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Original Content at https://www.opednews.com/articles/Look-for-the-Union-Bunny-by-Walter-Brasch-130331-964.html (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). |
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March 31, 2013
Look for the Union Bunny
By Walter Brasch
The Easter Bunnies have gone on strike. Here's why.
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by http://www.treehugger.com
by Walter Brasch
Bullied, harassed, and lied to, District 1 of the Amalgamated Association of Easter Bunnies, AFB-CIO (American Federation of Bunnies--Cottontails International Organization) went on strike, forcing a halt to this year's Easter egg hunts.
At Bunny Headquarters, Solomon P. Bunny, union executive secretary, and a militant corps of Easter bunnies were preparing picket signs. I walked in, notepad in hand.
"Excuse me, Mr. Bunny, but why aren't your members delivering eggs this week?"
Bunny looked up from the papers on his desk, chomped harder on his cigar, looked at me, scowled, and answered harshly, "Don't you know!?"
"No, sir," I replied apologetically. "I always thought you were happy and content passing out your Easter eggs."
"We love it," growled Bunny, "but the reactionary governments of several states don't love us. They claim unionized bunnies are anti-American and a drain upon the limited budgets."
"Don't the people have a right to balance their budget without excessive union demands?" I asked.
"Listen, Ink Breath, if these bobbleheads didn't roll over and let the corporations rub their fat little behinds and expel corporate welfare, there would be enough money to deal with reasonable worker demands and the social services these granite brains are cutting."
"Even with these facts, I doubt you'd have much support," I said, noting that most taxpayers don't want to pay more taxes, and think union workers are greedy opportunists who deserve to be thrown on their tails, even if made of cotton.
"Listen, Lead-type-for-brains, collective bargaining is one of humanity's most fundamental rights. Says so in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved by 48 countries in 1948." Bunny then went into one of his files, pulled out a sheaf of papers, and slammed it on the desk. "Read it!" he commanded. Not wanting to further upset a furious bunny, I skimmed the report that revealed about two-thirds of Americans support the rights of collective bargaining.
"What are your main grievances?" I asked.
"For one lousy week, we prepare and distribute colored eggs. That leaves 51 other weeks when all we're doing is multiplying. You can't make any money that way."
"But don't you get paid extraordinarily well on Easter Sunday?"
"Hey, man, ever try to tell the carrotman that all you have is some moldy lettuce to pay the month's food bill?"
"I see your point," I said, feeling a little sorry for the bunnies. "What are your other demands?"
"A decent living wage and a hutch of our own," said the executive secretary. "No more of this lettuce stuff. We want cold hard cash. Just like what those religious folks put in the collection plates once a year."
"That seems fair," I responded. "Are there other demands?"
"You bet your union card there are," said Bunny. "We want a 50-week work year, with two weeks vacation; that's still fewer vacation days than in most civilized countries. We want nine paid holidays, reasonable sick leave, maternity and day care benefits, medical and dental insurance--do you realize dentists charge us double because of the size of our incisors?--and a prohibition against using us for cosmetic testing."
"But Easter is only one day a year," I said. "Certainly you can't expect Easter every day."
"What's so bad about that? Look what it'll do for the egg, Peeps, and clothing industries. If Easter was every day we'd soon have full employment."
"What about religion? Wouldn't the Church have objections?"
"Why should it? Look at all those people who'd be going to church and putting all that money in the collection plate."
"You certainly have a point," I said, admiring Bunny's determination. "Are there other demands?"
"Other than membership in the Bunny Club, rigorous enforcement of safety standards, and a better employee grievance procedure--no."
"You're willing to disappoint all the children just because some adults are insensitive to worker needs?"
We don't want to harm the children. They haven't learned how to be bought off to be effective politicians."
"So you will deliver Easter eggs this week!" I said, thrilled that the bunny union was relenting.
"This is off-the-record, but this year everyone will get their eggs. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to preparing for a demonstration."
