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What is this?
Republicans seek to break U.S. labor
Published Friday, November 21, 2008
You might not be a supporter of all things that begin with the word “Bailout.” Most people are not.
But after a decade of fictional rules that let the American banking industry become a bigger gamble than Vegas, that house of cards fell not only on us, but around the planet. And now we are stuck dealing with the ripples of that continuing fiasco.
Keep in mind what happened with the financial industry. While creating exciting new ways to avoid and ignore regulation and lend money for kids to buy cap guns with no down payment, the leaders of that industry, which produces nothing, filled their pockets, their hands, their shoes and their briefcases with your money before calling for help. And help came.
Henry Paulson, the Bush administration Treasury secretary told Congress if it only would advance Treasury a mere $700 billion he would see to it that regular people would be able to avoid losing their homes to foreclosure.
This week Mr. Paulson reported that he had not done as he promised. In fact, he had done absolutely nothing to save homeowners from foreclosure … but he was thinking about it a lot. Great.
Now Mr. Paulson wants to hurt American families just a little bit more, by his refusal to allow help to our troubled auto industry. And in his efforts he has the full support of his party, the Republican Party, which opposes all things for the middle class in America.
Now let’s acknowledge that the Big Three auto CEOs are not so much likeable representatives of their industry. They ride into Washington begging for help in private jets, they make salaries and bonuses that should embarrass them and do embarrass us. When asked if he would consider reducing his salary to $1 while getting federal help, Ford CEO Alan Mulally said “I think I’m OK where I am.” Mr. Mulally’s compensation is $21.7 million. Not a very lovable beggar.
But the auto industry did not create all their problems. They are the only producers of cars that pay the burden of insurance for their employees, which adds about 35 percent cost to the average auto worker. In every other auto producing nation, the state pays those costs. Nor are the auto companies responsible for the current lack of available credit to buy cars. That distinction goes to the financial industry collapse. Nor are the auto companies responsible for our weak economy that is killing sales in all consumer products.
In short, our auto industry, which actually produces products and employs lot of American workers, deserves help right now whether we like or hate bail-outs. But Paulson and the Bush administration, with the help of Republican Sen. Bond want to trick the American people into believing they will help the industry, while actually standing aside and hoping GM goes bankrupt.
You see, if the Republicans can allow GM to fall into bankruptcy, then all the labor contracts are voided and all the pension commitments denied. The federal government will pick up the pension plans after cutting those benefits by as much as 70 percent.
Workers, well, their chance at a living wage must fall for the GOP to be happy, so they would have to accept non-union wages and benefits.
So the trick is that Paulson, Bond and Bush support “expediting” the existing $25 billion set aside for the auto industry, money restricted to new product development. They want to claim that by pushing money the industry can’t spend right now on survival, they are saving the industry, all the while pushing it to bankruptcy.
All simply to destroy American labor.
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Jim Crawford in a contributing columnist for The Tribune and is a former educator at OU Southern.
Comments
Posted by Vil (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 12:35 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by rpmcestmoi (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 1:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The Republicans are indeed trying to break the unions, have been since Reagan and the air controllers...actually since they sent out troops to shoot miners in the last century. They want Detroit to fail and then have a consolidation without union involvement. Leaving more fat for the pigs who make $20,000 private air flights to Washington with their begging cups.
I say rescue the industry because there are so many workers in and out of the industry who will lose jobs. That means the woman who serves coffee at the diner in an auto dependent city. Everybody will be harmed.
Ironically, in 2010 new rules kick in that will change the deal for new workers, allowing for more competitiveness with the Japanese makers in the US. That's a deal the unions agreed to. But make a deal that NOTHING can be built that gets less than 30 mpg. NOTHING. And that salary caps and no bonuses for executives.
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 1:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Hey Jim... lets not forget the "job pool" where the Detroit News documented that because of a union contract, there were over 12,000 union employees who were getting paid just to play cards and watch movies. One guy hadn't worked for over 6 years but he was still getting paid $31/hr.
The union is like a dinosaur. If it can't evolve and adapt, it should be allowed to die off. Of course Obama and democrats will help the auto industry, the unions donated over $400 million dollars to democrats.
Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 1:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Jim, you're right about the republican "leadership". But I disagree on the bailout. In its present form at least. If the car companies are in the dire straights they profess, the $25B would only keep them afloat til around inauguration day. They may be planning on appealing to Obama for even MORE money.
Without a plan to show HOW the money can help turn the automakers around, the automakers are SOL in my book.
Let them enter chapter 11; reorganize; design "green" cars that are really fuel efficient.
THEN they can not only be competitive, but world-leading.
One thing is for sure. SOMEone is going to design a fuel efficient car soon. I hope its Detroit.
And no, the unions are NOT at fault here. They negotiated their contracts in good faith. NO one except the d.c. and wall street elite saw this coming. The unions got a small sliver of a gigantic operating expense. And THEY don't get private jets or $21.7B salaries.
Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 1:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Coco-nut, YOU get paid to post while on the job. Oh, I forgot. You're superior (EXTREME sarcasm).
Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 1:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Of COURSE the republicans are p.o.'d at detroit. They didn't accept McBush's double-talk express.
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 4:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
MasterNut: ..."And no, the unions are NOT at fault here. They negotiated their contracts in good faith. NO one except the d.c. and wall street elite saw this coming. The unions got a small sliver of a gigantic operating expense. And THEY don't get private jets or $21.7B salaries."
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They might have negotiated in good faith but now the car makers can't survive while paying people not to work. And your wrong (as usual)... the CEO's don't get $21.7 billion in salaries. $21.7 million would be closer to the truth. Here's what the Detroit News says:
http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider...
Jobs bank programs -- 12,000 paid not to work
Big 3 and suppliers pay billions to keep downsized UAW members on payroll in decades-long deal.
...The jobs bank programs were the price the industry paid in the 1980s to win UAW support for controversial efforts to boost productivity through increased automation and more flexible manufacturing.
..."It's an albatross around their necks," said Steven Szakaly, an economist with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. "It's a huge number of workers doing nothing. That has a very large effect on their future earnings outlook."
...The result was a plan to guarantee pay and benefits for union members whose jobs fell victim to technological progress or plant restructurings.
Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 4:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
My bad on the compensation...a simple typo. Ford President gets $21.7 MILLION dollars. Thats just HIS take.
Whatever the unions negotiated they are entitled to. If Ford didn't have the brains to include a "catastrophy clause", they definitely need new leadership.
What would you do without unions and liberals to blame?
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 5:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Are they entitled to it MasterChef if they cause the industry to fail?
This just out...
http://www.freep.com/article/20081120/BU...
UAW may give up jobs bank to revive auto loans
The UAW is negotiating the possible elimination of its controversial jobs bank and is considering other concessions to help Detroit's automakers win low-cost loans from Congress, people familiar with negotiations said late Thursday.
Union officers from several locals said they did not know if the concession had been made but expected the jobs bank to be ended as part of a package of shared sacrifice when the automakers and UAW President Ron Gettelfinger return to Congress early next month. The jobs bank pays laid-off workers, sometimes for years...
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 5:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)
MasterChef: If Ford didn't have the brains to include a "catastrophy clause", they definitely need new leadership.
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Well, since I don't know of a single union that has that in it, this sounds like something that you just made up.
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 6 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 4:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What would you do without unions and liberals to blame?
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I could be like Alison who blames everything on Bush and republicans.
Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 6:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
You already blame everything on Bill Clinton, Obama, Liberals and now Unions. What, no union at the uranium place?
A catastrophy clause is normal. As, if the plant is destroyed by fire or acts of god, they wouldn't have to pay. If the company signed a "now-and-forever-contract" the shareholders should clean the board.
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 6:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yes MasterChef, we have a union at my workplace and I'm a union member. That doesn't mean that I think unions should cause a company to go bankrupt when it is in trouble. And since the palnts haven't been destroyed by a fire or "act of God", why would a catastrophy clause be applicable? All the company has to do is go bankrupt and the union contract would be null and void.
