I began working on Union Review in my spare time in 2005. I wanted to provide information to a few friends in NYC who were calling me with concerns about the news they were reading in the morning papers. The site has grown a lot since then and has practically become a full-time job for me. It is a labor of love.
In the couple years since launching the site and doing any kind of mobilization, organizing, or information transfer, I have only come across two individuals who were truly not with the program. One guy, a carpenter out of Albany named Richard Durrough and another guy who pretended he was from a PATCO local — both shown themselves as being a big waste of my time. The guy from PATCO disappeared when his union abandoned its workers on the eve of an election and Durrough spends his time building websites about people he hates -some folks sent me links to blog posts about me (I am honored).
The thing about this guy Durrough is that he seemed fairly intelligent. He has a sizable and valid beef with his local union, but the guy never once offered up any solutions to his problems, all he did was endlessly bitch and moan. Eventually he started coming out at me because he thinks I am a propaganda machine or whatever he said, and words were exchanged. When some of those words became threats I thought it was time to block him from Union Review. I had no more head for this guy … it seemed like he was only around to tell me and others what was wrong with our opinions and then brought it all back to his issue with the Carpenters – and specifically his Local 370 in Albany. Oh well, good luck to Durrough and his sites bashing me and others.
Aside from Durrough, however, I have been fortunate to see the site grow day after day. I have seen us go from 200 hits in a month to 20,000 in a day … we are boasting a membership of well over 750 between the site and the MYSPACE counterpart, and I believe we are doing a great job starting and then maintaining an online community of working people.
When I was in the news business it was impossible to side with one party over the other … and I must say that with Union Review I try to be somewhat objective, though I am always coming from a pro-union point-of-view. It is a touchy time when there is news that is positive coming from a union that is in tremendous need of reform itself, but I have chosen to try and stay away from a lot of that personally. I would rather point people to other reforming sites so that they can discuss their issues and find solutions, or publish material from the AUD, TDU, Future of the Union, etc.
The only time, that I remember, watching two unions really battle it out at the site was with PATCO/FPD and PATCO, Inc. It was not long after I interviewed both presidents that I clearly sided with PATCO, Inc. in that little tug-of-war. I felt that though PATCO/FPD was the incumbent union and had the backing of AFSCME and the AFL-CIO, they were not doing their job as a union; at least to the four or five rank-and-filers who contacted me about the situation. I am not at all for a raiding union, but I didn’t see that PATCO, Inc was raiding; they were presenting an alternative and the workers, shop after shop, continue to choose to go with them. In the end, the incumbent union abandoned their workers all together in a strategy that I can’t fully understand — and I am not sure if that was for all of the elections or some of them, but I gave up trying to figure them out.
It is intense, at best, for me to report about various Teamster issues that go on. I think of my own childhood a lot with this stuff. I remember going out on Steve’s truck when I was 10 years old and how he was so proud of what he did and with whom. Eventually he moved on to Yellow before passing on. I think about my time with UPS loading in Maspeth and the endless driving jobs around the City, and there is a certain pride writing about the bus drivers, the freight division or any other …with the mindset that I know who I am speaking with directly.
There is so much to write about when it comes to the Union Review experience for me personally. Whether it was the night the miners were trapped in Utah, the day the TDU wrote about and informed everyone that the Indianapolis drivers were not to get the NMFA, the weeks with PATCO stuff unfolding, or labor disputes in my own backyard in South Florida: The Fisher Island issue and the Nova Southeastern University stuff. Every campaign is important, all the news should be told, and there is not enough hours in the day to get it all out there, at least for one person.
That is why when Charles Lezette and Joe W. began volunteering so much time to the site it became a great deal easier – still, there is a lot of important work to do and I think it is just the beginning.
Long before I started this WordPress blog I would write little journal entries surrounding the days when the site was starting to show its first spike in tremendous growth. I think it would be cool to go look those over and if they are worthy, publish them up on this site. I want people to know the experience that I have with Union Review … and I am not sure why other than that I hope it moves them to get active with the site or a site of their own.
