AFTRA: Card Check This!
by Jeffrey Jena
I’m a member of two performing arts unions. I pay dues to two organizations that actively support efforts to influence producers to hire fewer actors of my gender and race. They also spend millions of my dollars supporting candidates and issues which are anathema to me. Here’s the latest example: The first letter below was sent out to all AFTRA members urging them to send this form letter supporting Card Check to their representatives in Congress. They urged us to customize the letter so it wouldn’t look so “form,” so I did! I don’t think my letter is what they had in mind. I urge all SAG and AFTRA members who are readers here to do the same.
Original Union Version
I am writing to voice my support for the Employee Free Choice Act which has just been reintroduced in Congress. If you haven’t become a co-sponsor, I urge you to do so. And if you’re already a co-sponsor, I hope you’ll do everything you can to encourage your colleagues to get on board.
The economic tailspin has put the middle class, our country’s backbone, in peril. Rising health care costs, home foreclosures, stagnant wages, and shrinking retirement plans are all taking a huge toll.
To revive the economy and rebuild the middle class in the long term, we need to empower workers to negotiate for better wages and benefits.
The Employee Free Choice Act will do just that – allowing workers to form a union when a majority of them want one. It will also stiffen penalties on employers who harass, intimidate, and fire workers for their support of a union.
The Employee Free Choice Act is a critical piece of our economic recovery. I’m confident you’ll continue to represent the best interests of workers in your district by supporting it.
The Jeffrey Jena Version
I am writing to voice my contempt for the Employee Free Choice Act which has just been reintroduced in Congress. If you haven’t become a co-sponsor there is a chance I may vote for you, I urge to show your support for the secret ballot in America.
The economic tailspin has put the middle class, our country’s backbone, in peril. Empowering unions to run rough shod over small business will even further cripple our chances for recovery. Rising health care costs, home foreclosures, stagnant wages, and shrinking retirement plans are all the result of too much government in our lives. We don’t need Washington smashing its fist down on Middle America.
To revive the economy and rebuild the middle class in the long term, we need to empower business owners to fire up the engine of our system, small and medium size businesses.
The Employee Free Choice Act is Communism at its finest! We already have a system that allows workers to form a union when a majority of them want one. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!
The Employee Free Choice Act is almost as stupid as the bailouts you have already enacted. I’m confident you’ll continue to represent the best interests of workers in your district by voting against it!
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43 Comments
nice. definitely doesn't look like a form letter now.
I was in AFTRA long ago in the dark, dim past. This was a joke. You get a gig, then pay, and then your union card . You lose the gig, they send you a bill, but with a proviso – we can't help you. I look upon this like the many root canals I've had. Sure it's expensive, painful and painful, but at least after the root canal you can chomp away at a Prime Rib with abandon. I don't think an AFTRA card is very nutricious, and the benefits wouldn't even pay for the root canal. Useless! Free choice is nothing but a big wet kiss from the DNC to the brotherhood. A payback for being so swell.
Nice customization!
You know, there was a time in this country when unions played a vital role. They worked to improve working conditions and made America a better place. Then they grew bloated and rotten. Instead of lifting workers up, they taught them dependence and idleness. Instead of seeking to expanding working opportunities, they opposed all the changes that were needed to keep America modern and thriving. Instead of helping companies grow, they choke companies off and pick over the corpses. Instead of protecting value things like employee pensions, they concern themselves with politicking and minutia.
Unions are disappearing in this country. Good.
I think I will copy, paste and modify that letter and then send it to the Reps. and Senators from NC. I do not e-mail to them, I still send hard copy by “snail mail”. Everyone should. Flood the offices with “snail mail” and they know you care about the subject.
Good job Jeffrey, I'm reminded of what I thought was an excellent ad against card check featuring "Johnny Sack", the great Vincent Curatola of "The Sopranos". This bill is a blatant payoff to "Big Labor". When the shamefull episode that is the Obama nightmare is written about this should get billing somewhere near the top.
Nice. I like your version a lot.
I get these sorts of appeals from the various teachers' unions I pay dues to (Local, state, NEA). They get similar responses from me.
Jeffrey,
As a member of both SAG & AFTRA, I salute you. I also stole your letter and sent it to the out of touch old biddies in Washington that claim to represent the state of California. Thanks for the help.
I grew up in NC. I didn't think unions were legal there.
Liberal support for this comically titled legislation is remakably confusing. I can not begin to recall ALL the movies I have seen depicting strong-armed political elections and strong-armed union/corporate elections – usually depictied in some third world country (supposedly so politically corrupt that public voting can even exist.) Now we have all our elite liberals and supposed supporters of the underclass advocating the very thing they made careers out of illustrating the absurdity of. Inane. Yet, I can not look away.
Yeah, and compare how North Carolina grew into a modern economy, while Detroit stepped back into the stone ages.
