Why I love unions.

[amused]

People should get back to basic civil intimidation anyway...



http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Radicals-Sa ... r+radicals

[DaveDodo007]

Without unions you would all be working for one groat a month without holidays. So shut the fuck up until you know what you are talking about or better still show me some benign capitalist system.

[Bella Fortuna]

I've worked in labour relations in unionised environments for 12 years. I know a little bit of what I'm talking about, and in fact did qualify what I said. The black and white approach really doesn't do justice to what is a very complex issue often with a lot of emotion tied to it. Being polarised is a lazy way out.

[Azathoth]

bunch of fuckers

Iceland's livestock inseminators could be on their way to going on strike if a collective bargaining agreement cannot be reached.

DFS, the newspaper of south Iceland, reports that the inseminators have been in tough negotiations with the country's agricultural organisations over what they see as unfair wage conditions. If no resolution can be had, they will go on strike after the new year.

http://www.grapevine.is/News/ReadArticl ... -To-Strike

[Robert_S]

Without unions you would all be working for one groat a month without holidays. So shut the fuck up until you know what you are talking about or better still show me some benign capitalist system.

Without for-profit business, our products and services would be absolute shit from a central planning office. Does that mean we got no right to bitch about their excesses?

Without light, we couldn't see a damn thing. Therefore outlaw sunglasses?

[Seth]

I know I won't be popular for stating my opinion that, from personal dealings I've had over the years, most unions have far outlived the noble reasons for which they were invented and now exist primarily to justify their existence by inventing or escalating problems that need never have been problems in the first place. I won't say there hasn't been benefit at times, but the ones I've dealt with have usually been self-serving and duplicitous.

I completely agree, Bella. Unions have far outlived their usefulness and their necessity. The structures of labor and employment law are adequate to protect workers now in ways that they were not at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the union-forming period.

Now they are self-defeating dinosaurs more interested in politics than in supporting workers.

And they are stupid too. Just look at the Hostess debacle. They went from having jobs, albeit not with the perks they wanted, to having no jobs at all. And the owners of Hostess will cash out their billions and go right on living the good life. Then someone will buy the Hostess patents and recipes and trademarks and re-open the company under new ownership, in a right-to-work state hostile to union bullying, and go right back to making Twinkies.

But the 18,000 fuckwits who used to have jobs will still be unemployed.

Talk about a suicidal death wish...unions just don't know when they've lost.

[Seth]

Without unions you would all be working for one groat a month without holidays. So shut the fuck up until you know what you are talking about or better still show me some benign capitalist system.

No we wouldn't. If we were, the 85 percent of the workers who ARE NOT in unions would be working for a groat without holidays. Remarkably, they aren't. Some ninety-four percent of them are working at non-union jobs and are being paid far above minimum wage and have things like health insurance and vacations. And union membership has been declining for decades because they aren't needed anymore.

Unions served a useful purpose at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution when employers truly did abuse employees. But that situation no longer obtains, and the legal structures to protect workers have nothing whatever to do with unions, they are laws created by legislatures that recognize the rights of employees to safe work environments and fair and honest payment for the work done.

Unions no longer serve a useful purpose in our capitalist economy, they are just an obstruction to prosperity.

So while unions served a useful purpose 100 years ago or more, what the fuck have they done for us lately? Nothing but drag down the economy, that's what.

[JimC]

A union man am I, and will remain so.

[Azathoth]

Unions served a useful purpose at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution when employers truly did abuse employees. But that situation no longer obtains

[Warren Dew]

Meaning that a family of four could be earning $55,000 a year at Walmart, about triple their poverty level.

[Azathoth]

Of course. Get those kids out to work. I heard they are quite useful down the mines

[redunderthebed]

Used to be in a union when i worked and when i get a job again i'll once again be in a union. Seth dystopian idea of the world where the few can do what the fuck they like and the many might as well lube up and take it where the sun don't shine is something i'll fight until my last dying breath as did my forefathers who unionized and fought for these laws that he quotes.

United we bargain Divided we beg.

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

The Germans seem to cope ok with Unions.

[DaveDodo007]

Without unions you would all be working for one groat a month without holidays. So shut the fuck up until you know what you are talking about or better still show me some benign capitalist system.

No we wouldn't. If we were, the 85 percent of the workers who ARE NOT in unions would be working for a groat without holidays. Remarkably, they aren't. Some ninety-four percent of them are working at non-union jobs and are being paid far above minimum wage and have things like health insurance and vacations. And union membership has been declining for decades because they aren't needed anymore.

Unions served a useful purpose at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution when employers truly did abuse employees. But that situation no longer obtains, and the legal structures to protect workers have nothing whatever to do with unions, they are laws created by legislatures that recognize the rights of employees to safe work environments and fair and honest payment for the work done.

Unions no longer serve a useful purpose in our capitalist economy, they are just an obstruction to prosperity.

So while unions served a useful purpose 100 years ago or more, what the fuck have they done for us lately? Nothing but drag down the economy, that's what.

The non union work places still have to remain competitive if they are going to attract good workers as they don't exist in a vacuum. A happy worker is a productive worker and a unhappy worker will do their job half arsed. Unions aren't the loony left down tools at any stupid thing like the seventies. They are now part of the company and get involved in training the workforce it is in their own interest to keep the company competitive.

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

I must confess I am conflicted on Unions - I appreciate both the historic benefit they have brought to me (and to wider society) and also the fact that organised labour does prevent a return to the "good old days" (bye bye to the weekend and hello to testing asbestos on babies ), but nonetheless there are business attractions to a world where the life of a worker is worth less than 1 groat a day (lets call that rate of monetary remuneration a "CES" )....but having been in a world (and done ok) where the entire life of someone can valued at far less than a single CES , overall I prefer being somewhere civilised....if only from laziness (keeping an eye out for folks who are best made into history, even if just in case , is surprisingly time consuming ).