[jeffkrol]

i once had an employer who fired because I broke my foot in a home accident and was going to be laid up for awhile.. Also when I asked to use my accrued sick days he told me "sick days are for when your sick but you broke your foot"

I'm not saying all small business owners are idiots.. it's just a conversation.....

[Blue]

Frankly, Jimmy Hoffa's *ghost* has done more as a hobgoblin for the union-busters than he ever actually did even *in* the Teamsters.


.

Jimmy Hoffa is alive and well. Who do you think heads up the Teamsters Union and predicting civil war in Michigan?

[Ratmagiclady]

There was no point. It's called a conversation.

Well, you having been the one there, I think it's a fair enough point. I'd just say that blaming the unions for the circumstance doesn't make every union worker Jimmy Hoffa. The reasons for *them* to feel threatened are also real. I did find out just before being homeless that why *unions* or what was left of them made it rather hard for a gal to get a factory job was because these were already contracting despite con promises to 'save jobs' and even if I weren't a queer gal, they'd *still* consider anyone willing to work for less a 'threat.'

And that was just when there just weren't a lot of jobs around and I was working minimum wage for a job that should pay twice that, and despite my tendency to stupid loyalty, it was clear I needed a *better* job and would have dropped those people in a heartbeat, (They were in fact Fundamentalist Christians who thought paying me half of scale while trying to 'convert' (ie harass, eventually) me was some kind of *charity.* )

None of that was because the unions were 'too powerful' ...Actually it was because they *weren't.* (And mind you, these weren't actually 'union shops.' Occasionally some remnant of such in name. Unions tend to want to encourage new workers/members.... These were just the people left with no way to protect their jobs when it wasn't even worthwhile to pay their own dues.)

And you seem like a decent boss, Jim. I think you even offered me a job at some point, perhaps just for the sake of the argument, but you know, I'd have taken it if I thought I could manage it, all other things about location and moving to a state without much hope for civil rights being equal, (Which they aren't) Sounds generally like you're *exactly* the kind of business I believe in. I don't think you need fear your shop unionizing that way, unless you really chose to abuse the position, (and yes, I've seen that happen, as I referred to: at the time they were taking it out on the workers cause they wanted half our work to be their own propaganda, then said, 'We can't afford to pay you for our own rush job.' (And this was also the place that forbade us to recycle primo pre-consumer paper wastage cause they thought it would hasten the return of their Jesus: they were starving *our* pay out so they could end the world instead of collect on the recycling. (At peril of my own job, I disobeyed. The bigger company next door got the money for it. Cause, really, what self-respecting Pagan's going to deliberately waste trees so someone can try to hasten the end of the world, eh? It'd be asinine in a business sense if I were the most crassly-self-interested person in the world, never mind being told to do *that* for minimum wage. )

Sidebar aside, though, you don't sound like you've got something to fear from unions, yourself, Jim. Could have been a good match-up even ten years ago. (And as I've mentioned, if we didn't have corporate based for-profit health care, or at least had a 'public option, it might even have been worth taking a chance on, since then you'd *really* be free to hire someone that won't raise your insurance costs just walking in the door. )

But I should add that the only times *I* was ever threatened over applying for a job weren't because of unions: it was because people *without* that recourse were saying, in a context where the companies were extracting union concessions in the days of toothless/banned unions as well as spending millions on things like not-regulating wasteful packaging or junk mail (Yes, I worked in many paper-related industries,) ...claimed that all this against the workers and adapting to modern times would 'protect jobs,'... but they never saved a single job. They took all the deregulation and outsourced as many jobs making the waste overseas as they could, leaving the blue-collar people with *nothing.* Then blamed the unions for their own actions, when they didn't see a more-'paperless' economy coming and adapt.

I was actually there when the change happened. I'd always been raised to think that if I settled my debts afte 'working my way through college' became impossible to do, despite all the merit scholarships wiped away with a stroke of a conservative pen.... that I could do like we always heard our parents did, go ahead and get a factory or other job. Lack of unions didn't help any of that. If anything, the lack of unions *meant* that I got leaned on somewhat by people saying, "My son needs that job or my family's sunk, cause they're cutting pay, you college freak.' "

Ruder words were employed at times. (Also more polite ones: I remember one time when someone just *asked.* I still had my before-complained about job, so I said, 'OK.' ) But the idea it's unions' fault if people can't actually live the old myth is just nonsense. Credit agencies who decided I didn't exist once I did pay off my debts and tried to start fresh did far more immediate and lasting damage in my case.