You do not have to join a union here, but there are some. Most people don't like them. If it was a "company union" like "This Company Workers United" they might deal with it, but they don't want any pary of an "International Brotherhood of (whatever)" . That is just communist and we don't like communist here. Except at UNC-Chaple Hill or maybe UNC- Greensboro. Those 2 colleges are way to liberal for someone like me to be around.
All the colleges are liberal. Appalachian State (my alma mater) was no exception. Elon might be conservative, but there's no telling where they stand now since they quit being the "Fighting Christians."
All the colleges are liberal. Appalachian State (my alma mater) was no exception. Elon might be conservative, but there's no telling where they stand now since they quit being the "Fighting Christians."
The factories in my hometown still suffered. Pretty much all of them are closed now, and they closed within the last 5 years. Unions wouldn't have helped, as no matter how you slice it, it's still cheaper to go overseas. As far as I can tell, the only industry that's groing in the US is healthcare.
But think back to what NC was in the 1970s and compare what it's become today, and what it will be when the economy turns around. Now compare union towns like Pittsburgh or Detroit — they were huge thriving centers in the 1950 and today are decaying, dying cities with no future.
What a letter! The form letter is exhibit "A" of the mindless conformity of the left.
In the 70s, I wasn't yet a glimmer in my parents' eyes, so I'm going to have to take your word for that. But the cities are still decaying. Downtown Winston-Salem is a shell, there's Wachovia, BB&T and GMAC, but little else. Lots of brand new but empty apartments-empty because there aren't any grocery stores downtown. You pretty much have to go to a suburb to get food. Durham isn't any different. I'm pretty sure Raleigh and Charlotte are similar. Durham may turn around, with it's City of Medicine status, but Winston-Salem is terminal. With the attacks on tobacco and the bank failures, it's got nothing.
To those of you who don't care about NC, I apologize for the length of the post. I'm just homesick. Madison, WI is nice, but it ain't home.
Actually, there is a ton of industry in the US, you just don't hear about it because the MSM focuses on the older industries, where their union buddies are losing their jobs. Cars are made throughout the South, airplanes are made in Washington state, steel is still made in the rust belt, heavy equipment is made in Alabama. The list goes on and on.
Despite what you hear about the US losing its manufacturing base, in Feb 2009 (the height of the recession), 10% of US employment and 12% of US output was in manufacturing. That's 13.38 million jobs. Construction accounted for another 5% (7.2 million jobs).
That's from the bureau of labor statistics: <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm” target=”_blank”>http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
DUDE, I am retired Marine that grew up in Greensboro and Guilford Cty and now I live near Atlantic beach and Emerald Isle. LOL … i hope you like that snow where you are. LOL
And so far I have sent 4 letters off today in the snail mail to my Congressman and Sen on the above subject.
Chump's right.
Prior to the early 1980s, the South (and West) was severely under-developed. There was little economy to speak of, a shrinking population, and dying cities. Places like Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Tampa, were all smallish towns in the middle of nowhere. One by one, the Southern (and Western) states turned it around by lowering taxes and trying to attract business. Whether all parts of the state participated in a different question — the migration of people to larger cities has certainly harmed smaller towns. But the lesson is clear that cities that embraced the future have flourished and those that clung to the past have died.
While I don't believe that unions in and of themselves are all bad, this legislation sucks rocks. This isn't empowering union workers, it's about stripping power FROM union workers and putting it into the hands of union leaders. MOre and more, workers are voting against striking as a negotiation tool, because quite simply we blue caller guys can't afford it. This really torques off the union big shots who want to use their muscle and get their way, with little regard for the little guy they claim to represent. The author said it best, this legislation is about doing away with the secret ballot, a cornerstone of our democracy. The only right thing to do with this legislation is to kill it…again!!!
Should add …
stiffen penalties on unions who harass, intimidate, and beat workers for their non-support of a union
Thomas – About those letters – unless you wrote them on "bank check safety paper", I'm afraid they don't read them. But – I still try myself, tilting away!
My experience with unions outside the industrial sector has been with department stores. In San Francisco about twenty years ago the existing union made a Faustian bargain in which the old union officials got higher-paid padded positions with the new union in exchange for turning the department stores over to that new union. Each time the contract renewals came up after that, the unionized store employees took "real dollar" pay cuts while union officials increased consistently in pay, percs and numbers.
Card check would make things worse, because even secret ballots haven't meant much to these thugs. During a "secret ballot" election of the new union officials a few years back, I watched one of the poll workers who belonged to one of the factions make a big show of greeting all the union voters with a big smile, even though he knew many of them would vote against him. Later I realized why he was doing so much smiling. At the end of the day, he packed up the ballot box, put it into his trunk, and went home with it. All in violation of NLRB rules. Guess who won the election. With card check, he wouldn't even have needed to smile.
