You can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union!

[Zomby Woof]

I stand in solidarity with the UAW.

A strike against one of the Big Three was long overdue. Of course, if we had real healthcare in this country, the goddamned auto manufacturers wouldn't pass them off on the consumer, or the union.

[tekisui]

1. Stickin' to the Union 'till the day I die!

Power to the People.
It is sad that people have to stop working to get the rights
they should earn by working.

[senseandsensibility]

2. Absolutely

Go UAW.

[shugah]

3. they should be grateful to have jobs

that's how they scare us - and it is a tactic that is not without merit here in michigan, that's for sure. i admire the workers doubly for striking at this time. it cannot have been an easy decision, everything is so precarious these days.

i, too, stand in solidarity with the UAW.

some quotes from articles in the Detroit Free Press today:

“We can’t afford to be out,” said Nicole Sanders, 30, who walked out at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly on Monday, but she wasn’t happy about it. “I’ve got babies that got to be fed. We can’t afford it. Our economy is too bad. … I can hardly afford gas to come to work.”

Rob Jones, a UAW electrician who has a wife and two children said he has been saving up for this day for several months.

“Workers who came before me made a number of sacrifices to give us the benefits we now have,” Jones said. “This is important. We want to be compensated for making a world-class product.”

“We were very disappointed in this round of negotiation to discover as we moved forward that it was a one-way set of negotiations. It was gong to be General Motors’ way at the expense of the workers,” Gettelfinger said. “The company walked right up to the deadline like they really didn’t care.”

'How long before a strike cripples the Michigan economy, destroys the Detroit
automakers and the UAW?
Three days? Two weeks? A month?
Let’s not try to find out.'

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

if a strike can achieve the crippling of the michigan economy (it is already crippled, by the way) destroy the automakers, and even the union itself, then we all owe the UAW thanks for the reminder. thanks UAW, for the reminder - the real power still resides with the workers, even as <sarcasm>grateful as we should be to have jobs </sarcasm>

the UAW ROCKS! i am so proud today to be the grand-daughter of a man who fought to bring unions into detroit (well, i'm always proud of that :-) )

[gateley]

4. Whenever there's a strike I remember the Air Traffic Controllers and Reagan

just saying -- you're out of a job -- and hiring in replacements immediately. We shouldn't have let it happen then, and we can't let it happen now. I pledge my support. I'm going to send a donation to the UAW.

[Perseid]

5. K and R

it's a complicated mess, but right is right, and wrong is wrong.

[BlooInBloo]

6. Yup.

[struggle4progress]

7. Organize! organize! babe a mine! Organize! organize! babe a mine!

Well the boss'll be surprised when he finds us organized!
So we just keep organizin! babe a mine!

[rhett o rick]

8. There is no choice. There are two sides in this war, the rich fascists vs. the middle class.

It's not hard for me to pick a side. But as GWB said, you are either for him or against him. It's time to choose up sides and get it on.

[Mabus]

9. Proud to give it a tenth K&R

I've never been a member of a union but I stand by them and support them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I'm with you

union household this is

[Zodiak]

11. I am a populist

and you know what that means.



That's for you, GM! I stand in solidarity with the workers.

[Mabus]

20. The Man in Black

Thanks for posting that picture. I love it.

I remember seeing Johnny Cash perform this on television when I was a little kid. I don't remember the show but I do remember that it had a powerful effect on my parents. The next time I heard it it was on the radio and I listened to it. It is a song that remains in my heart and mind as an inspiration to me.

Here's one of the versions posted on youtube.com http://youtube.com/watch?v=hfI9B8e9tW4

[lonestarnot]

12. I'll drink to that!

:toast:

[me b zola]

13. I stand with you, brother

:toast:

[fishwax]

14. k/r

:kick:

[KitchenWitch]

15. K & R!

Gods how I hate that the corporations are allowed to get away with low-balling their employees while they pay their executives obscenely.

:banghead:

[OneBlueSky]

16. "Union Maid" by Woody Guthrie and Millard Lampell (1940-41)

There once was a union maid, she never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.
She went to the union hall when a meeting it was called,
And when the Legion boys come 'round
She always stood her ground.

CHORUS:
Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union, I'm sticking to the union.
Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union 'til the day I die.

This union maid was wise to the tricks of company spies,
She couldn't be fooled by a company stool, she'd always organize the guys.
She always got her way when she struck for better pay.
She'd show her card to the National Guard
And this is what she'd say:

CHORUS

You gals who want to be free, just take a tip from me;
Get you a man who's a union man and join the ladies' auxiliary.
Married life ain't hard when you got a union card,
A union man has a happy life when he's got a union wife.

CHORUS

Notes:

While in Washington, Woody acquired Pete Seeger as a traveling companion for the trip to Oklahoma .... Arriving in Oklahoma City, they contacted the local Communist Party organizers, Bob and Ina Wood, who put them to work singing for the poor desperate people in the Hooverville on the banks of the Canadian River, and then for the striking oil workers and the Unemployed Workers' Alliance....
They spent the night with the Woods.... Although Woody later wrote that his song "Union Maid" was inspired by the story of a southern Tenant Farmers' Union organizer... it's probable that Ina Wood was a more direct influence. A militant feminist, she criticized Pete and Woody for never singing any songs about the women in the labor movement, and Woody responded that night by writing a parody of "Red Wing"....

Pete's first reaction, when he saw the song the next morning, was that it was kind of dumb. But it began to grow on him. It was so artless and simple, and direct.... Like almost everything Woody wrote... it was written for the ear more than the eye.... For the next decade, "Union Maid" would be Woody's most popular song, appearing in union songbooks and sung on picket lines all over the country.
Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life, London, 1981, pp. 161-162

We weren't completely satisfied with the songs we picked out to sing, and they asked me if I had suggestions. I thought of the great chorus Woody had put together about a year before when he and I were in Oklahoma City.... "But it has only two verses that were any good. I can't remember the other ones," says I. Mill Lampell said, "Give me twenty minutes," and went into another room and came back with the third verse which we recorded.
Pete Seeger (1987), as quoted in Ronald D. Cohen & Dave Samuelson, liner notes for "Songs for Political Action," Bear Family Records BCD 15720 JL, 1996, p. 78

[QueenOfCalifornia]

17. I am so much with you

Dear ZombyWoof- I hear you and i too agree... Power to the woofs!

[ConsAreLiars]

18. A simple question - "Which side are you on?" - the Seeger version is on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iAIM02kv0g

That is what it all comes down to.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

19. BTW

K&R

[tbyg52]

21. Hey, y'all - let's vote this up to the top! nt

[Coexist]

22. hear hear!

Keep the jobs here.