Is anyone following Wisconsin?
- Thread starter hubrat
- Start date
TechGrrl
Space Cadet
Indiana GOP is trying to make it a right-to-work state. Read up on what that means. It basically says a union shop can't exist, and the union has to negotiate for people even if they don't pay union dues. That will weaken the union. You are blind.
EAT MY OVERALLOWED
Veteran
Wake up and smell the coffee. America is a fascist nation and has been for quite sometime. Corporations run this country in its entirety and that is the true common denominator of a fascist regime. Don't be fooled with meaningless rulings in the judicial systems against corporations, it's simply an illusion. Pfizer was fined $2.5 BILLION for illegal marketing, meanwhile they made $10+ billion off the illegal strategies. Unions will be gone and it will become increasingly harder to live above the poverty line. 62% of wealth is inherited, there's a very good reason for that. The chips are already stacked against you to make a good living for you and your family.
The richest 10 percent of the American population owns 73 percent of the total wealth and 90 percent of corporate stocks.
The richest 1 percent owns 60 percent of the total wealth and 62 percent of corporate stocks.
The poorest 20 percent has MINUS 0.4 percent of total wealth.
The richest 1/2 of 1 percent (.005) of Americans own about 25 percent of the entire population's net worth.
Unless you are in that 1%, you are just along for the ride.
moreluck
golden ticket member
".....The richest 10 percent of the American population owns 73 percent of the total wealth and 90 percent of corporate stocks.
The richest 1 percent owns 60 percent of the total wealth and 62 percent of corporate stocks.
The poorest 20 percent has MINUS 0.4 percent of total wealth.
The richest 1/2 of 1 percent (.005) of Americans own about 25 percent of the entire population's net worth.
Unless you are in that 1%, you are just along for the ride....."
You are showing one side.......what about the percent of taxes paid by rich folks??
Rich is not a good term.....what is rich?? Lots of folks think a drivers pay is "rich"
I like a more "fair & balanced" comparison.
The richest 1 percent owns 60 percent of the total wealth and 62 percent of corporate stocks.
The poorest 20 percent has MINUS 0.4 percent of total wealth.
The richest 1/2 of 1 percent (.005) of Americans own about 25 percent of the entire population's net worth.
Unless you are in that 1%, you are just along for the ride....."
You are showing one side.......what about the percent of taxes paid by rich folks??
Rich is not a good term.....what is rich?? Lots of folks think a drivers pay is "rich"
I like a more "fair & balanced" comparison.
hubrat
Squeaky Wheel
FYI an elaboration on those statistics: 36.2% (7.6 million) of the public sector is unionized, while 6.9% (7.1 million) of the private sector is.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
My personal hope is that the private unions (i.e. Teamsters) will clean up their image and involve themselves in President Obama's Organizing for America campaign. My face is quite blue, and it ain't gonna happen.
But if the rich are paying their fair share, then why are we so far in debt? That they create jobs is one thing. The rewards they have been reaping border on obscene. Or is it left to the middle class yet again?
brett636
Well-Known Member
Indiana right-to-work bill is dead this session. The republicans stated so on the 2nd day of the walkout. Now the crybabies, er I mean democrats are protesting paying good teachers more money, and allowing parents to choose the school their kids go too. Oh the horror!
Although I do support the right to work bill and I hope it passes here. Our previous BA had been in his position for a very long time, and why he was there nobody can really say other than he must have had some inside connections that kept him there. He was horrible and most people, including myself, who had met him wanted nothing to do with the union afterwards. The membership was powerless to move him, but had they been able to withhold their dues he would have been kicked out much sooner than he was. The right to work bill will strengthen my local, not weaken it.
The republican party has always been the party of big business. The only force that acts as a resistance to big business is labor unions. So it is natural that repubs would be against unions. Technically, it is not a party thing. It is mostly an ideological thing. Cons generally support business and libs support workers. Cons believe in supply side "trickle down" economics, progressives believe in demand side "trickle up" economics. You want hubrat to "prove" the GOP is coming after private unions?? Look at the past 30 years. Reagan started it overtly in 1981 going after PATCO . "Free trade" agreements negotiated and pushed by repubs and cons killed and pushed good jobs overseas (mostly unionized manufacturing jobs). Lets not forget the repubs in congress going after Ron Carey right after the successful Teamster strike against UPS in 1997. The fact that repubs/cons constantly put anti union big business thugs on the NLRB that rule against workers, etc. Also it is the repub/cons party that pushed Taft/hartley in 1946 which weakened unions power in lots of ways. Plus recently it was repubs/cons who prevented workers the ability to form a union without company intimidation through card check. NO, no proof at all!!