Posted by keta (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 8:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think we should bail them out, if only to prevent us from shutting ourselves out of yet another market. For heaven's sake, all our televisions and other electronics and most of our cars are made by foreign companies. We can do better than this. How can a country that doesn't make anything - a country that has become the mouth of the world, consuming everything and producing nothing - continue to lead? Bail them out and fire all the executives. Replace them with people who care about the product, not the stock price. The current executives failed regarding both. Yesterday, you could buy a share of the Ford Motor Company for $1.79, and a share of General Motors for $2.76.
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 8:58 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Keta, it doesn't matter who the executives are if the unions are bleeding them dry. The foreign companies that make cars in the U.S. don't have unions and they are doing OK. The big three pay union workers $72/hr when benefits are included. The foriegn companies only pay about $42/hr.
Posted by keta (anonymous) on November 21, 2008 at 10:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Noesis, it matters a great deal who the executives are. They are a club. They are business school graduates who command multi- million dollar salaries to run corporations. It doesn't matter to them what the corporations have to sell: cars, pharmaceuticals, computers, whatever. They care about stock prices and perks and bonuses, not building the car of the future. I'm sure there are people at Ford and GM on an assembly line who'd do a better job running their companies than these guys, because they want to make something they can be proud of. The perception that Americans can't make things should be pushed against, hard.
Every one of us who has a pension plan or health insurance or a paid vacation every year can thank a union. Even if you're not a member of a union, your employer offers those things because union workers have them.
Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on November 22, 2008 at 3:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Coco-nut doesn't have to worry, keta. He has a good union job at the atomic plant. I bet his attitude towards union workers would change if the government was talking about closing that facility.
We know coco-nut gets paid by the hour to sit and post on the Tribune's website. I don't see much difference between him and the detroit car employees.
The problems at the BIG THREE are not union-related. Its because Detroit continues to attempt to cram the big gas guzzlers down our throats. Even those who WANT them can't get credit to buy them.
If Detroit d/c'd all their models that weren't moving, came out with a much smaller, fuel efficient car designed for the commuter they'd sell like hotcakes. There's no need for a 5-6 passenger car heading "downtown" carrying only the driver. I think a street-legal down-sized golf-cart or a "Herbie-the-parking-ticket-scooter-guy" 3-wheeler would be a big seller. Most people don't need a car that can go 85mph or more to get them to work.
keta, you're right about the executives. Big $'s are their ONLY concern. From design to marketing they do a lousy job.
I think its better to let Detroit enter chapter 11. It'll force them to get lean and hungry.
About the non-union manufacturers coco-nut refers to.... they're NOT doing so well. Japan for instance is pumping BILLIONS into their US plants.
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 22, 2008 at 7:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Keta, when you have a capitalistic society like ours, you get paid to produce. That's why stock numbers are so important. CEO's who get the big bucks are the ones who usually worked at theirs or other companies and had good results. A lot of them are people who did rise up through the ranks. I know that a lot of our top executives in our company are one who have been in our company for many years. They started at the bottom and moved their way up the ladder.
What, do you think that these CEO's just magically appeared out of thin air?
It was Henry Ford who doubled automotive workers pay before there even was unions.
I'm not totally against unions. Some companies need to have unions in them. My big problem with unions is that when companies incorporate technology that reduce the number of workers needed, unions don't want the people that the technology made redundant let go. For example, say that you had a plant that made jam. When you started off, you had a 100 workers. You made enough money to buy automated equipment that allowed you to double your output with 30 less workers. You found jobs in your plant for 10 of the workers due to the increased capacity but what should you do with the other 20? If you had a union, they would want you to pay them to sit around until they retired.
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 22, 2008 at 7:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Posted by MasterNut: "About the non-union manufacturers coco-nut refers to.... they're NOT doing so well. Japan for instance is pumping BILLIONS into their US plants."
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Care to back up your baseless rhetoric with some facts MN? Nah, I didn't think so, you're just making stuff up again.
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 22, 2008 at 8:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Hey Keta, why can't the union workers at the big three make cars faster than the non-union employees at the Toyota, Nissan and Honda American plants?:
Nissan's North American plants were judged the most efficient overall, although two of its Mexican plants were not included in the ranking. Harbour estimated Nissan required 18.93 work hours per vehicle for its overall production, although that was 3.5 percent longer than its 2004 estimate.
