Or is he a Russo Marsh and Rogers construct--or dream target audience member?
Because, honestly, he seems to have much more time than any of us working people do, to spend on the internet writing long, meme-repeating screeds with a lot of recycled talking points.
As a retired communications professional I feel compelled to observe that among intelligent people, it is strength of idea connected to depth of experience and breadth of consensus that counts for proximity to truth. It is only among dimwitted audiences that robotic repetition of talking points gains traction.
Consider your audience here, Mr. Clark. Say your piece, then let go and let others have a say without you jumping back in and repeating yourself to tell the world they're wrong because they don't agree with you.
>Why force employers to accept demands by those that have absolutely ZERO investment >in a business ??? That is just plain stupid. Unions have ZERO invested, have >contributed ZERO to the success of a business, yet they want to set the rules and >guidelines. Go figure.
Who are more invested in a business than the people who work there..? There is no business without the workers, it would never succeed. If it were possible there would be no unions, capitol having long since disposed of them. It it such a mental stretch to believe then a worker would be interested in safety rules at the place they work?
Name one instance where a union has set the rules or guidelines of a business. You can't because it has never happened. Either the two parties negotiated a compromise or they didn't. The business is free to hire workers outside the union even if that means moving to another state or another country.
I do like the irony though. Its not often you see someone complain about the greed of union members the very force that drives corporations and in fact they are required to be greedy to benefit their shareholders. Come up with something original if you're going to troll. Greed? honestly..
I totally disagree. If there were no unions, we would still have the basic rights that we have today. Unions do not grant, not do they protect our rights. Everyone has the right to bargain with an employer. If you work for an employer, and that employer fires you justly, where have freedoms been lost? Are you saying that we have the right to FORCE an employer to give-in to our demands? What truck did you fall off of, may I ask?
I have never workered for a union. Yet, many times I bargained for a raise in pay, and never once had anyone do my talking for me.
You're wrong when it comes to merit pay. Back in my working days, employers paid, or gave raises, according to merit. As far as I know, it still continues today. My wife works for a huge company, a world-wide corporation, that gives merit pay. Someone has given you false information my friend. And, you sir, or mame, whichever the case may be, can go away also. Who died and left you in charge here?? I fully understand labor economics, and have for many decades now.
And, further more, Abe Lincoln is not the authority and last word in economics, business management, worker rights, and labor. Quoting him added ZERO to this conversation.
Unions are NOT the only ones that can bargain. Again, someone has given you false information. Individual employees can bargain just the same as unions can.
I have a question for you Mr. or Mrs. pro-union person. If a person, or group, invest $10,000,000 to get a business off the ground and running profitably. Then invested another $5,000,000 in equipment and up-grades, and pushed the business to the top of their field, all without one red cent from any union, what right does a union have to come in after the fact and demand certain wages and benefits? See, unions have no vested interest, take absolutely no risk, and then want to run the show. Duh !!
Why are businesses so stupid, given the above example, to let unions basically dictate to them without ever investing one red cent into the business? Remember, employees are on every street corner begging for work. We have no labor shortage in America.
If an employer fires an employee without good cause, we have laws that protect that employee. Employees are protected very well in this country.
And you, uninformed uneducated person, should also leave the country. Why are people asking others to leave this country? Is that the only counter argument here? Gee, a bunch of children have infested this site. These comments remind me of another site that has childish activity and comments. Grow-up folks, be civil and polite in these conversations. There's no call for asking someone to leave the country just because they disagree with you.
Quote: "Also, for your information, unions have absolutely ZERO to do with basic human rights. Workers have the right to protest, shout, scream, yell, picket, march, wave banners and flags, stomp, and redress the government. And, unions have absolutely nothing to do with thoise basic rights. ALL of us have those basic rights, yes, even non-union workers."
Absent the protection of collective action, the worker cannot do these things without risking automatic termination. Only in a union does labor have the power to bargain fairly with with either the government or the unions of capital i.e. corporations.
By denying the right of protected collective bargaining to labor you are violating the principle of equal protection by given to capital via limited liability unfair power against single individuals and using the force of government to prevent workers from making collective contracts.
Quote: "If anyone should leave this country, it's folks like you that are pro-destruction of the American founding principles of hard work and merit based pay. ALL American workers should be paid based on their contributions to an employer, and not because some union set the pay scales. We should be paid according to our contributions, and not according to greed and status."
There is no merit based pay in market economies. Please read Steve Keen's papers on why productivity can never be linked to wage levels. Wages are determined by the relative political power of the parties entering a contract. If you do not understand these basic facts of labor economics then please go away.
Here's a quote from Abe Lincoln who you apparently want to "leave the country": "I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world."
You are a Neo-Confederate who needs to leave the country. America is the Union, not a some "libertarian" southern plantation for the Koch brothers. In a free country, people have the right to organize themselves without fear of Nanny State Confederates using big Government to ban the collective organization of some groups of citizens (unions) while protecting others (corporations).
Yes, I totally agree. I have written many articles and comments concerning the illegal immigration issue. I have followed it for years now. Back in the 70's, and again in the early 80's, I worked and lived in Nogalas, Arizona, which is on the Mexican border. I experienced first hand what the illegal immigration issued meant to employment. You're correct, we should be more concerned with illegal immigration than with unions. Unions are dying, but illegal immigration is picking up steam daily.
