And here's one last thing I want to say to those who find it fashionable to bash the Unions...

...try to name something at the workplace that helps a person be middle class that wasn't brought about by labor unions...

...think hard...the 8 hour work day, contract wages, paid vacations, paid holidays, retirement plans, health and hospitalization insurance,  overtime pay, call-in pay, seniority rights, recall rights, safety regulations, grievance and arbitration procedures, whatever, and I can tell you where and when American workers went on bitterly faught strikes to bring those things about...

...Think, too about public schools, free text books, one-man-one-vote, direct elections of U.S. senators, child labor laws, state hospitals, workers compensation for killed or injured workers, unemployment insurance, minimum wages, mechanic lien laws, abolition of debtors prisons, anti-blacklisting laws, Social Security, all of which American unions agitated for, in some cases started in the 1880's...

...Any person who works for a living owes an unrepayable debt to the men and women who, acting through their unions, brought about by collective bargaining the wages, hours and working conditions that are today so common-place in our mines, factories, stores, and offices, whether unionized or not, that are taken for granted...

...They should never be taken for granted, for it's these very wages, benefits, and working conditions that are under assault today.  Every time an air traffic controllers union gets busted, Greyhound Bus driver or Eastern Airlines pilots lose a strike, Caterpillar workers return to work without a contract our unions "give back a benefit", a little more of the "middle class" has been diminished...

...it has been said that "as the unions go, so do the middle class"...you cannot deny the parallels!!