Can Unions Save The Middle Class?

[IDBillzFan]

There is no secret that the current administration loves unions. It's also no secret as to why. Unions spent millions upon millions of dollars to get this administration into office, and in turn, the administration is doing virtually everything it can to ensure it repays the unions for its support. Nothing new here.

 

Being a devout conservative and capitalist, I'm naturally not big on unions. There is no question they have their place, and in many places worker benefits have been improved as a result of some unions. But like government, the bigger unions get, the more powerful they become, and the more powerful they become, the more intent they are on dictating what is happening for their own sake while often-times ignoring the greater good.

 

The first obvious sign of union love from this administration (to me) comes from the Chrysler bankruptcy plan. Its no secret to anyone with a lick of sense that union costs helped kill Chrysler and GM. No, it wasn't the only thing, but it was a big thing. I blame Chrysler and GM for this, since they agreed to union deals. Still, union concessions helped kill these manufacturers and the upside to bankruptcy is that it would negate the union contracts. However, the current administration plans to give 55% of Chrysler TO THE UNION as well as the ability to pick someone to sit on the board. This blows my mind because the union knows about as much about running a profitable car company as the president does, which we all know is absolutely zip. Not to mention the taxpayers, who just forked over billions of their own money to help, only get 6% of Chrysler.

 

The next blatantly obvious sign of union love came when the Obama administration told California that cutting the wages of Service Employees International Union workers from $12/hr to $10/hr is unacceptable, and that if the state did not change its tune -- a tune which would save a bloated state over $74 million -- it would not give California its stimulus money. Again, I'm a conservative so to me this is just Al Capone-like governing. Still, SEIU is apparently the country's largest labor union, and through 2008 it had donated over $13 million to Obama's campaign. So...they don't like what's happening in Calfornia, they cry to Obama, in turn Obama calls Arnie and says "Take care of my people or no stimulus for you." I find this utterly repulsive, but this is what most of you voted for so I have to suck it up.

 

Now I find Joe Biden telling the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that the union is the way to save the middle class.

 

In discussing the Employee Free Choice Act, Biden told the group: it's time to "level the playing field" for unions by passing a bill that would make it easier for workers to organize.

 

Not being a union guy, I put this to the fine folks of this message board: Please help me understand this; can unions save the middle class?

[ExiledInIllinois]

No.

[finknottle]

Let's not forget the other immediate under-the-radar Obama moves:

 

- Rescinding the financial reporting labor unions have to provide

- Ended oversight of the Teamsters by the Justice Dept (in place since their past racketeering convictions)

- Slashing the budget for the Dept of Labor office that investigates union corruption (that was the DoL's sole contribution to the vaunted 'line-by-line' scouring of the budget)

[X. Benedict]

Not being a union guy, I put this to the fine folks of this message board: Please help me understand this; can unions save the middle class?

 

Nope

 

It is about 25 years too late for organized labor to catch up with globalization.

Organized labor can help maintain gains made in the last century, but people like Chinese goods

and a cheap tickets at Walmart more than the local #1001

[DC Tom]

There's good unions and there's bad unions. I'm pretty sure the bad unions will destroy the middle class in trying to save it...and the irony is that AFSCME is one of the worst out there.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

There's good unions and there's bad unions. I'm pretty sure the bad unions will destroy the middle class in trying to save it...and the irony is that AFSCME is one of the worst out there.

 

let's not forget the NEA and AFT.

[erynthered]

No.

 

 

Only the Gov can, right? Thats pretty much what you've said in the past.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Only the Gov can, right? Thats pretty much what you've said in the past.

 

Nope. Link please.

[erynthered]

Nope. Link please.

 

http://www.stadiumwall.com/index.php?s=&am...t&p=1418066

 

Lets start here.......

[ExiledInIllinois]

http://www.stadiumwall.com/index.php?s=&am...t&p=1418066

 

Lets start here.......

I like how you and others put words in my mouth...

 

Ya... I find this:

 

Chef: If government is the answer why is it allowing Buffalo to die?

 

 

Myself: It allowed it to die 50 years ago... I honestly don't think that the gov't knew what it was doing in Canada's interest when it went ahead with the SeaWay project during the late 1950's... I am told the late 1950's, one couldn't buy a job?? Do you think BFLO would be such a "sacrificial lamb" in this day and age if the SeaWay project was authorized tommorrow?

 

BFLO was standing on it's own in 1959... Ya, years earlier Curtiss was the first to leave... Yet, there were so many other "sharks" within our borders eating their own... BFLO just happened to be the first... And now it is the last to get help.

 

We did it to ourselves people.

 

Ya... That is really saying gov't is the total answer. I agree it (gov't) is part of the equation, but it (gov't) won't save anybody soley... In fact they have been know to do the opposite.

 

I did say in that thread that gov't has become better at not repeating what they did to BFLO.