What we have is a very very weak government. Our own government allows, condones, and encourages illegal immigration. They also allow, condone, and encourage job out-sourcing to cheap foreign labor markets. In addition, they freely hand out H-1B visa to foreign workers. As I've said, and have written about many many times, we have an anti-America government seated in Washington, and have had for many decades now.
It's true that unions have done damage to our workforce, but they are on their way out. As you've stated very well, other issues such as illegal immigration and unpenalized unpunished job out-sourcing should be our major concern now. Along with job out-sourcing, our unfair unjust one-sided foreign trade agreements and policies are taking millions of American jobs.
No matter the issue with American jobs, the finger always points straight at our inept derelict pathetic government. John Q. Public doesn't set legislation and policy, doesn't get to vote on the floors of Congress, and doesn't control the out-flow of American jobs.
You're correct. Unions are in decline, as I stated earlier. That should tell all of us something about greedy selfish self-serving unions. "IF" unions were so good for this country, and for our workforce in general, the numbers would be going up instead of coming down. Unions have long since served their useful purpose. Now, in today's workplace, unions and union workers represent nothing but greed. It's no longer about worker safety, wages, benefits, and work environment, but rather it's about squeezing employers and exerting union power and influence without taking any risk, or without investing one red cent into the business.
Everyone seems to over-look the fact that slave labor is against the law, and that employees have the right to go look for work elsewhere if they feel like they're not getting paid enough, or getting enough benefits. American workers are protected very well.
Employers should pay wages and benefits based on an employee's contribution, and not based on what some uninvested union demands. Employers are slowly waking up to the fact that unions cause way more harm than good. Just look at the damage unions have caused the state of California. Look at what unions cost the three big auto makers. Look at what unions have done to the textile and steel industries.
Of course greedy unions and union workers want to argue the points. They're the ones getting fat. No one ever wonders why some union employees have priced themselves right out of a job. Besides, union workers can do as non-union workers do, which is speak for themselves. Why do grown adults need unions to speak for them anyway?? During my 40 plus years in the workforce, I always spoke for myself when it came to wages and benefits. I never depended on someone else going to bat for me. If I ever thought that I wasn't being paid a fair wage, I just moved on to where I thought that I was being paid a fair wage.
What real purpose do unions serve aside from the greed factor? Can anyone honestly answer that question for me, please? Why should a business pay an uneducated unskilled worker $20.00 an hour for menial labor? Is it because that uneducated unskilled worker belongs to a union?? Pleeeeeeese !!!
What's wrong with paying an employee based on their contribution? What's wrong with paying an employee based on their education and job related experience? Is there something wrong with that, honestly?? Why do we allow unions to set wages and benefits??? What do unions have invested?? What risk do unions take in a business??
When given a choice between buying an American union made product, and buying a cheap foreign made import at Wal-Mart, which one is more likely to be bought by the average worker? How many Americans can afford to buy American union made products?
I worry a lot more about illegal immigrants taking over jobs and unfairly competing with legal workers than I do union members.
Add in the legal immigrants who aren't offering needed skills -- like the parents, brothers and sisters of prior immigrants who are admitted by the millions in the name of family unification -- and again, that to me is a much bigger problem that we need to do something about.
We don't have enough jobs for ourselves. We particularly lack decent paying jobs for our high school dropouts and high school gradutates. There's going to be another 100 million Americans by around 2050, mostly because of immigration. We don't need another 100 million people, we never discussed getting them, but because of cheap labor lovers and various immigration and ethnic lobby groups, we're going to have them. Now that's something BIG to worry about.
There's so much unemployment and agony right now, and there's lots more to come when we allow companies to ship jobs overseas while we continue import over a million foreign workers each year.
I used to have pretty negative views of unions. Now I wish to God I could join one. Labor conditions in many ways are more like 1911 in this country than I ever could have dreamed possible.
I don't mean a stereotypical job-controlling and job-killer union from the 1960s, I mean a union that would represent workers first while remembering that if the company doesn't survive and prosper, nobody has a job. I believe unions in Germany are well regarded and considered to perform a valuable function. Something like that would be wonderful to have here.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, only a little more than 10% of American workers are unionized. Only about 7% in private industry are in unions. Your description of militant unions controlling whole industries is a genration old for private industry.
I agree with you about public employee pensions. Hughe pensions are not uncommon in the NY-NJ area for cops and fire fighters and it's way too much.
"In 2010, the union membership rate--the percent of wage and salary workers who were
members of a union--was 11.9 percent, down from 12.3 percent a year earlier, the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers be-
longing to unions declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million. In 1983, the first year for
which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 per-
cent, and there were 17.7 million union workers."
Yes, politics on all levels is dirty, and a dirty business. Honor and honesty mix with politics like oil mixes with water. But, unions have had their dirty hands in dirty politics for decades.
Also, no-bid contracts are common-place, even in local and state governments. But, again, this doesn't equate solely to unions and union workers. This is common even amomg non-union activity.
What happens in government, concerning budgets and finance, does not equate to unions, or to union employees. You're comparing apples and oranges here.
Also, the argument concerning slave wages and no benefits doesn't float in today's workplace, nor in today's workforce. That argument is old, and no longer valid. No one can say with absolute certainty that wages and benefits would not have progressed without unions. Unions served their purpose back in the 30's and 40's, but not today in 2011. Unions have been in a steady decline for a couple of decades now. They have long since served their purpose. In today's America, unions are based on greed, and greed alone.
