Some thoughts on unions (page 3)

DaCheech

listen, and don't get me wrong:

if you work in private field, god bless you if you can make a living paying union.

my only private scenario where you can't sustain the union is: manufacturing (if you pay union, someone in china will build it cheaper....... and if you don't like my analysis tell obama to ban cheap imports)

also, the public sector unions............ they are demanding too much from taxpayers, and regular people making low wages are affected by paying high taxes/high rent because it's bankrupting cities to make adue on their pension/benefits packages!

http://thealternativepress.com/articles/as-layoff-plan-moves-ahead-police-union-gets-22-per-year-pay-hike-and-balks-at-contract-concessions--2

above is urban town with low income people, so unless you're section 8........... your rents going up!

Sam Whiskey

Danabug,

I get your point. However, it's all relative. If you're the CEO of a corp. that has an annual sales revenue of $29Billion (GOOGLE - http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/stock-price?Symbol=goog ) is it unreasonable to pay the CEO who has led that company with $29B in Rev. a $100Mil. salary? Not hardly....it's all in the numbers. The better the CEO performs for the shareholders and BOD (Board of Directors) the more they get paid. And the numbers I've quoted don't even include stock bonuses.

Look at Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. This company isn't even public yet and he's worth $6Bil. How would you regulate how much this guy should make?

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bluesapphire

If they are making that much money then the workers should strike until they get their piece of the pie. The company can't function without the workers.

Sam Whiskey

But did the workers invent anything, did they develop anything? What are they entitled to? Why did they agree to work for a wage and now want a "piece of the pie"? What entitles them to a piece of the pie?

villabolo

A certain fool was already told by beks that you can hardly find anything made in the US. Nevertheless, in the spirit of all mindless ideologues, he continues to mindlessloy prattle the same points over and over again without acknowledging the response.

The same elitist wannabe thinks that workers are subhuman lowlifes who don't invent anything. Let's see. Most inventors get paid a small portion of what their inventions earn by those divinely entitled corporate gods who themselves never invented anything.

And the continuing verbal stench from this business authoritarian is that wage slaves agreed to their misery by mere virtue of being forced to get whatever crumbs their corporate overlords.

And of course, they're not entitled to "a piece of the pie" whose ingredients they, and they alone, produced, mixed together and baked.

Comes the revolution.

Villabolo

JeffT

Just out of curiosity what pie are government workers supposed to be getting a piece of? (If they work in Bell, CA that's obvious).

The smart employers I've worked for (they're rare but they exist) have recognized that good workers need to be rewarded, and that the reward pays off in the long run. I'm currently unemployed because the last boss thought that supporting his life style was more important than paying people to build his business for him. One of my co-workers who knew him better than I did told me one time "when {he} dies he'll have a lot of money and no friends." File that under what goes around comes around.

In regard to my original thought (I was trying to talk about public unions) I think that one of the things those unions need to do is a better job of convincing the public that we're getting value for our money. That will make a lot of issues (pay, taxes) a lot easier to sell to the public. I think
Bluesapphire and I are in agreement that the construction trade unions have done that (except that it sounds like they are now being undermined by their own shops).

FlyingHighNow

The problem with "counter revolution."

The plutocrats do not care if America crumbles or dies. They can buy overseas. Much of their companies are now safely moved overseas. If you don't buy their products, they don't care. You're not hurting them. But they make sure enough of us are jobless or underemployed to keep the labor pool desperate and willing to take any kind of job and be treated like slaves and animals. Say hello to the new gilded age, you are well into it. These latest gas prices and the threat of rising food costs over the next few months? You're about to look at an America like you have never seen , nor have you dreamed. I am not holding my breath that even the democrats can save us from this financial tsunami.

FlyingHighNow

Look for the studio version of Iris singing this. She sounds much more assertive and righteously indignant than this clip. For the republican/tea party

folks, this song was written when Clinton was in the White House. Like she says in this clip, things have only grown worse. I agree, especially after 8 years of plutocrat @$$ kissing GW. It's so bad now that even democrats are realizing they have no power to face down this foe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86VHcV5Pa5c

Living in the wasteland of the free...

We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines
and their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ's disciples
but they don't look like Jesus to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got politicians running races on corporate cash
Now don't tell me they don't turn around and kiss them peoples' ass
You may call me old-fashioned
but that don't fit my picture of a true democracyand it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got CEO's making two hundred times the workers' pay
but they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
and If you don't like it, mister, they'll ship your job
to some third-world country 'cross the seaand it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedyLiving in the wasteland of the free

We got little kids with guns fighting inner city wars
So what do we do, we put these little kids behind prison doors
and we call ourselves the advanced civilization
that sounds like crap to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got high-school kids running 'round in Calvin Klein and Guess
who cannot pass a sixth-grade reading test
but if you ask them, they can tell you
the name of every crotch on MTV
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We kill for oil, then we throw a party when we win
Some guy refuses to fight, and we call that the sin
but he's standing up for what he believes in
and that seems pretty damned American to meand it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

While we sit gloating in our greatness
justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free

Sam Whiskey

Thanks for your comments guys, sincerely. I don't say that out of scarcasm, really. After all of the years that I have been self employed, an inventor and mass producer of global product myself, I am reafirmed through discussions like these that there will always people that think they're not getting their share of the "pie", that they are entitled to more.

That entitlement attitude is what drove the need to go overseas with our business. Profits are 70% higher and people are exstatic to just have a job, not so in America. So Americans will have to live with it...end of story.

FlyingHighNow

The plutocrats busted the private unions first and then moved onto the public unions.

In America, it would be hard just to bring in a sudden plutocracy or dictatorship where the masses must helplessly do the commands of the ruling class. So, they have done this very subtly. Americans are waking up the fact that our freedom is in stage IV cancer and for now at least, we are just going to have live the best we can with it. But take a look at Egypt. Maybe there is hope for a good, old fashioned revolt.

Some thoughts on unions

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