Unions? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Unions!

You already know that it is only thanks to unions that we have an 8-hour work day, a five-day work week, protections from dangerous work conditions, wages sufficient to support a family, benefits like health insurance, sick time and pensions.

But did you know that if Wackenhut had not been able to stall a union's demands for safety equipment, heroic security guard Stephen Johns might still be alive?

Stephen Johns, the 39-year old man who was murdered yesterday at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, wasn't just a Wackenhut-employed security officer. He was also a member of the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America--a union.

That union approached Wackenhut about the dangers Holocaust Museum officers face, and asked them to provide their employees with bulletproof vests. You can imagine how that turned out.

[D]uring contract negotiations with Wackenhut two years ago, the union pressed for company-issued protective vests. Although Wackenhut seemed open to the idea, vests have not been issued, Faye said.

"I hammered this in our negotiations two years ago because of how sensitive that museum is," he said. "Our guards needed more protection." He said that one of the guards at the museum was "verbally assaulted by one guy walking by, saying anti-Semitic remarks. For that reason, I made that the center of the negotiation."

Authorities said Johns was not wearing a protective vest.

Yes, Virginia, unions are still fighting employers over basic issues of life and death. But the days when a John L. Lewis or Samuel Gompers would have shut down every monument and museum in the capitol before letting their members go to work unprotected against violent extremists are long gone.

Wackenhut is one of the world's biggest beneficiaries of the repugs turning over government functions to the private sector. Second only to KBR, Wackenhut sucks up American tax dollars in private security and corrections contracts around the world.

Wackenhut knows that the castrated NLRB won't punish it for stonewalling its union, but that shouldn't stop the rest of us from holding the giant corporation responsible through negligence for the death of its loyal, six-year employee Stephen Johns.

The ability to treat employees - living, breathing human beings - as cannon fodder is what drives the frantic opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act.

Which should be renamed the Stephen Johns Memorial Employee Rights Protection Act.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....