Today, we have labor laws that protect workers. We have safety and environmental laws, and we have labor boards which protect the rights of workers. We also have discrimination and ehtics laws, and laws against the willful endangerment of employees. What do we need unions for?
The bottom line is one of greed and power, and nothig to do with merit based pay for an honest day's work.
It is not the union employees that are at fault for what we're seeing, but the fault of employers that have given-in to the ridiculous demands of unions.
Again, taxes, budgets, etc., have absolutely Zero to do with unions and their ridiculous demands on employers. Your talking about apples and oranges here.
The basics of unions is to force employers to meet certain demands, else threaten them with worker strikes. This is, for all practical purposes, blackmail and extortion. In other words, it's akin to the Mafia back in Capone's days in Chicago.
Walker, as Mayor of Milwaukee, fired union workers and hired Wackenhut from Germany who hired security workers (some with criminal backgrounds). Walker, supported by the Koch Brothers, has a clause that allows him to give away public assets with no-bid contracts. It is all about privatization including public schools. All 19 red-state governors are following the script. If you have any respect for public schools, realize the unions are only a small part of a plan to strip assets from the states. The recalls needs to move quickly because the damage is vast and happening quickly. If you want to see workers from the US be hired, be concerned about this hostile multi-national corporate take-over within the states.
Please, give me all of your counter facts, if you have any, which I doubt very seriously. Nope, I'm not from another planet, been here on Earth all of my life. My arguments are shallow, really ?? Then, please give me your factual counter to what I stated, if you don't mind, please.
Also, for your information, unions have absolutely ZERO to do with basic human rights. Workers have the right to protest, shout, scream, yell, picket, march, wave banners and flags, stomp, and redress the government. And, unions have absolutely nothing to do with thoise basic rights. ALL of us have those basic rights, yes, even non-union workers.
In reality, it's not the unions that are wrong. It's the stupid employers that allow unions to come in and take over, demand certain wages and benefits, and to determine who can and can't be fired. The way I look at it, employers are getting exactly what they deserve, and have deserved for a long long time now.
Hey, why don't you leave this country?? If anyone should leave this country, it's folks like you that are pro-destruction of the American founding principles of hard work and merit based pay. ALL American workers should be paid based on their contributions to an employer, and not because some union set the pay scales. We should be paid according to our contributions, and not according to greed and status.
Besides, rights and freedom person, whoever you are, employees have the right to look for work elsewhere if they feel that they aren't being paid a fair wage and getting fair benefits. We don't force anyone to work anywhere. We all have the right to change from one employer to another. We're no longer slaves, and no longer are forced to stay where we feel that we're not being treated fairly.
Again, this whole issue has absolutely ZERO to do with rights and freedoms, ZERO. Whether we're union or non-union, we all have the same rights. Anyone can protest, speak their minds, march, carry banners, wave flags, and file petitions. Your rights and freedom argument is very weak, to say the least.
Why force employers to accept demands by those that have absolutely ZERO investment in a business ??? That is just plain stupid. Unions have ZERO invested, have contributed ZERO to the success of a business, yet they want to set the rules and guidelines. Go figure.
Again, please tell me where I'm wrong here. Please correct me, and tell me why what I say is not the truth. Also, please explain to me where rights and freedoms come into play here. Anyone can bargain, but that doesn't mean everyone has to give-in to their demands. Only stupid people would give-in to union demands. By the way, just curious here, are you a union employee??? Or, do you greatly benefit from a union employee??? Do you come from a long line of union workers, and now feel that you must defend greedy unions and union employees???
Well Sonny, you must be from another planet. And your arguments are so shallow I will not dignify them with the myriad of facts that counter them. If you are against basic human rights like the right to form unions or collectively bargain, please leave this country for some authoritarian or communist regime that prohibits these basic rights.
And this applys to all those who oppose our freedoms.
Why?
Try countering the blatant misrepresentation of a budgetary crisis...
Reduce taxes on one segment and then blame the other
Another way to look at it is that Corporations and Conglomerates are defacto unions of capital. Labor has always required a counter balance. Otherwise - 84 hour work weeks, no minimum wage laws, worker safety gone, mandatory overtime among others. The non-pay issue list is longer than what I could list in one pass.
You seem to suggest that there has been value add from the executives that invested billions of other people's money into flawed financial products only to see the value disappear. Same executives award each other bonuses and salary increases that are independant from actual results. I think that the problems start at a much higher level than some hourly workers.
Finally add in the absolute denial of any environmental or social responsibility on the part of the corporations and their spokesmen, and you get the full reason for a need for unions.
BL (I don't think my house will burn down, but I still carry fire insurance. My stand on climate change is the same... A little bit of insurance (call it the same level of protection) would mitigate many ill effects)
The fact is that this is 2011, and not 1911. We've passed the era of slave labor and unfair treatment of workers. We have labor laws and workplace safety laws that greatly protect workers. We do not force anyone to work for an employer, and everyone in America is free to choose their place of employment. If a worker is not happy where they're presently working, they have every right to go look for employment elsewhere. We have minimum wage laws, and laws that protect workers against discrimination and other immoral and unethical practices.
Unions have no financial investment in businesses, and unions do not contribute to the start-up and growth of a company. Unions come in "after the fact", and then dictate wages and benefits to the ones that are directly responsible for the success and management of a business. Basically, unions are nothing more than "greed machines", and union workers are nothing more than greedy self-interest self-serving employees.
