Unions are trying to present themselves as something they are not, and lessons haven’t been learned.

TOLEDO, Ohio — The new faces of organized labor are immigrants working at construction sites, and as hospital nurses, parking lot attendants, mechanics and casino dealers — all groups who are unlikely to lose their jobs to overseas workers.

Union leaders, trying to stop the erosion of organized labor, are looking beyond their core auto and steel industries to recruit service workers making low wages and professionals worrying about losing their health care.

“What’s left anymore?” said Al Mixon, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 507 in Cleveland, which just finalized a contract with American Red Cross employees in northern Ohio. “We’re all forced to look into new areas.”

This may be just the beginning of the reshaping at a time when factory jobs are being sent overseas or lost to technological changes.

Did you read the first sentence? IMMIGRANTS. I bet a high hand many of them are illegal to boot. And Americans who want unions are stupid…organized labor knows, just as every polcat in DC knows, these jobs- construction workers, nurses, parking lot attendants and auto workers ect. are being slowly handed over to immigrants, and not Americans. Some professions, like nursing, appear to be safe but are not. We’re seeing an influx of foreign born nurses who are slowly replacing Americans. They will work for a lot less money as they should- they are not nearly as well educated. And have a look in any nursing home and you will see aides who speak poor English and who cannot read the language as well…Hispanics who are here illegally and who are a real danger to patients and residents. One of the requirements for all nurses and aides is to be able to read and comprehend the Nursing Care Plan, the med orders, the medication administration record…never mind actually assessing patients for nursing problems and writing a cohesive care plan. Very dangerous stuff is happening.

In the past year, the UAW signed up 2,500 new members in Ohio at auto parts plants, county jails and a juvenile courthouse. The national union last year voted to move $60 million from its strike fund into recruiting new members.

“We had a good year,” Mr. Mahaffey said. “But it wouldn’t be fair to say we’re replacing everyone we lose.”

Job losses at the Big Three automakers and at parts makers knocked UAW membership to fewer than 600,000 members in 2005, from a high of 1.5 million in 1979.

The problem with the auto industry is the high cost of the end product. American made vehicles cost a lot more and are no where near as quality a product as a Jap vehicle. Demand for American cars is down, sales are down. People are buying Toyota and other Jap makes for a reason. It’s been said the average Japanese worker earns around $25.00/hr LESS than an American auto worker- and that at least $2 to 3 thousand dollars of the price of every American car goes directly towards union-mandated pay rates and benefits. It doesn’t take a PhD level nerd to see the economics here. The same fallout can, and is, happening in other fields of work, like nursing- where there is a huge shortage of trained people. Foreign born and less-educated nurses and aides are being brought into the US every day to fill “open” positions that hospitals and other health care facilities claim they cannot fill. THEY CAN fill these jobs, if they wanted, with Americans. But because of so many nurses being represented by unions who make unreasonable demands with pay and benefits, and other ridiculous work rules, employers are turning to foreign help now.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has organized child care providers who work at home in Illinois and janitors who clean office towers in Houston.

The union has doubled in size in a little more than a decade, to 1.8 million members, and now is trying to unionize janitors in Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus.

“We need health care, we need better wages,” Lauressie Tillman said at an organizing rally in Cincinnati in March.
Mrs. Tillman makes $6.85 an hour cleaning offices downtown to support her family of four. She has diabetes and must pay for doctor visits. “I don’t have money for my medicine,” she said.

One challenge in organizing new members is that many workers don’t value unions like they once did, forcing labor leaders to reintroduce and redefine themselves.

They are pushing for more than better wages, telling workers that access to health care and the ability to join unions are civil rights — not just bargaining chips.

This is where unions screw over working people. Claiming that health care and union membership are civil rights is deceitful at best and downright totally a lie at worst. But people believe the BS and join up. Paying dues all the while the union and American businesses are working hard, with Congress, to make sure these jobs become THOSE jobs Americans won’t do.

Some day in the not too far future I would not be surprised to see most doctor positions being filled by foreigners; along with legal profession staff and yes, even the lawyers. My nephew is a lawyer out in Denver and his office/employer has been hiring foreign born legal assistants and paralegals; they are looking to India for lawyers. They don’t have to look to another country- there are more than enough lawyers, Americans, who are willing and able to work for this firm. It’s all about the salaries.

There is no JOB that is safe. No career. If doctors and nurses can lose their jobs, so can college professors, therapists in every field, research writers, you name the profession. Every “job” can be pared down with educational requirements and regulatory rules and standards, to accommodate the business lobby’s demand to end high paying careers.

It’s not just the lowly janitor and nurses aide who stands to lose their jobs- its all Americans if we allow these unions to work hand in dirty hand with Congress and the business leaders. Profit at all cost. What is happening to America?