>> ^Psychologic:


Automation will create jobs as well. The big fear back in the 80s was the robots replacing factory workers on assembly lines. I say good. I've worked an assembly line, and it's no fucking picnic. It's monotonous and I don't believe any man should suffer that fate. But, that's just a personal opinion, and in no way am I trying to take a political stance for or against assembly lines.

The robotics industry still needs employees. Sure, the factory worker lost his job, but a technician gained a job to fix the robot, and the software engineers needed to program these automations. It's a tradeoff. The factory becomes more efficient, and higher paying jobs are created where skilled human labor is needed. I do feel bad for those uneducated workers with little to no skills, but progress in the marketplace doesn't sit idly worrying about the sum of all its parts.

I do fairly well programming Flash sites and games. You think that will be a career I could hang my hat on for the rest of my life? Hell no. At some point I will need to progress and try to find another way to make a living. It wouldn't be fair to anyone if Flash programmers unionized and demanded tech benchmarks that prohibited the tech industry from advancing beyond Flash 8 AS2 (an older benchmark for Flash programmers) so to best make the market fair and to ensure the majority of programmers keep their jobs. I know this isn't exactly what you were talking about, but I wanted to go off on a tangent. Sue me.

I think it becomes everyone's responsibility in life to pick yourself up by your bootstraps, if you pardon my cliche - including the purchasing of health care. And, as I do agree we need health care reform, I don't believe government involvement is the system we need. I hate the current corporate system, and I'd love to see corporations die on their knees as much as the next man, but not by way of the government gun.

A new system is necessary. I just don't know what that system could be. I'd like to start with the government not recognizing corporations, therefore they'd lose their teeth, and people could use the courts to regulate a market instead of relying on the bureaucratic government morass that's terribly ineffectual and completely unfair. Point in case, Smithfield's pork industry in NC is ruining the land and getting the loc
als sick. Their hands are tied from suing Smithfield's unless they want to go way of Class Action, which is a joke. The EPA stepped up to correct the injustice and fined Smithfield's less than 1% of their yearly sales. The EPA in turn gave Smithfield's an award for environmentalism!

These government is part of the problem. We don't want them further ruining something that's already broken thanks to their collusion. We want them out. And, we want to use the court system to keep these corporations honest, which would lead to less denials of claims if there wasn't such thing as a goddamn insurance commission to protect them.

so. health care workers need a union.
this is whats happening in hospitals these days
they are being gutted from the inside out. so i live in the dallas/fort worth metroplex which is huge. seriously its way bigger and encompasses far more area and small towns than you probably think.
so almost every hospital is on a hiring freeze, they have also all hooked up to join one of 4 larger "health care systems" (coincidentally this is when all the problems started). last year we suffered allied health and auxillary staff lay offs in mass. this year, the hiring freezes and as employees quit, their positions are not being filled. the area is also in the midst of a massive boom, so we are all taking in more and more patients with less and less staff to do the work. were not seeing raises, our health insurances premiums are going up 12% every year with the copays and deductibles also sky rocketing. i have seen housekeeping and cafeteria staff get bullied out of their FMLA rights. intensive care nurses are now being expected to handle critical patients in a 3:1 ratio which is actually extremely scary. and now, since the hospitals have all merged into "systems" we are now all being told that we can be sent to work at any other hospital within the system for the day. which is bullshit for several reason. most concerning to patients should be that when you get your temporary working location, you most likely are completely unsure of how to use their equipment or follow their protocols.
the feeling now amongst employees is "at least we have a job".
and thanks to a decade long push to get RN's and other allied health workers trained and into the workforce we now have a completely saturated market and most people who finished school in the last 4 years or so got a very assembly line education, so we are not even seeing competent new grads entering the profession.

so now that we have a saturated market, all the hosptials administrated by the same 10 people, and a global recession its almost a guarantee that noone will stand up for their rights. hizzah!

