Why I Want To Be Self-Employed

There are lots of reasons for wanting to work from home or make money online.

One of my main personal reasons for wanting to be self-employed is from an incident that is very personal to me. Something happened while I was in high school that made a profound impression on my life and what I want to do for employment.

I will be naming the company involved. However, if I could remember some of those who were supposed to be leaders of the respective parties involved, I would. I have little respect for those involved on both sides. While the company, and those in charge of it, I feel is worthy of my disdain, I believe the leaders of the opposing side are also self-serving scumbags.

I will also be naming a well known national politician that also tried to use the situation for his own personal advancement.

I hope that those of you who are probably thinking of supporting the presidential nominee his party will be proposing this fall will take notice. Nearly all the promises (or even day to day statements) made by any politician of his party are not only the same, but made with the same self-serving interests at heart. It makes my stomach retch every time I hear these people talk.

Now, on to the story that drives me to be self-employed.

While I was growing up, my father worked for the Patrick Cudahy meat processing company.

That is the company involved. My father worked as a foreman. He was a dedicated employee. He had an excellent attendance record. He had even received several mugs for perfect attendance. The only time I remember him needing to miss any work was when he had needed an operation on his thumb. The operation was to fix a nerve in his thumb which had been cut with a blade at Patrick Cudahy. As a foreman, my dad was sometimes not paid as much as the union workers he was overseeing.

Before I get nasty, I must tell you that I have no complaints with union workers in general.

My Grandfather was a union worker at Patrick Cudahy before my dad worked there. We had many personal friends that worked for the union at Patrick Cudahy. They were hard working folks that were trying to provide for their families. At the same time, my dad needed to work extra hard as some workers did not earn their pay and he was responsible to see the work was done. But not even that is the cause of the situation.

Back in the 80's, the union and the company started to have some major disagreements.

There were a few small, short strikes but during my senior year at high school things got really out of control. The union leaders claimed they needed more. The company was really beginning to threaten to simple close the plant and move. The city of Cudahy is named after Patrick Cudahy just like the company.

A long strike began.

During this strike, I even went through the strike lines a few times to pick up my dad from work. Why they feel the need for strike workers to march around a Mazda GLC at 10:00pm at night as you enter and leave is beyond me. I really wondered how intelligent the strikers were calling anyone going through a "Scab" when they called me one and I was not doing much more than the bus driver down the street. That is one of the better terms they used. Of course, some of these honest workers had been throwing rocks and eggs at vehicles going through at times.

I have not gotten to the ugly part of the situation yet.

The union leaders were really good at convincing their workers how "unfair" their wages and benefits were. The company was the great evil capitalist and they should let themselves be taken advantage of. So, the workers striked. For months. For a strike pay in the tens of dollars per week. Probably close to an hour or two's wages. This went on for months. I can see why they would be grouchy on the picket line. I still don't understand how they think this was helping them.

During this time, the union leadership really failed to represent them.

There were several meetings where the union leaders failed to show up at all. I wish I could remember the moron's name. I guess he was just to busy making a slide show he was supposed to be creating on the Civil War or something else to represent those guys on the picket line properly. Maybe, he didn't really feel that he had any responsibility to do his best for them. His failure to show alone added weeks to the strike.

For those union supporters out there, stick around, I'll get to the company also.

I have noticed a real lack of responsibility for the workers by a lot of union leadership in this country. So many times,  you see union workers forced to strike by the union for nothing that will profit them. More often than not, I see union leadership just increasing its own control of power. I have my own beefs about how Wal-Mart does business, but the hypocrisy of the way the unions hire picketers is almost comical. Union leaders are very much guilty of convincing workers to strike for reasons that mostly profit union leaders and increase their control over the workers. Union workers nearly always seem to lose far more than they gain. Kinda like voting for a politician that is going to tax "the rich" and give the money to "help the poor and needy." It is all for the better good of all.

That brings us to none other than the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Yes, he was trying to be nominated for president at this time. The Reverend Jesse Jackson came to show his support for the union strike. He even came to one striker's home. Now, I do remember this workers name and am not going to give it out. Nice guy, but he really fell for Jesse Jackson's speil. The man was a very active union supporter and was sure in the rightness of his cause and the strike. For those who listen to those who are always ready to hold out and keep a strike going longer just to let the company know who is in charge, this man had a successful side business. A business that, by the way, was at least partially enhanced by government grants. He could afford to strike a bit and still by fun toys like new cameras while some of our personal friends were having problems with groceries.

