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How long before the rubber bullets start to fly in Wisconsin?
Republicans have no shame, taking workers bargaining power and blaming unions for all the financial ills of our country when they know Unions are barely 5% of the present workforce and Wall Street is again back in business after a massive government/fed bailout.
In principle, I support the notion of unionized workers. However, just like the politicians, unions as we know them have F@$!&D workers, not helped them. Just look at the typical union rep. ’nuff said.
#3 JohnnyBGoode
FTFY
Just look at how the typical union rep. is portrayed in the United States in films and by the media, who all happen to be produced, owned and operated by the insanely wealthy, who hate unions because they force the wealthy to pay fair wages and benefits. ’nuff said.
#2 rucknrun
“That is a joke right?”
At Kent State in Ohio, they used real bullets.
That was a joke, right?
I think it is a great thing for some Union workers to get 100% pensions, based on their final year, including all overtime.
I think it is a great thing that some Union workers get absolutely free health care for LIFE.
(And not Medicare health care).
I think it is a great thing that some Union workers pay absolutely nothing into their retirement plans.
I (seriously) do think it is a great thing that California is not able to sustain this ridiculous model, and all hell is going to break loose. Yes. That is the PIC of the Day. Because soon California will look like that, with the rest of us rioting in the streets, demanding a sane government.
Screw the Unions.
# 4 Reagan said, “look at how the typical union rep. is portrayed in the United States in films”
For someone named Reagan you seem to have missed the point that EVERYONE from the director to the background extra to the honeywagon cleaner is unionized. Very few non-union movies get made in the US.
I was a member of a Sheet Metal Workers union for 30 years. When I started there were a lot of members and metal companies organized. They are very much struggling today.
My take is unions struggle because much of what they fought for and won – 40 hr work weeks, higher wages, safe working conditions has now been federalized. Also, non-union companies had to offer similar benefits in order to compete making the need to unionize diminish.
For a host of reasons unions have become weak and the pendulum swings the other way. Witness the 51 year low of the buying power of the minimum wage in 2006
http://cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=405 .
To those who will undoubtedly bash unions: be careful what you ask for.
@1 Rick – You may be correct about the percentage of total workforce unionized but it’s higher in government. I’m pro-union so I’m good with it. Just pointing it out.
@3 JBG – My union rep was an honest guy. I won’t say there’s never been corruption in SMW’s union but pretty much cleaned up over the last decade or two. The way unions have become weak makes me wonder if we need to go back to corrupt thugs.
#7 Animby
Reagan is actually my name and I’ve never belonged to a union in my life, let alone run one.
Now that you’ve blithely skimmed the surface of another topic without adding anything of value, what’s your point?
Does EVERYONE get to decide what goes into a film or just the Director, who gets ALL his/her money from the Producers, who are wealthy?
So, ignore films. Does EVERYONE who works in the media get to decide what is news and what is not news or maybe the wealthy publisher, like Murdoch, has some input?
Lastly, shouldn’t you be in fucking bed by now, so to speak? Or aren’t you in southeast Asia this time?
Is this guy really an Egyptian citizen? Or maybe a visiting American? Either way, at the moment I still have high hopes for Egypt, and that its advanced civilization will kick in and do the right thing.
Meanwhile, it’s hard to ask our citizenry to give away it’s advances over the past 70 years or so to pay for the sins of the banks and the budget deficits and debts that were caused by military overspending, spending on a broken welfare system (not including Social Security which is not part of the budget) and the general fiscal mismanagement of governments all over the country.
What happened to the palin/teabagger post??
Overpaid Union Worker Selfishly Comparing His Greed To Egyptian Need For Freedom.
Photoshop?
1873 Colt, Show me a union worker that gets free health-care for life? If you work for a company and you are in a union, the company pays for part of your health insurance (usually 80 percent), but because the company and union have contracted a group rate with the insurance company, the rate is much lower than what the average-joe would pay.
The “free insurance” you are talking about is called retiree insurance, and it’s not even free. The union member still has to pay a small premium. It’s not common for people to get retiree insurance anymore because many people work past the age of 65 when they can get medicare. Most guys with the retiree insurance are the electricians, plumbers, and other skilled workers.
