Freeper-types slam unions

[Archae]

Is it just a natural thing, for Freeper-types to slam unions?
Sure looks that way...
(From another message board)



VH> The unions are counting on political clout to get government money. And
VH> screw the rest of the country.

God, I hate unions... I can't think of anything more damaging and
insidious to the well being and economic health of the country, whether
you're talking about historically or currently. Whatever limited good
they did 150 years ago has long since been wiped out.

[wryter2000]

1. It's in their DNA

They hate health insurance coverage, pensions, overtime, and the 40 hour work week. They're against anything that might help regular people...including themselves.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. I don't know why the average person would ever hate a union.

I can only come up with brainwashing, frankly.

Corporate execs? Yeah, I get why they wouldn't like them. But everyone else? "Yes, I hate a group that protects my rights as a worker."

Then again, I also can't understand why people hate the ACLU, so there's got to be cognitive dissonance on someone's part.

[54anickel]

3. Delusions of grandeur as they envision themselves clawing their way to the top. For some silly

reason they identify themselves with their masters...keeps them from even recognizing the need for freedom, justice or equality for themselves or others.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

4. I think you might have hit it there.

Everyone thinks they're going to be a multi-national entrepreneur someday. At least maybe the anti-Union folks do. It's insanity. It's also why American Idol does so well, IMHO.

[Tim01]

6. I have union friends

who have wanted to do more and accomplish more. But because of the union structure they have just settled for doing their time until retirement. Because of the union structure(this guy is with a phone company, I don't know which one) there is no opportunity for advancement and there never will be.
I have another friend who left the union, he kept getting in trouble for working his team too hard.(Drywaller) He went back to the private sector.

[Caliman73]

8. Advancement?

That is not dictated by the Union, that is dictated by the Company. I am a Union member and the only gripe I have with them is that they are cumbersome just like any other collective structure. Sometimes I think that Unions protect workers that they should not protect, but that is just my opinion. In my experience with Union jobs, the Union has never stood in the way of advancement. On the contrary, the Union makes sure that Union members who are qualified for higher positions are considered for openings before the positions are offered to people coming from the outside.

[Tim01]

18. The phone guy's complaint

was that everybody up the chain above him were idiots but the union wouldn't get them out of the way so he could do the job right. He did retire in the same position.

[54anickel]

19. Um, not one to judge but do you suppose his attitude might have played a role as well?

That actually sounds like some of the freeper friends hubby works with - union shop. Yes, there are some "slackers" being protected by the union. Guys that have put in 20 plus years and backing off on the harder physical labor - can't blame some of them, they can barely walk anymore. Should they get canned at 59 years of age after working there since high school? Should the retirees that took consessions early on to accumulate health care coverage in retirement have that taken away?

[Tim01]

22. I don't work with him,so it's hard to say.

I did work with an old slacker an my last company. He was constantly finding some way to not actually do his job. He was not very popular with the people who had to pick up the slack for him. We would have been ok with the fact that he was old, but he just refused to even try. Always whining about what he was entitled to while we did the work as he took another break and lied to the management. Not even hard job. He sort of had kind of a break down when they laid him off. He thought he was going to coast until retirement.
Everybody worked harder than him, including the old guys who actually hurt. He just wouldn't try.

[54anickel]

24. No doubt "slackers" do exist, but I still think they are the exception and not the rule, yet

they are constantly raised up as a typical example. Sort of like the Reagan's "welfare queen" hyperbole.

Funny how we went from a socially focused paradigm of the New Deal and Great Society to this sense of rugged individualism and the New Right's overwhelming sense of superiority and polarizing tactics originally rooted in racism.

[bullwinkle428]

14. Is the drywall guy making more money since he left the union?

[Tim01]

17. I haven't talked to him in a while but he was making more.

I don't know how much more. His biggest complaint was that they kept yelling at him for working hard. He couldn't stand it. "You don't work these people like that, these are union people!" He just expected his team to try to keep up with him, not just do the minimum.

[jmg257]

12. Probably 'cause you never had to deal with them on a job site. I don't

mind unions, but they ain't the nicest bunch to try to get YOUR job done around, if they think it in ANY way overlaps theirs.

Go into a job site in NYC and pick up a screwdriver and you'll see, just be sure to stay away from high ledges.

[Tim01]

23. I've heard it isn't safe to work in NYC because of the unions.

I knew carpet layers who would only work there in the middle of the night because fear of retaliation.

