This morning, someone who appears to be a St. Louis grocery store union employee responded to my previous screed on this topic, in which I suspected someone within the management chain of one of the local grocery stores of posting falsified information to make union workers look bad.

Here, I'm going to respond only to the parts of their comment which are directed at me. Which is pretty much all of it. :-)

But you -- the poster -- when you're done with work today and come back here -- send me an e-mail message so I can verify who you are, and if we can all be civililized here, I'll give you front-page posting space (your own article) so you can make your best case in favor of your side of the current situation.

Im one of those union workers you like to talk about so much.

Actually, I haven't said a word negative toward individual union members. I'm not anti-union, but rather, as I said before, I take things on a case-by-case basis. As I said previously, in this particular case, I worry, with competition out there from Wal-Mart and other non-union shops, that the union might be pricing itself, and it's employers, out of a competitive market.

But that's quite different than saying union workers are bad people or something -- which seems to be more what you seem be hearing.

You will have to excuse my spelling and my writing I dont have any one doing spell checks on my writing. That was just a little dig see im writing this in the ten min. before I have to leave for my job.

I implied my "fake" poster probably wasn't a "happy" temporary grocery store worker because of how well crafted their letter was, and how it took the time to use employement and compensation stats against the union position.

You seem to have read this as an insult against grocery store workers, an implication that none would be good spellers or use good grammar. If this is what you heard, I apologize: that was certainly not my intent.

In truth, all kinds of people can find themselves in these positions. I myself worked in a grocery store for three years, stacking produce. My own feeling is that jobs such as bagger or shelf stocker should be viewed as transitional employement before one can find more specialized labor.

I tend to believe compensation should be inversely proportional to how many people are available to do the given job. For example, there are many of us who are able to stock a shelf, so we wouldn't expect that kind of job to pay very highly. On the other hand, not many of us can lay brick with competance, so that kind of work should pay quite a bit more.

See im one of the workers who hasnt went on strike yet because our contract isnt up yet. But it will be soon and I just wanted to let you know a few things about these people on strike that you dont seem to know or care about. First we are all not teenage baggers I have worked for this company for 9 years. and plan to work for quite awile longer

True enough, not all are teenage baggers. And I admit I don't know the full range of positions on strike here: Just curious, what do you do? And, since you ask me my own "wages" below, I feel it's fair to ask you what the pay range is for this kind of work.

the people I work with are not trying to get something for nothing. We have people just trying to make a living at all of these stores.

Something for nothing: I hope not.

But if you're trying to make a good, "living wage" out of every position which could be filled by anyone, with very little training, I fear it may not be economically possible to build a functioning society in which that always occurs. Sweden has tried, but is now bankrupt. The USSR did as well.

It would be, in some ways, really nice if we could think everyone could always be taken care of, no matter what kind of work they did -- or whether they worked at all. But I'm not sure I can see how to do it in our society without doing more harm than good overall.

You made a point of telling our wages and health and how your health benifits werent as good but i noticed you didnt tell your wages.

As you wish: I make well below the poverty line right now. I would be completely shocked if you had earned less money so far this year than I have.

Wow, that really helped your position.

It doesn't pay to get personal.

I have a lot more to say and I probaby will when I get home if im not to tired you see I have to spend the next 8 hours on my feet waiting talking to a lot of people. Unlike you who get to sit at a desk and judge me and all of my coworkers.

Hmmm... who's doing the judging here?

As I said, I am concerned the union position might ultimately hurt union members in St. Louis. That's a far cry from being judgemental: people in contemporary society really need to learn the difference between a difference of opinion and a personal insult.