Let me tell you this, if unions are gone in this country, the companies that employ most of the public will fire anyone at will, they will make sure you pay for your health care, you take care of your retirement plan (which most Americans are not capable of doing), etc. The only reason some companies pay competitive wages is because they want to avoid having unionized workers.
And the whole thing about the union reps making a lot of money is bull. The highest paid union official made $400k a year and now he is retired and in hiding after some workers tried to blow up his car with him in it. The guy was a bad guy, connected to the mafia. Nowadays the unions are much different than in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The laws that control unions are much stricter than the laws that control corporations. A union gets surprise audits several times a year, everything has to be meticulously verified and one small error can cost a union a lot of money and even shut them down.
It is mind boggling how people are believing all the anti-union commercials that are playing on the Wisconsin TV channels. The Koch brothers are spending millions of dollars a week just to make sure this bill passes. The corporations are running the modern day version of Nazi propaganda machine, and just like back then in Germany, people are blindly falling for it.
The point to unions is that they establish standards.
I’m in my office looking at a closet wall that is not square to the floor because the contractor hired some cheap Central or South American day laborers for whom the notion of a level was foreign to them as its expensive to actually own maintain and carry around your own tools.
My ex-brother-in-law was a member of the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) and they didn’t kludge things together into a ramshackle assemblage.
I spent some time at St. Peter’s College radio station a few years back and until the studio was fixed up, I was treated to some real kludges that would hiss, pop, drop out, trip you, shock you and electrocute you.
My studio at home has proper cabling running in races between the equipment (microphones in proper stands, mixing board, DAW, keyboard, computer, external drives on racks, monitors etc.)
That’s the difference between something that’s put together properly and something that’s a kludge (like JCDs travel mike stand, though ACs was not a whole lot better when he got back to the ‘States.)
This government is turning into a kludge and we’re just letting it happen.
#14 The military gets free healthcare for life. It’s like a combination of unions and welfare, but more. Much more.
In #14, SimonSezz said: “The corporations are running the modern day version of Nazi propaganda machine, and just like back then in Germany, people are blindly falling for it.”
That is precisely what they are, exactly what they are doing and people are being led by the nose, like lambs to the slaughter.
I fully expect to see an attempt at repealing all of the product safety laws before too long.
Remember how the car companies didn’t want to be bothered installing seat belts and certainly didn’t want to waste their time installing collapsible steering columns. The accountants said it wasn’t cost effective.
Remember how the Cuyahoga River caught fire because of all the chemicals that were dumped in it? It wasn’t the only one.
Remember how the highways were treated like miles and miles of advertising display space until Eisenhower said to stop?
Remember how the open range got crisscrossed with railroad tracks and roads and highways and strip malls?
Remember how companies and corporations didn’t want to be bothered with externalities like batteries that you have to dispose of in toxic waste dumps. (They don’t want to have to think about stuff like that ’cause that kind of thinking costs money.)
Remember snake oil? Untested products making all kinds of claims without having to provide a shred of proof (because causality is so boring to follow.*)
That’s America buddy!
*) In Africa, witch doctors hack up albino children for meat, because the meat counteracts voodoo spells and cures all kinds of diseases, don-cha-no. (Apart from stupidity apparently.)
I have been in two unions and neither did anything for me. The one at the casino was basically a company front so that we didn’t get a real union because it was a non-striking union and the only time the union was ever mentioned was as a excuse for supervisors not to do something. “Oh we can’t do that because the union would be mad.”
However, whether unions are good or not isn’t really the point here. The state of Wisconsin agreed to the union contracts. Now they are trying to change the rules and go around that. Whether unions are great things or terrible things it seems like a really terrible abuse of government power to just change the rules when they don’t like them instead of trying to work out a compromise. Especially since the budget problems were created by the government cutting taxes on businesses in the first place and not the unions.
#11 So what
Yes, what did happen to that Palin/Teabagger post? I was in the process of clicking on it and it disappeared before my very eyes. What’s the point of expressing your opinion on something if it’s just going to be censored on someone’s whim?
Any other posts you don’t like? I just want some warning, so I don’t waste a lot of time, thought and energy on DU, just to see myself censored by The Republican Party.
Long Live the TeaBaggers!
In #16, chris said the military get free heath care for life.
Yeah… ‘Cause the VA isn’t riddled with corruption, scandal, (Walter Reid is such a well maintained and clean place, isn’t it?)