As I left, Solomon P. Bunny was slashing through contracts, and multi-tasking on three different phones and two computer screens. But, he warned if the rotten eggs of some of the state legislatures and their buddies in corporate industry don't stop pretending how religious and patriotic they are, while consistently violating the principles that Jesus stood for, "this will be the last Easter they will ever celebrate."
[Walter Brasch is a social activist and award-winning journalist who has been a member of unions for four decades. His current book is the best-selling Fracking Pennsylvania, an in-depth investigation into the health, environmental, economic, political, and worker safety issues of hydraulic horizontal fracturing.]
Authors Website: http://www.walterbrasch.com
Authors Bio:
Walter Brasch is an award-winning journalist and professor of journalism emeritus. His current books are Before the First Snow: Stories from the Revolution , America's Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights, and 'Unacceptable': The Federal response to Hurricane Katrina, available at amazon.com, borders.com and most major on-line bookstores. BEFORE THE FIRST SNOW is also available at www.greeleyandstone.com (20 discount)
Walter Brasch, a deeply valued Senior Editor at OpEdNews passed from this world on February 9, 2017, age 71, his obituary follows:
Walter M. Brasch, Ph.D., age 71, of 2460 Second Street, Bloomsburg (Espy), died Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, at Geisinger Medical Center, Danville surrounded by his family.
He was an award-winning former newspaper reporter and editor in California, Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio; professor emeritus of mass communications and journalism at Bloomsburg University; and an award-winning social issues journalist and book author.
Walter was born March 2, 1945, in San Diego, the son of Milton Brasch and Helen (Haskin) Brasch and was a 34 year resident of Espy.
In his early years he was a writer-producer for multimedia and film companies in California, and a copywriter and political analyst for advertising and public relations companies. For five years during the late 1990s, he was the media and social issues commentator for United Broadcasting Network. He was also the author of a syndicated newspaper column since 1992 and the creative vice-president of Scripts Destitute of Phoenix.
Dr. Brasch was a member of the Local Emergency Planning Committee and was active in the Columbia County Emergency Management Agency. He was vice-president of the Central Susquehanna chapter of the ACLU, vice-president and co-founder of the Northeast Pennsylvania Homeless Alliance, a member of the board of the Keystone Beacon Community for healthcare coordination, and was active in numerous social causes. He was co-founder with his wife Rosemary Brasch of The Oasis, a biweekly newsletter for families and friends of personnel stationed in the Persian Gulf. Later, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, they published The Oasis 2, for families of persons in combat zones. They were supported by the Bloomsburg Chapter, America Red Cross and Geisinger Medical Center, Danville.
He was the author of 20 books, most which fuse historical and contemporary social issues. Among his books are Black English and the Mass Media (1981); Forerunners of Revolution: Muckrakers and the American Social Conscience (1991); With Just Cause: The Unionization of the American Journalist (1991); Sex and the Single Beer Can: Probing the Media and American Culture (1997); Brer Rabbit, Uncle Remus, and the 'Cornfield Journalist': The Tale of Joel Chandler Harris (2000); The Joy of Sax: America During the Bill Clinton Era (2001); Unacceptable: The federal Response to Hurricane Katrina (2005); America's Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights (2006); Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush (2007); and Before the First Snow (2011). He was co-author of The Press and the State (1986), awarded Outstanding Academic Book distinction by Choice magazine, published by the American Library Association.
His last book is Fracking America: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefit (2015), a critically-acclaimed novel that looks at what happens when government and energy companies form a symbiotic relationship, using "cheaper, cleaner" fuel and the lure of jobs in a depressed economy but at the expense of significant health and environmental impact.
During the past two decades, he won more than 150 regional and national media awards from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, Society of Professional Journalists, National Federation of Press Women, USA Book News, Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group, Pennsylvania Press Club, Pennsylvania Women's Press Association, Pennsylvania Associated Press Broadcasters Association, Penn-writers, International Association of Business Communicators, Pacific Coast Press Club, and Press Club of Southern California. He was recognized in 2012 by the Pennsylvania Press Club with the Communicator of Achievement award for lifetime achievement in journalism and public service.
