This is completely inaccurate. Countless unions have agreed to furlough days, pay cuts, managed layoffs, increase in contributions to health care, etc. in order to keep more members working.
Yep. My sister works for Santa Cruz county in California and they have agreed to many furlough days to assist the county in balancing their budget. Also, I guess there are some that missed many teachers being let go last year due to budget cuts.
This is certainly true. And the result was that until the last 50 years or so, there was not much of a historical middle class. The world was simply a small number of rich people and a whole lot of poor people that did the bidding of the rich. Somewhere in there, the world decided that wasn't really ideal. Never mind that Hostess stole workers' pensions - and that the unions gave up a ton in negotiations, while executives gave themselves huge raises immediately before declaring bankruptcy. Hostess is maybe the worst possible example you could ever have come up with. It's like holding up Enron as example of ethics.
Organized labor has been in decline for so long that the only interesting part of the story for me will be watching what new boogeyman FOX/GOP comes up with. What I've learned in this thread is that I can thank punch-card computers for the weekend and the 8-hr work day. Wait, what?
We need to rise above and take America back! The world was a much better place without a middle class!
There are plenty of middle class that don't work in corporate America. That is the beauty of it, if you don't want to work for the man you don't have to. I know, I've quit multiple jobs in my 12+ years in Fortune 500 IT because I hated the corporate bureaucracy. The vast majority of Americans are employed by small businesses, which are run by middle class Americans who believe corporate America wasn't for them. The business world doesn't owe anyone anything. You have to earn it. If you feel you aren't getting your fair share, then strike it out on your own or find a place that is a better fit. This argument that the opportunities aren't out there for people who want to succeed is complete and utter bull****. I grew up in a single parent home well under the poverty line, yet my mother never once took welfare and food stamps. For about five years she was bringing up $600 per week with three kids. We lived without a hot water heater for 2+ years. Handouts were not an option for her, and therefore not an option for me once I grew up. I don't have a college degree, nor do either of my two siblings. We all make six figures a year because we work our asses off and didn't make failure an option. I built my first computer piece by piece in 1998 when I was 19, spending over $3000 of my own money. It took me nearly six months to do it. From there I launched that in to an IT career where I've worked for NASA, multiple big oil companies, and now MS. The American dream is real, and the sooner the deadbeats realize it, the better. You can go to college for FREE if you live near, at or below the poverty line. I know plenty of people that get PAID to go to college, so saying unions are a necessity is ludicrous.
Most Americans are not employed by small businesses. 62% are employed by companies with over a 100 employees. Most mom and pop shops will be dead because bigger companies can make stuff cheaper due to scale. http://www.bls.gov/web/cewbd/table_f.txt I
In this conditions, unions are absolutely needed. We now have OSHA. Do you really feel teachers work in an unsafe environment? Lead poisoning from a sharpened pencil, perhaps? Are teachers being exploited? Unions shouldn't be used to manipulate benefits and wages.
I mean non-publicly traded companies/corporations. I guess the proper way to say it would have been to include "medium" businesses as well. Fortune 500 companies account for less than 20% of the Labor Force Participation rate. These "big companies" are generally the "evil" ones that these unions "save" us from.
I don't need a union to lobby my congressman for changes. I have his phone number and his address. I have the right to protest and rally others for my cause. People are simply too lazy to fight for themselves, so they pay someone (see union leaders) to do it for them. There is no doubt unions helped change this country for the better during the industrial revolution, but our economy and the global economy has adapted... and unions have yet to do so, and they're a huge reason our economy is struggling. The state of California is a perfect example of this, as are teacher unions and our struggling educational finances and lackluster results.
You really are thick, aren't you. Good god man, at least learn about charter schools before spouting on about them. http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/chicago-charter-schools/Content?oid=3595045 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/19/charter-schools-disabilities-_n_1610744.html I just want to point out that this is the problem with people today and the way we try to form our positions. There are three steps to forming an opinion on something. 1. Problem Here, we recognize the problem, and then we have to form an opinion about some proposed solution (say solution A and solution B) 2. Evidence Here, we read about the problem and look at the information relevant to endorsing one of the solutions. 3. Opinion Here, we finally form our opinion, and then we have our position on an issue. The problem is, people like the quoted poster, go straight from 1 to 3 because it's easier for them to re-assure themselves than to be right. So they actually change the evidence to fit their opinion instead of changing their opinion to fit the evidence. The world would be a lot better off if people didn't think this way.
I've never worked for a union - but I know the nature of human beings. The company I work for has a strong culture of enterprise-first thinking. That means we get bonuses and are rewarded for good work, and are all trying to impact the company positively. I can't imagine that working that well in a company where employees have divided loyalties, think of themselves as union members first, and have almost unlimited job security. Where is the motivation for someone to work hard when their job is protected and advancement is purely due to seniority? I'm not opposed to unions, but I do think that you should have a choice.
Most definitions are fluid but I think "small business" is usually thought of as having under 250 EEs.
I know about charter schools first hand with my family. The beauty of a charter school, is if it sucks you move on... you aren't stuck. Competition breeds success. Charter schools have to maintain a level of standards or the students can move elsewhere, taking their money with them. This is the same reason private schools clearly have better results than public schools. The best charter schools having waiting lists for a reason. Sure, there are some run to simply generate revenue but they will not have longevity. How we teach kids today is exactly how we've been doing it for 150 years, it is ridiculous. SE Asia and other countries are running loops around us because while the world has evolved, the world of education limps along.
My guess is that you aren't a teacher. How we teach kids today is not at all the same as it has been for 150 years. More importantly, it's changing right now. Do some research on common core standards and how they are different from previous standards. Charter schools fail at about the same rate as public schools. There are some great ones, and they do a real service often teaching students in very at risk areas. Some public schools do the exact same thing, and also get great results. One thing about Charter schools is that they can tailor who gets in. If kids with disabilities aren't going to do well on the tests, charter schools simply have to tell the parents that the child may be accepted but that they simply don't have the best resources to deal with a student with those needs. The family will of course move on. Public schools can do no such thing, and a disruption from some students can influence other students as well. So that, much more than competition, can play into the success of a charter school.
The reasons teacher unions are good aren't primarily for safe work conditions although that is a part of it. You haven't seen the buildings some of the classrooms are housed in. They are definitely unsafe. The reasons unions are good for teachers (at least the union I belong to) is that they helped set standards for what makes good teaching. Teachers have to live up to those standards or they can be fired. Yes there were attempts to exploit teachers requiring them to do all kinds of duties that had nothing to do with teaching. They wanted them to give up their one break during the day to do yard duty, shorten their lunch period to do yard duty, require extra hours of before and after school committee work etc. Teachers used to have to do that. Thank goodness the union put a stop to that. Benefits for teachers also used to be horrible. The union got them better benefits. The Union I belong to did their own accounting regarding budget cuts, and found millions of dollars the district claimed they didn't have. It saved thousands of jobs. They also found waste in other areas that also helped saved some of the teachers pay that has been cut three years in a row in order to help with budget shortfalls. This isn't the union being greedy, it's the Union trying to save on pay cuts and budget shortfalls.
Yes 41% more work place deaths happen in right to work states than in union states. Deaths are the casualties I'm talking about. You don't get 41% more deaths without casualties. They aren't claims I'm making, they are are bureau of labor statistics. They are things that have actually happened.
You are absolutely right about the cost of living. I didn't change the post because I just copied and pasted it because of time constraints. I also figured anyone interested could look at your point in the other thread. Anyway it was brought up again here, and I'm glad of that.
