Kruz says he wants a NATIONAL law covering right to work. No more of this foolishness of workers having any say on contracts , wages, benefits, etc. From what I saw working in a Ford plant from 64' through 67' the dues paid by workers most likely went to pay union reps who were NOT actively on the line, but had on many occasions, to represent workers when disputes arose. One dispute that occured almost daily was the speeding up of the line, which said speed was determined by contract. A union man would time the line and return it to the speed determined by collective bargaining. I suppose some of the union money went towards advertising for candidates amenable to the principle of workers being unionized and being able to have a seat at the bargaining table. What seems apparent to me, is that those that are anti union feel that workers should have NO say in how they are treated whatsoever. Pay too low? Benefits gone bye-bye in favor of rewarding stock holders? Not enough break time? Call you a cocksucker for failing to do the additional work they want you to do? (yes--it happened, among other things) Suck it up --there're plenty more men to take your place if you don't like your job. And they'll work cheaper than YOU! Going backwards to the days when blood was shed to form unions/alliances for self protection against egregious actions by employers (Triangle Shirt Waist is but one example) is not a good idea. -------"well, the unions are the reason companies are going overseas," is heard often. No it isn't -----------GREEDY MOTHERFUCKERS FOR WHOM THERE IS NOT ENOUGH MONEY in the world is the reason. So fuck Kruz, Trump, and the rest of the republicans. Immediately!
I'm in completr agreement with you. A lot of people get fooled into thinking its better to have a Right to Work legislation in place because it saves them having to pay dues for union reps that are, unless your working environment is generally shitty like you've described experiencing, seemingly pointless. They're typically ignorant to the larger scale issues that a unionized work force makes well worth the payment, such as prevention of a company being able to deny severance pay/benefits in the (almost inevitable in this day and age) event they do outsource to another country, same applies to such payouts being denied to families of those who die in work related accidents. Right to work states also give employers the ability terminate or deny enployment without notice, and for no reason which makes it real easy for them to skirt workplace discrimination laws.
I like how the Republicans always leave necessary words out of a phrase just to make it sound "better"... The full phrase is "Right to work for less". The truth hurts.
Of course unions help workers...that is why there have been no unions in the south for as long as I've been aware of what they are! SC is So Proud of this "at will" state...meaning that you can get fired/laid off (lose your damn job) at the will of the employer. No reason is needed for you to lose your job. If a person is a member of a union, that couldn't take place, right??? Even though the US has made a number of mistakes through the years...this is the 1st time in my life I'm actually embarrassed of the USA and the mentality of an apparently large number of its citizens by having as a Rep front-runner a man like Trump. Cruz is a horrible embarrassment also. What in the hell is happening here when people like Trump and Cruz are the talk of the day, and it is serious talk! I actually fear for not only the US but for other countries if Trump isn't defeated. (notice I cannot make myself put his name and win in the same sentence) Edit: I didn't mean to get off so much on the ReTHUGlican candidates as that they would have the entire USA just like it is in the south - and Lord knows that would be worse than awful. Look at what is happening in NC now. :-(
Unions = I want this, that, the other and still have their hand out! Yep, blame the Republicans, or how about W Bush? LMFAO! People in this country want top notch shit, at Walmart prices. So there is part of the problem right there. Anything made in the USA is honestly cheap shit anymore. My father was a union bitch for 35 years, I know all too well how they scam the company right back. The same company, is now owned by a overseas company, parts are all outsourced and all they do is 'assemble' them and call it quality made! I'll take non union anyday. Higher pay, no contracts to deal with and if you are not a deadbeat POS you have just as much security as if you were paying a union. They take your money, spend it on themselves! Plus I don't need my hand held by a union, I can think for myself!
Sounds like your turning into the UK guys.. Difference is, your not in Europe! You should be pleased about that!
Yogi, I don't know where you get that shit. Non-union pay higher? How could that even be possible that non negotiating workers with no say in the issues I mentioned---get higher pay, decent benefits, overtime pay, etc, than workers that have NO right to negotiate? Makes no sense. Although I don't know why I bother with any kind of a response to Yogi.
I live in a right to work state. I work for a decent company with good management so it doesnt really bother me but my boyfriend's company fires people left and right for the slightest infraction and we constantly have that hanging over our heads. He never calls in sick, last week he had to call in to take our child to the doctor (since my work has a more liberal attendance policy i usually am the one to stay home but ive already been out 3 days earlier in the year when our child had a bad virus). Halfway through the day he gets a call from his manager that their regional manager wanted to speak to him. He didnt call him back, just went into work the next day with his doctor's note but now it feels like they'll be looking for a reason to fire him. He busts his ass for this company, we rarely have time together because he works 50 -60 hrs a week and yet it feels like his employment is so tenuous. This is why people unionize and should be allowed to unionize.