He was an Eagle Scout; co-recipient of the Civil Liberties Award of the American Civil Liberties Union, 1996; and was honored by San Diego State University as a Points of Excellence winner in 1997. In 2000, he received the Herb Caen Memorial Award of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. For the Pennsylvania Humanities Council he was twice named a Commonwealth speaker. He also received the meritorious achievement medal of the U.S. Coast Guard.
At Bloomsburg University, he earned the Creative Arts Award, the Creative Teaching Award, and was named an Outstanding Student Advisor. He received the first annual Dean's Salute to Excellence in 2002, a second award in 2007, and the Maroon and Gold Quill Award for nonfiction. He was the 2004 recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Service Award. For 22 years, he was Editor-In-Chief of the awarding-winning Spectrum Magazine, part of the journalism program of the Department of Mass Communications, Bloomsburg University until his retirement in 2010. The community magazine was published twice a year by students for residents of Columbia and Montour counties in northeastern Pennsylvania and one of the few to be inducted into the national Associated Collegiate Press hall of fame. The magazine was also a consistent award winner in competition sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists, Columbia Scholastic Press Association, and the American Scholastic Press Association. He primarily taught magazine editing and production, public affairs reporting, feature writing, newspaper editing; every Fall, he taught a 250-student section on mass communications and the popular arts.
Dr. Brasch was co founder of the qualitative studies division of the Association for Education in Journalism, president of the Keystone State professional chapter and for three years deputy regional director of the Society of Professional Journalists, from which he received the Director's Award and the National Freedom of Information Award. He was president of the Pennsylvania Press Club, vice-president of the Pennsylvania Women's Press Association, and founding coordinator of Pennsylvania Journalism Educators. He was a featured columnist for Liberal Opinion Week, senior correspondent for the American Reporter, senior editor for OpEdNews, and an editorial board member of Journalism History and the Journal of Media Law and Ethics.
He was a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, Author's Guild, National Writers Union (UAW/AFL-CIO), The Newspaper Guild (CWA/AFL-CIO), and the Society of Environmental Journalists. He was a life member of the service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega, and was indicted into the national scholarship honor societies Phi Kappa Phi (general scholarship), Kappa Tau Alpha (journalism), Pi Gamma Mu (social sciences), and Kappa Tau Alpha (sociology.) He is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the East, Contemporary Authors, Who's Who in the Media and Who's Who in Education. Dr. Brasch earned an A.B. in sociology from San Diego State College, an M.A. in journalism from Ball State University, and a Ph.D. in mass communication/journalism, with a cognate area in both American government/public policy and language and culture studies, from The Ohio State University.
He is survived by his wife of 34 years, the former Rosemary Renn the most wonderful thing that happened in his life and whom he loved very much; two sons, Jeffery Gerber, Phoenix AZ and Matthew Gerber and his wife, Laurel (Neyhard) of Bloomsburg, a sister, Corey Brasch of Sacramento, Calif; a niece, Terri Pearson-Fuchs, Calif, numerous cousins; and his beloved dogs Cabot and Remy.
Funeral services will be held on Wednesday, at 2:00 p.m. at the Dean W. Kriner Inc. Funeral Home & Cremation Service, 325 Market St., Bloomsburg with family friend, Nathaniel Mitchell officiating. Interment in Elan Memorial Park, Lime Ridge.
Friends may call at the funeral home on Tuesday from 6 - 8 p.m. or Wednesday from 1-2 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Walter M. Brasch Scholarship Fund,
c/o First Keystone Community Bank, 2301 Columbia Blvd, Bloomsburg, PA 17815 or to
Mostly Mutts, 284 Little Mountain Rd., Sunbury, PA 17801