Team651

16 Deaths Per Day

2009-11-15T22:21:00.001-05:00

We don't have Illegal Immigration, we have illegal employment!

2009-11-03T13:54:00.001-05:00

Why Mexicans Jump the Fence...

2009-11-03T11:21:00.002-05:00

If you follow this blog I repeat this post, about how the government in Mexico suppresses labor unions as the main reason for illegal immigration into this country. We protect our labor leaders... of course they make more money here.

They've done it again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/world/americas/01mexico.html?_r=1

The union leader, Margarito Montes Parra, 56, had built up a powerful organization spanning several states to demand land rights and press for government support of peasants. The group, the Worker, Peasant and Popular General Union, is based in the southern state of Oaxaca, and a leader there said Mr. Montes’s killing was linked to his work.

Hat Tip to Jonathon Tasini, Working Life blogger and candidate for Senate.

Trumka on PBS NewsHour

2009-10-28T02:09:00.002-04:00

	Labor's 'Bulldog' Trumka Challenged by Dwindling Ranks, Public Perception

	As AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka works to protect organized labor from the excesses of big business, he faces dwindling ranks, splits among union groups, and diminished public support. Paul Solman reports (link).

Cyberhillbilly blames Kentuckians

2009-10-14T02:08:00.004-04:00

culture (of eastern Kentucky) or the excesses of the welfare state. Much of the poverty in the region is generational and affects hundreds of families whose only experience with coal is its use in the stoves and stokers.

I would have figured it's goal would have been more to explain things from a justifiable right social culture of eastern Kentucky point of view... a "land that has given so many of it's son's and daughters to USA in WARS" point of view... that I'm mad at Cyberhillbilly for not being loyal to the state.

Where Ships and Workers Go to Die

2009-09-29T22:10:00.001-04:00

The G20 must support worker's rights through labor unions.

NAFTA sucked... (another "no wonder why Mexicans jump the fence")

2009-09-21T14:00:00.002-04:00

On the list of goods made with child labor just released by the US government, Mexican products appear 10 times.

NAFTA should have put labor unions at the center of Mexican labor, creating a middle class with nationalistic, hard-working, and most importantly law abiding attributes. Instead, it's a country where they killed 7 labor leaders in 2007. I'm sure it's against the law there, but with no middle class to draw it's base from, the police are the directed by corporate elitists and drug lords, who are often the same folk.

Warning to Ben Chandler

2009-09-11T16:32:00.001-04:00

Mitch McConnell on Why He is Against EFCA

2009-09-04T10:42:00.000-04:00

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/mcconnell-efca-enlighten/

Edward Kennedy on Labor

2009-08-26T02:52:00.002-04:00

A strong ally, and he will be missed for that and so much more. Edward Kennedy has died.

"The Claremont Institute : Look Out for the Union Label" critique

2009-08-21T15:18:00.006-04:00

http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1647/article_detail.asp

The article starts with a discussion of Robert Reich's change in philosophy regarding unions. It doesn't really discuss why Reich's position has changed. Public policies take a long time to have an effect sometimes. Changes in power structures take a long time to have effects on public policies. Corporations and a small set of decision makers (think John Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Andrew Carnegie) ruled the day in 1929. They screwed things up terribly and lost hugely in elections to... well... everybody else. So then things like Glass - Steagall and the NLRA were passed. In 1954, Taft-Hartley edited the NRLA to be beneficial to the robber baron types, but the effect wasn't seen until 1970 as union participation rates fell very slowly. The union participation created a larger ruling class that included labor. In about 1970, union particpation reached a breaking point to where they were not longer equals at the table of decision making. They still had a voice, until 1999. The repeal of Glass - Steagall happened because they no longer had a voice at all. The only people that had a say was the robber baron class, as evidenced by their take on all the growth of wealth from 1999 to 2008.

The next section of the piece details union power. It is mostly correct in this. "How much more a particular union can extract from a particular employer will depend on factors over which each will ordinarily have little control," is a correct statement. It is also correct in saying there are inherit problems in union's governing structures - they are controlled more by the current workforce and not by the future workforce which will be under the contract. Contracts do reflect that. While these criticisms are true, they can be mitigated and labor unions must figure out a way to do these things.

The next section, "Bitterly Adversarial", ends with a summary paragraph that is completely wrong and one that I do not see at my workplace. The union stewards do try their hardest "to collaborate with management on fashioning workplace reforms that are mutually beneficial". We all understand that it is easier to gain concessions from a successful company, and we should work to make the company successful whenever possible and whenever we are not the only ones paying a price.

The next section is titled "Being Naive". The labor movement does not have a very long history of being able to exert power. The "Right to Free Contract" kept unions from being able to negotiate the most important things in the workplace like compensation until 1937. It is simply wrong to think that a new player will know all the plays, their chances of success, the right routes to run, etc in football. It is wrong to think that unions are not in a learning process only 71 years later. 71 years after the beginning of the experiment of Democracy of our very own country, slaves still worked the cotton fields. It wouldn't be until a few later that the Civil War was fought. Women weren't able to vote for another 50 or so years.

Yes, "Which side are you on?" is a revived mantra for New Old Liberals like Obama, and myself. It is because the last 40 years have taught us a lesson in who should be invited to the table - all of us. All of us cannot be there unless there are economic units comparable to the robber barons like the Walton Kids and Cornelius Vanderbilt to sit across from them. The only group that can do that when liberal politicians lose - and sometimes they should as stability is corruptive - are labor unions. Robert Reich is right and has learned a lesson as we all do in this experiment.

Economy needs more labor union participation now.

2009-08-18T23:54:00.006-04:00

70% of the economy is sitting on the sidelines. It simply doesn't make enough money. It can barely pay bills... if that. It can make more money, maybe, but the powers that be won't let it! If it has money it spends it. Those powers that be want it all for themselves. There is only one proven way for consumers to make more money, and that's labor union participation.

It is not inflationary if productivity rises.

New Posts this week.

2009-08-16T17:46:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted a lot of posts on the blog in a while, I have added youtubes lately, and when the page had too many posts to view I'm sure it was a bit annoying.

This week I plan becoming more active.

Healthcare and Labor

2009-08-17T13:15:00.002-04:00

Labor has been the major contributing force to the nations healthcare access. The other force before was doctor's goodwill - which I don't mean to put down in any way. The evidence for the first statement is employer provided insurance system we have today. In contract negotiations, healthcare is the first thing negotiated.

From labor's point of view, this system, employer based, should be continued. Since union members typically have better healthcare plans than those not in unions, it makes people easier to organize. Much like how unions always fight for minimum wage against their best interests, unions will fight for single payer, non-profit insurance companies, or even complete nationalization on this issue because we are cool like that. We are so cool, we get a whole 'Labor Day' (which is coming up soon, the right winger anti-labor nutjobs should have to work that day). Labor is the only political organization that works so hard to detrench themselves.... most try really hard to entrench themselves.

So, what should happen? There are three options as stated above sorta. We could nationalize everything. All the doctors, nurses, etc. would then become government employees. This is preferable to our current system because... well... the statistics say so. Canada and Great Britain beat us in just about every statistic except cancer survival and transplants. Those things are good things to win in, but they aren't the largest killer for any population. Heart disease beats cancer. We suck at that. Cancer still kills the second most Americans, and our rates suck because we don't do a lot of early detection and prevention, it's cancer survival that we do well in. View the top ten list. Thing is, it's a dramatic jump and creates a lot of problems.

Less dramatic would be price books and single payer. This is found in Asia, and has been adopted by countries facing the same issues we are facing today there. They kick our butts in health statistics. But what about all these insurance companies? Are they inherently evil?

