Americans know fireworks.
So on the 4th
of July the OPSEU road crew headed down to Patriots Point in Charleston
South Carolina to watch the fun. We also were there to ask folks how
they
felt about unions.
Unions are about as rare as snowflakes down here. Not
surprising, considering the state Government passed an anti-union Right
to Work law 59 years ago. Today, less than five percent of South
Carolina’s workers are union members.
One of the questions OPSEU’s Randy Robinson was keen
for me to ask was whether Americans now think unions are un-American. A
good question, given there is so much anti-union blather emanating from
Fox News these days you might expect middle
and working class Americans are buying into the messaging.
That wasn’t what we found while chatting with people waiting for the fireworks to start.
Otto Wilson is a crane operator and self-described
workingman. Wilson has nothing against unions. But he says it’s not
something he and his co-workers ever talk about.
Like many folks we talked to, Wilson didn’t dislike
unions. In fact, many thought unions are okay. It’s just that there are
so few unions here they barely register on the TV news agenda. The
exception is the International Longshoremen’s Association.
Charleston is the point of entry to the Southern U.S.
for goods coming from Europe. That gives the ILA economic leverage,
which they have used until today – a longshoreman on the top of the pay
scale makes $32 an hour.
Ken Riley is president of ILA local 1422. He invited us to the Riley family 4th of July barbeque. He and his brother Leonard cooked up a storm. There was chicken,
blue crab (who knew?), thick steaks, hot dogs, the best ribs we’d ever tasted and loads of Southern hospitality.
Riley has spent much of his life butting heads with anti-union politicians and powerful corporations. Even so, this is the 4th
of July and he is still a loyal
American. Despite the powerful interest lined up against him, he is
part of an organizing effort he believes will succeed one day in
repairing the damage Right to Work laws have done to working people. He
has a lot of work to do.
His friends Harriet and Sharon were at the barbeque. They told about their jobs at TMSi Parcelite Solutions.
Harriet and Sharon make $11 an hour working on an
assembly line from 7:30 in the morning until 6:30 or 7:30 at night,
depending on when the last truck gets in. Harriet says in summer the
temperature in the sorting room often reaches 120 degrees
fahrenheit or more. TMSi employees get two sick days a year! However,
the sick days and discipline issues are tied to an ‘8 points and you’re
out’ system.
Harriet says if you are one minute late for work you
get a quarter of a point. If you actually take one of your two sick days
or have to leave work for an emergency, you are given a full point.
Sharon told us that one of her co-workers once
had a heart attack at work and was rushed to the hospital in an
ambulance. She was given a point for leaving work.
There are many transgressions, real and imagined, that
can earn workers at TMSi a point. And once an employee accumulates 8
points, they are automatically fired. There is no grievance procedure.
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You can see the fireworks and meet Otto Wilson, Ken Riley, Harriet, and Sharon and see a spontaneous rendering of The Star-Spangled Banner by clicking on the video tab.
Tomorrow we head for home and in my final diary entry
I’ll tell you how Anna ate a whole package of JuJu jelly fish all by
herself and what her face looked like when Jason told her that gelatin
is made from ground up cow bones.
