[Coeurdechene]

What's wrong is forcing people to pay dues to a union in order to work ala Wisconsin.

I know things here aren't the same as there but i feel you may involuntarily right in something you say...It is a problem when unions lose their autonomy by accepting state funding or enterprise funding..in that exchange they lose their vitality.
The problem is not that enterprises have to pay (they should pay more taxes and state should spend more on health care and education...) the problem is that payment turns the union into something dependant of external funding, it is the main force behind it's sclerosis and bureaucratization. And it's the thing used to blackmail them into apathy.

What's wrong is forcing people to pay dues to a union in order to work ala Wisconsin.

And then saying this is not the same as what you were saying some posts ago. Being forced to pay dues can be considered wrong from different points of view but it is hardly the same as causing the demise of an entire industry. I'm sure the dues can not be compared in volume to the money lost from really poor business decisions from corporate...it is very misleading and demagogic to try to excuse corporate by blaming unions.

[JohnInIndy]

I know things here aren't the same as there but i feel you may involuntarily right in something you say...It is a problem when unions lose their autonomy by accepting state funding or enterprise funding..in that exchange they lose their vitality.
The problem is not that enterprises have to pay (they should pay more taxes and state should spend more on health care and education...) the problem is that payment turns the union into something dependant of external funding, it is the main force behind it's sclerosis and bureaucratization. And it's the thing used to blackmail them into apathy.



And then saying this is not the same as what you were saying some posts ago. Being forced to pay dues can be considered wrong from different points of view but it is hardly the same as causing the demise of an entire industry. I'm sure the dues can not be compared in volume to the money lost from really poor business decisions from corporate...it is very misleading and demagogic to try to excuse corporate by blaming unions.

As a school teacher in Wisconsin you must belong to the union to teach. As an IBEW member I could never work in a non union shop. If I was on furlow I lost money. There was non union shops that were paying as much or more than my normal hourly yet I couldn't go there because I was union. And I wasn't working because union shops had no work for me. I wanted to work but the union wouldn't hear of it.

[Ratmagiclady]

There aren't a lot of unions to *blame* at this point, you know, John.

And even those that are left are *forced* to be as big as corporations themselves or else they basically cannot function, thanks to union-busting legislation that started decades ago.

If you think that just cause you're a presumably-straight-white-Christian guy you're going to see a *dime* from union-busting, (unless you get paid by the post,) you've got another thing coming.

[shooz]

No. I didn't work at an auto factory. I was an IBEW member for a number of years.

I didn't think so.
How many years were you a member of the IBEW?
It's sad that you think it's wrong to pay dues to support a brotherhood. Just sad.
Why do you think it's wrong for a work group to band together to fight a corporate group that has banded together?
you still haven't proved a thing against the UAW, in auto plants.
You just change horses, and quote front groups.
Perhaps you just need to machine axle shafts for few years to get the picture.

[JohnInIndy]

I didn't think so.
How many years were you a member of the IBEW?
It's sad that you think it's wrong to pay dues to support a brotherhood. Just sad.
Why do you think it's wrong for a work group to band together to fight a corporate group that has banded together?
you still haven't proved a thing against the UAW, in auto plants.
You just change horses, and quote front groups.
Perhaps you just need to machine axle shafts for few years to get the picture.

Now why would I want to machine axle shafts? I can get a robot to do it and I don't have to worry the robot has a hangover. It will do the same quality job with the same tolerances on Monday or Friday. I don't have to pay it for vacation time or sick time. Or any other "time". It requires no drug testing either. And it will rarely complain and won't shut me down with a strike.

[shooz]

Robots can't do it.
Shows how much you know.
How about drug tests for wallstreet?
How many jobs and investments were lost over the 4 martini lunch?
Do you drug test your employes (sic)?

[Coeurdechene]

Three people to never trust. A politician, a lawyer and a liberal.

Beware of your next quote...he turned into a big liberal after all the manhatan project thing...in fact that quote was made being a liberal and was aimed to certain people your first quote does not mention.

As a school teacher in Wisconsin you must belong to the union to teach. As an IBEW member I could never work in a non union shop. If I was on furlow I lost money. There was non union shops that were paying as much or more than my normal hourly yet I couldn't go there because I was union. And I wasn't working because union shops had no work for me. I wanted to work but the union wouldn't hear of it.

All of this is "heartbreaking" but has nothing to do with the demise of economy you were talking about before...unions CAN turn into opressive organizations just as our economy IS and our states ARE opressive organizations.And guess what unions have become what they are because of state legislation and anti-association policies so that union problem is shared (it's a consequence of corporate, state and to some extent union decisions). If you can't stand unions criticize them for their true mistakes and problems, don't demonize them to blame them for all our organizational problems.
The risk of what you are doing is giving support to much more opressive action coming from corporate and state spheres (our world looks too much as the, Zaibatsu ruled, Neuromancer world to give in to the arguments that will turn it into that world.)