How can anyone justify paying an uneducated unskilled floor sweeper at GM $22.50 per hour? How can anyone justify paying an uneducated unskilled janitor at a high school $18.50 per hour? How can anyone justify paying a retired street cop ( California ) over $100,000 per year in retirement pay and benefits? Unions are almost forcing some state governments into bankruptcy. And, unions have already caused financial harm to the three auto makers.
Union workers pay monthly union dues, and also pay to get their union card. But, when unions go on strike, unions don't come knocking on the doors of union workers and hand workers a fat check to pay their bills while on strike. And, union leaders and management pocket enormous sums of money from workers' dues and membership fees.
Why do grown-up adult workers need unions to talk for them? Why can't workers talk for themselves, and ask employers for pay raises and more benefits? Why are employees so afraid to speak for themselves?
Why are employers stupid enough to allow unions to dictate wages and employee benefits? A company invests $$millions into the start-up and success of a business, then allow a union that has no investment, and took no risk, to come in a dictate wages and benefits? Go figure.
The bottom line is GREED, plain and simple.
In many industries, union employees have priced themselves completely out of a job. Take a look at what happened to the steel and textile industries. Unions basically open the doors for cheap foreign imports to flood our market place. And, in some cases, unions have opened the doors for cheap foreign labor to enter our workplaces.
Unions do alot more harm than good to our economy, and their decline over the past couple of decades indicates that economic damage. The America workplace, and workforce, would be alot better off without greedy self-serving self-interest unions.
"The conflict in North Africa was a predictable outcome of the US Monetary Policy of Quantitative Easing. It is not plausible that the US Federal Reserve, as the manager of the world’s Reserve Currency, did not fully recognize the global ramifications of such monetary inflation actions well in advance." Let them Fail
I agree with you entirely. However, these people don't consider people in the equation when they think of ramifications. One reason the Wall Streed crowd liked Egypt was the predictability of absolute rule. Same for Tunisia and Libya. Tere's a "strongman" in charge who will deliver whatever deals, regulations, etc. seem necessary. They forget that the "strongman" is there at their bidding. He's just a puppet and vulnerable to real strong people, like those figting in all three countries; people who know they're bein screwed.
"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) made an embarrassing error just two days before the start of the Libyan people's revolution on February 17. This quote from an IMF country study appeared in a previous article: The outlook for Libya’s economy remains favorable." IMF Feb 15
There's more in there from IMF, failures on projecting the future of the very nations in turmoil right now. My point is that these people are truly limited in their analytic capacity by one huge flaw - they think people all over, in these cases, North Africa and the Middle East - they think that the people are perpetual chumps and that their bought and paid for "strongman" can handle anything.
Thanks for your comment. The replies on this thread are excellent.
We need to simplify some of this and start with every mortgage in MERS to be properly recorded and the fees paid at our county Registry of Deeds as they should have been before the fraud started. That is as it should have been and that will not change. It Must Be Done. We need to make this a starting point.
Is a contract for an oil future transaction a derivative or an oxymoron? 'Derivative' because, to make sense in the real world, it derives from a presumption that there will be a notarized paper somewhere verifying that the oil exists or will exist (on the call date) in some verifiable storage facility.
"Large noncommercial speculators – firms that play the futures markets without taking delivery – added to their long position in West Texas Intermediate crude by 50,200 contracts last week, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data."
Citing Stephen Schork's Schork Report (energy markets newsletter), Barr gives us the big picture, as follows:
"Schork notes that speculators now own nearly six times as many barrels of oil – 268,622 futures contracts representing nearly 269 million barrels – as can be stored at the WTI trading hub in Cushing, Okla. And since the CFTC numbers released Friday only go through last Tuesday, they likely underestimate the degree of speculative fervor building in the energy markets."
I am not sure, but I have seen some interpretations to the effect that for the U.S. to limit government contracts to "U.S." corporations would be grounds for a claim in the WTO quasi-judicial system.
Also, I believe that Halliburton has 'resolved' all thses problems by way of co-HQs located in as many countries as may be convenient.
I think what we really need to watch isn't a business or a corporation at all but the supply chain itself.
For the U.S. to survive, we absolutely need an across-the-board tariff, call it a VAT if that is helpful, although not if VAT implies what some say it does. The VAT, or whatever you call it, needs to replace all other trade barriers -- the targeted stuff whereby political (mercantilist) intervention becomes tangled with all business activity.
The classical monetarist (libertarian or classical liberal) objection to tariff logically is more that they are targeted industry-by-industry or country-by-country than that they are imposed to pay for the value that is added by virtue of access to a stable market and the infrastructure necessary to sustain that market. Otherwise, the only objection reduces to that there should be no regulation of labor conditions by any WTO member.
The objection to the ad hoc system of trade barriers (that, in truth, characterizes the WTO system) is that success of any free enterprise system depends on stable and predictable conditions. If you have to go, wallet in hand, to your Grand Exalted Ward Healer in some national political committee or lobbyist group whenever you are thinking to start an enterprise and whatever you get is subject to constant change ... free enterprise will be stifled.
Or is he a Russo Marsh and Rogers construct--or dream target audience member?
Because, honestly, he seems to have much more time than any of us working people do, to spend on the internet writing long, meme-repeating screeds with a lot of recycled talking points.
