Fucking Bastards

[Charlie Ventura]

Unions work for union power. In a closed shop, the union dues are extracted from the worker, then given to politicians in the Democrat party who will work to pass legislation that benefits the unions. Here in California, the unions run the state. The unions contribute to the Democrats and the Democrats do the bidding of the unions. On the side, almost as a second thought, they try to run the state. Public union employees have learned how to game the system through various means in order to spike retirement benefits. Over 80% of the brass (paper pushers) in the Highway Patrol go off on disability medical leave during the last year of employment right before retiring in order to get 100% medical for life. The state prison guards make astronomical retirement pay. There are public employee life guards making over 200k per year. The unions in California are driving the private sector out of the state, much in the same way that over regulation and over taxation are driving corporations out of the country. Unions MAY have had a hand in "raising the middle class" at one time ... but now its just another way to scam the system at the expense of the productive. In other words, its the parasites vs the hosts. Eventually the hosts run out of blood to suck.

 

[mame]

Unions work for union power. In a closed shop, the union dues are extracted from the worker, then given to politicians in the Democrat party who will work to pass legislation that benefits the unions.

Which by extension helps the workers of whom are part of said union. I dont get why this is so hard for you to understand.

In regards to the unions driving the private sector from the state, it's more about the right to work states nearby that offer cheaper labor. If there were no right to work states you wouldn't see this... and when you do, it's companies moving overseas - which... face it, whether you're union or not there is no way American labor will ever compete with the near slave labor in developing nations.

 

[Coals]

... face it, whether you're union or not there is no way American labor will ever compete with the near slave labor in developing nations.

Give it some time my friend. Average income is very low right now and continuing to drop. A few more decades and we should be on par with third world nations. We will be able to compete with them because we will be one.

 

[Carne Seca]

Maybe the tables will turn. India will get greedy and start outsourcing to us. Turn-about is fair play.

 

[Coals]

Millions of people have died protecting unions?

Yes millions of people died in World War 2 trying to protect the very same values unions and labour ascociations try to uphold.

Your grandpapy probably fought and or died in WW2. Do you think he was there to ensure that you and your peers never had the right to sit down and collectively bargain your wage and/or working conditions and/or benefits?

He was there to protect the American way of life. He was there to ensure that anyone willing to get up everyday and work a job, that they may or may not hate, paid their taxes and contributed positivley to society, earned a liveable wage and led a comfortable, MIDDLE CLASS life.

He wasn't there to ensure that 1% of the population led a life of privilage off the backs of the masses who were in turn forced into poverty despite their individual mental capacity, work ethic, education, and genetic attributes (be them physical or financial).

He was there to ensure the American, middle class way of life could continue. That way of life is still under attack, its not the nazis or the japs though.

 

[Coals]

Maybe the tables will turn. India will get greedy and start outsourcing to us. Turn-about is fair play.

I would agree with that if they werent so damned smart. In general, the people who are taking the outsourced jobs in India are far better educated than people from North America. Many CEO's have identified this as one of the key reasons they outsource. They get smarter people for less money.

We have been ignoring education for a long time. The average American is less and less literate each year. So to fix that we have slashed education budgets nation wide. Now we are also attacking those evil teachers, with the notion that underpaid overworked teachers will be better at their jobs???

The only people in America today that are getting a decent education are:
A) Rich peoples kids - tuition is abseloutly absurd today. If you are not a child of the top 1% you can not afford to get higher education
B) Kids of people who are upper middle class and willing to sink themselves into enormous debt. People are spending their nest egg on their childs education. Or their child is getting litterally a mortgage for their education.

 

[Coals]

Unions work for union power. In a closed shop, the union dues are extracted from the worker, then given to politicians in the Democrat party who will work to pass legislation that benefits the unions. Here in California, the unions run the state. The unions contribute to the Democrats and the Democrats do the bidding of the unions. On the side, almost as a second thought, they try to run the state. Public union employees have learned how to game the system through various means in order to spike retirement benefits. Over 80% of the brass (paper pushers) in the Highway Patrol go off on disability medical leave during the last year of employment right before retiring in order to get 100% medical for life. The state prison guards make astronomical retirement pay. There are public employee life guards making over 200k per year. The unions in California are driving the private sector out of the state, much in the same way that over regulation and over taxation are driving corporations out of the country. Unions MAY have had a hand in "raising the middle class" at one time ... but now its just another way to scam the system at the expense of the productive. In other words, its the parasites vs the hosts. Eventually the hosts run out of blood to suck.

You have some valid points, but they are very limited. You are generalizing wether you realize it or not.
There are loopholes in everything. The issues you describe sound like someone needs to come in a deal with those individual issues. There will always be scumbags looking to scam the system, wether that system is a government system or a private system (IE banking system see: derivative trading) regulation and/or management needs to be a large part of it. But to just wipe all unions and their members with this huge brush and advocate their complete and utter destruction is irrational.

