http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090427/odds/odd_us_finger

I want to write a blog today about how awesome I am.

fuck you and your awesome job

Unions can be very empowering for the working class if they are truly representative, they can just as easily abuse their positions (circa 80s UK) but the same applies to business leaders just as much as union leaders.

The important thing is a suitable balance between the needs of the employers and the satisfaction of the employees. That balance is hard to reach, but it is possible.

>> ^Farhad2000:
Unions can be very empowering for the working class if they are truly representative, they can just as easily abuse their positions (circa 80s UK) but the same applies to business leaders just as much as union leaders.
The important thing is a suitable balance between the needs of the employers and the satisfaction of the employees. That balance is hard to reach, but it is possible.


Understood, and agreed.

Our union offices are hilarious. Completely outdated, really shitty computer equipment, chairs and desks from the 60's, crappy wood panelling in a crappy part of town.

Why? Because they're using our dues on important stuff, instead of buying themselves fancy computers etc.

In construction, union shops are crap compared to merit shops. For one, you can't get a guy to bust his hump. You as a company need to get something done, but your employees only want to work so hard, you're f*cked. As it turns out, they're not paid that much more when you consider dues, non-paid holiday, and manpower rotation during slow times. I guess for all the reasons it's good in a company where people enjoy their jobs, it can be counterproductive in an industry where a good chunk of workers are naturally slackers and just there to earn a paycheck.

Government regulations cover all the health and safety requirements now, unions in construction slow production and decrease profit margins.

Fact: Shitty jobs become fun when unionized.

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!

oh i also know for a fact that my male counterparts make on average $6 more per hour than my female counterparts. and most of them i have years of seniority over and even trained some when they were students.

actually, all the females in my specific modality have seniority over the males who earn more than they do. oh, we also do the exact some fucking job.

The more I think about it, the more that I think a union in almost every labor market would benefit us all collectively. And I mean everyone from the pizza delivery people, to the waitresses, to the girls who polish brass poles with their inner thighs--and everybody in between.

Yes, there has to be a balance between what's good for the company and what's good for the employees, but in the long-term, bigger sense of the word, the two goals are actually one.

The greater system invariably grinds to a halt when people don't have enough money to spend, and we're seeing the glaring reality of that today.

America will be very difficult to unionize on a large scale because the word "union" is automatically linked with mobsters and laziness, regardless of the facts.

I also think that the "threat" of a union is, in and of itself, enough to help the working class.

But I also think that to be a laborer in a capitalist system affords you only the illusion of freedom, and the real freedom exists beyond the purview of a Wall Street speculator.

It is not okay for one man to be as wealthy as 100,000 other men.

Our beliefs to the contrary are the shackles that bind us to this modern-day serfdom.

The incentive for most firms to fight against union activity is foreign competition from states like China that have very few worker rights let alone unionization.

I think this was the crux of the argument in the recent Detriot collapse where instead of decades of poor thought out planning and investment, the entire collapse of the big 3 was blamed on the evil union workers and their attempts to make a decent wage! GODDAMN SOCIALISTS.

I used to believe that platforms like the WTO and IMF were created to spur fair and beneficial economic activity but in many countries they simply exaggerate income inequalities and empower employers over the employees. While this could be argued for in the short term growth period with price reductions for consumers in the west, the price decreases seen in manufacturing have not applied uniformly, yes electronics are cheaper due to economics of scale and larger production. But the same is not true of textiles and clothes, I think year on year I pay more for the things I wear then I reasonably should.

For service industries like healthcare, this may certainly be an urgent matter. But for manufacturing jobs and other industries that are relatively easy to move to other countries, I really wonder how many people have destroyed their own livlihoods by unionizing.

You've got to look at it from the business point of view. They are not in existence to provide you with work. They exist to make money. So if they can make more money by leaving the country, they will do so. There are certainly enough reasons to relocate to the more business friendly climates in Asia, don't make your union add to the pressure.

>> ^MaxWilder:
They exist to make money. So if they can make more money by leaving the country, they will do so. There are certainly enough reasons to relocate to the more business friendly climates in Asia, don't make your union add to the pressure.


But this is their short-sightedness.

Big business continues to move jobs overseas, then they scratch their heads wondering why nobody in America will buy their goods.

Big business, as a whole, has never shown any loyalty to America or Americans, yet they insist that we patronize them for the sake of the nation.

And, come on, how can any American laborer compete with over-seas sweatshop wages? Union or not, that's a loss any way you look at it.

http://www.nosweatapparel.com/

this is where we shop when dont want to pay for clothes made in a sweat shop. and look they dont even cost anymore than clothing made by a hungry 6 year old.