LOL, Harvard is where the elites send their kids. Liberal socially but quite mainstream economically. Harvard Business school grads move to Wall St -radical?? Harvard Law school grads go into politics or government- radical?? The Ivy League colleges are funded by rich folks who donate to their old schools. Those rich folks would not be promoting a socialist agenda!
brett636
Well-Known Member
Medicare Prescription Drug Bill and the Earned Income Credit. Both are(sadly) republican pieces of legislation.
brett636
Well-Known Member
Actually, most polls show a majority of the very poor and very rich are quite liberal. Its the middle class where the majority of the conservatives exist.
Health care change has not slowed down hiring. Private sector has been hiring over the past year but public sector has been laying off people. Maybe it has hurt the greedy, evil private insurance companies because now they have to accept people with pre-existing conditions as well as not be allowed to reject people already covered just to save money and increase company profits! Too bad. But then again , the Obama law mandates 30 million new customers to these same private insurers (remember the public option was taken out of the bill) so Im sure they will be fine and will probably be hiring more people!!
hubrat
Squeaky Wheel
The deluded masses.
Not true. A recent poll , I think 2-3 yrs ago, showed that 60% of people are open to joining a union if given the opportunity. The biggest roadblock has been the companies themselves intimidating their own workers to not join or they will send their jobs overseas or close down or threaten to fire the organizers. Another reason why the decrease in union members is "free trade" agreements that side with the investors and owners of this country and not the workers.
When we start doing that for our elected officials first , maybe then we can talk about the teachers. However, teachers do go to school to improve their skills continuously and also some work in the summer too for summer school.
PobreCarlos
Well-Known Member
A couple of questions/comments;
First, regarding your "Reagan started it overtly in 1981 going after PATCO". Just how did Reagan "go after PATCO" exactly? As I recall, those who hired in and became members of PATCO knew from the get-go that it was illegal for them to strike. They struck anyway. What was a chief executive sworn to uphold the law supposed to do? Fact is, Reagan didn't "go after PATCO"; rather, PATCO went after itself. Its members knew the law, and they knew the consequences of breaking the law. They were even given warnings (and "chances") AFTER breaking it. They chose to go down that path anyway.
As for free trade "pushing" jobs overseas...pray tell, just how does "free trade" do that? Seems to me that all free trade does is enable legitimate access to the market to the more efficient elements. The fact that jobs tended to disappear from union auspices says much more, I'm afraid, about the inefficiencies in terms of cost-effectiveness of union workers than it does about "repubs" "pushing" jobs elsewhere. Jobs left because they could find more cost-effective labor...period. If the unions choose NOT to be cost-effective, then that's THEIR choice. And any job loss that results from that choice of theirs should be laid on THEIR doorstep, and no one else's.
Then there's your comment of....
"...right after the successful Teamster strike against UPS in 1997"
That real "successful", was it? Increase Teamster job opportunities, did it? Put FedEx "away", for example, and keep that company from swallowing what could-have-been Teamster jobs? And how about Central States and the Teamster pension funds generally? They make out like bandits too, did they? And one would ask...if it was "successful", why were the union powers-that-be the ones that "blinked" and suggested an end (take a look at "Sprague v. Central States.." at http://openjurist.org/269/f3d/811/gerald-sprague-v-central-states). Guess the question I'm asking is just how many more such "successful" actions the Teamsters could absorb?
As for your last, re....
"it was repubs/cons who prevented workers the ability to form a union without company intimidation through card check"
....one has to ask; "COMPANY INTIMIDATION????" Have you been paying attention to what's been happening up in Wisconsin? Have those mobs been part of the process of COMPANY INTIMIDATION, do you think? Think that's a much less "intimidating" method of doing things than casting a vote via secret ballot in which no one - unless you tell them yourself - knows just way your ballot was cast? (honestly, to me, that's one good thing that's come of this Wisconsin tragedy; the fact that now - in light of the scenes around Madison - it's extremely difficult for any reasonable person to argue that unions wouldn't engage in intimidation tactics with prospective members during the "card check" process)
In any case, I'm one of those who would like to see some actual "proof" that "the GOP is coming after private union's...and not just more regurgitated Pablum lacking any factual basis.