"Apparently the assembly line is the only thing that relieves the boredom of 16 months paid maternity leave, 10 weeks paid vacation, free gym membership and the company spa." - gold

>> ^blankfist:
I really think those who have never done without or who have never worked a hard blue collar job really side with pro-labor, pro-union movements while those of us who have suffered through difficult jobs and learned to exceed in spite of adversity tend to side on the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" free market mentality.


You are quite simply, nuts.

I come from the rust belt, and most of my family works in auto assembly plants. My dad was a schlep for residential gas services for over 55 years. I worked in fast food, in hospitals, and on assembly lines. One brother is a cop, two others work for Ford. One sister for GM. One sister has five kids, her husband lays drywall.

My entire family are pro-labor, pro-union. So is everyone that I know from back home.

Your theory is total fail.

Unions aren't entirely blameless either though. At one time they were responsible for the minimum wage, 40 hour work week, and other things that helped all of us but over time they forgot that stuff to a large extent. I had a long talk with a union rep a while back where I explained it and she granted the point after a while.

Problem is when the truckers strike as they did several times a couple of decades back or when other things of the sort happen it's not their employers who are hurt the first and the worst but the cashiers, stock clerks, and assembly line workers. Mostly people who had less than the truckers did to start with. I worked construction and in some towns you can't even get work if you aren't a part of the club and it's not always an easy club to join.

The conversation started with her defending the idea that they look after their own and ended with me pointing out that if it really is about serving their own there's no reason after a time for the non-union public not to feel exactly the same way about them. It was the wrong message to send.

If they expect public support, and I do think we'd be better off with some stronger worker protections, then they have to be worth something to non members as well and they forgot that for a while there. Fixing it is going to have to involve reminding the public why we have unions in the first place, offer them a stake in it too.

>> ^rychan:
I'm a Ph.D. research student, basically a professional scientist, and I get paid about $25,000 a year. Zero benefits. No health care, no maternity leave, no retirement, nothing. If I'm lucky I'll be compensated as much as a UAW assembly line worker when I graduate after 10 years of impoverished higher education.


La dee freeekin daaaa...

First, being a grad student is a choice, no one is forcing you to get a Ph.D.

It is also against the law for a University to not provide health for graduate students. By federal regulation, you are technically an employee of the state, and discounted rates are made available for you to purchase. They are not included in your stipend because many students are still covered by their parents or are covered by their sposes. You can receive health care benefits by paying a small monthly or large yearly fee for benefits, just like any other employee. I recommend you ask the graduate student secretary.

Moreover, if and when you do graduate you will be making upwards of 70K. In physics the number is around 90K, biology it is a little less. In 3-5 year you could make as much as 100-200K. This is in industry of course. So you are trading short term income for long term higher wages. Think of it as an investment in your future.

Grad student stipends vary from 20K to 30K. But I agree that if the US wants to stay competitive in the global market we should be giving State Universities and National Labs federal funding to attract both better talent and stimulate the economy.

Start studying for that qualifier... it is gonna be a bitch.

>> ^rychan:
The New York Times article was correct and straightforward. Olbermann is wrong. Olbermann claims the NYT claimed $73/hour wages. They never did. They correctly said $73 was the average compensation per worker, and Olbermann doesn't refute that. These gigantic health and pension and survivor benefits should rightfully be included in the compensation.
I'm a Ph.D. research student, basically a professional scientist, and I get paid about $25,000 a year. Zero benefits. No health care, no maternity leave, no retirement, nothing. If I'm lucky I'll be compensated as much as a UAW assembly line worker when I graduate after 10 years of impoverished higher education.


Sounds like you picked the wrong degree.

The New York Times article was correct and straightforward. Olbermann is wrong. Olbermann claims the NYT claimed $73/hour wages. They never did. They correctly said $73 was the average compensation per worker, and Olbermann doesn't refute that. These gigantic health and pension and survivor benefits should rightfully be included in the compensation.

I'm a Ph.D. research student, basically a professional scientist, and I get paid about $25,000 a year. Zero benefits. No health care, no maternity leave, no retirement, nothing. If I'm lucky I'll be compensated as much as a UAW assembly line worker when I graduate after 10 years of impoverished higher education.