Toyota and Honda were almost tied for next most efficient, with Toyota's North American plants taking 21.33 hours and Honda taking 21.43 hours.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/01/news/com...
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 22, 2008 at 8:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
the places with foreign auto plants, like Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, etc. - are right to work states. That means while unions are free to recruit, they cannot pressure people to join. Apparently very few people, if any, at the Toyota, Honda, etc., plants have joined unions. The management at those places interacts more with workers, are more competent and more willing to include workers in the decision making process, and also, I don't think they have the reputation for corporate excess - executive perks - that the ones in Detroit do. Because the unions are not in control, the salaries for workers are lower, but that also provides job security, since Toyota, Nissan, etc., can more competitively price their cars. A car in Detroit costs $2000 more because of the additional costs negotiated by the unions. http://www.answerology.com/index.aspx?te...
Posted by keta (anonymous) on November 22, 2008 at 9:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Noesis, you have tunnel vision. Open it up. The only reason American capitalism survived October and November is because it got a shot, a huge injection of hundreds of billions of dollars from the federal reserve. The more traditional way of "saving" capitalism is with a war, when hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are spent for weapons. What we think of as "capitalism" has morphed into an anything goes, win at all costs philosophy. Now we have corporations that are more powerful than governments. There's no such thing as the "free market". The government makes the rules markets operate under, or they're supposed to.
Whatever the Obama administration does to try to clean up the mess, there will doubtless be accusations of socialism and the end of life as we know it. This will signal that something is being done to benefit human beings, as opposed to corporations. This will be so foreign to us that we'll be terrified at first, but we'll probably settle down after a while. The worst thing Obama faces is a good thing, in a way: there is absolutely no doubt that what we've been doing doesn't work. It will be hard to scare Americans with propaganda about the danger of a new direction. We're already in big trouble.
Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on November 22, 2008 at 9:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
coco-nut, since your union behind sits around posting here, steal a little more time and read the newspapers.
Seems as though your company has its share of dead weight. Maybe you'll be next. Ha-Ha! LMAO
Posted by familyof6 (anonymous) on November 22, 2008 at 10:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
How Much do the Unions make?
Never been in one, but they have to have executives, too, don't they?
Posted by Slick77 (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 9:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)
MasterChef...Hopefully now that it is the official Holiday Season, you will find it in your heart to have "some" love and appreciation for Noesis. lol
I know for a fact that he works really hard and long hours. He rarely ever posts from work. Just give him a small break, some "Christmas Cheer"...:)
Have a good day!
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 9:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
MasterNut, since the Nuclear Plant operates 24/7, I work a lot of rotating shifts. So just because I post at 2 pm on a Tuesday, It doesn't mean that I'm at work.
And don't worry about my job MasterNut, our department is way understaffed with a bunch of people getting ready to retire in the next couple of years. And since nuclear plants are cheaper to operate than coal plants, we won't be shut down.
Family of 6: Detroit automakers typically make around $31/hr. I've heard the new contract lowers that number for new hires.
The Ohio Toll Road Collectors which are in a union went on strike a couple years ago... They were getting paid around $21/hr and went on strike to make more money... This is a situation which shows how out of control unions can be... $21/hr for a glorified cashier and they want more money?
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 10:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Keta, you're the one with tunnel vision. This "free market" collapse was caused by banks being forced to make loans to people who had bad credit and low income.
And socialism is bad. Take "Free Health Care". Even in Canada and England, private clinics are springing up all over the place. Why is that? Maybe because when the government gets its hands into something, they screw it up. Here's what they are saying in England:
Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.
Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1...
Here's an article about an American who wife sufford a stoke in England: ...When I covered Latin America for The Wall Street Journal, I'd visit hospitals, prisons and schools as barometers of public services in the country. Based on my Latin American scale, Queen's Square (one of Englands top rated hospitals) would rate somewhere in the middle. It certainly wasn't as bad as public hospitals in El Salvador, where patients often share beds. But it wasn't as nice as some of the hospitals I've seen in Buenos Aires or southern Brazil. And compared with virtually any hospital ward in the U.S., Queen's Square would fall short by a mile.
