| | | It is almost true.
I grew up in a union mill town. My dad was a small business owner (A fine cook who opened a fast food restaurant there in '66). The town was a forest products company, the workers all union. We had paper, plywood, particle board, lumber, specialty paper like milk cartons, chemicals, pretty much everything you could make out of a tree.
We saw several strikes there, mostly pretty short. But I think two really hard ones, where the self-employed people really got creamed. Everyone who worked at a mill on strike got little beyond some union compensation. Those were hard times. I remember going with my dad to close up the business at 11, and if there was leftover food, we'd stop by the picketers at the gates and give it to them. I asked, "If they are taking the city down, why are we doing that?" He said, "Son, they'll be working again soon and why throw it way."
This town was in a bright red state, but the unions turned everyone in the mill blue. The three-story management office was bright red.
I still know a lot of people who, on graduation from high school, marched over to the mill and went to work. Those guys are still blue as they can be.
It is pretty close to DNA. They don't tolerate criticism of unions, even though the mill and the jobs are long gone. |
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