wow... something to erally think about

[Fairweather]

I thought this thread originated as a troll about the socialists-are-us festival in South Africa last week.

 

Hey, do you suppose those starving people in Ziare know that their government rejected the USA's gift of GM corn because it "might not be safe to eat"? Gee, I guess STARVING TO DEATH is a little safer! (By the way; that's the same corn US citizens have been safely eating for years.) ...just another example of third-world government arrogance.

 

BTW, Allison is more right than wrong about unions. As a non-union middle manager, my wages and benefits are directly affected by my union counterparts within the corporation for which I work. ........but that's not to say I ALWAYS agree with Allison.

 

[ 09-09-2002, 05:53 PM: Message edited by: Fairweather ]

[erden]

Funny I thought, and a shame:

 

All of this chatter on your employers' time.

 

Your tummy's are full, you have a paycheck and you are masturbating. You have no idea about how hard people try to find work, and they can't. You are full of yourselves and you should get over it.

 

And if you know of a job where one can work hard, work with his honor intact and not be discarded by the system after all sorts of education and training, let me know. I have been on the street looking for over 16 months. They would not give me a f***ing box sorting job at UPS, cuz I was overqualified, forget high end stuff. F*** this economy...

 

Erden.

[Fence_Sitter]

if you actually read my post i said that there was a place for welfare if someone gets injured or debilatated...learn to read! my problem uis with those that can work and choose not to, or not hard enough... and by the way...who's fault is getting pregnant with out the financial capabilities of taking care of their kids...and who's fault is getting addicted to drugs...taht was their choice and they let it get in the way of the "dream" (for lack of a better word DFA). i refuse to let people shrug off blame when they fuck up in life...you people are enablers...you just look teh other way while people just dick around while they rob you of your hard earned money...there is a time and place for welfare,but for people that are able but not willing, this aint it...

[Fence_Sitter]

erden...you are on the street huh? with high speed internet access no doubt...i smell bull shit and it aint cause i just got done with rugby practice...

[Bug]

At the risk of being called a moron by a moron, I just have to add a little history to this mix.

Before Unions there was no retirement.

Before unions there was no safe working place.

Before unions there was no fair pay. so forth and so on. Do you think the Enron boys were thinking of the common worker as anything but a large homogenous cash cow? Of course you don't. That's what corporate fascists do.

Does this mean I think unions are inherently good? Of course I don't. Jimmy Hoffa probably wasn't the first to rip off the American Union worker and he certainly wasn't the last. He was another F___ing fascist.

As usual, the truth must lie somewhere in the middle. Shit. That means we have to learn to be civil with people we don't like and compromise our values so we can co-exist. Bummer dude. Because there are a lot of people I don't like. You know who you are.

So do I work a union job? Hell no. Never have. Probably never will.

Do I make union wages? Hell no. Poverty stricken rats. They lack ambition. Ambition is what inspires you to get involved with whatever you are doing. Union members do not have a recent history of being involved any more than the common American is involved in the democracy we live in. Do any of you armchair filosifers ever vote? Put your names out there and I can tell you wether or not you have voted in Washington in the last 20 years. That's public record. Most of you haven't if statistics mean anything.

So here you are wanking on a climbing site about unions, polotics and beating up chicks when you could be reading your voters' pamphlet.

Sounds like you have CHOSEN to buy into where you exist in the grand scheme of things. Stop wanking you blithering fools! Get off yer lazy butts and learn what you could be doing. Ptttthhhhhhhhhhttttt. Meanwhile, I work with Bhuvahna, Sunil, Lou Chen, Chui, and so forth. Where are all the white Americans? Who cares.

I work with the Americans who will write this century's history and they ain't named Smith. They are just like the rest of historical American success stories. They came from some place where they had a choice to live in squalor we cannot imagine or work their butts off to get here and take over. They are an inspiration.

[Fence_Sitter]

yeah bug...before unions bla bla bla...but now... all union leaders do is agitate otherwise content workers so that their pockets are lined with cash...true in the days of N. American sweatshops unions were necessary... but now they hinder our now stuggling economy... thanks proffesor, but i think you need to go back to school before you give lectures that you know nothing about...