As a retired communications professional I feel compelled to observe that among intelligent people, it is strength of idea connected to depth of experience and breadth of consensus that counts for proximity to truth. It is only among dimwitted audiences that robotic repetition of talking points gains traction.
Consider your audience here, Mr. Clark. Say your piece, then let go and let others have a say without you jumping back in and repeating yourself to tell the world they're wrong because they don't agree with you.
WADR - with all due respect.
>Why force employers to accept demands by those that have absolutely ZERO investment >in a business ??? That is just plain stupid. Unions have ZERO invested, have >contributed ZERO to the success of a business, yet they want to set the rules and >guidelines. Go figure.
Who are more invested in a business than the people who work there..? There is no business without the workers, it would never succeed. If it were possible there would be no unions, capitol having long since disposed of them. It it such a mental stretch to believe then a worker would be interested in safety rules at the place they work?
Name one instance where a union has set the rules or guidelines of a business. You can't because it has never happened. Either the two parties negotiated a compromise or they didn't. The business is free to hire workers outside the union even if that means moving to another state or another country.
I do like the irony though. Its not often you see someone complain about the greed of union members the very force that drives corporations and in fact they are required to be greedy to benefit their shareholders. Come up with something original if you're going to troll. Greed? honestly..
I totally disagree. If there were no unions, we would still have the basic rights that we have today. Unions do not grant, not do they protect our rights. Everyone has the right to bargain with an employer. If you work for an employer, and that employer fires you justly, where have freedoms been lost? Are you saying that we have the right to FORCE an employer to give-in to our demands? What truck did you fall off of, may I ask?
I have never workered for a union. Yet, many times I bargained for a raise in pay, and never once had anyone do my talking for me.
You're wrong when it comes to merit pay. Back in my working days, employers paid, or gave raises, according to merit. As far as I know, it still continues today. My wife works for a huge company, a world-wide corporation, that gives merit pay. Someone has given you false information my friend. And, you sir, or mame, whichever the case may be, can go away also. Who died and left you in charge here?? I fully understand labor economics, and have for many decades now.
And, further more, Abe Lincoln is not the authority and last word in economics, business management, worker rights, and labor. Quoting him added ZERO to this conversation.
Unions are NOT the only ones that can bargain. Again, someone has given you false information. Individual employees can bargain just the same as unions can.
I have a question for you Mr. or Mrs. pro-union person. If a person, or group, invest $10,000,000 to get a business off the ground and running profitably. Then invested another $5,000,000 in equipment and up-grades, and pushed the business to the top of their field, all without one red cent from any union, what right does a union have to come in after the fact and demand certain wages and benefits? See, unions have no vested interest, take absolutely no risk, and then want to run the show. Duh !!
Why are businesses so stupid, given the above example, to let unions basically dictate to them without ever investing one red cent into the business? Remember, employees are on every street corner begging for work. We have no labor shortage in America.
If an employer fires an employee without good cause, we have laws that protect that employee. Employees are protected very well in this country.
And you, uninformed uneducated person, should also leave the country. Why are people asking others to leave this country? Is that the only counter argument here? Gee, a bunch of children have infested this site. These comments remind me of another site that has childish activity and comments. Grow-up folks, be civil and polite in these conversations. There's no call for asking someone to leave the country just because they disagree with you.
Quote: "Also, for your information, unions have absolutely ZERO to do with basic human rights. Workers have the right to protest, shout, scream, yell, picket, march, wave banners and flags, stomp, and redress the government. And, unions have absolutely nothing to do with thoise basic rights. ALL of us have those basic rights, yes, even non-union workers."
Absent the protection of collective action, the worker cannot do these things without risking automatic termination. Only in a union does labor have the power to bargain fairly with with either the government or the unions of capital i.e. corporations.
By denying the right of protected collective bargaining to labor you are violating the principle of equal protection by given to capital via limited liability unfair power against single individuals and using the force of government to prevent workers from making collective contracts.
Quote: "If anyone should leave this country, it's folks like you that are pro-destruction of the American founding principles of hard work and merit based pay. ALL American workers should be paid based on their contributions to an employer, and not because some union set the pay scales. We should be paid according to our contributions, and not according to greed and status."
There is no merit based pay in market economies. Please read Steve Keen's papers on why productivity can never be linked to wage levels. Wages are determined by the relative political power of the parties entering a contract. If you do not understand these basic facts of labor economics then please go away.
Here's a quote from Abe Lincoln who you apparently want to "leave the country": "I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world."
You are a Neo-Confederate who needs to leave the country. America is the Union, not a some "libertarian" southern plantation for the Koch brothers. In a free country, people have the right to organize themselves without fear of Nanny State Confederates using big Government to ban the collective organization of some groups of citizens (unions) while protecting others (corporations).
Yes, I totally agree. I have written many articles and comments concerning the illegal immigration issue. I have followed it for years now. Back in the 70's, and again in the early 80's, I worked and lived in Nogalas, Arizona, which is on the Mexican border. I experienced first hand what the illegal immigration issued meant to employment. You're correct, we should be more concerned with illegal immigration than with unions. Unions are dying, but illegal immigration is picking up steam daily.
What we have is a very very weak government. Our own government allows, condones, and encourages illegal immigration. They also allow, condone, and encourage job out-sourcing to cheap foreign labor markets. In addition, they freely hand out H-1B visa to foreign workers. As I've said, and have written about many many times, we have an anti-America government seated in Washington, and have had for many decades now.