Don't forget the service sector. The SEIU is led by radical socialists, Marxists, and a few doctrinaire Maoist/Stalinists. The union is growing rapidly, and its largest number of new recruits are illegal immigrants. I'm far from being one of those people who find a communist under every bed, and I'm not an instinctive alarmist. But as to the SEIU, be afraid, be very afraid.
I live in Chapel Hill. Durham is desperately struggling – major problems with gang violence. If you want to move back, houses are going in Durham for as little as $14K. Raleigh is hanging tough, still has some life due to Research Triangle. NC is beautiful but to see all the empty textile and furniture factories in what were once thriving small towns is heartbreaking. Card Check will probably kill what industry is left – like pork (how ironic is THAT?) Chapel Hill is still going strong – at least the tax assessor think s so based on his last letter to the homeowners justifying the increase in property taxes! Oh well, we'll always have basketball…
FYI: I was told the best way to get to a representative is to either call, make and appointment and see them, or FAX – not mail – letters can take weeks as they are all x-rayed. Emailing is a waste of time.
Mr. Jena – I'll also be using your letter. I'll buy a fax machine for the occassion. My contribution to stimulating the economy.
[...] Originally posted here: AFTRA: Card Check This! [...]
Hold it. Illegals, by definition, can't hold jobs in the US. How is the SEIU supposed to represent them? In their home countries? Isn't this collecting union dues for services they cannot legally provide?
This smells like fraud. Time for a RICO probe?
Well stated. Unions have become another layer of bureaucratic cancer.
I think it's more like time for an anal probe.
From your lips to the ears of a napping FBI.
"To revive the economy and rebuild the middle class in the long term, we need to empower business owners to fire up the engine of our system, small and medium size businesses."
WORD! TRUTH! AND AMEN!
P.S. I'd rather not work than work as part of an union.
I did a few shows for the short lived Weird Al morning show on CBS. Later he was using one of the skits I was in in his live show and in a display that toured State and county fairs. I asked Aftra to get my residules and payments for using my image and work…I called and wrote…nohing, They told me "it was out of their juristiction" but they still sent me dues notices and spent my money for liberal causes and "outreach" programs.
Let me add another comment about unions. Way back when I was in college I had to drop out for six months when I ran out of money. I went to work in a steel mill as a bricklayers laborer. One night on 3-11 we need to finish a archway into an oven. The bricklayer needed a 2×4 put into the frame to support some brickwork. A job I could have done in ten seconds. I picked up the wood and was about to put it in place when one of the master bricklayers came over and knocked it out of my hand and asked to see my carpenter's card. He called the shop and a crew of ten guys whose total hourly pay was over four hundred dollars sat down for over an hour while we waited for a guy to come over from the carpentry shop, measure the space, go somewhere and cut a new board and then put it in.
Bravo. Mr Jena couldn't be more (bluntly) correct. Saw some loser named Lerner (that's onomotopeia for ya'!) on Fox News this morning- he's with SEIU- and I swear this is old school 30's style socialism revived, given a not very convincing makeover and being peddled as 'progressive'. Oh, how we so need to take that word back from the lexicon of the privileged left… In classic Marxist dialectic, call something ('Free Choice Act') what it's not, and repeat mantra (big lie) over and over, ad infinitum. and Voila'! you have happy happy joy joy… courageous post!
Actually, there is a ton of industry in the US, you just don't hear about it because the MSM focuses on the older industries, where their union buddies are losing their jobs. Cars are made throughout the South, airplanes are made in Washington state, steel is still made in the rust belt, heavy equipment is made in Alabama. The list goes on and on.
Despite what you hear about the US losing its manufacturing base, in Feb 2009 (the height of the recession), 10% of US employment and 12% of US output was in manufacturing. That's 13.38 million jobs. Construction accounted for another 5% (7.2 million jobs).
That's from the bureau of labor statistics: <a href=”http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm” target=”_blank”>http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
Yet another group demanding how people think while leaching money off of them. I wonder what would happen if the Union leaders only made the median wage of all of their flock .
My daughter is currently attending Elon and let me tell you, they are definitely not conservative. When my daughter went to see Sara Palin last year she was only able to find 3 people that wanted to see her. There was alot of complaining from the students and professors about having her on campus. The same professors that didn't mind if the students saw Bill Clinton a few months before were not going to excuse the students that wanted to see Sara. My daughter didn't care and went anyway.
Russia had a great union, it was the Kremlin's Glorious Business union or KGB for short.
The best way to get their attention is to vote them out. If they are not listening to their constituents (but have plenty of time for lobbyists), let them try to run for the office as the challenger. Also a fax is no better than email. Sit out in front of their local offices with a snotty plackard. Call the local paper to cover you. That might work. Maybe. All else fails dangle a steak and a $400 bottle of red in front of them.
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