We need the unions back and we need them back with teeth - not the gumless unions with no bite we have now.

"We need the unions back and we need them back with teeth - not the gumless unions with no bite we have now."

Unions are only as strong or as weak as their rank-and-file. If the current Unions have no teeth, it's because the current workers have no spine.

If the current Unions have no teeth, it's because the current workers have no spine.

They've been beaten into submission by corporations and government, who hold the threat over their heads, of leaving them in the gutter if they cause any problems.

See Reagan's treatment of the air traffic controllers as an example.

... leaving them in the gutter if they cause any problems.

Posted by Whatsleft at 2008-04-21 01:32 AM | Reply

They could only do that to unionists with no spine

Yeah, unions are the answer! I think not. I remember my stepdad telling me about his 18 years working for Motor Wheel a company that supplied brake drums to GM.

He told me stories about sleeping on the job in his crane, and about clocking in and going home to build his house while his union buddies covered for him, and about how they went on strike while making $14 an hour in the early 1970's just because they didn't have a dental plan. Thats about $45 dollars an hour by todays standard. All just to sit and operate a scrap metal crane where he only had to load the material every hour or so.

Never mind they had several cranes all of which had to have their own operators by union rules. I man could have easily run every crane they had and still took coffee breaks. Yeah, unions are what we need.

Bee Swell

"Never mind they had several cranes all of which had to have their own operators by union rules."

Don't be a sap. Those were company rules. Don't believe me? Look at the rules the company signed.

"He told me stories about sleeping on the job in his crane, and about clocking in and going home to build his house while his union buddies covered for him,"

Just because your stepdad was a goldbricker and a cheat (and seemingly proud of it) doesn't sully the good work done by honest Union members over the years.

Danforth, they were all doing it and covering for each other. Even when someone got in trouble and should have been fired the union would come to their rescue and put up such a fuss that the company found it easier just to give the fuckup his job back.

and no it was not company rules to have separate crane operators it was written into the union contract.

Bee Swell

"...it was written into the union contract."

The same contract offered by the company, and signed by the company.

"One day we'll form a union and get the fair and equitable treatment that we deserve, then we'll get lazy and shiftless and the Japenese will eat us alive!" "The Japenese? Those sandal wearing goldfish tenders?"

I thought they had their guns and religion to keep them happy.

Blue Collar PA Dems ARE bitter.

They have every right to be.

The rust belt is not a fun place to live w/o a good job and those are increasingly hard to find. Combine that with an insane inflation rate (not reflected by the latest BS figures from the Ministry of Truth, of course, but real nonetheles) and bitterness is pretty much a given.

Ever notice that the bitches who continually whine about Unions never say word one about insane CEO salaries?

Why do these freaks lick the asses of the folks who exploit them?

Do they just like the taste or are they merely ignorant cowards?

Be Well.

"Once upon a time, a large number earned at least $20 an hour, or its inflation-adjusted equivalent, and now so many of them don't."

When was that?

CrackPipe... I worked at Motor Wheel in the summer between college. Yes, I am that old. It was crazy there. I was fresh off the farm and when there was some down time I picked up a broom and started cleaning up my area. I had a union steward there in seconds calling me names and telling me how that was someone else's job and that if I did that I would be putting someone out of work. I may have even run that crane you spoke of.

Of course I went from there to the teacher's union when I graduated college. Another group of people who are not at all interested in the education of children. We had the MEA come to our school and tell is that we needed to go on strike because the district had excess funding and we needed to get our part of that before they spent it on something else.

Unions have their place, but they can get out of control. Just as business can get out of control.

"Do they just like the taste or are they merely ignorant cowards?

Be Well."

Posted by dethspud

Maybe part of it is that they don't like being spoken to like that?

I can't believe I'm typing this, but at least the right has the self restraint apparently to not verbally insult the people they want to gain favor of.

I know you'd take that back if you had the opportunity, or are you going to convince me that they shouldn't be offended that you called them ignorant cowards?

In a fly catching contest, a spud loses to sugar every time.

but maybe there'll be a sugarspud?

"Unions have their place, but they can get out of control. Just as business can get out of control."

I agree with Sawdust. God help me.

