Unions

It always seems strange why anyone would chose to make less money,less benefits,less insurance,less retirement,less and less. Just how dumb does it take... Not to be able to realize the benefits of belong to a group that looks out for you and your family

Union definition: "A combination so formed, especially an alliance or confederation of people, parties, or political entities for mutual interest or benefit"

Every doctor,every lawyer,every teacher,every realtor,every police officer, every professional baseball payer,every professional football player,every professional basketball player,every professional umpire,every dentist belongs to a organization or association to that offers help and support to that individual or group. Our country is full of professional associations that take dues form their members.

But if a worker joins a group to help themselves. That person becomes a low life dirty dog. This starts with industry and people who are ignorant of Unions and of the real work place.

Jobs are moved over seas to the cheapest labor cost and less government control..... Does that mean that we who work with our hands,our brains and our hearts have to make third world wages? Does this mean that we have to work in a unsafe environment? Do we have to sacrifice our health, our bodies and our loved ones? There is always someone who will work cheaper, with less safety and less concern about our environment. Just look at big business..... The owners of mines,factories and companies who are fined or arrested each year for pollution,safety violations,harassment,lying,endangering their employees. The Coe's that steal hundreds of millions of dollars from their companies and stock holders. If you think Unions are corrupted? You hand better take a good look at big business. The IRS does?

Today we need organization of Labor more than ever.

Unions .... "The people who brought you the weekends"

Union Millwright and Damn Proud Of It Ron Oliver

Reply to
Millwright Ron
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Unions-the people that destroyed the US Auto industry, and most other US based manufacturing businesses. Congrats, my last machine tool purchase was Chinese. JR Dweller in the cellar

Millwright Ron wrote: a bunch of BS

Reply to
JR North

Thanks for saving me the time, JR. The convoluted thinking of people that think they are deserving of money beyond their worth is one of the chief reasons we are where we are today.

It's ironic how some union members aren't smart enough to keep their mouths closed. What's that old saying-------"it's better to be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt"? Just how much evidence will it take to have these people understand that they are the cause of the problem, not the solution? Hell, I'd rather my mother would have been a w**re than a union member.

I wonder-----with the writer's strike going on right now----how many of these people that have been well paid for their "work" (and I use that term loosely, judging by today's moronic productions on TV), would be willing to give back a portion of their pay for programs that bomb? What the hell's the difference? If they expect to benefit by the investments of others, why shouldn't they also be at risk? Why is it that people that sell their time can't see, clearly, that they have already been paid for their efforts and are not owed anything further? You want in on the action? Invest

*your * money and take the risks------why should anyone benefit from the efforts of others?

With the attitude they have, wouldn't it be akin to GM asking me to send them a few bucks weekly because I may be using one of their autos as a taxi?

Harold

Reply to
Harold and Susan Vordos

Government and employers dishonestly attack unions but let us get some perspective. Democracy is traditionally strongest where you have strong unions. Solidarity, the Polish workers' union, brought down the Polish communist government. Unions lead the campaign against the incompetent dictatorship in Zimbabwe. Dictators, like Hitler, know that to consolidate permanent power you first destroy the unions.

Our good conditions of employment came from union action over the past century.

Unions provide the level playing field and the balance needed for justice. Employer organization's refer to union bosses' excesses. They ignore the excesses of the company bosses, their failures and their obscene pay, 130 times the average workers' pay.

Why do we need Unions?

Only an idiot refuses to see the writing's on the wall.

" I will take the job if you will pay me two dollars per day" "No I do not need insurance" "Yes my wife will cook dinner for you tonight." "What time do I need to send over my little son for you private party" " Yes I will work for free on Saturday." Yes Sunday will be okay too!" "I need the job to feed my family"."Yes sir Supreme Boss of the America's"

SKILLED ON PRINCIPLE ----- UNION BY CHOICE

Union Millwright Ron

Reply to
Millwright Ron

1930's union rederick from a time when most workers didn't graduate the 8th grade. With global competition smart workers understand that education is the key to to secure well paying jobs. The reality is, long gone are the days of doing the same job for the same company for 40 years. As an employer i want smart people working with me and am more than happy to share the proffits with the people that make the company profitable for all of us. The ability to learn new skills is far more valuable than a union job when a robot eliminates that union job. People who invest thier hard earned money in continuing education instead of union dues will be the employable workers of the future.

Best Regards Tom.

Reply to
azotic

WAY old-school way of thinking. The more progressive labor unions today partner with their company to achieve the pinnacle of safety, productivity, security and prosperity. Gone are the adversarial tensions. Gone are the days of a union protecting a marginal worker. A good company and a good employee want the same thing. It's the bullshit worker that hides behind union protection, and the unions aren't putting up with that crap anymore.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

I can remember when we had 80 employees, now I have 16 and our sales are more than double and profits are quadruple. AUTOMATION!!! And, we will be putting a new machine on line this month that eliminates an entire job but boosts the pay of everybody in that wook cell.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Given the long-entrenched union principle of featherbedding, I doubt you are anywhere as skilled as a cross-trained, multi-tasking, non-union worker.

You need to call in a "specialist" to simply plug your machine in.

I always laughed at the union-stipulated principle of having a "fire tender" on a diesel locomotive.

Any wonder why the railroads nearly went under?

Reply to
*

Careful, Tom. The next piece of automation that you put in may eliminate

*you*. Be sure to read the fine print. d8-)
Reply to
Ed Huntress

=

If you embrace that "Union" philosophy, you probably suck as a millwright and are a marginal employee that needs a high degree of protection to keep a job. I doubt you would keep a job very long with me and I don't want your wife's food or your son's ass. Nor, do I get 130 x base pay! You're a fool.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

What planet are you posting from?

