Loose Lips Sink Ships!

In the IAFF we fight about everything, pay, benefits, hours, vacations, haircuts, you name it. We keep it in house. Nothing to do with fear of reprisal, we torture our leaders more than anybody else. We don't need to air our laundry for the general public to pick apart and pontificate upon. It's just common sense and self preservation, nothing more.

I don't know how the teachers operate, sounds different that's for certain.

Yes, Michael, very different. The two teachers unions are the most politicized unions after the SEIU. Their members are thoroughly indoctrinated and tested in Progressivism as a condition of getting their license to get a job in the field. Their leaders are extremists in left-wing politics.

The biggest reason for the difference from the IAFF is that while the firefighting job deals with tangible reality (lives and property saved in dangerous situations), public school teaching is an intangible activity whose results are less easy to measure. And the teachers unions have done everything they can to resist measurement so that they can remain unaccountable for their performance.

I believe that NEARI’s Pat Crowley used to work as a Teamster organizer. The language below is from a notice that the National Labor Relations Board made the Teamsters post related to a strike or organizing drive involving Overnite Transportation (circa 2003).

While the teachers unions don’t rise to the thuggery of the Teamsters, union intimidation and retaliation of dissenters is established fact, as that CF teacher’s fears confirm:

WE WILL NOT brandish or carry any weapon of any kind, including, but not limited to, guns, knives, slingshots, rocks, ball bearings, liquid-filled balloons or other projectiles, sledge hammers, bricks, sticks, or two by fours . . ..

“WE WILL NOT use or threaten to use a weapon of any kind, including but not limited to guns, knives, slingshots, rocks, ball bearings, liquid-filled balloons or other projectiles, picket signs, sticks, sledge hammers, bricks, hot coffee, bottles, two by fours, lit cigarettes, eggs, or bags or balloons filled with excrement . . ..

WE WILL NOT damage, threaten to damage or attempt to damage any vehicle or equipment owned or operated by Overnite, its employees or security guards, by any means or manner, including but not limited by slingshots, rocks, ball bearings, liquid-filled balloons or other projectiles, knives, picket signs, sticks, sledge hammers, bricks, bottles, two by fours, eggs, or paint, or by tearing off mirrors, windshield wipers or antennas, or breaking windows.

WE WILL NOT disable or attempt to disable vehicles owned or operated by Ovemite, by any means or manner, including but not limited to disconnecting or otherwise severing air brake lines, padlocking doors, spraying substances in or otherwise jamming locks, stealing keys, puncturing radiators, cutting hoses or door cables, flattening tires or throwing, placing or otherwise spreading any nails, screws, star nails, jack rocks or similar devices capable of puncturing tires on any road surface.

WE WILL NOT endanger or impede the progress of or harass any non-striking employee or any employee of a neutral person doing business with Ovemite, while he or she is operating a company vehicle or his or her own personal vehicle, by forcing or attempting to force him or her off the road, blocking, delaying or limiting his or her access to or passage on any road, swerving toward, driving recklessly near, tailgating or braking abruptly in front of him or her, impeding his or her progress by speeding up and slowing down, driving at speeds below the legal minimums while in front of him or her.

WE WILL NOT endanger or impede the progress of or harass any non-striking employee or any employee of a neutral person doing business with Ovemite, while he or she is operating a company vehicle or his or her own personal vehicle, by jumping on vehicles, by attempting to open the doors of vehicles, by throwing paint on windshields, by using mirrors, laser pointers, spot lights or flash photography in the eyes of drivers, or by obstructing the view of drivers by holding picket signs over the windshields of vehicles.

WE WILL NOT engage in mass picketing or otherwise impede the ingress or egress of Ovemite employees or employees of any other employer to or from any Overnite service center or any facility of any neutral person doing business with Overnite or patrol or walk across the entrance of any Ovemite service center or a facility of any neutral person doing business with Overnite in such a manner as to impede or delay the ingress or egress of any individua1.

WE WILL NOT batter, assault, spit on, blow whistles loudly near a person’s ear, throw any liquid or solid object at, or attempt to assault any non-striking employee of Overnite or any member of his or her family or any employee of a neutral employee doing business with Overnite, or any security guard or supervisor or manager of a neutral employee doing business with Overnite in the presence of employees.

WE WILL NOT threaten to kill or inflict bodily harm, make throat slashing motions, make gun pointing motions, challenge or threaten to fight or assault employees, threaten to sexually assault non-striking employees or their family members, threaten to follow non-striking employees to their homes, use racial epithets or obscene gestures at non-striking employees or otherwise threaten unspecified reprisals on any non-striking employee of Overnite or any member of his or her family or any employee of a neutral employee doing business with Overnite, or on any security guard, supervisor or manager of Ovemite or neutral employers doing business with Ovemite in the presence of employees.

WE WILL NOT videotape or photograph any non-striking employees of Ovemite, or vehicles of Ovemite or of its nonstriking employees while engaging in coercive activity observed by or known by those being videotaped or photographed or threaten to release the photographs, names, addresses or phone numbers of non-striking employees in order to intimidate the non-striking employees.

WE WILL NOT prevent any non-striking employee from accessing an Ovemite vehicle or a personal vehicle or block Ovemite vehicles or the personal vehicles of non-striking Ovemite employees.

WE WILL NOT threaten to fine or cause the discharge of non-member employees because they cross a picket line or refuse to go on strike.

WE WILL NOT threaten to cause any employee’s discharge if they do not engage in a strike or picketing of Ovemite or of any neutral person doing business with Ovemite.

WE WILL NOT attempt to harass and intimidate employees or security guards on Ovemite property by using mirrors to reflect sunlight into the eyes of Ovemite drivers or use mirrors or laser pointers to shine light into the eyes or video cameras of security guards.

WE WILL NOT remove the personal property of non-striking employees from their personal vehicles.”

"I don't know how the teachers operate"

For goodness sakes, you finally admit it!!

"sounds different that's for certain."

Again, YES! That's why so many of us bang our head against a wall when we talk about teachers' unions and you tell us "it isn't like that, because in MY union..."

"Again, YES! That's why so many of us bang our head against a wall when we talk about teachers' unions and you tell us "it isn't like that, because in MY union..."

All I've heard for years is "It's THE unions," or "The Unionists," or "Labor...this, or "Labor that."

When I write something about labor I'm writing from where I sit, if that encompasses all of labor, as most of labor's critics do, then so be it.

I never could figure out teachers unions though. Their members seem to be to ones most likely to blame their bosses for the fat checks in the drawer every Friday, and the other benefits as well.

Tested on " progressivism"oh really I must have been out that day. I will ask my other union zombies if they took the test after we are done brainwashing the kids and bowing to pictures of Mao and Chavez. What a bunch of BS you guys are being fed. Maybe you can look at reality after listening to Glenn Beck and Justin Katz spew their self serving crap some more.

Oh, look - we have a new ill-mannered, ignorant child among us. Welcome, Crazyjust!

Hey bob is that your best input. What a ham and egger you is.