Maybe part of it is that they don't like being spoken to like that?

~Hagbait the Horrible

Who doesn't like being spoken of like that? Union bashing morons? Management apologists? Meh, fuck them.

I can't believe I'm typing this, but at least the right has the self restraint apparently to not verbally insult the people they want to gain favor of

Typing? Spud's having a hard time believing you tie yer own shoelaces.

Sorry, wot's that? Velcro straps ya say? Figures!

Who precisely is Spud trying to "gain favor of" in this scenario?

I know you'd take that back if you had the opportunity, or are you going to convince me that they shouldn't be offended that you called them ignorant cowards?

WTF are you talking about?

Spud just noticed that morons like CrackHoe's Monkey are always bitching at the excesses of Unions w/o giving an equally narrow eye to the excesses of management.

Suddenly yer trying to make out that Spud is pissing off blue collar Pennsylvanians with that remark or sommat?

Are you insane?

Are you, in fact, Corky, as has been speculated?

Try that reading comprehension thingy again.

See if you get it right this time...

Ever notice that the bitches who continually whine about Unions never say word one about insane CEO salaries?

Why do these freaks lick the asses of the folks who exploit them?

Do they just like the taste or are they merely ignorant cowards?

Did you figure it out yet or should Spud type that again only more slowly?

Be Well.

Go get em Spud!

"Ever notice that the bitches who continually whine about Unions never say word one about insane CEO salaries?"

Ever notice that when a moron like you makes a generalization, he is usually wrong?

By the way, there are plenty of examples of high-paid CEOs who did not have a negative impact on their company. While unions did, at one time, have a positive impact, some feel that their time has passed and that they are more of a detriment than a positive. The same cannot be said of all CEOs, so the principle that one who dislikes unions must dislike CEO pay is moronic.

"but maybe there'll be a sugarspud?"

Would that be a...

... sweet potato?

"Unions have their place, but they can get out of control. Just as business can get out of control."

~Sawdust.

Gawd help us all. Even Spud is agree with Sawdust here.

Unions are often their own worst enemies in many instances when failing to recognise the fact that globalisation has shifted the playing field.

That sed, grossly disproportionate salaries fer CEO's are as big a hurdle fer competitiveness as high union wages. Not recognising that is madness. Wage inequity is a real issue and one that largely stays out of the national debate due to the corporate nature of the MSM.

The trouble is that instead of putting tarriffs on goods from nations that use, effectively, slave labour or child labour or fail to pay a sane humane minimun wage we are rewarding the greed of a few and disempowering the vast majority.

In short, it's impossible fer WINner nations to compete with the "China Price" even if workers wages were reduced to the poverty line.

At some point people at both ends of the spectrum are gonna hafta recognise that cold hard fact and incorporate it into the national strategy.

Trouble is, too many folks in power have bought into the bullshit that Milton's Utopian "Free Market" and don't realise that it is neither a real nor a desirable goal.

Go get em Spud!

~Ben Franklinn

Ta Ben.

Spud quoted yer namesake earlier.

"He will cheat without scruple who can without fear"

That's precisely the problem here. The corporate agenda does not fear governmental over-sight any longer because in the main it doesn't exist. Thirty years of lobbyists co-opting DC plus an over-reliance on the bullshit that is Milton Fraudman's economic theories have managed to wreck the balance that once existed adn the gains of the workers made since the end of WWII have been reversed and continue to slide backwards into a type of neo-fuedalism.

So sez Spud anyway.

Here's a fun fact about Ben Franklin.

The guy credited with the quote "A Penny saved is a Penny earned" was terrible with his personal finances and was often overdrawn at his bank.

Spud's a big fan of irony.

Be Well.

Poor spud.

Good thing you're nobody's diplomat. You're more of a Bushie than I think you realize.

But to make my point, even if there was a chance that the people you so easily maligned could ever possibly come around to agree with some of your points, your treatment of them will virtually eliminate that possibility.

Who TF do you think YOU are anyway?

Even if Obama wins the nomination and goes on to win the presidency, do you really think he's going to want to associate himself with the rantings of lunatics like you when he's got to deal with elected representatives of the very "morons and apologists" you're talking about? And in response to the questions he'll have to field about prevailing liberal sentiment, which way do you think he'll shift his weight? To the left?

you do the man no favors.