Anyway, I'm sure all this reality is Too Long: Didn't Read, when someone can argue like slogans defined macroeconomics and kicking increasingly-crippled people while saying "Get a Job" constitutes "An Economic policy." But there's Bagger bumperstickers, ideology, and then there's what actually happens. Baggers can imagine what they will, but it's not like I'm living in this basement I can't heat all bundled up even in this freakishly-warm weather cause no one ever made me poor enough to be 'incentivized.' Meanwhile the heating bill just went up again after they promised the fee increases would only offset rate decreases, (which would balance out for the average wasteful family of five) then raised the rates anyway. I mean, after all this time, do people really think the big corporations aren't writing their own ticket *enough?*

[Tom S.]

Tell me how it's inaccurate.

Pre RTW choices:
1. Work in a union shop and join the union
2. Don't work in that shop.

Post RTW choices:
1. Work in a union shop and join the union
2. Work in a union shop and not join the union.
3. Don't work in that shop.

We disagree on politics, Jeff but regardless of political leaning, math is math. 3 is greater than 2.

The problem with choice #2 under Post RTW is those who choose this option still reap all the benefits as those who choose #1. They get the same pay and same benefits yet they have paid nothing to receive them. Are you advocating that someone who hasn't earned or paid for something should be entitled to it? Isn't that socialism?

[Parallax]

No, it isn't socialism because those who are generating the benefits (whether they are beneficial or not is another argument) are doing so voluntarily. They don't have to be union members either. Again, it's all about choice.

[seacapt]

The problem with choice #2 under Post RTW is those who choose this option still reap all the benefits as those who choose #1. They get the same pay and same benefits yet they have paid nothing to receive them. Are you advocating that someone who hasn't earned or paid for something should be entitled to it? Isn't that socialism?

Gee, and all these years I thought pay and bennys were supposed to be based on experience and quality of work.

[Ratmagiclady]

Jimmy Hoffa is alive and well. Who do you think heads up the Teamsters Union and predicting civil war in Michigan?

Is that self-satire? Or just Fox News?

(Apart from that, you might as well be claiming Whitey Bulger was a 'liberal.' Gods. )

(BTW, just cause I say a lot doesn't mean I say *everything,* )

---

Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 12-12-2012 at 06:17 PM.

[Blue]

Is that self-satire? Or just Fox News?

(Apart from that, you might as well be claiming Whitey Bulger was a 'liberal.' Gods. )

(BTW, just cause I say a lot doesn't mean I say *everything,* )

Actually he is on CNN and looks alive to me. The guy talking in the black jacket IS Jimmy Hoffa.

Jimmy Hoffa: ?Civil war? looms in Michigan - Kevin Robillard - POLITICO.com

“This is just the first round of a battle that’s going to divide this state,” Hoffa said on CNN on Tuesday. “We’re going to have a civil war in this state.”

[jeffkrol]

Actually he is on CNN and looks alive to me. The guy talking in the black jacket IS Jimmy Hoffa.

Jimmy Hoffa: ?Civil war? looms in Michigan - Kevin Robillard - POLITICO.com

totalitarianism, socialism or fascism.. take your pick...........

One Step from the Brink of Totalitarianism - Democratic Underground

We have to face the fact that Bush seeks TOTAL Power. He is a Totalitarian. He claims the ability to spy on anyone he chooses, without judicial review or congressional authorization. To detain them without an indictment, hearing or charges - including American citizens (Hamdi, Padilla) And yes, to torture them. The only thing missing is summary execution - but then again, after over 100 deaths in custody, that may only be a matter of semantics.

Just look at what former State Dept Chief of State Lawrence Wilkerson has said about Bush.

Wilkerson calls Bush an unsophisticated leader who has been easily swayed by "messianic" neoconservatives and power-hungry, secretive schemers in the administration. In a landmark speech in October, Wilkerson said: "What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made."

He is particularly appalled by U.S. treatment of enemy detainees, counting at least 100 deaths in custody during the course of the war on terrorism -- 27 of them ruled homicides. "Murder is torture," he says. "It's not torture lite."

Rescuing the U.S. from the Brink of Socialism

The midterm elections on November 2 have pulled America back from the brink of socialism. That doesn’t mean that we have gotten rid of all of the socialist federal and state programs that have been turning America into a super nanny state. It simply means that Americans were not willing to ride over the cliff into the abyss of totalitarian government which regulates every aspect of our lives. It will give lovers of liberty two years in which to educate the American people about the dangers of totalitarianism.

The first task of the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives is to defund or repeal the federal healthcare program, which is a massive advance toward the total state. It should be repealed not because we don’t have healthcare problems, but because there are better ways to deal with healthcare in harmony with our free-enterprise system

Is the US on the Brink of Fascism?

All through the dark years of the Bush Administration, progressives watched in horror as Constitutional protections vanished, nativist rhetoric ratcheted up, hate speech turned into intimidation and violence, and the president of the United States seized for himself powers only demanded by history's worst dictators. With each new outrage, the small handful of us who'd made ourselves experts on right-wing culture and politics would hear once again from worried readers: Is this it? Have we finally become a fascist state? Are we there yet?