I live in a right to work state. And I've experienced employers pulling the rug right out from underneath me without warning. They never told me that my performance was not meeting expectations, and I've been let go without any communication. I've also worked for a predatory employer who disobeyed their mandatory 3-month raise policies they promise new employees. The same employer made us all take a military style physical exercise routine by running sprints and push-ups early in the morning after some of us worked a 12 hour night shift. This company was the worst; I could go on about how horrible they were. When I quit, they deliberately underpaid my last check. So I reported them to BOLI and OSHA. 6 months later the company was no more. It is tough to find a perfect balance between laws that give employees and unions way more than a company can afford, and laws that protect employees from abusive companies.
Let me explain how my union works (I'm still a dues paying member even though I'm retired). I belong to the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the National Education Association. I also belonged to my local district association but since I'm retired I dropped that. The local Association bargained for our contract with the support of the PSEA and the NEA. All bargaining was at the local level. The PSEA was formed in 1852, the NEA in 1857 in Philedelphia as the National Teachers Association. In 1870 the NTA merged with the American Normal School Association, the National Association of School Superintendents, and the Central College Association and became the NEA. In 1966 it merged with the black teachers' American Teachers' Association. The NEA has had a Congressional charter since 1906. In 1863 the 151st Pennsylvania Volunteers made up of all Pennsylvania teachers fought on Cemetery Ridge at the Battle of Gettysburg. Today it's the largest union in the nation representing public school teachers and support personal, college and university staff and faculty, retirees and students. Now before the teachers' were unionized a teacher could be fired for any reason. Teaching is political, in that a teacher could be fired because he or she teaches some part of science, such as evolution. Or someone's son didn't make the football team, or the teacher is seen to walk into a bar, or a student complains the the teacher is too hard, or not nice, or too strict. Or maybe the teacher is a Democrat, or Republican, Jewish, Catholic, atheist, gay, etc. Before the union you could be fired for any reason or no reason. Now, with the NEA and local unions, you can still be fired for any reason...until you get tenure which takes from 3 to 5 years. Once you have tenure, you must have a hearing before you can be fired. You have a right to Due Process under the law. That is all that tenure is. You can still be fired for a variety of reasons, but the reasons have to be presented and proved. Now what is "Right to Work"? The teachers' union by law...by law...must represent everyone that is employed at the school the union represents. Everyone..whether they are union members or not. That means it must negotiate for the non union members' wages, leave time, health benefits, working conditions, grievances, and supply the non union member with legal counsel if needed in addition to its union members. In return the nonunion member must contribute to the cost of that representation. They don't have to join the union or follow any of its rules or policies. They are free agents. The money they pay is lower than membership dues and can not be used for any political activities, lobbying, educational services, strike loans, nor can they go to any political candidate, etc. (25 restricted usages). Non members pay 74% of what a member pays to PSEA, and 38.11% of what a member pays to the NEA. Now what the "Right to Work" people want to do is the break the unions by having the unions represent all employees by law with out being compensated for that representation by non union workers. So what would happen? Why join the union when the union has to represent you for free!!!??? Membership drops, unions becomes easier to bust and we are back to the workers having no say in the workplace, the product, compensation, environmental concerns, safety, retirement, unfair firings, discrimination by race, gender, age, political affiliations, etc. But don't believe me read the history of the industrialized world.
I'm from the south and have always lived in a right to work state. I like the protections it affords the employer, as I will probably be the employer one day. And I would treat my workers right but prefer to do so on my terms. I have had a lot of struggles with jobs, have had to really work my ass off and not get anywhere for awhile. Found my niche but I realize some don't. That said I am seriously against a national right to work law. That should be up to the individual states! You curse the republicans and I don't blame you, but seriously are you supportive of Hillary or Bernie?