And here's the thing, I agree with your general points about the unions and ceo's etc.... but you have to remember that these people vote too. You should ALWAYS be searching for a way to find common ground with what amounts to 50% of the country. jeez, talk about defeatist liberalism....

oh, and once again...
not Corky.

By the way, there are plenty of examples of high-paid CEOs who did not have a negative impact on their company. While unions did, at one time, have a positive impact, some feel that their time has passed and that they are more of a detriment than a positive. The same cannot be said of all CEOs, so the principle that one who dislikes unions must dislike CEO pay is moronic.

~Joe

Ah, the graduate of the "Back of a Matchbook School of Fine Lawyering" pipes up!

"There are plenty of examples of high paid CEO's who did not have a negative impact on their company?" WTF?! American CEO's compared to other WINner nations are excessively high. Many of these CEO's act like their companies are their own personal fiefdoms that they are free to exploit. By definition their high pay alone affects the bottom line negatively. Spud could say "there are plenty of examples of high paid unions who did not have a negative impact on their company" and wot would that prove exactly? Some say Unions time has passed? Really Spud could make more of a case for saying that the time for increased deregulation and union bashing has passed. That Reagan was a cunt fer firing the air traffic controllers and Maggie Thatcher was a slimy biatch for firing the coal miners.

Yer idea that all unions are bad is purely assinine and yer other idea that not all CEO's are bad and thus to equate the two positions is incorrect is patently foolish.

Ae you ever right about anything, Joe?

Spud is seriously thinking about taking you down to Vegas over to the roulette wheel and then when you bet Red Spud is gonna bet black and so on and so forth.

Spud reckons he can make a killing off yer inability to pick the winner.

Henry Ford knew that if you didn't pay yer workers enuff money to buy yer product then you are in trouble.

America is rapidly approaching that kinda trouble.

Savings rates are in the negatives. The sub prime crisis is still playing out. Repossesions of vehicles and such are on the increase. Inequity is rising.

Push will come to shove, Joe, as inevitably as night following day.

Be Well.

It comes down to this the free market is all good and fine as long as the correct groups get the benefit of it. When you start talking about the peasants getting together the demand higher wages for their labor; well you are just going against the will of the LORD. God made some people rich and some poor who are we to argue? So get down on your belly peasant and crawl. You take what we give you and be happy we even give that.

Sincerely,
The Plutocracy

We need to have stronger unions!!!!!!

Strong enough to demand higher wages, especially for auto workers.

That way we can produce cars that are not only less reliable than foreign autos but also much more expensive.

This is a formula for great success!!!!!!!!!!

Go Marx!

So tell me Tampa,

were the unions responsible for the design and engineering of of cars?

"WTF?! American CEO's compared to other WINner nations are excessively high."

That has nothing to do with whether there are examples of CEO salaries that did not harm the CEO's respective company.

"Yer idea that all unions are bad is purely assinine and yer other idea that not all CEO's are bad and thus to equate the two positions is incorrect is patently foolish."

I never said all unions were bad. Why are you a liar? I also never "equated" those two positions. I said that it is moronic to say that those who bash unions don't also bash CEO's pay, since (1) it's not true that that never happens, and (2) it is less likely that high CEO pay will run a company into the ground than it is that unionization will. Can you show me an industry that has gone under due to high CEO pay?

"were the unions responsible for the design and engineering of of cars?"

As well as on product line, raw materials, pricing, construction, vendors, marketing, and distribution? See, it would follow those with the authority take the responsibility.

Union bashing is usually the result of:

1. Jealousy for not making the cut.

2. Ignorance regarding 99% of the decisions.

3. Management angry at their poor negotiating skills.

4. Apologists eager to blame anyone but the owners or the owner class.


Since GM was raised, let's remember the wage-givebacks back in the last crisis. Remember what they were traded for? Health care in retirement, the same health care a court said would be too onerous for GM to have to pay, so it relieved them of their commitments.

Both sides signed that contract. But only the workers lived up to their side of the bargain.