It's true that unions have done damage to our workforce, but they are on their way out. As you've stated very well, other issues such as illegal immigration and unpenalized unpunished job out-sourcing should be our major concern now. Along with job out-sourcing, our unfair unjust one-sided foreign trade agreements and policies are taking millions of American jobs.
No matter the issue with American jobs, the finger always points straight at our inept derelict pathetic government. John Q. Public doesn't set legislation and policy, doesn't get to vote on the floors of Congress, and doesn't control the out-flow of American jobs.
You're correct. Unions are in decline, as I stated earlier. That should tell all of us something about greedy selfish self-serving unions. "IF" unions were so good for this country, and for our workforce in general, the numbers would be going up instead of coming down. Unions have long since served their useful purpose. Now, in today's workplace, unions and union workers represent nothing but greed. It's no longer about worker safety, wages, benefits, and work environment, but rather it's about squeezing employers and exerting union power and influence without taking any risk, or without investing one red cent into the business.
Everyone seems to over-look the fact that slave labor is against the law, and that employees have the right to go look for work elsewhere if they feel like they're not getting paid enough, or getting enough benefits. American workers are protected very well.
Employers should pay wages and benefits based on an employee's contribution, and not based on what some uninvested union demands. Employers are slowly waking up to the fact that unions cause way more harm than good. Just look at the damage unions have caused the state of California. Look at what unions cost the three big auto makers. Look at what unions have done to the textile and steel industries.
Of course greedy unions and union workers want to argue the points. They're the ones getting fat. No one ever wonders why some union employees have priced themselves right out of a job. Besides, union workers can do as non-union workers do, which is speak for themselves. Why do grown adults need unions to speak for them anyway?? During my 40 plus years in the workforce, I always spoke for myself when it came to wages and benefits. I never depended on someone else going to bat for me. If I ever thought that I wasn't being paid a fair wage, I just moved on to where I thought that I was being paid a fair wage.
What real purpose do unions serve aside from the greed factor? Can anyone honestly answer that question for me, please? Why should a business pay an uneducated unskilled worker $20.00 an hour for menial labor? Is it because that uneducated unskilled worker belongs to a union?? Pleeeeeeese !!!
What's wrong with paying an employee based on their contribution? What's wrong with paying an employee based on their education and job related experience? Is there something wrong with that, honestly?? Why do we allow unions to set wages and benefits??? What do unions have invested?? What risk do unions take in a business??
When given a choice between buying an American union made product, and buying a cheap foreign made import at Wal-Mart, which one is more likely to be bought by the average worker? How many Americans can afford to buy American union made products?
I worry a lot more about illegal immigrants taking over jobs and unfairly competing with legal workers than I do union members.
Add in the legal immigrants who aren't offering needed skills -- like the parents, brothers and sisters of prior immigrants who are admitted by the millions in the name of family unification -- and again, that to me is a much bigger problem that we need to do something about.
We don't have enough jobs for ourselves. We particularly lack decent paying jobs for our high school dropouts and high school gradutates. There's going to be another 100 million Americans by around 2050, mostly because of immigration. We don't need another 100 million people, we never discussed getting them, but because of cheap labor lovers and various immigration and ethnic lobby groups, we're going to have them. Now that's something BIG to worry about.
There's so much unemployment and agony right now, and there's lots more to come when we allow companies to ship jobs overseas while we continue import over a million foreign workers each year.
I used to have pretty negative views of unions. Now I wish to God I could join one. Labor conditions in many ways are more like 1911 in this country than I ever could have dreamed possible.
I don't mean a stereotypical job-controlling and job-killer union from the 1960s, I mean a union that would represent workers first while remembering that if the company doesn't survive and prosper, nobody has a job. I believe unions in Germany are well regarded and considered to perform a valuable function. Something like that would be wonderful to have here.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, only a little more than 10% of American workers are unionized. Only about 7% in private industry are in unions. Your description of militant unions controlling whole industries is a genration old for private industry.
I agree with you about public employee pensions. Hughe pensions are not uncommon in the NY-NJ area for cops and fire fighters and it's way too much.
"In 2010, the union membership rate--the percent of wage and salary workers who were
members of a union--was 11.9 percent, down from 12.3 percent a year earlier, the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers be-
longing to unions declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million. In 1983, the first year for
which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 per-
cent, and there were 17.7 million union workers."
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
Yes, politics on all levels is dirty, and a dirty business. Honor and honesty mix with politics like oil mixes with water. But, unions have had their dirty hands in dirty politics for decades.
Also, no-bid contracts are common-place, even in local and state governments. But, again, this doesn't equate solely to unions and union workers. This is common even amomg non-union activity.
What happens in government, concerning budgets and finance, does not equate to unions, or to union employees. You're comparing apples and oranges here.
Also, the argument concerning slave wages and no benefits doesn't float in today's workplace, nor in today's workforce. That argument is old, and no longer valid. No one can say with absolute certainty that wages and benefits would not have progressed without unions. Unions served their purpose back in the 30's and 40's, but not today in 2011. Unions have been in a steady decline for a couple of decades now. They have long since served their purpose. In today's America, unions are based on greed, and greed alone.
Today, we have labor laws that protect workers. We have safety and environmental laws, and we have labor boards which protect the rights of workers. We also have discrimination and ehtics laws, and laws against the willful endangerment of employees. What do we need unions for?