 

Let me guess... Reading comprehension is not your strong suit? I don't see anywhere in that thread where I said "gov't will save the people" Of course they can help, and of course they can hurt (as I cited in BFLO's case).

 

In your haste to nail me to your preconceived argument, take this adviced: Never assume.

[DC Tom]

let's not forget the NEA and AFT.

 

AFSCME is associated with AFT, actually.

[ExiledInIllinois]

AFSCME is associated with AFT, actually.

 

I am lazy. What do those acronyms stand for, what unions??

[KD in CA]

Oh come on...where is pBills with the mindless pro-union blather about how unions provide everyone with a "living wage", while ignoring any and all related economic realities.

[DC Tom]

I am lazy. What do those acronyms stand for, what unions??

 

AFSCME = American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees

AFT = American Federation of Teachers

 

Used to work for the latter...at the very least, the two used the same union organizers (as an AFT employee, I helped one of them out on an AFSCME drive in Baltimore). There were a few other acronyms associated with AFT (NYSUT for one - New York State Union of Teachers, which is both a subsidiary of and the predecessor to AFT. At least one national nurse's union, too), as well, but I was never able to puzzle out the exact relationships other "Wait, these are all the same people..."

 

AFT is a God-awful union. Almost a cult to Al Shanker (former head of NYSUT, before AFT). A more self-serving bunch of money-grubbing dickheads I've never seen, including investment banking.

[BillsFan-4-Ever]

No they can’t. At least not they way they have functioned in recent history.

 

Unions have spoiled people and hurt production and increase the cost of the product to the consumers.

 

In a Union you can not work a job "beneath" your pay grade.

 

If you have no work and the person junior to you is swamped, they bust their butt while the senior person sits their butt reading a book.

 

If a job needs to be done ALL employees need to put 100% into making the company profitable.

[UBinVA]

The only thing that can save this country is if the government gets back to the constitution. That is limited government, states rights, and the rule of law. No system is perfect and the government should not try to make it perfect which is an oxymoron, but they sure try hard while F&*^ing up even more.

 

The free market capitalist system is the best system in the world. People win and people lose. When the government is involved in who wins and loses, the system breaks down and everyone loses. The people who lose the most when government gets involved are those same middle class families the government says they are helping.

 

It's not unlike the civil rights movements of today. The Sharptons and Jacksons of the world say they want to help their people but in reality, they are only keeping them down by playing on their fears and giving them cover and excuses. They do this because if they stand on there own, they will lose power.

[erynthered]

The only thing that can save this country is if the government gets back to the constitution. That is limited government, states rights, and the rule of law. No system is perfect and the government should not try to make it perfect which is an oxymoron, but they sure try hard while F&*^ing up even more.

 

The free market capitalist system is the best system in the world. People win and people lose. When the government is involved in who wins and loses, the system breaks down and everyone loses. The people who lose the most when government gets involved are those same middle class families the government says they are helping.

 

It's not unlike the civil rights movements of today. The Sharptons and Jacksons of the world say they want to help their people but in reality, they are only keeping them down by playing on their fears and giving them cover and excuses. They do this because if they stand on there own, they will lose power.

 

Some eerie similarities in this cartoon that's over 60 years old.

 

 

 

 

Norman Matton Thomas.......The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform..

[UBinVA]

Some eerie similarities in this cartoon that's over 60 years old.

 

 

 

 

Norman Matton Thomas.......The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform..

 

Sad but true. When the people realize what has happened, it may be to late. The only thing I see happening now is that we are falling so fast and so hard to socialism that people will notice more and be more aware of it. I think Obama is acting too fast down this road and it may be our saving grace that people in mass will start to resist it in mass (ala Tea Parties, etc.) . I can only hope that that is the case.

[Max Fischer]

Some eerie similarities in this cartoon that's over 60 years old.

 

 

 

 

Norman Matton Thomas.......The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform..

 

Start building your bunkers, Boys!

 

 

(Do you take medication for your paranoia or do you just let it ride? Is it a soft, warm psychosis that blocks out reality or is a painful, burning sensation? I know Rush takes Oxycontin, does that help?)

[finknottle]

Sad but true. When the people realize what has happened, it may be to late. The only thing I see happening now is that we are falling so fast and so hard to socialism that people will notice more and be more aware of it. I think Obama is acting too fast down this road and it may be our saving grace that people in mass will start to resist it in mass (ala Tea Parties, etc.) . I can only hope that that is the case.

 

If the public sees it as a bad thing they can and will reverse course.

 

The problem is that such a reversal notwithstanding, we will still be crippled financially. Realistically, his expanded entitlements cannot be reeled in once granted, and the all money will already have been spent. America waking up in five years and deciding to (for arguments sake) reduce the public sector and let the economy grow naturally won't alter the fact that our debt will have tripled.

 

With this budget, for every three dollars the administration is spending, one is borrowed. We are going to owe a crippling abount of money very very quickly.