It should be remembered that while 146 workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the owners were indicted for murder they were actually acquitted and that although the plaintiffs did win compensation to the amount of $75 per deceased victim the insurance company paid the owners about $60,000 more than the reported losses, or about $400 per casualty. They came out with a profit. Thing is that actions by workers demonstrating against unsafe conditions were often treated harshly by the law as one socialist explained at the memorial service “every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable, the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us. Public officials have only words of warning to us—warning that we must be intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of the law beats us back, when we rise, into the conditions that make life unbearable” Change did come and some of it was driven by empathy but some of the drive came from fear of the upper and middle class of lower class revolution. And there was real fear of socialist revolution (see the red scares in the US) and that drove reform especially after the setting up of Soviet Russia (established wealth and power thought it better to give workers’ something rather than have them take everything, fighting all the time to keep it as little as possible) it seems to me that with the wane of that fear come a resurgence in capitalist exploitation. [SIZE=11pt]You see to me the political history of the 20th century (in the industrialised nations) has been to one degree or another about the curtailment of the adverse effects of 19th century exploitative capitalism (some call classical liberalism). [/SIZE] [SIZE=11pt]People in many nations fought for voting rights, social benefits, safer working conditions, progressive taxation, and decent living wages. The result of that movement was that the economic benefits of production were much more distributed. Many people saw their wages grow and in the period between the end of WWII and 1970 many in Europe and the US gain middle class status.[/SIZE] [SIZE=11pt]But from the 70’s onward a new idea was promoted in some of these nations (often referred to as neo-liberalism) it was in many ways opposed to the ‘distributive’ system that had developed. One thing it promoted was economic globalisation, which basically allowed back some aspects of exploitative capitalism by promoting the moving of production to nations that had not developed the more distributive systems away from those nations that had.[/SIZE] [SIZE=11pt]In this way the long fought for distributive system has been undermined in those places where it had developed. Neo-liberals argue that to ‘compete’ in the global market the elements of the distributive system need to be dismantled what is needed they say is deregulation, the cutting of welfare, tax cuts that benefit the rich, lower wages, weak government oversight etc etc. [/SIZE] [SIZE=11pt]So w[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]hat we are getting in is the dismantling of the distributive system in the developed countries while in some developing countries the conditions resemble what was happening in the west before people’s struggle to get rid of exploitation (the Savar building collapse in Bangladesh that killed over a thousand factory workers comes to mind as that countries Triangle Shirtwaist Factory tragedy). [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]The problem today is that we now have exploitative economic globalisation that increasingly favours the few but without any social globalisation that would curtail it and distribute more evenly the gains. [/SIZE] [SIZE=11pt]As James K Galbriath has argued –[/SIZE] [SIZE=11pt]We must confront the global inequality crisis. For this, we must, in the final analysis, raise real wages in the countries with which our workers compete, expand their markets for our goods, and reduce their pressure on our wage structure”[/SIZE] [SIZE=11pt]I think we need to fight again for social balance and resurrect the old socialist internationalism to counter the economic globalisation that has already taken place. [/SIZE] My fear is that people will begin thinking nationally in a backlash to the globalisation of neo-libralism (the embers of which Trump seems to be stoking). The thing about unions is that they raise wages, allowing people to have more money that they can then spend on goods and services bringing about more employment, but in a economically globalised world that doesn’t work if the employer can move to somewhere without those higher wages. The imposition of simple tariffs are not going to help it is just likely to cause unemployment both abroad and at home We don’t want to make people in other places unemployed we want them to have wages that buy extra goods that bring about employment. But that is just the beginning because it doesn’t deal with the problem of technological advancement which is also the thing undercutting employment.
In regards to the job market does this apply more to the employers or the workers? True. In the same way as a 5 year old kid can think for itself.
Good job I kept my red flag in mothballs! Unfortunately I think people are already thinking nationally. I'm not sure if it's a backlash against globalization, or something else - In the UK we have the 'out of Europe' mob for instance. I think that kind of sentiment has been created largely by politicians and the media, rather than workers thinking for themselves or wanting a socialist society. Attitudes toward their fellow workers who happen to also be immigrants would seem to show that there's little appetite for internationalism. But is the EU a neo-lib organization that represents global business? Far too much I'm afraid. So the idea of the loony right is let's get rid of it. Not though in order to roll back globalization, as I don't think it would have any impact on that if the UK stays in or leaves, more to allow the ruling class to roll back the few rights workers still have. It's conceivable that in a few months time we could have the 'Donald and Boris show'. America turns in on itself in a frenzy of ethnic cleansing whilst the UK exiting the EU starts a kind of domino effect leading to the end of both the EU and the UK. I would welcome a return to socialist internationalism (provided its flag has a green as well as a red colour) but for that to happen would require a huge change of thinking by the workers themselves, and sadly I see very little sign of anything like that.
To both! The worker is a lazy ass handout wanting moron so he half asses his union job. Then wonders why he has no job! The same quality he put out, can be done 10 fold elsewhere and without a dipshit and high wage. But then the dumb fuck will go to Walmart, buy something that used to have a quality name, but is now shit. Same person whines and complains about 'made in usa', but don't remember how much he half-assed his job and why it is now outsourced and cheap quality! If a 5yr old can make $$ and pay off all his shit, much smarter than a lot of mother fuckers! I own all my shit, don't rely on handouts! Maybe people should try living within their means, work hard and pay shit off! But that's the smart thing to do! The days of 'high wage' are over unless you have a certain skill to pull down $$! Some don't have it like that, too bad! Life's unfair, shit happens! Don't look to others to fix you're fuck ups in work/life/as a whole!
So, care to explain to us that, besides on some stereotype, what this 'insight' is based on? It's cool if you own all your shit, but it is very apparent that owning all your shit doesn't make your arguments more sound.
Dude.... If the quality goes down when jobs are outsourced then logically the problem isnt that american workers are lazy and half ass everything. The problem is that corporations will do whatevrr the fuck they want to do to save a dime. They'll move jobs overseas not because american workers are lazy, but because overseas they can skirt around issues like labor laws, environmental regulations, and the minimum wage. Basically corporations move overseas because theyre greedy fucks and have no problem with exploiting third world workers. If you *can* think for yourself then you probably *should* think for yourself instead of continuously spouting out thoughtless word vomit.