Oh, and your lifetime warranty may expire suddenly by a Baghdad roadside. (Yeah, there’s that too.)
Huh?? Wisconsin is now aligned with Egypt?? Wow!
I LOVE IT, whether it’s bogus or not. It would be great to hear what international stand-up comics might have to say about such a thing, too.
(Sacha Baron Cohen should jump right into this one, if he actually knows an opportunity when he sees it.)
@#18 Unions in responsible businesses (though obsolete) are fair and good thing.
We must distinguish real salary/benefits/work rules bargaining that happens in those cases (workers who produce bargaining with people owning companies and having their lives depending on bargaining results too) and total BS that passes for bargaining in public sector. In public sector Unions “bargain” with politicians who may or may not have best interest of the municipality in mind but definitely have political support for themselves and monetary support in mind for their own prospects. Hence, corruption of the process is not only likely but almost certain. Results are visible throughout the country: budgets collapsing and typically 10 new workers needed to support benefits of one retired. Ponzi scheme.
Another exception is in industries where CEOs didn’t tie their fates to company fate, hence again “bargaining” with unions recklessly. Car industry is perfect example. Problem is that BigGovt. have stepped in and used our money to prop those failing businesses. There it was not all in salaries/benefits. UAW had (and maybe still has?) right(!) to decide what cars will be made and where!!! Why hire management or CEO at all…
#20
“Yeah… ‘Cause the VA isn’t riddled with corruption, scandal, (Walter Reid is such a well maintained and clean place, isn’t it?)”
My local hospital lost its accreditation but remained open because the next closest isn’t close at all. Things suck in general, that doesn’t invalidate my point.
“Oh, and your lifetime warranty may expire suddenly by a Baghdad roadside. (Yeah, there’s that too.)”
Most jobs in the military are about as dangerous as industrial work. Your example is real, but mostly applicable to the Marines and some bits of the Army.
Funny that you focused only on the healthcare bit and ignored the welfare bit. Do you know any other public sector jobs that get reliable 4-5% raises, as well as all sorts of special payouts for wife, kids, house, and clothes?
If police and firefighter benefits are on the table why not the military too?
No war for cheese ?
Gerry Adams was running for office in Ireland in the Sinn Fein Party noted regarding their cut backs in government services: paraphrased: “The Big Banks had no trouble keeping all the wealth they made for themselves but now that sacrifice is needed they are happy to have that distributed among the poor.”
The timing really is exquisite: last month a continuing tax cut for the rich down to historic low levels and now this month cuts in middle class benefits. The PUKES will not rest until the middle class is totally destroyed===and then yes, the USA will be and act just like Egypt except with guns.
and one can also read widely. Have y’all heard the rumor that Canada has weathered the economic turmoil much better than we as they did not relax the bank regs as recklessly as the USA did?
But why listen to successful friends and neighbors? They obviously are jealous of our freedoms:
http://theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/wake-up-americans-your-economic-dream-is-a-nightmare/article1913689/
From the linked article above:
Barack Obama has obviously calculated that the political risks are too great for candour, so he, too, operates within the dream by proposing some restraint on discretionary spending without touching the entitlement programs, the military or taxes. In this, he is complicit with Republicans in deforming the nature of the debate and ill-informing Americans.
Bobbo,
#26 The Irish debt crisis added equivalent $30k of debt per citizen. These were private obligations taken on by the government. Anyone who agreed to that needs to be in jail.
#28 Right again. Same way that stronger capital controls limited damages to some economies during the Asian Flu crisis of 1997. Countries acting in their national interest is a GOOD thing.
Chris
Yes, they oughtta be in jail, but instead, they are in government.
We are all doomed.
“Have y’all heard the rumor that Canada has weathered the economic turmoil much better than we as they did not relax the bank regs as recklessly as the USA did?”
No. I have heard that Canadian banks made hundreds of thousands of reckless 100% 35-year loans, all government-guaranteed. I have heard that Canadian cities like Vancouver and Calgary are in the midst of a housing bubble that makes California look like a pittance. I have also heard that Canada has been lucky enough to experience the plus side of an enormous speculative bubble in commodities.
Would you care to wager how this will end?
Saw a great t-shirt: “I paid for your pension and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”