Germany has insurance companies, they just aren't allowed to make a profit. If an insurance company takes in too much in premiums in a cycle, they lower the premiums the next. This wouldn't be very dramatic. A right friend asked, "but then they won't be able to invest, are you prepared to lose their investments in the markets?" Hell yeah! I trust Americans to make long term financial decisions way better than people who are trying to game the system with short term investments. It leads to better job security when people aren't investing short term. When they do that, it leads to mergers and company sell-offs. I think that's what happened to the oil market not to long ago.

In the end, of the three, non-profit insurance companies are the best. Government can subsidize those who have trouble with it, they do that in Germany. But no matter what, picking any of the three is better than what we have now.

CO: Jim Hightower to CWA - Employee Free Choice Act is Critical - Get Active

2009-07-31T22:25:00.001-04:00

AFL-CIO NOW BLOG | Findlay, Ohio, Chamber of Commerce Kills Parade Because Unions Backed It

2009-07-24T13:31:00.001-04:00

AFL-CIO NOW BLOG | Findlay, Ohio, Chamber of Commerce Kills Parade Because Unions Backed It

Shared via AddThis

Just another cog in the machine

2009-07-10T15:32:00.001-04:00

PowerLine Calls Ricci Egregrious Racism

2009-06-29T10:14:00.002-04:00

Are you kidding me? That case is pretty simple. There were two directives in the law and the city couldn't decide what to do. It felt that either way it violated the law. It didn't do anything... literally. So that's somehow egregious? You can tell that these folks don't have any experience with racism, because something as mild as doing nothing is called egregious.

Eight States Tell Fred to Quit Classifying their Employees as Contractors.

2009-06-27T16:06:00.003-04:00

“FedEx can’t hide from its responsibilities to its workers,” said Ken Hall, Teamsters International Vice President and Director of the Package Division. “Federal and state agencies are taking action to make sure FedEx doesn’t skirt the law and pays its fair share. Thanks to officials like these attorneys general, FedEx and CEO Fred Smith won’t be allowed to profit from this scheme at the expense of its work force and the American taxpayers.”

UnionReview.com <- click for more

UPDATE: Here is the announcement from Attorney General of KY Jack Conway.

Michael Jackson - Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

2009-06-26T02:02:00.002-04:00

This song was his, he wrote it, and I think it's really strange. He was strange. It's definitely one of my favorites of his. I think it offers a true insight, because the song is awesome, but weird, into the kind of person he was. I think the criticism really took him down, and he wasn't the same. He wasn't able to write a song like this, perform it, and really entertain us later in life. While his death was sad, the death of his artistic abilities was sadder and it happened years ago.

Imagine a World Without Nurses...TV Ad

2009-06-17T15:01:00.001-04:00

Could someone look at Lexington area hospital nursing staffing levels?

Aren't they all non-profit too? Are any union?

PowerLine recalls Reagan's support for a labor movement...

2009-06-16T17:26:00.001-04:00

Of course, it wasn't in this country,

When the Polish government declared martial law to crush Solidarity, this is what Ronald Reagan had to say on December 23, 1981:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023822.php

Role of Labor Unions in Today's Society

2009-06-16T04:13:00.001-04:00

It's demoralizing to not be able to pay your bills.

2009-06-09T13:25:00.003-04:00

WOW The Wall Street Journal does it again.

Many companies oppose pay cuts as much as the rank-and-file do. Pay cuts are often demoralizing, and low morale can cut into productivity, which is a backdoor way of raising costs.

Ugh.. demoralizing... quite a bit an understatement huh?

Hat Tip to Jonathon Tasini from Working Life.

Arlen Specter at EFCA rally pt. 1 and what does he mean?

2009-06-09T10:35:00.001-04:00

In part two below you will see that he says, "You will be satisfied with my vote." He says the intimidation, harassment, and bad faith in first contracts are unacceptable. He is leaving out company called elections as unacceptable. There will be a compromise EFCA this summer it appears, and it will still include the company called election it looks like. Maybe they will be much quicker, and companies will be limited in their ability to harass, but I find the 'secret ballot' argument one with no merit at all and don't understand how it in the world it worked.