CEOs are their own union. They sit on each other's boards and vote each other raises. I would agree, there should be some sort of limit. Last year I got a 2% raise while the CEO (and the other top 3 executives) where I work all saw about 100% increase in pay.

I know a guy who has been a manager for many years and he says that when he became a manager the CEO earned about 10 times the salary as he does. Now the CEO makes 100 times the salary as a manager.

It is nuts, If they are going to make a law it ought to be that the CEO cannot make any more than xxx times the salary of the lowest pay worker in the corporation or something like that. Or instead of the board of directors voting on pay packages, the shareholders should or something. I am not sure, but this is nuts.

"Can you show me an industry that has gone under due to high CEO pay?"

It's vertical, not horizontal. Managers don't crash industries, they crash companies.

Look at Enron. Large chunks of worthless paper, but the "CEO class" (the upper echelon) sucked wads of cash out of it. Weren't Fastow, Lay, Skilling, & the top 100 paid more than, say, a thousand Union workers would have made? (Gee...I guess you don't have to be Unionized to be grossly overpaid.)

I'm not going to bother to read the article, no need. It's more of the same, blah blah blah.

Let's cut the nut. It's not just PA that is bitter. Many Americans are bitter, the manufacturing base has been given away and the only thing the politicians are offering (Including Obama) is that people get educated. The reality, though, is that many people don't need to be a CEO nor a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer to feel successful.

What's wrong with stewarding the earth? Or being a servant to others as a janitor, a mechanic or a plumber, or an electrician, a truck driver or any other nowadays seemingly perceived lowly job that is necessary to civilization and pays shit? Let em try to get by without them. I've always found these people first on the scene and willing to help when the shit hits the fan more so than those who are paid to do so by the government.

There are multitudes of reasons people are bitter but the largest contributor to the bitterness is an overbloated, intrusive and unsatiable government that enslaves or makes slothful what would otherwise be productive people. And it's not just PA.

When you talk about and present plans to deconstruct this abomination of a government Obama then maybe you'll get my vote.

McCain can't do squat either but I have to give him one thing, he never asked for nor took an earmark and pledges to rid us of them, though I know he can't.

Come soon Jesus, I'm tired of money and the love it kills.

Krisp...good points. They also need to close the borders and provide for an orderly immigration/work visa program. Illegals social welfare programs are costing tax revenues while lowering pay scales .

Yet these people still vote against their self interest because of issues like religion, guns, and gay marriage. The republicans have always been about big business and cheap labor, yet they are masters at getting their cheap labor vote by making small issues into big ones. I guess I am an elitist because I don't care if my neighbor smokes poles in the privacy of his bedroom. Hey, more chicks for the rest of us male breeders right?

What a crock of shit, to say Pennsylvanians are bitter is WRONG. I live in the Quaker State, I know! Plain and simple end of story.

There will always be bitter people though. And now barack says he can change YOU? (Don't ask him how) He can make you un-bitter, one city, one county, one state, one country, one world at a time He can CHANGE you??? HOW??????????

WHAT A CROCK OF SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Can you show me an industry that has gone under due to high CEO pay?"

It's vertical, not horizontal. Managers don't crash industries, they crash companies.

Look at Enron. Large chunks of worthless paper, but the "CEO class" (the upper echelon) sucked wads of cash out of it. Weren't Fastow, Lay, Skilling, & the top 100 paid more than, say, a thousand Union workers would have made? (Gee...I guess you don't have to be Unionized to be grossly overpaid.)

Posted by Danforth at 2008-04-21 03:07 PM | Reply | Flag:

Let's not forget ARBUSTO. The current Douchebag-in-Chiefs personal folly that took money from the Bin Laden family....all before seeling off the stock days before the shitty forecast was made public and letting everyone else get fucked while he walked away.

gee I'm so glad the dr left has economy figured out. Turning everything over to the gov and unions! Wow what a fantastic idea!!!!!

I believe that was Harkin Energy when Dubya sold off His stocks before the Company's stocks tumbled. If memory serves Me correctly that was the same company that DID buyout Arbusto(Where people get the name Shrub for Dubya) when it tanked.

Larry Mohr

Gee Larry, now the dr left is upset an energy company had issues when oil hit $10 a barrel? Those evil bastards, why do those companies go up and down???

