Do you support unions?

[Grumblenuts]

I think the priority totem pole should be:

1. Preservation of American Jobs

I prefer acting locally while thinking globally. The more local, the better. Nationalism is fine, but beyond our (us non-billionaires') reach to control practically. Most businesses being (by far) sole proprietorships, nationalism should not be a business priority. Acting collectively to ensure that the basic needs of the least of my neighbors get addressed is my first priority.

There are no perfect solutions. No guarantees. We are quite limited as individuals. The tool of democracy allows us to collectively, but very imperfectly, choose imperfect representatives who we can only hope will act in accord with our wishes. Add up all the useless promises, all of the inherent corruption and forget about it. Yet good people still manage to accomplish great things somehow by going at it sideways. They know how to rile up a village.

 

[Grumblenuts]

If that's the way you feel then start your own business. You can run it anyway you like. Buy some lawn equipment and start your own landscape business. Learn HVAC, plumbing, remodeling and work for yourself. Nobody forces you to work for anybody else. Nobody forces you to work for a place you don't want to work for.

A slave is a person forced to work for another with no choice of their own. We all have choices in life. But whether you choose to work for yourself or somebody else, you will always be a wage slave because we all need money to live on.

Quit humping my leg and get a life. First get a doctor to refer you for a PET scan. Landscaping was my business, you idiot. Early onset Alzheimer's?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Quit humping my leg and get a life. First get a doctor to refer you for a PET scan. Landscaping was my business, you idiot. Early onset Alzheimer's?

Well there you go. You worked for yourself. Anybody can do it if they feel the employee/employer way of living is not acceptable to them.

 

[Rumpole]

I prefer acting locally while thinking globally. The more local, the better. Nationalism is fine, but beyond our (us non-billionaires') reach to control practically. Most businesses being (by far) sole proprietorships, nationalism should not be a business priority. Acting collectively to ensure that the basic needs of the least of my neighbors get addressed is my first priority.

You are suggesting that only municipalities would be allowed to make such regulation. That's grossly ineffective. A municipality has little power to regulate a multinational corporation. Such regulation must be achieved at, at the minimum, the state level but preferably at the national level. And this is not 'collectivism' or 'nationalism' which are political movements. This is policy.

There are no perfect solutions. No guarantees. We are quite limited as individuals. The tool of democracy allows us to collectively, but very imperfectly, choose imperfect representatives who we can only hope will act in accord with our wishes. Add up all the useless promises, all of the inherent corruption and forget about it. Yet good people still manage to accomplish great things somehow by going at it sideways. They know how to rile up a village.

That's life, Grumblenuts. You are an inveterate curmudgeon, as your handle suggests, but with a dash of optimism, and that's good.

 

[Rumpole]

For one, please quit breaking up my posts. If I can discuss subjects without doing it, I'm sure you can figure it out as well.

Sorry, the practice is perfectly acceptable in internet etiquette, and I've been doing this for some 24 years, and allows for easy reference to points made in the original. What would be unacceptable is to edit the original without consent.

As for an employees worth, I was talking about the market in general and not one specific company. Yes, a specific company does determine what an employee is worth and it should be their decision only. Going back to my earlier example, if I'm paying $20.00 an hour for a person to do a job, that's just what I'm paying because if you don't like the pay and decide to leave, I can find somebody else for the same money. Why should I pay you more money if I can find somebody else to do the job for what I'm paying? So yes, unions force companies to overpay workers as far as market value goes.

You must be scanning my replies instead of actually reading them. I said unions were a contributing factor of chasing jobs out of the country,

and my reply was that that concern can be addressed with tax incentives.

and I also said that taxation and expensive government regulations come into play as well. As I stated earlier, one of our customers was a company that made crates. I used to deliver those crates to companies that were moving out of the area. None of them really wanted to leave, but it was the only way for them to get away from the union. It shouldn't have to come down to that. Not only did those union people lose their jobs because of the union, but we lost customers as well. It's a devastating domino effect.

Productive workers don't need a union.

No, just, fair, and nonexploitive companies don't need a union. Not all companies are just, fair, and nonexploitive.

They let their performance speak for itself. If I do better work than my coworker, yes, I want to earn better money. Why should he/she get the same money I make and doing a fraction of the work?

I agree, but union pay is baseline pay. If if doesn't, it should allow for productivity bonuses.

There is nothing fair about that. It's not fair to me and it's not fair to my employer. That's why I always said if I went to a new company for the first time, I could tell you if they were union or not within the first ten minutes of being there without talking to one employee. All you have to do in a union is be breathing and moving.

I never experienced that in any union shop I worked. Sorry, I don't agree. It appears you just don't like unions and this is tainting your view.

 

[Grumblenuts]

You are suggesting that only municipalities would be allowed to make such regulation.

