Communists in our midst

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

Ugg I hate unions...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/us/01cnd-port.html?hp

Like we need a strike to raise prices on goods anymore just so the union leadership can stroke themselves to some communist fantasy (notice the date of the strike).

Click to read more...

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

Unions trying to dictate politics.
That's hypocrisy at its finest.

There are union dues being spent here to influence politics, imagine the poor "little guys" who's dues are being wasted to support a political view they don't support. Perhaps though the union has been in power so long they have discriminated in hiring practices long enough that there are no conservatives left in American ports.

 

[Flipx99 5,000+ posts]

There is no law that says the people have to work. The whole office can walk off the job today.

 

[Flipx99 5,000+ posts]

And Unions here are very weak compared to our counterparts in Europe. You can think (or hate) Ronald Reagan for that after the Air Traffic Controllers tried to strike.

 

[Rmsanger 10+ year member]

I can't wait until every union is bust with the airlines and the automotive companies getting their backs broke...

My *** I'm gonna pay some lazy *** in detroit to work 45-50 hrs a week to assemble cars and make 80-100k...

most of these tools should be making $10-12 / hour tops.

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

And Unions here are very weak compared to our counterparts in Europe. You can think (or hate) Ronald Reagan for that after the Air Traffic Controllers tried to strike.

I know, it's a wonderful thing....

If I was ever a CEO and my office walked out I would fire the whole lot..... there is no law saying you must work but there is no law saying your job will be there when you get back.

 

[1991Brougham 10+ year member]

Funny thing is that when unions were at their strongest, America was at it's most prosperous. It used to be 65% of Americans could afford to buy a home. Benefits were good. The workers who have good income spend it and a flourishing middle class is what made the machine work.

Today the rich get richer, the percentage of Americans who can buy a house in the Western US is down into the teens percentage-wise, benefits are falling, real income is falling and then we get numbnuts who want to see the unions go away so we can further the decline? Jaysus H. Keerist!!! Wake the fvck up and remember where the American worker used to be in the good times and how hard the struggle was in the 1930's to make it so 20 years later that a worker could work an honest day's work for an honest day's wages.

Communists, Nazis and corporations hate REAL unions that stand up for the workingman. It's a race to enslave poor old Joe and unless poor old Joe has a real union behind him, he's dead.

Rick

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

Funny thing is that when unions were at their strongest, America was at it's most prosperous. It used to be 65% of Americans could afford to buy a home. Benefits were good. The workers who have good income spend it and a flourishing middle class is what made the machine work.
Today the rich get richer, the percentage of Americans who can buy a house in the Western US is down into the teens percentage-wise, benefits are falling, real income is falling and then we get numbnuts who want to see the unions go away so we can further the decline? Jaysus H. Keerist!!! Wake the fvck up and remember where the American worker used to be in the good times and how hard the struggle was in the 1930's to make it so 20 years later that a worker could work an honest day's work for an honest day's wages.

Communists, Nazis and corporations hate REAL unions that stand up for the workingman. It's a race to enslave poor old Joe and unless poor old Joe has a real union behind him, he's dead.

Rick

I have spent the last three hours trying to find a single hard data (federal data, ie numbers, not another article) sourced article that supports any of these claims... help me if you have them.... if not.. shut up...

 

[Flipx99 5,000+ posts]

I have spent the last three hours trying to find a single hard data (federal data, ie numbers, not another article) sourced article that supports any of these claims... help me if you have them.... if not.. shut up...

Well, depends. If you count the raise in worker welfare around the end of the industrial revolution in the 1910s/1920s, then yes. Data is very difficult to find, but check out some Bernanke articles and there are some references.

But this issue is at that time, workers where wanting normal workdays, prevention of child labor, safety standards so they don't lose their appendanges, etc. I think the problem is...striking when one makes $50/hr (all benefits included) is not going to garner the sympathy of America. If perhaps, they were striking because the employer wanted to force them to work 16 hours a day with no overtime (as was the case in the aforementioned time period) then there would be sympathy.

But, yes, around the turn of the previous century, unions were effective in improving the general welfare of the citizens. Now, I think, they have lost their way and there is really nothing to improve as many of the main objectives of unions are now written into federal law. I think unions should stick around just in case Congress tries to repeal the laws of worker safety, hiring practices, etc. but convert their role to more of a monitoring status.

However, who would want to give up the power?

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

Well, depends. If you count the raise in worker welfare around the end of the industrial revolution in the 1910s/1920s, then yes. Data is very difficult to find, but check out some Bernanke articles and there are some references.
But this issue is at that time, workers where wanting normal workdays, prevention of child labor, safety standards so they don't lose their appendanges, etc. I think the problem is...striking when one makes $50/hr (all benefits included) is not going to garner the sympathy of America. If perhaps, they were striking because the employer wanted to force them to work 16 hours a day with no overtime (as was the case in the aforementioned time period) then there would be sympathy.

But, yes, around the turn of the previous century, unions were effective in improving the general welfare of the citizens. Now, I think, they have lost their way and there is really nothing to improve as many of the main objectives of unions are now written into federal law. I think unions should stick around just in case Congress tries to repeal the laws of worker safety, hiring practices, etc. but convert their role to more of a monitoring status.

However, who would want to give up the power?

I agree, unions had a time and a place but are quite archaic and their power seems to have eroded to expose a very ugly and corrupt skeleton of political activism.

This strike is even worse because it was a "strike" with a political aim, on a major communist holiday... I hope all those who went on strike lost mucho denero....

The best data I could find on the concentration of wealth by the top 1% shows it was in definite decline world wide during and after WWII then recovering nearly to pre wwii levels... it's really not some new record. Plus our historical record on this is quite short. I wonder what it would look like over a several hundred year record, in different types of economies (not capitalist vs communist, more farmer vs. tech vs. manufacturing etc), with a variety of social changes over time. I imagine there is a logical reason for wealth accumulation other than rich people are EEEEEEVIL and GREEEEEEDY....

 

[faulkton 5,000+ posts]

i

 

[1991Brougham 10+ year member]

I have spent the last three hours trying to find a single hard data (federal data, ie numbers, not another article) sourced article that supports any of these claims... help me if you have them.... if not.. shut up...

Sometimes as the decades pass by, one runs across a lot of info and figures others are also reading the same things in the papers, seeing the same things on TV and hearing the same things on the radio.

I guess you missed the train jacko. Sucks to be you.

Rick

 

[J31Rob 5,000+ posts]

i'm a communist.