The bottom line is one of greed and power, and nothig to do with merit based pay for an honest day's work.
It is not the union employees that are at fault for what we're seeing, but the fault of employers that have given-in to the ridiculous demands of unions.
Again, taxes, budgets, etc., have absolutely Zero to do with unions and their ridiculous demands on employers. Your talking about apples and oranges here.
The basics of unions is to force employers to meet certain demands, else threaten them with worker strikes. This is, for all practical purposes, blackmail and extortion. In other words, it's akin to the Mafia back in Capone's days in Chicago.
Walker, as Mayor of Milwaukee, fired union workers and hired Wackenhut from Germany who hired security workers (some with criminal backgrounds). Walker, supported by the Koch Brothers, has a clause that allows him to give away public assets with no-bid contracts. It is all about privatization including public schools. All 19 red-state governors are following the script. If you have any respect for public schools, realize the unions are only a small part of a plan to strip assets from the states. The recalls needs to move quickly because the damage is vast and happening quickly. If you want to see workers from the US be hired, be concerned about this hostile multi-national corporate take-over within the states.
Please, give me all of your counter facts, if you have any, which I doubt very seriously. Nope, I'm not from another planet, been here on Earth all of my life. My arguments are shallow, really ?? Then, please give me your factual counter to what I stated, if you don't mind, please.
Also, for your information, unions have absolutely ZERO to do with basic human rights. Workers have the right to protest, shout, scream, yell, picket, march, wave banners and flags, stomp, and redress the government. And, unions have absolutely nothing to do with thoise basic rights. ALL of us have those basic rights, yes, even non-union workers.
In reality, it's not the unions that are wrong. It's the stupid employers that allow unions to come in and take over, demand certain wages and benefits, and to determine who can and can't be fired. The way I look at it, employers are getting exactly what they deserve, and have deserved for a long long time now.
Hey, why don't you leave this country?? If anyone should leave this country, it's folks like you that are pro-destruction of the American founding principles of hard work and merit based pay. ALL American workers should be paid based on their contributions to an employer, and not because some union set the pay scales. We should be paid according to our contributions, and not according to greed and status.
Besides, rights and freedom person, whoever you are, employees have the right to look for work elsewhere if they feel that they aren't being paid a fair wage and getting fair benefits. We don't force anyone to work anywhere. We all have the right to change from one employer to another. We're no longer slaves, and no longer are forced to stay where we feel that we're not being treated fairly.
Again, this whole issue has absolutely ZERO to do with rights and freedoms, ZERO. Whether we're union or non-union, we all have the same rights. Anyone can protest, speak their minds, march, carry banners, wave flags, and file petitions. Your rights and freedom argument is very weak, to say the least.
Why force employers to accept demands by those that have absolutely ZERO investment in a business ??? That is just plain stupid. Unions have ZERO invested, have contributed ZERO to the success of a business, yet they want to set the rules and guidelines. Go figure.
Again, please tell me where I'm wrong here. Please correct me, and tell me why what I say is not the truth. Also, please explain to me where rights and freedoms come into play here. Anyone can bargain, but that doesn't mean everyone has to give-in to their demands. Only stupid people would give-in to union demands. By the way, just curious here, are you a union employee??? Or, do you greatly benefit from a union employee??? Do you come from a long line of union workers, and now feel that you must defend greedy unions and union employees???
Well Sonny, you must be from another planet. And your arguments are so shallow I will not dignify them with the myriad of facts that counter them. If you are against basic human rights like the right to form unions or collectively bargain, please leave this country for some authoritarian or communist regime that prohibits these basic rights.
And this applys to all those who oppose our freedoms.
Why?
Try countering the blatant misrepresentation of a budgetary crisis...
Reduce taxes on one segment and then blame the other
Another way to look at it is that Corporations and Conglomerates are defacto unions of capital. Labor has always required a counter balance. Otherwise - 84 hour work weeks, no minimum wage laws, worker safety gone, mandatory overtime among others. The non-pay issue list is longer than what I could list in one pass.
You seem to suggest that there has been value add from the executives that invested billions of other people's money into flawed financial products only to see the value disappear. Same executives award each other bonuses and salary increases that are independant from actual results. I think that the problems start at a much higher level than some hourly workers.
Finally add in the absolute denial of any environmental or social responsibility on the part of the corporations and their spokesmen, and you get the full reason for a need for unions.
BL (I don't think my house will burn down, but I still carry fire insurance. My stand on climate change is the same... A little bit of insurance (call it the same level of protection) would mitigate many ill effects)
The fact is that this is 2011, and not 1911. We've passed the era of slave labor and unfair treatment of workers. We have labor laws and workplace safety laws that greatly protect workers. We do not force anyone to work for an employer, and everyone in America is free to choose their place of employment. If a worker is not happy where they're presently working, they have every right to go look for employment elsewhere. We have minimum wage laws, and laws that protect workers against discrimination and other immoral and unethical practices.
Unions have no financial investment in businesses, and unions do not contribute to the start-up and growth of a company. Unions come in "after the fact", and then dictate wages and benefits to the ones that are directly responsible for the success and management of a business. Basically, unions are nothing more than "greed machines", and union workers are nothing more than greedy self-interest self-serving employees.