No, that would be entirely you.

Such regulation must be achieved at, at the minimum, the state level but preferably at the national level.

Again, arguing only with yourself.

And this is not 'collectivism' or 'nationalism' which are political movements. This is policy.

Though I also didn't use the term "collectivism," it is in fact not a "political movement" and I was clearly discussing policy. I see that your first instinct is to react impetuously to a rather mundane disagreement with only the first item in your list. It was thus only a test. You failed.
And FYI, by "nationalism" I meant:

noun

identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.

Not a "political movement" no matter what Wikipedia may think I meant. Thanks for requesting clarification.

That's life, Grumblenuts.

Like I said, Rumpole.

You are an inveterate curmudgeon, as your handle suggests, but with a dash of optimism, and that's good.

Yes, I am and thanks. I've long used this handle primarily as a reminder to always laugh at myself first before thoughtlessly criticizing others. It's worked. Hopefully "Rumpole" serves you as well eventually.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Sorry, the practice is perfectly acceptable in internet etiquette, and I've been doing this for some 24 years, and allows for easy reference to points made in the original. What would be unacceptable is to edit the original without consent.

and my reply was that that concern can be addressed with tax incentives.

No, just, fair, and nonexploitive companies don't need a union. Not all companies are just, fair, and nonexploitive.

I agree, but union pay is baseline pay. If if doesn't, it should allow for productivity bonuses.

I never experienced that in any union shop I worked. Sorry, I don't agree. It appears you just don't like unions and this is tainting your view.

No, it's because in my line of work I experienced (I'm sure) over a thousand different companies that I worked with. I could write a book about my experiences with union employees and the comparisons to the more productive non-union workers. So I'll put all my experiences against your few union shops any day of the week.

Outside of my profession, I grew up here, and in Cleveland, it's virtually impossible to live here in the 70s without knowing somebody that worked for the steel company or UAW.

I'm a musician and when I was a teen, the other guitar player in our band worked at the mills. One day I finally asked him what he did at the mills? He told me he was a fireman on the trains. I asked what does a fireman do? He said they shovel coal into the burner to make the engines run. Confused, I said "they don't use those anymore, do they?" He said no they don't, but the union requires a fireman to be on board every train. In other words they paid him big bucks to ride around and do absolutely nothing because the union created more unnecessary jobs that way; more union dues collected.

On a professional level I could tell you story after story. But the bottom line is union workers pale in comparison to non-union workers that have to produce in order to keep a job.

Tax incentives are fine, but they would have to be huge in order to offset losses of a company because of union workers. Furthermore why should taxpayers be on the hook to keep union companies around?

 

[Markle]

Quit humping my leg and get a life. First get a doctor to refer you for a PET scan. Landscaping was my business, you idiot. Early onset Alzheimer's?

 

[jc456]

An employee's worth to a company is determined by a bunch of different things. Their skills, experience, education, and how well they do their job all come into play. Basically, the more valuable an employee is to a company, the more they're worth.

You forgot competition pay!

 

[jc456]

Quit humping my leg and get a life. First get a doctor to refer you for a PET scan. Landscaping was my business, you idiot. Early onset Alzheimer's?

So nothing to present

 

[jc456]

Here in Chicago, one working a trade show, has to have the union workers plug in all equipment a lay person can do. Guess why. Same in NY and several other cities.

 

[Grumblenuts]

Sure. Each stupid, self-aggrandizing story Ray concocts here from whole cloth daily insults everyone's intelligence. If you'd been counting, you'd notice he's claimed to have had at a least 900 occupations by now. I've mentioned having a landscaping business to him in response to equally stupid rants at least five times now over the years. He can't remember shit yet somehow "remembers" new occupations for himself nearly daily. Truth is he was a truck driver for a long time as was I after I quit landscaping. I got to know the type well having listened such jerkoffs out of sheer boredom, yabbering on the CB for years. They'd just make it all up as they went along and patted each another on the back based upon each tale's entertainment value alone. No one cared nor believed any of it to be true. To the contrary, the last thing any wished to do was reveal information that could potentially identify them to others at a truck stop. Now Ray simply can't stop. And you idiots suck it up simply because he agrees with you politically more than not. Time to grow up and smell the coffee fellas.