Killed for political reasons? That's kind of vacuous. Wouldn't almost any action of a politician be for political reasons?

Republicans think the country would be stronger if labor unions hadn't negotiated $73 an hour compensation for assembly line workers. (NOTE, I said compensation, not wages, which still average a ridiculous $40 an hour, see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.html?ref=business).

Democrats (and obviously the labor unions) think the country would be stronger if some of our largest manufacturers didn't falter and potentially go bankrupt.

They're both playing a game of brinkmanship. They both concede that it was down to a single issue (whether pay cuts would start immediately or in 2011), and neither side would budge. The language of this segment blames the republicans, but how big a villain can they be for keeping their hands off of the industry? The car companies and unions are the ones who came begging for help.

>> ^MINK:
then you only have one problem left, and for me it's a big one: The Arts. I cannot figure out a way that art can be compatible with capitalism. It doesn't work like that.

Art is a product just like computers or anything else. If people demand art, people will supply it just as people supply computers (albeit not on an assembly line). Living is about surviving for animals, but thats not true for humans. Humans also require happiness, and a large part of that is art, music, entertainment, community, literature, etc. These will always be valuable, and thus in a position to command a price in a capitalistic system. If you look at art history over the last 200 years, you will find that many major museums of art stem from charity--not the government. Movies and music are art, and they are the most prevalent forms yet the government does not subsidize them at all. Why should paintings, sculptures, or other works be any different?

Many people create art in their free time, and it is both a hobby and second source of income. As long as humans are alive, there will be the desire to create--whether it is art, computers, or highways. You don't need a government to stimulate the arts anymore than you need the government to stimulate Microsoft.

Seems like it would be quicker, easier and cheaper if Subaru would just give them a frame from the assembly line to start with rather than taking a production car and striping it down to the frame and building it back up.

>> ^syncron:
That might be true, union influence does vary greatly throughout different industries. You cannot deny unions have a great deal of responsibility in destroying the American automotive industry though.


Actually, yes, I think that can be denied.

Colossal mismanagement had more to do with that than the assembly line workers demanding a real wage.

Casket assembly lines ... wow. Hey, where can you get one of those big rusty iron bird cage things that hang from dead tree limbs? I always thought it would be cool to have my skeleton sitting in one of those so that I could creep out people passing by.

>> ^xxovercastxx:
>>
imagination hasn't been a requirement in the games industry for at least 15 years. Actually, I'd argue you've got a better chance without it. Publishers don't need their sequel assembly line getting clogged up with original ideas.


You're entitled to your opinion. But as counter-evidence I offer up Half-Life, Starcraft, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Puzzle Bobble (Bust-a-Move), Dance Dance Revolution--all made in the last 15 years, all wildly creative and wildly successful and that's just for starters. You could include more recent games like Guitar Hero and Cooking Mama or more obscure games like ChuChu Rocket and Ico, all of which took simple creative concepts and implemented them stunningly well. Yeah, there are lots of sequels but that's no different from the movie industry now is it? If people would stop buying them, the game companies would stop making them....

Just to keep the comment slightly on topic, I actually thought Halo wasn't all that creative when it first came out. Particularly the later level design (or lack thereof) in the first game since it got very repetitive. Just goes to show that sometimes a slight improvement on an old theme (FPS shooter) may still be hugely successful.

>> ^SDGundamX:
Thanks for backhanded compliment. I didn't say there was anything wrong with having a wild imagination. I couldn't have worked in the games industry for 4 years without having a wild imagination.

You've misinterpreted something; I can assure you there was no compliment. You're correct, though, in that you didn't say there was anything wrong with a kid having a wild imagination. That's why I used the word 'implied'. Here we have a bright, creative kid and you act like there's something wrong with him.

Completely off topic; imagination hasn't been a requirement in the games industry for at least 15 years. Actually, I'd argue you've got a better chance without it. Publishers don't need their sequel assembly line getting clogged up with original ideas.