[Tim01]

5. They think that if employees made lower wages

and didn't have to pay the huge union dues, the extra money would go into research and development and stuff like that. Making the companies stronger and better able to compete with foreign companies. I sure have never made nearly as much money as union employees and I am not in the poor house by any stretch. And I am sure I am more skilled than many union jobs.

But the truth is simply that the extra money just goes into the accounts of the stock holders and to pay bonuses of corporate execs. If anti-union people were shown this with a paper trail they would probably do a complete turn around.

When the money goes to the average workers they spend a lot of it which stimulates the economy. Money going into the stock market mostly benefits stock holders.

[54anickel]

10. Interesting comment, so do you think union employees are overpaid?

I sure have never made nearly as much money as union employees and I am not in the poor house by any stretch. And I am sure I am more skilled than many union jobs.

Or could it be non-union employees are being exploited and underpaid. Whatever happened to fair day's pay for an honest day's work?

A person may be more skilled, or "skooled" but doesn't the guy doing the shit job like cleaning the toilet after that person or butchering the pig that person had for dinner deserve to be fairly compensated for doing those shit jobs for that person? What about the guy on the shop floor, breathing in smoke and fumes, foundry dust, chemicals, abusing his body, busting his back, legs and joints to the point that if he's lucky enough to reach retirement age he can bare walk or breathe?

We compensate professional athletes handsomely for the abuse they put their bodies through, manual labor....not so much.

[Tim01]

16. Yes, I do think some union employees are way over paid.

Some problems do not have a realistic answer.
If the only 2 choices are the 2 current choices of 1) union emplyees getting lots of money and their stock holders not getting so much. Or 2) employees getting less and stockholders getting more, I'll take union.
I did work for a company that I thought had a pretty good plan. Everybody was put into a category based on things like seniority. Within that category there was a pretty wide range of money making opportunities based on performance. A slacker who just did the minimum, but who had been there a long time, was the lowest paid person in category 3. A new guy who worked hard was the highest paid member of category 1.

[rurallib]

13. Do they still teach US history in high school? The part about the

near monopolies that corporations exhibited before T. Roosevelt? And how workers were just a piece of furniture that worke 15 hour days for very little pay?
This is what 'merica's captains of industry want and republics would like to serve up to them. This is what 'merica's captains of industry do in 3rd world countries. Unions are one of the main recourses against these abuses.
Go out on your own and help the unions die. Then wonder why corporations gain more power, driving small businessmen out of business and force workers into slave-like labor.
Think really hard about what happens if unions die. No doubt there is room for reform. But much of what you take for granted goes away with unrestrained corporatism.

[guitar man]

7. they do it

because they are told to, just like everything else. They tune into their favorite talking points spewer(s) and then they repeat what they are told to think, simple as that. They never stop to question, because if they did, they would know that unions are something that could help them, and help all of us.

I wonder just how bad things would have to get for them to finally wake them up?

[Doremus]

9. Part of it is stupidity, part is a belief they can do better without a union, but most of it,

with the people I know, is pure resentment that they have to pay union dues. :eyes:


Which goes back to reason #1...

[dkofos]

11. They are wrong about everything else.

[Deja Q]

15. Unions aren't perfect, but are they CEO-types or just idiot-types?

[Earth Bound Misfit]

20. Any worker whose compensation package

doesn't include MAJOR stock options/bonuses/pension/health ins. and who would receive little more than a FEW WEEKS SEVERANCE if they were laid off IS NUTS if they don't want to belong to a UNION, IMO.

[ogneopasno]

21. Not just freeper types. Sit around here long enough and you'll see it on this side, too.

[lib2DaBone]

25. American People have Been So Brainwashed For So Long....

I have seen people in the Welfare Line spouting Republican Talking Points... WTF?

Yes, Unions did have some abuses... but, for the most part, UNIONS GOT THE 40 HOUR WORK WEEK.

Unions put heat in the factories (and lights) when the Republicans wanted to enslave the workers in asbestos filled hell holes.

If it wasn't for the Unions... American workers would have NO HEALTH CARE and make less tha Minimum wage.

People got to remember, that management's goal is to work the most people, at the least wage, with the least benefits.

Management is NOT your friend... Republicans are NOT your friend... Republicans will work you LIKE A RENTED MULE... and throw you to the scrap heap ...when your knees give out and your elbows give out and the arthritis fills your fingers. Your body cries out from working in a cold meat locker. Or you have Capal Tunnel from Delivering Mail day after day without the proper equipment.

Hey Studs Terkel.. Working in America SUCKS and it is a loosing proposition.

FUCK GEORGE BUSH.. FUCK REPUBLICANS.....Fuck the MSM..... WISE UP AMERICA..