The equipment wasn't ancient, but it was often quite old. On occasion my wife and I would giggle at heart and blood-pressure monitors that were literally taped together and would come apart as they were being moved into place. The nurses and hospital technicians had become expert at jerry-rigging temporary fixes for a lot of the damaged equipment. I pitched in as best as I could with simple things, like fixing the wiring for the one TV in the ward. And I'd make frequent trips to the local pharmacies to buy extra tissues and cleaning wipes, which were always in short supply.
In fact, cleaning was my main occupation for the month we were at Queen's Square. Infections in hospitals are, of course, a problem everywhere. But in Britain, hospital-borne infections are getting out of control. At least 100,000 British patients a year are hit by hospital-acquired infections, including the penicillin-resistant "superbug" MRSA. A new study carried out by the British Health Protection Agency says that MRSA plays a part in the deaths of up to 32,000 patients every year. But even at lower numbers, Britain has the worst MRSA infection rates in Europe. It's not hard to see why. http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=...
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 10:47 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Yes MasterChef I have said that. My job is to answer alarms and if there are no alarms to answer and I can't leave the room... what do you care?
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 10:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Posted by familyof6 (anonymous) on November 22, 2008 at 10:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
How Much do the Unions make?
Never been in one, but they have to have executives, too, don't they?
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Yes they do... I believe the top paid union President is John Niccollai who's salary as president of local 464 is $680,000.00
Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 10:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
MasterChef: "About the non-union manufacturers coco-nut refers to.... they're NOT doing so well. Japan for instance is pumping BILLIONS into their US plants.
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I'm still waiting for some proof MC...
Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 11:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm not going back through a week's worth of articles to "prove" my point. If its such a big deal, you can search it while stealing time from your employer.
Posted by AlisonMiller (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 2:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"I could be like Alison who blames everything on Bush and republicans."
Noesis---such a loser comment.
I've never blamed everything on all republicans. You're nothing but a bored troll.
Posted by AlisonMiller (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 2:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Why was my name even brought up on this forum? Freaking jerk.
Posted by AlisonMiller (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 3 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The discussion about the actual hourly pay for union workers is moot. There is a HUGE difference between the life of a CEO and a worker on an assembly line, no matter what they are being paid per hour.
The CEO can go CEO elsewhere, but some places have folks that even drop out of school to work their local area's union job--this is the way of life for these people and they expect to do it their entire lives. I would go nuts, but there you go.
This behavior has been supported by the companies that need them, and an American public that is distrustful of higher education and those nasty "liberal" college learnin' folks.
The days of going straight to work after high school are over. If anybody leaves school without at least doing a one or two year program at the vocational school, they are insane and delusional.
Posted by keta (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 4:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Oh, Noesis. There you go again. The market collapse was caused by those darned poor people, ruining everything for the rest of us. And guaranteed health care is socialism, and socialism is bad. For one thing, it isn't socialized health care we're talking about - it's socialized insurance. It's amazing that you're not all riled up about the socialization of the huge financial losses of the corporations that stole our savings, but a program where everybody gets affordable health care makes your veins pop out. And as for the quality of that health care, did you ever notice the reaction in countries that have national health care when citizens are threatened with losing it? They'll never go back to the system we have now. That would be going backward, you see.
Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on November 23, 2008 at 9:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
sonoie's dept. is way understaffed but he has time to chastise everybody.
Posted by SteveLeach (anonymous) on November 24, 2008 at 1:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Are we back to the blame game again I thought that crap ended after the election, remember this is supposed to be a fresh start according to the obama supporters. There is enough blame to go around to both parties no matter what somebody like jim crawford says, he will never blame a democrat for anything and yet he spews his crap just the same. The whole govt let us down and all in congress and senate and white house took care of themselves instead of what was right for the people that put them there. So as long as we allow this group of lifers to be in charge well I guess we are getting what we deserve, nothing will change until we elect more new blood in govt that will actually give a damn about us and not padding their own pockets, me for one and sick of the whole lot of them!