Back to the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

I despise politicians that make claims about how  "unfair" businesses are to workers. Jesse Jackson came to town for a day or two made his speeches for the media and left. I doubt he even remembers how to pronounce Cudahy (cud-a-hay). It was simply a chance for him to claim he was supporting union workers. It is the same story with nearly (but not entirely) all the members his party. Claims to provide more education, health care, fair income, equal rights, save the environment, legal justice, lower crime, and even rights to free speech almost always means that they end up with more control and you end up with less control, money, rights and freedom. Sexual harassment is terrible, but not if it is Bill Clinton. We need socialized health care, but Hillary's last plan excluded much of those in government while giving us no choice (I believe her current plan is not too different). The environment need to be saved, but don't inconvenience Al Gore's luggage or think that his mansion uses too much electricity while the rest of us are forced to use CFL bulbs. Then again, there is Obama's house (both the empty lot and the interesting loan) and his wife's Ivy league education and cushy legal profession and claims of how terrible life is the United States (all OK now that her husband is near nomination). Jesse and all his kind always make these claims, but they never seem to pay the price they want the rest of us to.

If I haven't made an enemy of you yet, just wait.

In a long strike like the one that occurred at Patrick Cudahy, no one really wins. Everyone loses.

When it ended, the union did not gain much if anything. Most of those that needed the job most had need to find another job to make ends meet. Some needed to move to other parts of the country. The company soon moved many of the jobs out anyway. Some out of the country. The plant ended up having a fraction of the jobs it used to have. The jobs were lost to the community along with the income they provided.

The City of Cudahy is a ghost of what it used to be.

The strip mall that used to have a Gimble's, JCPenny, and a Sears. Now it has a dollar store and discount liquidator. Many of the once thriving small businesses down the main street are gone. I watched two resale shops fail in one year near our business. The bakery they replaced had been there all my life. Where there were local owned shops, national chain stores now take the profits elsewhere. Not even the Kmart is doing well.

I have given you a reason why I might not want to work with a union, now for the company.

I'm sure you union people will like this.

Like I said, my dad was a foreman for the company. He worked just as hard or harder than anyone that was in the union. He endured the picket lines, and even  the slight danger passing through them (the local police also belong to unions, adding someone else for me to anger with this post).

He worked all through the strike. I mentioned picking him up during the strike, passing the picket lines. For all this, and his years of loyalty, he was shortly rewarded.

A few months after the strike ended, my dad came home and told us his job had been terminated.

Just like that. I still do not understand a company that would do this even as they were still claiming the strikers were welcome back. But Patrick Cudahy was not done yet.

A year later, they offered to hire my dad back at minimum wage as a security guard!

To me, this was a real insult. Oh yes, we fired a loyal employee like you a year ago. However, if you want, we will hire you at a fraction of what you used to make. Honesty, my dad was tempted because it did include heath insurance.

I have no respect for Patrick Cudahy or the jerks that run it. So now, I will let the rest of the world something that will make them sick.

I was once in the plant a few years later, I witnessed something that should make you a bit sick next time you eat ham or bacon from them.

I saw a union worker shaving with an electric razor while he was working on the meat at Patrick Cudahy.

Yes, it's true. There was no where else for the clipping to go but into the meat as it went past him. My dad was a bit shocked too.  While do not feel any better, a least the world now knows what kind of lousy business you run.

I will do all I can to never be reliant on someone else for my income.

While I may have a job from time to time, my goal is a steady income I can rely on working for myself. I don't want to be at the mercy of self-serving union leaders. I do not believe there is job security from working for a company any more. I most of all do not want politicans deciding how much I should be making and deciding how to spend my money to buy themselves votes and power with it.

I want to create my own wealth.

I'll make money online or make money offline with a home-based business. I don't care. I'll find a way to be successful and help as many others become successful too. I believe that wealth can be shared with as many as want to create it. The only ones that steal wealth are those that think it is a limited commodity.