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

Reply to
Stuart & Kathryn Fields

When your intelligence level is equal to potato! You attack the Messenger instead of the message!

Abraham Lincoln:

The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindred's.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration

Dwight D. Eisenhower:

Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice.

Frank Lloyd Wright:

If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men to capitalize their labor.

Jimmy Carter:

Every advance in this half-century-Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education, one after another-came with the support and leadership of American Labor.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped.

Pope Paul VI:

The important role of union organizations must be admitted: their object is the representation of the various categories of workers, their lawful collaboration in the economic advance of society, and the development of the sense of their responsibility for the realization of the common good

SKILLED ON PRINCIPLE ----- UNION BY CHOICE Millwright Ron

Reply to
Millwright Ron

You may be posting to the wrong group here Ron.

This group seems to be composed of many self- styled "successes" therefore your message is wasted on them. Many here are of an adversarial bent, being managers, owners, or past managers (with a sprinkling of others thrown in) who have been successful enough in their previous en- devours to sit on their butts and attend trivial pursuits (like you and I).

Not exactly your "Huddled masses" ehh?

If you enjoy your posting (I do) after all the neg- ative responces and vilification (also notice the lack of people standing up in your defence) by others, continue to do so with the understanding that, in this group at least, you will be considered a troll.

Sorry buddy, I know your actions come from good intentions but you can lead a horse....etc.

dennis in nca

Reply to
rigger

Which reminds me...got you some more linear ways. Want em?

Gunner

Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Reply to
Gunner Asch

I'm old enough now that I plan just that! Not a machine but procedures and protocols properly followed and I shouldn't need to be here full time. One of my buds owns a fishing charter and could use a first mate. Another bud plays golf 7 times a week and could use a partner. One of my cousins has over 1,000 DVDs, and I have relatives all over the world that need unwelcome house guests. Get the picture?

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Do you still have my UPS and FedEx #s?

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Oh, all right. You've embarrassed me into it. Ron has some good points. So does Harold.

Harold would not have had the opportunity to reach the economic middle class without unions, which, as Ron says about the "prevailing wage," raised the wage bar for decades before Harold started to work, making it possible for him to make a decent income. Before unions gained strength in the US the "natural" balance of bargaining power kept most workers well below the middle class. That includes most skilled workers, except those who owned small businesses of their own. The middle class then was relatively small and consisted of professionals, merchants, some small business owners, higher-level bureaucrats and, by 1920 or so, white-collar managers. Unions established a new equilibrium that made the US a primarily middle-class economy. Discounting the top 5% of income-earners, the middle class was around 25% of the population in the 1920s but had reached 52% of the wage-earning population by 1950. The number could be higher or lower, depending on which definitions you accept, but these are numbers based on comparable definitions; the definitions of middle class don't matter for this comparison, in other words, because they're both based on the same shares of total national income. The relationships hold no matter how you define it.

On the other hand, once unions had redressed the large bargaining advantage that capital had in the earlier days of our industrial economy, their warts and excesses started to be more noticeable and angered a lot of people. They look like more of a problem than a solution today, particularly at the by-enterprise (microeconomic) level, although their real negative effects are probably 'way overstated in terms of macroeconomic effects. It will be interesting to see what role they play as globalization expands and developing countries repeat the habits of early capitalism that existed here from 1870 - 1935 or so.

The argument that unions have been a major cause of offshoring is nonsense, BTW. Wage relationships between developed and undeveloped countries would be the same without them: the wages in both types of economies would be a lot lower.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Im reminded of my first job after getting out of the military. Fisher Body. UAW. Making the same 5 spot welds for hours at a time, with all my co workers drunk, drugged, high, or hallucinating. Making really good money while turning out shitty products. Some of my co workers to relieve the boredom, would do things like weld empty booze bottles or big loose ball bearings into inaccessable portions of the body with the hopes the "Rich Bastards Would Go Crazy" hearing the various clanking, crunching, tinkling etc when they drove their new cars. And the stewards would grin, and turn a blind eye.

My mom was the service manager for a Chevy dealership for a while..she had a nice collection of debris they fished out of brand new cars, debris installed at the factory. The coolest one was a Clabber Girl baking powder can, with some ball bearings in it, all neatly soldered closed. And the stewards would grin and turn a blind eye.....

After 6 weeks, I figured Id either go postal (not a good thing for a recently returned combat vet) or cut my own wrists. So I quit my very nicely paying job and found another one where the people were sane, straight, normal and had self respect and pride.

Fuck the Unions. They were once damned necessary. They might be necessary in some places today....though I cant think of any off hand.

But when some wanker puffs up and starts singing the praises of the Unions today..I get an overwhelming urge to unzip and piss on his foot.

Gunner

Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Reply to
Gunner Asch

Perhaps, but that's something none of us can know. I've long maintained that had workers here kept their cool and received pay in keeping with its value, it's possible the advantage in moving to other locations wouldn't have been great enough to warrant the move. I still think greed (at all levels) is the greatest contributor to our current dilemma. Rarely do you find people working for their real worth these days, and we're all paying the price for their actions through ever increasing costs of goods and services. Could be we're in for one hell of a lumpy ride now that it's running rampant and the dollar has been reduced in value to, what, 10 cents?

Harold

Reply to
Harold and Susan Vordos

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