Does anyone here have access to The Dallas Morning News? We're talking unions.

[w8liftinglady]

http://letterstotheeditorblog.dallasnews.com/2012/12/pro-and-con-uaw-took-away-my-job-workers-shouldnt-be-able-to-freeload-off-others-union-dues.html/

"Bakopoulos related his experience in Detroit when he was afraid of losing his $8 an hour if he signed a union-organizing petition. My experiences as a young person in Detroit were a little different.

As a teenager, I worked on an auto assembly line and as an entry production line worker for a parts supplier, both jobs requiring UAW membership. Both were monotonous and tiring, but I was earning money for college so I had no complaints.

But previously, during high school, I secured a really good part-time job, pumping fuel into buses at a parking terminal for Detroit Street Railways. It was perfect: two to three hours a night, five or six nights a week. Hourly pay was appropriate for a job requiring no skills, just showing up on time and being a steady worker.

This job had existed for many years. However, the bus mechanics union filed a grievance that we were stealing work from the skilled mechanics. As a result, dozens of high school students lost their jobs and the bus company paid triple the cost for a menial job to be performed by skilled mechanics.

Just another story of the UAW.Don Giles, Frisco"

vs.

"Supporters of so-called “Right to Work” laws argue that these laws are a matter of freedom and civil liberties in that people shouldn’t be forced to join a union. However, this is not a civil liberties issue. It’s an attempt to weaken unions by allowing workers at union shops to choose to freeload off the work and efforts of the union in negotiating pay and working conditions, without having to pay for that representation.

A good comparison is someone moving into a neighborhood with a home owner’s association that maintains a swimming pool, workout facilities and a clubhouse, and that person makes use of these facilities while refusing to pay the mandatory HOA dues. This person might argue that they have the “right to live” wherever they want without being forced to pay those dues.

Somehow, I doubt that the conservatives who support “right to work” would be as willing to argue for the “right to live” legislation undermining HOAs.Tom Desmond, Plano"

I have been a lone union supporter in a vast pool of Republican cretins...