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fence Sitter:

yeah bug...before unions bla bla bla...but now... all union leaders do is agitate otherwise content workers so that their pockets are lined with cash...true in the days of N. American sweatshops unions were necessary... but now they hinder our now stuggling economy... thanks proffesor, but i think you need to go back to school before you give lectures that you know nothing about...

---

 

Yeah, it's unions that are really damaging to the economy. Dr. Flash Amazing has seen enough lazy fuckers using union membership as an excuse to do shabby work to not be a balls-out union supporter, but the fact that Joe Blow can get a job at corporation like UPS earning a near-living wage and getting pretty decent benefits points to their utility as well. But the Doctor digresses. The economy is pretty fucked, but DFA would guess that shitbrick companies like Enron and their little accounting shenanigans

skewering of the public's already shaky trust in the stock market has been a lot more detrimental to our economy than the unions.

 

And hey, just imagine if the millions (billions?) of dollars those oh-so-honorable CEO's had been swindling had wound up in workers' pockets! Any idea how far that kind of money would go toward getting the average check-to-check worker on their feet financially, and back to injecting money in the economy?

 

You want a scapegoat? Try corporate greed, pal.

[Bug]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fence Sitter:

yeah bug...before unions bla bla bla...but now... all union leaders do is agitate otherwise content workers so that their pockets are lined with cash...true in the days of N. American sweatshops unions were necessary... but now they hinder our now stuggling economy... thanks proffesor, but i think you need to go back to school before you give lectures that you know nothing about...

---

Do you think corporate America would pay the same wages if they knew that no one would ever strike?

[dog]

Some of the original reasons unions were created in the first place are still valid today. You can't expect management out of the goodness of their hearts to treat blue collar workers fairly and collective bargaining over wages and working conditions is the only means a worker has to deal with unfair treatment. However, there are also a lot of valid reasons to hate unions. One thing that I hate about unions is when they defend totally incompetent workers and prevent a company from firing that person. It ends up hurting the company and causing resentment from everyone. As usual, the issue is not black and white.

[allison]

Hey guys, thanks for making my arguments for me.

 

One thing though..if someone is incompetent there is no reason for them to be retained, even if they work under a CBA. When I was working as a Rep, employers would call me, all afraid to fire someone for this, and I'd walk them through the contract and explain how to do it. I didn't want to get members' terminations overturned on technicalities, no Rep does!

 

Now I see that the 'corrupt union' thing has come up again. as a 'union insider', so to speak, I've never seen it. How prevalent is it again? Please educate me.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

"Handouts do not work (not in the U.S., anyway). People need to EARN a living and invest in themselves. WHy should I GIVE my hard-earned money to some shmoe sitting on his ass? That is highly offensive to me. Peace, Dru.

 

Greg W"

 

What makes you think poor automatically = lazy? Poor people have to bust ass just so they can stay poor and not wind up homeless. That minimum wage shit sets people up for having to work all day at one lame-ass job, take the bus for an hour across town and pull another shift at some other lame-ass job. Lazy it ain't. Shit, even homeless people are always on the move, looking for cans, scrounging for food, sparing for change, trying to get in at shelters or the food line, trying to find a place to sleep.

[Fence_Sitter]

DFA- i'm gonna have to cal bullshit man...there is a reason why i am never going to be poor...because i work hard..i worked hard in high school, in my jobs, and now in university and my parents dont pay for it ...igot it cause i worked for it... poor are poor because they lck the ambition. my dad started poor and now he is quite wealthy... if you wanna make 40,000 dollars in the U.S. you can do it... you just have to work and make the sacrifices... awww work!?!?! lifes a bitch aint it?

[allison]

POOR PEOPLE ARE POOR BECAUSE THEY LACK AMBITION AND ARE LAZY?

 

Fence, please stay in college long enough to learn why THAT is a truckload of BUNK.

[Greg_W]

While I don't agree with all that Fenceboy says, I do believe that EVERYONE can take advantage of opportunity when it knocks. At some point we all choose to make something of our lives or not. It all begins with choices.

 

Greg W

[Fence_Sitter]

allison turn off your TV and get your own opinion... why professor are they poor then? my dad was ppor...and he's not now cause he has ambition... i will never be poor nor will the majority of those who dare to work and work hard. you see the american dream is not to jerk off and get paid by the government for it...it is to work hard to make your dreams come true...i am doing it and if your dreams are to be poor then you will be poor...if you dream to be well off that too will be the case...you may not be a millionre, but you wont have to worry about food on the table...

