An Injury to One Is an Injury to All!

Though laws were enacted to ensure basic rights to all workers, the non-union worker who stands alone, is far less likely to assert these rights for fear of reprisal and retaliation. After all, the non-union worker is by law just an "AT WILL" employee who may be fired at any time and for no reason at all.

Indeed, surveys have regularly shown that people organize and join unions, not so much for higher wages as to protect themselves from being victimized by the arbitrary and capricious or discriminatory conduct of their employers.

The truth is unions are not organized by outside agitators but by the arrogance of management. They love to say that, "The workplace is not a democracy," but in fact, it is and must be. All the best workplaces and most successful managers know that "joint decision making", "employee participation" and "respect for their employees" are the true secrets to business success.

Union contracts establish the only meaningful rights employees can expect to truly enjoy. People who join unions find soon enough that they are no longer just interested in "what's in it for me" but in the overall improvement of themselves, their coworkers, their families and the societies in which they live. Solidarity improves standards of living as certainly as greed and selfishness pervert and pollute all our other values.

This is the proud anthem and motto of the labor movement:

SOLIDARITY FOREVER
by Ralph Chaplin

written 1915

(Tune: "John Brown's Body" also same tune as "Battle Hymn of the Republic")

When the Union's inspiration through the worker's blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?
But the Union makes us strong.
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the Union makes us strong.
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left for us but to organize and fight?
For the Union makes us strong.
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the Union makes us strong.
It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade;
Dug the mines and built the workshops; endless miles of railroad laid.
Now we stand, outcast and starving, 'mid the wonders we have made;
But the Union makes us strong.
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the Union makes us strong.
All the world that's owned by the idle drones, is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own,
While the Union makes us strong.
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the Union makes us strong.
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn.
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power; gain our freedom when we learn
That the Union makes us strong.
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the Union makes us strong.
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold;
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth the new world from the ashes of the old
For the Union makes us strong.
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the Union makes us strong.

I Will Not Scab cartoon

Good Union Members Respect Picket Lines
A good union member is extremely careful when confronted with a picket line situation.
WHEN A PICKET IS ESTABLISHED on a job where they are working:
They LEAVE. They DO NOT TALK-- They JUST LEAVE.
They READ the PICKET SIGN as they leave.
They DO NOT hang around near the job.

They know that ONCE A PICKET LINE IS ESTABLISHED, their Business Manager and other union officials and agents are legally gagged and handcuffed from giving advice pertaining to THAT JOB. They can only tell them if the PICKET LINE is AUTHORIZED.
They DO NOT ALLOW THEMSELVES to be drawn into conversations with ANYONE on the job site.

GOOD UNION MEMBERS KNOW THEIR RIGHTS.

They have the right not to work behind ANY Picket Line.

They have the right to decide for themselves whether to walk off a job being picketed.

They understand that their trade may be under attack next.

They know that a two gate system means a PICKET LINE and they have the RIGHT NOT TO WORK, no matter how many gates the employer sets up.

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