Tell us, what happened to Clinton's beloved Worldcom??? BTW the markets peaked on an equally weighed basis in 1998......

Can you guess which poltn. got the most money from Dennis Koslowski, from tyco shame???

The dr left, unhappy with ALL American Corporations!!!!!!

Did Clinton have financial dealings with WorldCom or did He represent in ANYWAY Worldcom's personal interests??

Larry Mohr

"President Bill Clinton once called him "the symbol of 21st Century America" and said Mr Ebbers was "the embodiment of what I want for the future".

As for GM Danforth is correct. Their problems almost all come from management. They were fools to sign "contract for life" in the 80's. Then they kept building products that didn't keep up. Self inflicted wounds....

Great graph Zat, you can see how an energy company could get burned alive as oil dropped from almost 30 to under 18 in two years.

Thanks for the link, Larry.

It's always good to have the facts straight.

The real story is behind those numbers which show you want can happen to alt energy. Say we develop a serious alternative to oil, say shale to oil. And we can do it all day long for 75 bucks a barrel. Guess what opec would do?????

They'd lower oil to 60 bucks and bankrupt any competitor in months. Just ask ANR resources why they walked away from a shale to oil project in the early 90's.....

For the first time in U.S. history, today's American worker can be expected to be less better off financially than either his father or grandfather. It was the norm that each generation would do better than the generation before them and that was always the case until now. American workers are less better today.

Globalism, Bush's pushing of unfair so-called "free trade" agreements, and a White House which has for the last eight years allowed (and encouraged) corporations to destroy America's once mighty manufacturing base have dragged down America's middle class. Wages have remained stagnant the last few years yet the cost of living for food, gas, and everything else continues to go higher.

It's not just blue-collar Pennsylvanians who are bitter -- most average Americans are pissed off.

are less better today = are less better off today

1. They are under-educated and losing their jobs to people in third world countries that they think are inferior to them.

2. They live in Pennsylvania.

You don't have to live in Pennsylvania to lose your job to a third world country. NAFTA was sold by telling us that it would provide jobs to Mexicans in Mexico - that didn't work. They are here! I remember Larry King laughed that anyone should oppose NAFTA. It was Clinton and Gore who push it, and then signed it into law; and of course, they had the support of all the labor unions. You know labor unions that are 100% Democrat. Now the union leaders want to keep their numbers up by signing up illegals as good union labor. They're going to take your jobs even in this country. Keep voting Democrat. Keep paying your union dues.

How can the "Brain Dead" be Bitter???

I don't know how any section of the U.S.population can be "bitter" about anything seeing how mind bogglingly complacent or just downright "Stupid" they've been in allowing the Bush Regime to piss on and destroy the US Constitution and blow nearly a $Trillion of their tax dollars in this Iraq War Fiasco! Bitter? Geez how can you be bitter when you're that god damned stunned???

"For the first time in U.S. history, today's American worker can be expected to be less better off financially than either his father or grandfather."

Posted by CalifChris

Hmmmm, the Republicans have always been the party of big business and cheap labor. They are now in control of all three branches of government. Now we have people working harder to make less money, and big business is getting great tax breaks. I guess the Republicans really know how to fulfil their dreams. The best part is that they got their cheap labor to do all the hard work for them. All they had to do was promise that they could keep their guns and their pole smoking neighbors won't be able to get married. Hey I may not be making a lot of money, but at least I don't have to see Steve wear a wedding dress.

"(Republicans) are now in control of all three branches of government."

Did something happen to the Legislative Branch since yesterday?

A couple of one years don't count over the past seven.

Gee Larry, now the dr left is upset an energy company had issues when oil hit $10 a barrel? Those evil bastards, why do those companies go up and down???

Tell us, what happened to Clinton's beloved Worldcom??? BTW the markets peaked on an equally weighed basis in 1998......

Posted by DavetheWave at 2008-04-21 06:00 PM | Reply | Flag:

You babble on about Rezko and yet I hear nothing from you about the Bin Laden family bailout of the Bush's oil co.

AFter you have blasted Obama for saying they are bitter, NOW you come with this article. BULLSHIT. You can't have it both ways!!

People in Pa are not bitter.