Many things bankrupted California. You can not say it was just the civil service. California has an addiction to putting people in jail. Corrections Corporation of America has raped the state. In three years the cost of contracts to CCoA went from 23 million to over 700 million dollars! Thats a lot fo money, but what about the cost of the lost opportunity? The cost of all those potential tax payers sitting in a concrete box, the VAST maority of which are there for non-violent canabis related crimes. The VAST majority of which previously had day jobs and paid their taxes. When they get released into a society in recession do you think they will find a job with a criminal record? They are forced into crime......again.

Add that to the same problems with an un-regulated, predatory banking and mortgage system that actually bets on your failure and the many other issues that have come to light since 2008 and the issues you mention and it becomes pretty clear why Cali is fucked.

But your convinced its the janitors and members of the Highway Patrol's fault..........

 

[Charlie Ventura]

You have some valid points, but they are very limited. You are generalizing wether you realize it or not.
There are loopholes in everything. The issues you describe sound like someone needs to come in a deal with those individual issues. There will always be scumbags looking to scam the system, wether that system is a government system or a private system (IE banking system see: derivative trading) regulation and/or management needs to be a large part of it. But to just wipe all unions and their members with this huge brush and advocate their complete and utter destruction is irrational.

Many things bankrupted California. You can not say it was just the civil service. California has an addiction to putting people in jail. Corrections Corporation of America has raped the state. In three years the cost of contracts to CCoA went from 23 million to over 700 million dollars! Thats a lot fo money, but what about the cost of the lost opportunity? The cost of all those potential tax payers sitting in a concrete box, the VAST maority of which are there for non-violent canabis related crimes. The VAST majority of which previously had day jobs and paid their taxes. When they get released into a society in recession do you think they will find a job with a criminal record? They are forced into crime......again.

Add that to the same problems with an un-regulated, predatory banking and mortgage system that actually bets on your failure and the many other issues that have come to light since 2008 and the issues you mention and it becomes pretty clear why Cali is fucked.

But your convinced its the janitors and members of the Highway Patrol's fault..........

And, the largest lobbying group against Prop. 215 (medical marijuana) was the California Correctional Officers Union.

And, just to clarify, I don't hold any grudges against the rank and file public employee union members. Most are just hard working people who do not have a choice about joining the unions or paying the dues. Nor do they have a choice as to where their dues go or what political agenda the unions support with those dues. My main gripe about public employee unions is that they have rigged the system and as a result they have screwed the private sector. What else can you think when considering that the state of California is over 550 BILLION dollars upside down in the union retirement funds. And their solution? To raise taxes once again.

 

[PeachOibleBoiblePeach#1]

All People have a say...^^^ There are public and Private union's..Why go after one instead of the other? Who side ya' on?
.

 

[Charlie Ventura]

All People have a say...^^^ There are public and Private union's..Why go after one instead of the other? Who side ya' on?
.

I'm on the side of liberty. Creating a 550 BILLION dollar deficit in public employee union retirement programs, then using the gun of government to extract those funds from the private sector in the form of increased taxes, is not liberty, its indentured servitude. The politicians have made promises to the unions that cannot be kept in exchange for votes. Sorry, let the unions and politicians dig their own way out of this ditch.

 

[PeachOibleBoiblePeach#1]

I'm on the side of liberty. Creating a 550 BILLION dollar deficit in public employee union retirement programs, then using the gun of government to extract those funds from the private sector in the form of increased taxes, is not liberty, its indentured servitude. The politicians have made promises to the unions that cannot be kept in exchange for votes. Sorry, let the unions and politicians dig their own way out of this ditch.

We will,,,and the task may not be be easy...You running or hidding?

 

[Charlie Ventura]

We will,,,and the task may not be be easy...You running or hidding?

Neither. I'm just sitting back enjoying the unfolding collapse of the Progressive Welfare State.

 

[NoDrama]

There is nothing wrong with unions as long as you have the money to pay for them. Since NAFTA and the WTO now permit near free trade with other countries, we no longer have the money to support Unionization. All Corporations are essentially run by the stock holders. Stock holders demand performance at least equal to dollar devaluation, therefore all corporations do whatever is necessary to show a profit, and that means less unions, more overseas involvement. Until we destroy most other countries industrial strength, we are doomed to mediocrity at best.

 

[redivider]

the working class must not let the rich, with their lawyers and communications experts, convince us that we're the issue b/c we like decent wages and safe work conditions. all they want is another big house, another $30,000 watch...

people on here don't seem to understand that what made america great was the large middle class.... not the tyranical plutocracy we have now.

 

[mame]

There is nothing wrong with unions as long as you have the money to pay for them. Since NAFTA and the WTO now permit near free trade with other countries, we no longer have the money to support Unionization. All Corporations are essentially run by the stock holders. Stock holders demand performance at least equal to dollar devaluation, therefore all corporations do whatever is necessary to show a profit, and that means less unions, more overseas involvement. Until we destroy most other countries industrial strength, we are doomed to mediocrity at best.

Not entirely true IMO. It's true that there is too much global competition to be able to afford to unionize everything but with jobs that can't be outsourced like in the feilds of medicine, education, construction, retail, etc. we can absolutely afford to have them unionized. These jobs aren't going anywhere. No one(with any ounce of realism) is arguing that we make Nike close it's sweatshops and have 'em open unionized shops in the U.S.... Their shoes would at the very least triple in price (conservative estimate, damn shoes would be spendy!).

Right to work states are the real problem here IMO. They obviously incentivize manufactorers (like the boeing example w/ WA and SC) to move from one state to another for cheaper labor... but at what cost? Sure, SC gets some new jobs but Washington lost just as many in the process... and Washingtonians would've been payed better too. We all know that most Americans have seen almost no economic gains in the last half century - why would we want this extra downward pressure on wages? It doesn't create any jobs in one state without another first losing them...

And as far as investors demanding performance - just like with exorbitant CEO pay, fair(for both sides) union representation (entailing fair pay, benefits and conditions) wouldn't cut too far into profit margins - there are plenty of competitive unionized companies after all. My favorite grocery store Fred Meyer, for example, is unionized (and so is Safeway if I remember right)... and they have no problem even in the hypercompetitive market they do business in.

 

[jeff f]

Not entirely true IMO. It's true that there is too much global competition to be able to afford to unionize everything but with jobs that can't be outsourced like in the feilds of medicine, education, construction, retail, etc. we can absolutely afford to have them unionized. These jobs aren't going anywhere. No one(with any ounce of realism) is arguing that we make Nike close it's sweatshops and have 'em open unionized shops in the U.S.... Their shoes would at the very least triple in price (conservative estimate, damn shoes would be spendy!).

Right to work states are the real problem here IMO. They obviously incentivize manufactorers (like the boeing example w/ WA and SC) to move from one state to another for cheaper labor... but at what cost? Sure, SC gets some new jobs but Washington lost just as many in the process... and Washingtonians would've been payed better too. We all know that most Americans have seen almost no economic gains in the last half century - why would we want this extra downward pressure on wages? It doesn't create any jobs in one state without another first losing them...

And as far as investors demanding performance - just like with exorbitant CEO pay, fair(for both sides) union representation (entailing fair pay, benefits and conditions) wouldn't cut too far into profit margins - there are plenty of competitive unionized companies after all. My favorite grocery store Fred Meyer, for example, is unionized (and so is Safeway if I remember right)... and they have no problem even in the hypercompetitive market they do business in.

wow are you clueless. have you been to a construction site in the last hundred years? can we say illegals, all at once now, illegals

plenty of profitable union companies....dont blink

 

[londonfog]

wow are you clueless. have you been to a construction site in the last hundred years? can we say illegals, all at once now, illegals

"right to work" states have that problem big time...cheap labor turns the blind eye...

 

[jeff f]

Not entirely true IMO. It's true that there is too much global competition to be able to afford to unionize everything but with jobs that can't be outsourced like in the feilds of medicine, education, construction, retail, etc. we can absolutely afford to have them unionized. These jobs aren't going anywhere. No one(with any ounce of realism) is arguing that we make Nike close it's sweatshops and have 'em open unionized shops in the U.S.... Their shoes would at the very least triple in price (conservative estimate, damn shoes would be spendy!).

Right to work states are the real problem here IMO. They obviously incentivize manufactorers (like the boeing example w/ WA and SC) to move from one state to another for cheaper labor... but at what cost? Sure, SC gets some new jobs but Washington lost just as many in the process... and Washingtonians would've been payed better too. We all know that most Americans have seen almost no economic gains in the last half century - why would we want this extra downward pressure on wages? It doesn't create any jobs in one state without another first losing them...

And as far as investors demanding performance - just like with exorbitant CEO pay, fair(for both sides) union representation (entailing fair pay, benefits and conditions) wouldn't cut too far into profit margins - there are plenty of competitive unionized companies after all. My favorite grocery store Fred Meyer, for example, is unionized (and so is Safeway if I remember right)... and they have no problem even in the hypercompetitive market they do business in.

how many jobs would have been lost if they went bankrupt? that was another option. never knew you were so communistic in your politics. hmmm

 

[jeff f]

"right to work" states have that problem big time...cheap labor turns the blind eye...

i do believe if you go to safety records, union shops are more unsafe than non union, i have read it but will try to get a link. and as i remember, they tend to stay out of work for longer periods of time. you aint gonna pound sand up my ass how good unions are. keep in mind, the only union i dont support are the publlic sector unions. they should be made illegal.

 

[londonfog]

i do believe if you go to safety records, union shops are more unsafe than non union, i have read it but will try to get a link. and as i remember, they tend to stay out of work for longer periods of time. you aint gonna pound sand up my ass how good unions are. keep in mind, the only union i dont support are the publlic sector unions. they should be made illegal.

Now you know I love links.... please show me that one