Nurses in the Maine medical center have defeated a right wing push
to decertify their union that they have already won.
So reporting from common dreams, a tally released late Thursday showed that
Main Med nurses voted 1,108 to 387 in support of retaining the main
State Nurses Union Association/National Nurses United as their
collective bargaining representative.
A nearly 75% vote in favor of the union.
The vote held in person on August 17th and 18th favored the union
even more heavily than the initial 1001 to 750 vote in 2021.
The decertification push was openly backed by the Nationals right to
Work Legal Defense Foundation, which is an anti-union organization that said
it provided free legal assistance to brooks and other petition supporters.
We have a quote from Jonica Frank, who's a registered nurse and
a member of the union's bargaining team who said we have already negotiated
historic improvements in pay and working conditions and on patient safety issues.
A no vote in this election would have meant that all of these
things could be taken away from us once again in this election, we have spoken and
we are not going back.
So not only are we in a time where there's massive momentum in the labor movement,
there's a lot of union busting going on as well.
And there's a lot of busting of unions that already exist, not people trying to
form a union, but trying to decertify people have already voted to unionize.
>> Yeah, so look, it's a great day for labor, it really is.
And I want to give credit to a couple of different people here.
And Anthony McClendon, who was one of our members on Youtube,
made a great point which allows me to, to transition to what I wanted to say.
He said, Genk, when you talk about the savvy guts and
determination of the younger generation, these union stories prove that and
the generation after them.
I totally agree and that's exactly what I wanted to say, Anthony,
because a lot of this, especially at Starbucks,
was not started by some giant union that already existed.
It was started by young people who had had enough and they said, no,
we're gonna organize if a union wants to come, great, wonderful.
They went searching for a union and that happened in the Amazon at some places to,
it's the younger generations saying, I'm just not gonna take your crap anymore.
Like the mythology that corporate media puts in that you cannot,
that management is always right.
You can't status quo must always be maintained.
Corporate rule is awesome.
And now people are saying, no, the younger generations saying it's not awesome,
it's not helping us at all.
And corporate media yelling at us is completely unpersuasive.
So I love that the younger generation is now using their power.
That's the only way we're ever gonna get to change and
then Shai cold train 42 is a member on our site.
By the way, guys you can for YouTube just hit the join button below for
our site TYT.com/join and you can tell we do the show with you guys and
you guys are so smart, great points and shy.
Coltrane 42 road and employees are now thinking about unionizing wal mart.
A corporation that pays their employees so
poorly that Walmart is being subsidized by the government.
It's time to bring the fight to Walmart, that is exactly right, there we go.
And if by the way anybody tells you don't do it, if you really need a union at your
place and that these giant companies, you almost all do, right?
Don't let your manager talk you out of it.
Don't let the media talk you out of it.
Don't let anyone just seem like the people who say they have experience and
try to intimidate you, etc, talk you out of it go forward.
These giant companies badly need labor to coalesce,
otherwise they're gonna misuse and abuse their workers to no end.
>> Genk, thank you for saying that.
You know what you said about them trying to talk you out of it,
it reminds me of voting, right?
If it wasn't so important, they wouldn't try so hard to stop you.
If the union wasn't so important to help you, they wouldn't be fighting so
hard for you to not have a union you obviously need.
And especially a company like Walmart as your subscriber said Walmart is subsidized
by the federal government.
There are Walmart employees who collect food stamps and
there are multi billionaires who run the company.
And that is it's absolutely insane that that's going on to the nurses in Main and
there are certain professions that it's mind boggling that
they're under attack who attacks nurses, right?
I mean, if there's anything we should have learned in the past two years is how
valuable, how brave, how frontline are they like by the way thanks for
risking your life through the pandemic.
We would like to not pay you, [LAUGH] it's mind blowing.
It's the same thing with teachers and
trying to do away with teaching unions and stuff like that.
I don't know man it kudos to the young people what you just
said to listen, get angrier, get angry or fight harder.
Okay, don't work if do what it takes to unionize and get your respect,
and get your money, and get your healthcare,
and get your benefits because these corporations don't care about you.
The the guy at the top who's making,
what was that salary you gave eight million a year.
And that's low in the CEO world.
He's scraping the bottom in the CEO world at eight million is CEOs that
are tipping eight million to their staff or whatever.
The labor force deserves to get paid.
Young people deserve that opportunity to one day own a home.
I mean, I joke about it, I have a joke, this one will get me killed.
It's like yeah,
you're one of those letter generations that will never own a home, right?
It's harsh, but it's true.
Change it make it untrue fight for yours.
>> 100% I'll say one last thing.
Our side shouldn't be afraid of a vote either.
So they did a decertification vote.
So what by the way, 500 nurses did ask for one, right?
And it made it seem like they were the majority.
They had the vote, turns out, nope, they were the minority.
The union won the vote easily with 75% of the vote.
That means the workers wanted.
Fantastic.
Now we know.
And by the way, since the number went way up since the original time that they
certified the Union, that shows you they were actually very happy with the Union.
That's why they got a bigger percentage of the vote the second time around.
Nothing wrong with votes.
And it's great that the nurses union won that one easily.
I love that we're talking about young people and
I love that Alonso is saying we need to get angrier corporations are big mad.
We also need to be big mad.
There's nothing we can be afraid of.
There's nothing to be afraid of because these corporations are nothing without
their workers, all of the power is in the hands of the workers.
And while they may threaten you and say, if you form a union, you know,
you may lose your job, you may get worse benefits.
It's much better to relate to us directly.
It's all not true.
They're telling you all of that stuff because they are scared and
it's too true that young people are fed up with the country that they're inheriting.
I mean, I got a graduate degree in public policy and the first thing I did
after that was go right back to organizing because all I learned is that
people who are supposed to have answers in this country absolutely do not.
And I think one benefit of this younger generation is we have tools at our
disposal like Tiktok like social media,
where information can spread incredibly fast.
And this week I'm a part of 70 infl answers who are saying, you know, we're
not gonna take any money with amazon, we are not going to work with amazon.
And this will hopefully inspire other tick talkers to make that same pledge and
say to amazon directly, we're not going to work with you.
We are not going to push your online revenue up unless you meet the demands
of the workers and recognize the union.
And so because young people are able to communicate at a much faster rate
than they were in previous generations,
I think that's a big reason this is being successful.
The other thing, the last thing that I'll say about this is that the amazon
labor union is special in its own way because it is worker led.
This was not an outside shop, like a big international union, like the S.
C I U R A F L C I.
O. They do great work.
But it's really important that this organizing came from workers who were
upset with their working conditions and organized a walkout.
And that momentum led to a union.
So it's really huge that, yes, this is coming from young people,
people who are fed up and it's worker led.
Absolutely.
So love it.
That's a lot of good news to start the show with.
You're welcome.