First, regarding your "Reagan started it overtly in 1981 going after PATCO". Just how did Reagan "go after PATCO" exactly? As I recall, those who hired in and became members of PATCO knew from the get-go that it was illegal for them to strike. They struck anyway. What was a chief executive sworn to uphold the law supposed to do? Fact is, Reagan didn't "go after PATCO"; rather, PATCO went after itself. Its members knew the law, and they knew the consequences of breaking the law. They were even given warnings (and "chances") AFTER breaking it. They chose to go down that path anyway.
As for free trade "pushing" jobs overseas...pray tell, just how does "free trade" do that? Seems to me that all free trade does is enable legitimate access to the market to the more efficient elements. The fact that jobs tended to disappear from union auspices says much more, I'm afraid, about the inefficiencies in terms of cost-effectiveness of union workers than it does about "repubs" "pushing" jobs elsewhere. Jobs left because they could find more cost-effective labor...period. If the unions choose NOT to be cost-effective, then that's THEIR choice. And any job loss that results from that choice of theirs should be laid on THEIR doorstep, and no one else's.
Then there's your comment of....
"...right after the successful Teamster strike against UPS in 1997"
That real "successful", was it? Increase Teamster job opportunities, did it? Put FedEx "away", for example, and keep that company from swallowing what could-have-been Teamster jobs? And how about Central States and the Teamster pension funds generally? They make out like bandits too, did they? And one would ask...if it was "successful", why were the union powers-that-be the ones that "blinked" and suggested an end (take a look at "Sprague v. Central States.." at http://openjurist.org/269/f3d/811/gerald-sprague-v-central-states). Guess the question I'm asking is just how many more such "successful" actions the Teamsters could absorb?
As for your last, re....
"it was repubs/cons who prevented workers the ability to form a union without company intimidation through card check"
....one has to ask; "COMPANY INTIMIDATION????" Have you been paying attention to what's been happening up in Wisconsin? Have those mobs been part of the process of COMPANY INTIMIDATION, do you think? Think that's a much less "intimidating" method of doing things than casting a vote via secret ballot in which no one - unless you tell them yourself - knows just way your ballot was cast? (honestly, to me, that's one good thing that's come of this Wisconsin tragedy; the fact that now - in light of the scenes around Madison - it's extremely difficult for any reasonable person to argue that unions wouldn't engage in intimidation tactics with prospective members during the "card check" process)
In any case, I'm one of those who would like to see some actual "proof" that "the GOP is coming after private union's...and not just more regurgitated Pablum lacking any factual basis.
hubrat
Squeaky Wheel
Also, at least here, the private unions seem to have become complacent. The officers are concerned about elections and fail to get the big picture. The only way to turn things around is for the membership to take action. We need to get off our butts, stop waiting for someone else to act or for the unions to fail completely.
Once again:
http://www.thenation.com/article/156811/making-unions-matter-again
I will say it again: when the private sector is dead in the water and not creating jobs, what is to be done?? the government borrowed the money (like your boy bush did to give out tax cuts) and pumped needed money into the economy. It helped keep many people in their jobs and helped others find work so they could pay bills and maybe keep their homes. Is that creating wealth?? That is simantics. They received pay checks so that they kept their homes , for some their only wealth they possess.
Nevertheless, the govt does create wealth. When Lockheed Martin, Boeing ,etc lobby to create weapons systems (needed or unneeded), the govt shells out the money to these private entities that live off the government's teet and wealth is created for the owners and shareholders.
In that case I would love to "opt out" of paying for our imperial wars. But let me guess, some panel will rule that only home owners (route drivers) can get on that list and renters (cover drivers) are exempt! LOL
brett636
Well-Known Member
You really need to go find the closest community college, and enroll just to take one Macro economics class. You have such a poor understanding of how the government gets its money its almost scary that you are allowed to vote.
Where does the government get its money to pay Boeing and Lockheed to develop those weapons systems? They take it from Microsoft, Nestle, and other companies impeding their ability to invest in themselves and create jobs. Its all just shuffling money from one area of the economy to another at the discretion of a few politicians. What is so hard about this to understand?
Similar threads