[JohnInIndy]

Robots can't do it.
Shows how much you know.
How about drug tests for wallstreet?
How many jobs and investments were lost over the 4 martini lunch?
Do you drug test your employes (sic)?

Just because they don't do it now doesn't mean they can't. If the money is right some one will make a robot to do it. I guess it's something a union guy does so it can't be all that hard.

I don't have to drug test my employees.
They were hand picked by me.
All 150 of them.
They are unique individuals.
They have to be to do what they are doing.

[shooz]

How many jobs and investments were lost over the 4 martini lunch?

Answer me this one John.

You still haven't said what you make John.

[Coeurdechene]

And it will rarely complain and won't shut me down with a strike.

Following the demagogic logic: slaves won't either
And you know what? we got some formal democracies, "in fact" dictatorships, where we can settle to start a new economic bonanza HOORAY!!

Dont be simplist...conflict in laboral relationships is necessary, the only way you'll avoid it will be militarizing factories.
And then if redistribution, salaries and conditions are sound, good there will be much less laboral conflict and the enterprise will bloom...The problem is that our business organization is very draconian, it's severed from people's needs and follows it's own twisted logic, wich bring us to conflict (and in the worse cases to conflicts similar to the vids i posted yesterday..).

[normhead]

If unions are "greedy" and part of the problem... how is it that 400 Americans now hae more wealth than half the country, and not one of them is a union worker?

What's wrong is forcing people to pay dues to a union in order to work ala Wisconsin.

But freeloading off the people who support a union and participating in pay raises negotiated by the union would some how be better?

OK lets be fair. You don't want to pay union dues, accept what you'd have with out the union. Accept Walmart wages or MacDonald wages for the rest of your life. You certainly have no right to what unions have earned at the bargaining table. There are lots of societies without unions, try Ethiopia or Samolia. Go live there. MY gripe with the unions is that union members support their own unions, but not others. Union carpenters install non-union made cabinets in homes. They don't mind exploiting the cabinet makers in non union sweat shops, or wearing clothes from third world countries. If anything, it's that they aren't militant enough.

Management bashing unions is a sure sign of bad management, not bad unions, and politicians bashing unions is a sign of bad politicians, not bad unions. Unions trying to help non-unionize workers in other sectors and parts of the world are working for dignity for all. Politicians trying to ban unions and tear up contracts aren't working for dignity for anyone. No one has to sign a contract with a union. At the end of the day.. the unions promise and deliver a more stable workforce. In the use of non-unionized garbage men in some parts of Toronto, that's been proven time and time again. Privatization while initially cheaper, inevitably proves more expensive with a lower quality of service. Private industries may bid low to get the contract, but at some point, they have to pay their workers a sustainable wage that won't see them leave for other more lucrative jobs, and then they have to make a profit.. making them more expensive than the public sector.

The whole anti union movement is based on the premise that you have a better economy if you pay people less. That thinking doesn't even make sense to most progressive corporations. All a subjugated labour force does , is you have is more rich people and a higher percentage of your populaion living in poverty. Like many the third world countries that are achieving heavily industrialization, but with no measurable benefits to the majority of the population.

[JohnInIndy]

Answer me this one John.

You still haven't said what you make John.

I make widgets.

I also make m-o-n-e-y.

It doesn't matter what I make since it's something you will never buy. My clients are not in the private sector at all.

[shooz]

You? Evasive?

Of course.
I start to think you are a phony.
You never answered the Wallstreet question.

[JohnInIndy]

Following the demagogic logic: slaves won't either
And you know what? we got some formal democracies, "in fact" dictatorships, where we can settle to start a new economic bonanza HOORAY!!

Dont be simplist...conflict in laboral relationships is necessary, the only way you'll avoid it will be militarizing factories.
And then if redistribution, salaries and conditions are sound, good there will be much less laboral conflict and the enterprise will bloom...The problem is that our business organization is very draconian, it's severed from people's needs and follows it's own twisted logic, wich bring us to conflict (and in the worse cases to conflicts similar to the vids i posted yesterday..).

Yes they will. Maybe not to their masters face but they will and do. Slaves still have feelings and pride and yes, greed. Machines have none of that.

You keep talking like you are in the US yet you are in Spain are you not? What is this "we" crap? Shooz and I are "we" you're not part of the "we" factor.

[larryinlc]

I make widgets.

I also make m-o-n-e-y My clients are not in the private sector at all.

Oh, then you make lots of money on the backs of taxpayers then?? You wouldn't be making those 800.00 government toilets, would you??