 

[Markle]

Sure. Each stupid, self-aggrandizing story Ray concocts here from whole cloth daily insults everyone's intelligence. If you'd been counting, you'd notice he's claimed to have had at a least 900 occupations by now. I've mentioned having a landscaping business to him in response to equally stupid rants at least five times now over the years. He can't remember shit yet somehow "remembers" new occupations for himself nearly daily. Truth is he was a truck driver for a long time as was I after I quit landscaping. I got to know the type well having listened such jerkoffs out of sheer boredom, yabbering on the CB for years. They'd just make it all up as they went along and patted each another on the back based upon each tale's entertainment value alone. No one cared nor believed any of it to be true. To the contrary, the last thing any wished to do was reveal information that could potentially identify them to others at a truck stop. Now Ray simply can't stop. And you idiots suck it up simply because he agrees with you politically more than not. Time to grow up and smell the coffee fellas.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Sure. Each stupid, self-aggrandizing story Ray concocts here from whole cloth daily insults everyone's intelligence. If you'd been counting, you'd notice he's claimed to have had at a least 900 occupations by now. I've mentioned having a landscaping business to him in response to equally stupid rants at least five times now over the years. He can't remember shit yet somehow "remembers" new occupations for himself nearly daily. Truth is he was a truck driver for a long time as was I after I quit landscaping. I got to know the type well having listened such jerkoffs out of sheer boredom, yabbering on the CB for years. They'd just make it all up as they went along and patted each another on the back based upon each tale's entertainment value alone. No one cared nor believed any of it to be true. To the contrary, the last thing any wished to do was reveal information that could potentially identify them to others at a truck stop. Now Ray simply can't stop. And you idiots suck it up simply because he agrees with you politically more than not. Time to grow up and smell the coffee fellas.

Why don't you find a high school that has adult reading/ writing courses and take one for crying out loud! Not only can you not reply without breaking up a post into pieces, you can't read either. Here is what I said. I'll provide an explanation. After that you're on your own. Get a fourth grader to explain it to you:

No, it's because in my line of work I experienced (I'm sure) over a thousand different companies that I worked with.

What that means is as a truck driver I interacted (deliveries and pickups) with over a thousand companies, most non-union but plenty of union companies in the early days. It's not just me, but any retired local driver will tell you the exact same thing unless they were route drivers and went to the same businesses every day.

I could care less if you believe me or not. I don't believe you either. You're not smart enough to own a landscape business. Geeze.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Here in Chicago, one working a trade show, has to have the union workers plug in all equipment a lay person can do. Guess why. Same in NY and several other cities.

When we first started delivering to the auto plants, they sent me out to Lordstown Ohio for a delivery. Like I do anyplace else, I backed in, set the dock plate, and waited for the shipper to address me. Along comes this clown telling me that if I ever walk in there and do what I just did, they not only wouldn't unload me, but make sure I never came back again.

He gave me this lecture how I was taking work away from a union worker; that it had to be done a certain way to insure safety. It's an electric dock plate for crying out loud. There is only one way to put it up, and that is press the button on the side of the door and the dock plate does the rest.

Ever since then they always stalled when I took a delivery there like I was some sort of enemy. What it took them two to three hours to do, a non-union worker had done in about a half hour depending on the load.

 

[sealybobo]

The irony is so thick it could be cut with chainsaw.



Or shrug, close the facilities, and ship stuff in from Indiana and Ohio.



Yeah, it's wonderful...I get an avalanche of junk mail, protection money forcibly taken from me funneled to politicians I despise, and without fail, I get reamed in every contract. Thanks a fuckload, guys!

You think it's cost effective to drive from Indiana to mid MI? What a dope.

You can't' send those jobs overseas bootlicker.

 

[22lcidw]

Here in Chicago, one working a trade show, has to have the union workers plug in all equipment a lay person can do. Guess why. Same in NY and several other cities.

Cities are hamstrung. Cities can look much better if not for corrupted trade unions and municipal unions with corrupted contractors. It is incredible that it is like the mobsters of 1920's Chicago. This so-called free money cannot last forever. And if it does not change when the impoverishment increases, we will truly e 2nd and 3rd world looking.

 

[Jarlaxle]

You think it's cost effective to drive from Indiana to mid MI? What a dope.

You can't' send those jobs overseas bootlicker.

Well, we can add transportation to the long list of things you have no clue about.

 

[Polishprince]

The problems that people have with Big Labor come down to 3 big areas.

Seniority, union work rules and grievances.

Any business can be bogged down in this quagmire.

Seniority means that mere longevity- not competency- is what determines an employees tasks and compensation.

Union work rules freeze everything in place, making innovation extremely difficult as technology progresses. Eliminate a useless step because changes have made it redundant at best? Can't do it, as it would mean eliminating someone's job.

 

[jc456]

The problems that people have with Big Labor come down to 3 big areas.

Seniority, union work rules and grievances.

Any business can be bogged down in this quagmire.

Seniority means that mere longevity- not competency- is what determines an employees tasks and compensation.

Union work rules freeze everything in place, making innovation extremely difficult as technology progresses. Eliminate a useless step because changes have made it redundant at best? Can't do it, as it would mean eliminating someone's job.

Can’t get a promotion into management