Posted by cashmere (anonymous) on November 24, 2008 at 8:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
When unions first came about, they wanted better work hours and better pay. Once that was improved, they turned to other benefits. Every time the union sits down at the negotiating table, they have to have something to ask for, to justify union dues. And management has to save things back to give them. It's an upward spiral...if you've ever read the fine print on union contracts, it's crazy! And at least where I work, when the union gets a wage increase, the salaried workers get the same increase. Management feels it has to stay above those rising wages, and so their perks and bonuses increase. Never mind if the profits are shrinking! It's nuts! I think the whole economy will have to go through a major overhaul, and the unions may have some 'splaining to do to the rank and file, but sorry. (and I'm a union member)
I dislike it, but I think to save what's left of manufacturing, the auto industry will have to be bailed out. I'm not sure if the leadership in Congress have the intelligence to oversee it, but maybe the new administration can rein in some of the nuts in there. With each crisis, Pelosi looks more like a deer in the headlights.
Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on November 24, 2008 at 8:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm not going to play the blame game with political parties. But to be the big, bad assembly line worker bankrupting the BIG 3, they'd have to make more than $120 and hour to top out of the "middleclass". A family of 4 making $10.73 an hour (or $21,700 annually) is right at the federal poverty line. Think about it. Around here, $10.73 sounds good to most people. And IF they can get it, they're STILL impoverished. My point is that it seems to take a union job to even have a hope of rising above poverty.
The Ford CEO makes more than ONE THOUSAND workers do at the poverty rate. And he has a private jet. We have car pools, at best.
Posted by cashmere (anonymous) on November 24, 2008 at 11:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
But workers in other nations making below $10/hour are upper middle class in some cases, based on the per capita income. I suppose that eventually, that salary evens out as incomes rise, and that nation's middle class begins to grow, but where will the U.S. be at that point?
Keeping labor costs down has been an issue since the birth of industry. I believe Karl Marx had a few things to say about the exploitation of labor. But then he also said socialism was inevitable.
Posted by cashmere (anonymous) on November 24, 2008 at 11:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)
And does Mr. Crawford really think that to "make the GOP happy", that workers' wages have to be destroyed? Look, Democrats won....now get on with it. I'm a Republican, and am not looking for the end of the world because the Demos are in charge. My, my!!
Posted by cashmere (anonymous) on November 25, 2008 at 6:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)
and one more thing on the subject of the column. It may come as a shock but there ARE Republicans in unions. Case in point: ME. I pay dues that are diverted into supporting Demo campaigns. Do you think I like it when I see placards at various rallies and conventions with my union label on it, supporting ideas and candidates I am at odds with? no, but I can cause more trouble in the tent.....:)
anyway, union and management, as adversarial as they like to seem publicly, have to work together, or they are going to kill the golden goose.
Posted by cashmere (anonymous) on November 25, 2008 at 9:18 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I read an article about how Tom Dashle, the expected Sec of HHS, though not a registered lobbyist, works for a lobbying firm. And his wife is high powered lobbyist and has worked for health related companies. How are they going to handle that, given their anti lobbyist promises? I have a feeling it's harder than Obama thinks to avoid lobbyists, or at least make them mind!
what I'm saying about the golden goose is that both sides need to realize that greed can destroy the company. Workers who demand more and more, and owners who demand more and more to stay ahead of workers or keep up with the other corporate salaries. My libertarian leanings make it hard for me to believe that government can make them all behave. It's like a surgeon, the wrong cut in a free market could either screw up the economy for years, or the right incision can get us on the right track. Congressional leaders have not impressed me as the right sort to hand the knives to!
Posted by Kieth (anonymous) on November 29, 2008 at 6:47 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Republicans seek to break U.S. labor
I think not, you can’t break something that’s been broke for a very long time. Labor in this country got broken the day the auto industry, and other industries
started letting the labor unions tell them how to run their business just to protect a lazy bunch of free loaders wanting something for nothing. Not all union workers are lazy free loaders, but there are just enough to bring down those that are willing to give a good eight hours work for eight hours pay. I have worked both union and non union; I would rather work non union any day, at least when a promotion opportunity comes I don’t have worry about how long I have been on the job or who’s a** I kissed in the union, all I have to worry about is qualifications. Unions at one time were a good thing, but any more there are labor laws to protect workers, so why would I want to give some union my money, and get nothing in return but so called job protection that I already have.
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