after 22 days - 1983

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Hey Steve - I didn't know that you were a real-life hero!

That PDF is great stuff. We need more like you!

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Solidarity Forever!

[Omaha Steve]

3. We had 3 kids the day I was fired in 1980

Steve was 5 & 1/2. Sissy was 3. Beanie was almost 1 & 1/2.

Yes it was very hard times for over 3 & 1/2 years. That was when I got my back pay with interest. The NLRB uses the IRS figure for figuring the interest rate. In the early 80's the rates were running between 10 and 16 percent. The only real break we got out of the ordeal.

OS

[Dappleganger]

4. My father was a proud CWA member for over 30 years.

Worked for Bell Atlantic back in the day.

Solidarity!

[sabrina 1]

5. We definitely need a labor movement in this country.

The problem is, that Big Business will simply take their jobs elsewhere. Globalism has given them the means to avoid paying decent living wages to workers.

Maybe the people need to go Global now too. What would the chances be of organizing labor movements, united across the Globe, leaving them nowhere to go to find cheap unlivable labor?

Of course if our government was on the side of the people, they would highly tax anyone who takes their business out of the country and only give tax breaks to those who stay here and create jobs. But that appears to be an impossible dream also.

Thanks for all you do for the workers of America, Steve.

:kick: