What would happen if labor unions went on strike for something different, not just better wages and benefits, but for better products to produce? What if the UAW went on strike to demand that GM and Ford produce electric cars?
I'd support a union like that, and a company that listened! Then maybe I wouldn't have to buy a Toyota!

The crimminals that call for strikes and instruct the union robots are not interested in producing a better car.

It's da money.

Considering it's the incompetents running GM and Ford driving their companies broke with lousy products, just whom does the criminal behavior rest upon? If we had laws to cover their actions, the stockholders could sue them for negligence and mis-use of the compnies money.

It's all about the money alright. Called appropriation of stockholder value for non-performance.

If anything, unions ought to strike for a replacement of the CEO's and Boards of Directors. They are inept fools.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

A union's first duty is to act in the interests of its constituents, typically the member workers.

If these objectives are in the interest of the membership (and an argument can be made this is the case), then I'm OK with it. I guess would be determined by the membership. And don't give me that "why should members be coerced to have their union dues used for something that they don't agree with" crap. Unions are democratic organizations. Individuals are free to resign from a union that doesn't represent them.

quote:

Originally posted by artlo:
A union's first duty is to act in the interests of its constituents, typically the member workers.

If these objectives are in the interest of the membership (and an argument can be made this is the case), then I'm OK with it. I guess would be determined by the membership. And don't give me that "why should members be coerced to have their union dues used for something that they don't agree with" crap. Unions are democratic organizations. Individuals are free to resign from a union that doesn't represent them.

They are also free to elect new leadership.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

Lucy Anne,

But that's not how a union works. The union works off of the injustice of capitalism in that CEO and Board trickle down pee pee effect.

Unions are about leveraging value for the commodity of "humans" to do skilled labor. Don't you think it interesting that unionization only pops up in the labor industry and not in office jobs?

Dilbert just isn't ever going to be a union guy because Dilbert still believes he has somewhere else to go with his skill set and cubical performance power.

However, on the floor of manufacturing this isn't so even in aerospace technology.

Listen, the company my husband works for, owner, and sales people all get paid high salaries and commissions regardless if he puts out a good part or not. Granted, they loose government contracts which are the bread and butter of the industry because we are in a military complex time and not innovation as we saw formerly. You'd think in this day that a worker that is efficient and accurate in their work that saves production time and increases profit from the bid would be valued and incentive or reward be given.

That's not how it works because unlike in Japan where Toyota wants to out do itself from the floor up... there are old fart egos involved in American companies.

Just do it the way we tell you, the way its always been done and quit trying to improve upon what we already deem perfect. If we tell you to do something and it costs more money or turns the deal upside down... we simply blame the manufacturing floor. It doesn't have to make sense... it simply works for the owner and his buddies to justify being in power even if miserable managers and owners. Better yet, when the company is hemoraging money from these salaries and paid commissions regardless of competence they simply lay off a subordinate on the manufacturing floor. They simply have a "meeting" telling these people to be happy to have a job that pays marginally well with clean working conditions. They should be happy that the owner pays their social security and they should swallow any time a manager lies directly in the face of a subordinate in order to keep their job or ego at the cost of making money or any added information a worker could have contributed to help the company.

The tolerant worker is one that cannot afford to loose the health coverage for any amount of time or is paid marginally better within $5/hour that makes moving to another company a moot point (if there is even any others with openings to move to.) The industry is non-competitive. The only standing difference is how well applicants can lie on resumes. The worst the stress conditions the longer dead weight will be tolerated on the manufacturing floor and the less people of skill will apply to work for that company. It's a downward spiral that manages to continue limping along with "tax breaks" because all these schmucks are making in excess more than the floor. The promise is trickle pee pee effect on the floor. If you give those making over $150,000 more of their money back they will reinvest in the company or buy more product "WE" are manufacturing. But, as we all know that's a load of poop. The smallest benefactor of this reverse reward for non-performance screws the people the most and worst that are making the money off the company he's bilking from. Representative governing is about getting his wishes... not the marginalized middle class or poor.

That's the common denominator of bilking wither private or public company. You can be replaced even if by someone less knowledgeable because clients will simply continue to outsource.

According to government contract the U.S. is supposed to use it's own raw steel materials for contracts. To date there are only 2 large steel manufacturing plants in operation. Any guess on the monopoly of the last man standing or when it outsources altogether to China's growing raw materials and manufacturing industry with slave labor?

Capitalism can't compete on different playing levels of humane working conditions or slave pay. Yet, here is where the outsourcing comes into play in that infamous book The World Is Flat.

Unions hamper regulation on behalf of the people it hurts the most. This is why the teacher's union is so counterproductive to actually improving education for students. Eduational salaries are improved, working conditions are marginally improved in selective worst conditions. However, across the nation the teacher's union directly interferes with the localized democratic process of accountability to the student and parent representing student learning, conditions and innovations.

The best we can afford to parents because of continued lobbying of the largest union nationally to undermine public policy to give freedom of choice to parents and students directly is a lottery system as the private sector opens small oasises of innovation. These private openings only affect hunreths of percentiles of students and families achieving success. Meanwhile, we have generations of people in decline on their education while being promised they will have work when they graduate or and industry to work in after college.

Statistically we have MORE people going to college however what isn't emphasize... is we have an unprecidented amount of people with degrees working outside their chosen career and multiple jobs to support paying off the loan or loans not being paid back because a person isn't making a wage commensurate with the loan they take to further their eduation.

They guise this as "more likely" to get a job in various industry or careers but they are not informating citizens that the marginal amount being made over the LIFETIME of the student is at a livealbe wage and ratio to pay back the loan.

I'd love to support unions but ever since we heard of a union guy that slept on the job while the union organized and strong armed for more per hour wage and benefits. He had "no problem" with this to the point the industry went under from all the bilking and inability to fire his ass. Further, the union saught a tax subsidy to "retrain" this asshole as some right because he couldn't adjust his own education with all the money he was making while sleeping on the job which by any date and standard was a large sum per year. The guy was a real prick to live with while my husband was going to school in Pittsburg working full-time nights cleaning offices or attending a gas station and full-time school so he could get a trade skill set to put food on our table and pay a mortgage and a car payment. My husband was declared by the public school system and those unionized teacher's as learning disabled because a mathematics and scientific boy brain isn't tolerated. Public education and lacking recourse caused for him to spend hours doing an English assignment only to have negative points when he was done and a higher grade if he simply took a zero instead of trying to attempt the assignment. His farming based family who had not had someone go to college didn't know how to advocate, supplement or help him realize he was extremely smart nor find a way for him to go to college. (But he did meet and marry a very smart woman who often gives the middle finger to these vocal teachers of incompetence causing the demize of youth inspiration to learn.)

My ass laughs hysterically at all these baby boomers that ask if the "company" gives out bonuses or raises, picnics, you name it. I simply shrill with their self-absorbed reality when they come from California thinking they are going to find the same thing in Idaho where the average wage is $11/hour behind for a family "owning" a mortgage on a home. And yet we are considered the 3rd fastest growing community nationally. If this is growth in the USA then people... we're screwed!

Having moved from the extremes in Cleveland where the worst public educational system exists alongside the 3 most affluenct suburban communities in the country. Pepper Pike, Hudson etc. and many more that didn't make the list on the net search that could buy and sell your great-parents a thousand times over. Integrity in work quality, conditions or doing business is a "relative" term based on factors that have nothing to do with ethics or morals. These people go to their Christian churches and pray to their god for MORE prosperity while gladly and willingly screwing the people around them so that junior can shop at Ambercrombie while influencing cd sales of rap artists demeaning women and cultural debased influences. These are the people that don't give a shit if a Mexican hopping over a fence bothers them other than to be taxed for welfare. Oh, god do they go on about unions that cause them to pay more wages and benefits. Do they ever gripe about declining profits while riding around in their Ford Excursion... and don't you dare take away their gas hog... that's the American luxury way to prove how much American's are better because they can afford to pay the gas guzzling bill.

These people either own, get dividends off of companies or work or get pensions from these companies that infringe on patents, deregulate and hold up recourse in court with their high paid attorneys. These are the people that think they pay the rest of us enough in taxes and that we are not working hard enough or smart enough.

They are my family... god love em' because I don't.

Trisha

Much of what you say is true, some I disagree with, some irrelevant. Your posting was too long to attend to in totality and your verbage was hard to understand .

quote:

Unions hamper regulation on behalf of the people it hurts the most. This is why the teacher's union is so counterproductive to actually improving education for students.

This may have some validity, but it is not the job of the labor representative to improve the product of the business. Improving the product or the service is the job of management, and management in public education faces competitive factors that are very unfair. Of course a business that operates with slave labor can out-perform a unionized business on price. It cannot do so where skilled labor is involved unless it can escape being saddled with the unfair mandate of universal service.

Your comments about the Teachers Unions is way out of line, and speaks to your lack of familiarity with the public school system. The Teacher's unions have done nothing different than any other union has done, ensuring that its members enjoy a livelihood befitting any other highly skilled, trained professional. The fact is that the public simply doesn't want to pay for the expense that it incurred when it created millions of little people who need to be properly educate.

It has been said that "there is no such thing as a free puppy". Make a baby and you are committed to 18 or 22 years of a very expensive training period. You're going to pay, whether with a personal check to a private academy or through your taxes. The only fault of the public education system is that people expect it to be free. Welcome to reality.

I've been in a union when I once worked for a railroad. It was like two battle lines. One the labor force...the other the company. It needn't have been that way, but it was. Hostility coming from management was evident, and was the first time I'd ever experienced this in employment.

Had corporate management been reasonably "fair" in the first place, unions never would have developed! Working 12 hours a day6 days a week and 1/2 day on Sunday was not a good thing.
Needing to send a 7 year old kid into mines and garment factories so a family could earn enough for food and shelter was not a good thing.

Employers brought unions upon themselves.

Not paying teachers a living wage after 4 years of college education was not a good thing.

If everything wasn't attempted to be done on the cheap to maximize profits and minimize taxes, there would be no unions.

Police have unions. I suppose by using the logic against teacher unions, the purpose of a police union would be to stifle the fight on crime.

A fire department union would be organized to put out less fires.

The logic against teacher's unions, when taken to its conclusions, makes just as much sense. It doesn't make any at all.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

Polycarp said:

quote:

Had corporate management been reasonably "fair" in the first place, unions never would have developed!

During the late '80s and through the '90s, countless computer software firms arose. There was so much money available that managers, with the best of intentions, were able to provide luxurious pay, benefits and working conditions for their employees. It was fun to go to work. Most of these workers held only 2 year Associate Degrees and basked in their good fortune. Basically, they said, "We don't need no stinkin' union." They were treated like professionals and they forgot that they were, in reality, no more than line workers. Some of us called them "dot-snots".

Inevitably, the competitive pressures that affect every other kind of business came into play, and life isn't quite so idyllic at many of these firms. (Workers at ESL, a software firm owned by Ross Perot, have to sign a letter of resignation that the manager can activate if the worker is caught violating a rule against having a beer at lunch). On one level, there is a certain amount of justice that they are paying for their hubris, but in the wider scope, they now need unions as much as any other workers.

The nature of a business guarantees that workers and management will necessarily compete for money, and it is only fair that they enjoy some degree of parity.

The conservative will say, "Management owns the business and its workers, and therefore has the right to dictate the terms of employment". No. Management does not OWN the workers. It merely RENTS them. Just as the owner of any other rental item has the right to dictate the terms of rental, the worker should have this same right. Because the two rights are in exact opposition to eachother, the parties should be negotiating terms on a level playing field.

That is why unions are necessary.

As a Shot Stewart I think I know something about Unions. As to the first suggestion, Walter Reiuter
of the UAW tried that in the late 40's early 50's Walter Reiuter is an unsung hero in American History. He was the one who supervised the transition from peace time to war time production
(Henry Ford was a Nazi Sympathizer and had no interest in war time production)
Sick Day, vacation days we owe Walter Reiuter a lot.
Unions need to reclaim their power Its been a hard fight. Actually I see hope with the emerging Hispanic Majority. They are pro union, pro benefits pro commitment and I prefer Salsa to keptchup and Los Lobos and Carlos Santana blows 9 Inch Nails away day of the week!

I beg to argue that companies no longer rent due to judicial case precidence (case law.)

Listen, as long as a judicial system supports screwing citizens for having a life outside the workforce that can be the cause for loosing a job then we are "owned" in some context.

We are owned while on the premises and during the hours of pay.

Our children are "owned" and without due process and rights while in school where they are can locked down and searched and seized without due process or representation.

While I don't think these things happen to the degree of radicalism to call it norm there is a context of paradox:

Fear to conform because of consequences and repercussions thus the ever present danger of police state or Orwellian visions dependent on enforcement or radical abuse.

Reasons given for radical views to hate or fear and attempt a bubble like living lifestyle and movement against public policy that affects security.

Listen, one of the things I hated seeing when "doing business" in the junior high was every afternoon a Boise police officer presence with full uniform and gun leering down the halls of what is supposed to be education.

I didn't like the notices of disclaimer in the halls of the elementary school my son went to about search and seizure policy.

Yet, if I want to use brick and mortar public education these are things I am resigned to have to deal with. The high school my daughter will be going to next year has drug dogs come in the parking lot. If the car isn't locked (and even if it is that's a minor point to get around) they "find" the offending item and the student is on the way to assumptive juvy hall.

Granted, sometimes I wish we'd force more regulation because of stupid dork stuff. For instance, my husband's work doesn't do drug testing. Why? Because a KNOWN offender works night shift. Of course, he's gotten so blatent about his use... using drill bits to clean out his pot pipes and leaving the offending evidence on the drill bits! However, the company has no intention of disciplinary act.

We are also suspect of a middle manager doing cocaine. The same middle manager that has only ever worked at this company and long standing friend to the owner who both got kicked out of a better company for shoddy management.

There's a lot of stuff going on in the world.


A beautiful woman police officer must think of a career decision if posing in the nude because it will have societal repercussions.

I'm not saying its right or good or we can't do better ...

It's there.