And every time this question got asked, people like Chip Berlet and Dave Neiwert and Fred Clarkson and yours truly would look up from our maps like a parent on a long drive, and smile a wan smile of reassurance. "Wellll...we're on a bad road, and if we don't change course, we could end up there soon enough. But there's also still plenty of time and opportunity to turn back. Watch, but don't worry. As bad as this looks: no -- we are not there yet."

My grandfathr was a labor leader and his MAIN job during the Truman Admin. was to keep the communists out of the workplace..
I'm afraid we are no longer able to recognition the "enemy"..........

"The worldwide modern union movement was started in America by Americans. Unions are based on the American ideal of democracy, one person one vote, and economic democracy.

The first thing the Communists did when they took over a country was to make all independent unions illegal. Republicans, like Communists, hate unions, and try to destroy them whenever they can. That's why Republicans love Communist China so much, and want to send our jobs there. In fact, Lenin and Stalin, like Republicans, constantly attacked strikers and warned of 'leftists' and 'liberals' that were 'destroying the country.'"

Trade unionism is criticised by those of council communist and left communist tendencies.[30] Here, trade unionism is seen as being more useful to capitalists than to workers, and as a kind of "safety-valve" that helps to keep working-class discontent within reformist channels and prevent it from evolving into revolutionary action. They think the government to be the ultimate union to where all workers in the country belong; private unions can go against that. In contrast to other left critiques of trade unionism, these tendencies do not accept that the problems they identify could be remedied by changing the structure, leadership or objectives of trade unions. Instead, they argue that trade unionism is inherently reformist and that revolutionary action is possible only if workers act outside trade unionism through workers' councils or other channels.

Worth a read:
http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/download/2002_Emploi_justice_sociale.pdf

[Tom S.]

Is that self-satire? Or just Fox News?

(Apart from that, you might as well be claiming Whitey Bulger was a 'liberal.' Gods. )

(BTW, just cause I say a lot doesn't mean I say *everything,* )

It's Jimmy Hoffa's son, Jimmy Hoffa Jr.

[Blue]

totalitarianism, socialism or fascism.. take your pick...........

One Step from the Brink of Totalitarianism - Democratic Underground

Rescuing the U.S. from the Brink of Socialism

Is the US on the Brink of Fascism?



My grandfathr was a labor leader and his MAIN job during the Truman Admin. was to keep the communists out of the workplace..
I'm afraid we are no longer able to recognition the "enemy"..........




Worth a read:
http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/download/2002_Emploi_justice_sociale.pdf

My late father-in-law was an IEBW regional union leader for several southern states. He was a mediator/arbitrator for the union and a real electrician.

[JohnInIndy]

This Jimmy Hoffa. The one that warns of a civil war.

You Tube

You Tube

You Tube

You Tube

[cyclone3d]

No, by the way.

"Right to work" is just Roveian doublespeak for "Taking away workers rights and union-busting."

It doesn't give workers more choices, it takes away any recourse against the big money. Look at the actual figures on conditions, pay, and benefits in those states where they've been 'Right to work' a while.

For the workers, it's just more 'race to the bottom.' The last thing any worker needs, Union or not, is for the big money to have things *more* on their terms in the labor market. That's not 'choice.' Not for the working folks. That's removing choice. As if we needed more downward pressure on wages and benefits out there.

I've worked in a union shop before as a contractor. Never again will I work in a union shop.

The way the unions are run just plain STUPID.

We had union workers that would sabatoge equipment, destroy product, not do their job and then claim a greivance agains a non-union worker who was forced to do their job because they refused.. and get overtime compensation for the greivance.

And it was pratically impossible to fire a union worker.

The shop I was in ended up closing and all the union workers losing their jobs because of the rediculious pay/benefits that the union demanded. Yay for UAW. Sucked the place dry.

Build cost for an automotive radio was over $300 at the end of the line because of the union.

OEM automotice radios are really expensive.. ususally around $400+ for the lower end models, while a 3rd party system that blows the OEM one away without even trying can be had retail for $100 or less.

Yeah, unions are a wonderfunl thing.. NOT!

[Parallax]

The way the unions are run just plain STUPID.

My father-in-law was an aeronautical engineer. He told me one time that when he worked for one of the major airplane manufacturers he was on the production floor watching a machinist build a part that he had designed. The machinist was about to drill a hole in the wrong place, but due to union rules he wasn't allowed to interfere. He had to find one of the supervisors, or a union steward. By that time, the part had been ruined and the fabrication had to start over. Union shops. Models of efficiency.