How can anyone justify paying an uneducated unskilled floor sweeper at GM $22.50 per hour? How can anyone justify paying an uneducated unskilled janitor at a high school $18.50 per hour? How can anyone justify paying a retired street cop ( California ) over $100,000 per year in retirement pay and benefits? Unions are almost forcing some state governments into bankruptcy. And, unions have already caused financial harm to the three auto makers.
Union workers pay monthly union dues, and also pay to get their union card. But, when unions go on strike, unions don't come knocking on the doors of union workers and hand workers a fat check to pay their bills while on strike. And, union leaders and management pocket enormous sums of money from workers' dues and membership fees.
Why do grown-up adult workers need unions to talk for them? Why can't workers talk for themselves, and ask employers for pay raises and more benefits? Why are employees so afraid to speak for themselves?
Why are employers stupid enough to allow unions to dictate wages and employee benefits? A company invests $$millions into the start-up and success of a business, then allow a union that has no investment, and took no risk, to come in a dictate wages and benefits? Go figure.
The bottom line is GREED, plain and simple.
In many industries, union employees have priced themselves completely out of a job. Take a look at what happened to the steel and textile industries. Unions basically open the doors for cheap foreign imports to flood our market place. And, in some cases, unions have opened the doors for cheap foreign labor to enter our workplaces.
Unions do alot more harm than good to our economy, and their decline over the past couple of decades indicates that economic damage. The America workplace, and workforce, would be alot better off without greedy self-serving self-interest unions.
"The conflict in North Africa was a predictable outcome of the US Monetary Policy of Quantitative Easing. It is not plausible that the US Federal Reserve, as the manager of the world’s Reserve Currency, did not fully recognize the global ramifications of such monetary inflation actions well in advance." Let them Fail
I agree with you entirely. However, these people don't consider people in the equation when they think of ramifications. One reason the Wall Streed crowd liked Egypt was the predictability of absolute rule. Same for Tunisia and Libya. Tere's a "strongman" in charge who will deliver whatever deals, regulations, etc. seem necessary. They forget that the "strongman" is there at their bidding. He's just a puppet and vulnerable to real strong people, like those figting in all three countries; people who know they're bein screwed.
In my observations on the IMF, I noted:
"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) made an embarrassing error just two days before the start of the Libyan people's revolution on February 17. This quote from an IMF country study appeared in a previous article: The outlook for Libya’s economy remains favorable." IMF Feb 15
There's more in there from IMF, failures on projecting the future of the very nations in turmoil right now. My point is that these people are truly limited in their analytic capacity by one huge flaw - they think people all over, in these cases, North Africa and the Middle East - they think that the people are perpetual chumps and that their bought and paid for "strongman" can handle anything.
Thanks for your comment. The replies on this thread are excellent.
I forgot to mention this, if you're interested in writing a post for EP, we'd love to have ya. Rules for cross posts in the user guide.
I tracked the speculation in 2008, but now i have to do a research refresher for the speculation of 2011. Greenburg? Testimony expert?
We need to simplify some of this and start with every mortgage in MERS to be properly recorded and the fees paid at our county Registry of Deeds as they should have been before the fraud started. That is as it should have been and that will not change. It Must Be Done. We need to make this a starting point.
Is a contract for an oil future transaction a derivative or an oxymoron? 'Derivative' because, to make sense in the real world, it derives from a presumption that there will be a notarized paper somewhere verifying that the oil exists or will exist (on the call date) in some verifiable storage facility.
Report by Fortune.com's Colin Barr ('Street Sweep' blog hosted by CNN.com) on Monday morning --
"Large noncommercial speculators – firms that play the futures markets without taking delivery – added to their long position in West Texas Intermediate crude by 50,200 contracts last week, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data."
Citing Stephen Schork's Schork Report (energy markets newsletter), Barr gives us the big picture, as follows:
"Schork notes that speculators now own nearly six times as many barrels of oil – 268,622 futures contracts representing nearly 269 million barrels – as can be stored at the WTI trading hub in Cushing, Okla. And since the CFTC numbers released Friday only go through last Tuesday, they likely underestimate the degree of speculative fervor building in the energy markets."
I am not sure, but I have seen some interpretations to the effect that for the U.S. to limit government contracts to "U.S." corporations would be grounds for a claim in the WTO quasi-judicial system.
Also, I believe that Halliburton has 'resolved' all thses problems by way of co-HQs located in as many countries as may be convenient.
I think what we really need to watch isn't a business or a corporation at all but the supply chain itself.
For the U.S. to survive, we absolutely need an across-the-board tariff, call it a VAT if that is helpful, although not if VAT implies what some say it does. The VAT, or whatever you call it, needs to replace all other trade barriers -- the targeted stuff whereby political (mercantilist) intervention becomes tangled with all business activity.
The classical monetarist (libertarian or classical liberal) objection to tariff logically is more that they are targeted industry-by-industry or country-by-country than that they are imposed to pay for the value that is added by virtue of access to a stable market and the infrastructure necessary to sustain that market. Otherwise, the only objection reduces to that there should be no regulation of labor conditions by any WTO member.
The objection to the ad hoc system of trade barriers (that, in truth, characterizes the WTO system) is that success of any free enterprise system depends on stable and predictable conditions. If you have to go, wallet in hand, to your Grand Exalted Ward Healer in some national political committee or lobbyist group whenever you are thinking to start an enterprise and whatever you get is subject to constant change ... free enterprise will be stifled.
At least, that's my two cents worth.
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