[Fence_Sitter]

take this anyone can get a $10/hr job right? well 50 hours a week that is $500 times 4 is $2000 a month and $24,000 a year...while that is not much...it is the bare minimum that anyone should be making with a highschool degree...any one with any ambition at all will also get additional education whether it be trade schools or university or just aprentice. quit making excuses for those that are not willing to work and have no dreams

[Greg_W]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fence Sitter:

take this anyone can get a $10/hr job right? well 50 hours a week that is $500 times 4 is $2000 a month and $24,000 a year...while that is not much...it is the bare minimum that anyone should be making with a highschool degree...any one with any ambition at all will also get additional education whether it be trade schools or university or just aprentice. quit making excuses for those that are not willing to work and have no dreams

---

THIS I agree with. Good math little bro. Don't let Allison's liberal, pro nanny-state rhetoric get you down.

 

Greg W

[Fence_Sitter]

yah she has just been watchin too much katie couric and needs to figure things out for herself. i'm gonna get raped for this but the liberal media contorts eveything bout our society... that little math experement proves that no-one should be on welfare...no-one...wellfare is for peope that CANNOT physically or mentally sustain themselves because of a disability. other than that "life is short brutish and cruel" WORK!!!

[chucK]

Maybe the arithmetic makes sense but the suppositions do not. I haven't been in the market for a job for a while, but I find the premise that it is easy to get 50 hours of 10$/hour work a bit hard to believe. This is far above current minimum wage.

[Fence_Sitter]

minimum wage is for high school students...if you have a degree you should be making more tahn that...c'mon enough with all the excuses

[Peter_Puget]

quote:

---

Originally posted by chucK:

This is far above current minimum wage.

---

Please explain how that enters into your reasonong.

[allthumbs]

I claim no skill in money matters but I have always understood the first rule of commerce to be "Buy low! Sell high!" This is often attributed to Heinlein but it is so obvious that it is not likely that he invented it. The stock market people seem not to hold with it, however, but those are very mysterious people. Jeff Cooper

 

[ 09-09-2002, 12:57 PM: Message edited by: trask ]

[Greg_W]

quote:

---

Originally posted by allison:

I didn't want to get members' terminations overturned on technicalities, no Rep does!

 

Now I see that the 'corrupt union' thing has come up again. as a 'union insider', so to speak, I've never seen it. How prevalent is it again? Please educate me.

---

Allison, here's my personal example then I'm done with this topic (I promise ). I used to work for an aerospace company designing and building turbine engines; the shop workers were organized under the UAW. Whenever we engineers would design a new part, the specs would be forwarded to a committee called "Make or Buy". This committee was made up of purchasing agents for the company AND a representative of the UAW (not employed in the factory). The new part we needed would be submitted to this committee and they would decide whether it would be made in-house or contracted out to a supplier. At this meeting, the union rep. would pull out the employment jackets on the last round of shop employees who were let go due to poor quality, or whatever, and say, "We (the UAW) will allow you to have this part made outside IF you bring these people back." This happened time and again, and we wondered why we rejected so many bad parts. It was very frustrating and very unfair. There's no need for me to give more examples, so I'll abandon this thread now. We all have our own opinions and experiences; that's cool.

 

Greg W

[Cpt.Caveman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by dog:

However, there are also a lot of valid reasons to hate unions. One thing that I hate about unions is when they defend totally incompetent workers and prevent a company from firing that person. It ends up hurting the company and causing resentment from everyone. As usual, the issue is not black and white.

---

Hey I've seen this!

[Fence_Sitter]

one other thing...why is it that the WA state teatchers' union always decides to strike right before school starts? i dotnt think dedicated tteachers make taht decision it is the fat cat mafia-esque union leaders that use more mafioso strong arm tactics that actual bargaining tactics...i know i was union and all it ever did for me was make my wages donw to minimum after they took their share...i would have rather done without it... and by the way...you ask would corporations pay fair wages...yes they would because 80% of corporations do not pay unionized labor...and also getting back their dues on each pay check would also do a lot for helping someone get on their feet ...