Employee Free Choice Act

[OBGibby]

.....some folks will always be unhappy......

That's about all we appear to agree on.

If questioning fallacies equates to wanting to have the "last word" these days, then I'm quilty as charged. Your revision of history concerning the so-called bambozzlement of the American people relative to Iraq is deserving of a rebuttal, but I'll respect your desire to discontinue the discussion.

 

[The HalfBreed]

Well OBGibby, all we can do is wait and see. I, at least, gave Bush a chance to prove/disprove himself. I'll give Obama a chance. Bush Ran the Deficit up almost FOUR TRILLION dollars......From 5 to about 9 Trillion or thereabout.
The TARP Funds are still being spent, a product of the Bush Legacy no less. Even BUSH said things were fine, even though we were 8 months or so into a Recession.....Now, Obama has that on his hands, as well as 2 wars, and the one in IRAQ was certainly UNJUSTIFIED. The American people were Bamboozled into thinking that the Terrorists lived in IRAQ. sigh.

I'll give Obama as much time....2-3 years before I make a judgement call. He deserves that. Same as any president. I actually thought Bush did a fair job until he started the war in IRAQ. He'll certainly go down as one of the presidents that made one of the biggest mistakes in the history of America.
Obama will get a change to do better, for certainly, he CAN'T do any worse.

I'm going to let you have the last word as you seem to be that type. This conversation is almost pointless to continue.....some folks will always be unhappy......

 

[OBGibby]

Well, let me see now, Bush sent the Deficit from about 5 BILLION, to over 9 BILLION..... talk about deficits ??? Check it out for yourself.

Da Man, Obama now has as part of the Federal Budget things that Bush KEPT OFF of the federal budget, like the Wars in IRAQ and Afghanistan, and other things that was nothing more than "Sleight of Hand Smoke and Mirrors". If your parents/Grandparents/Great Grandparents were here during the early 1900's, I'm sure they experienced the Great Depression, and it was the Auto Industry, GI getting out of the war, into Manufacturing, etc that created the middle class and the lifestyle that let folks prosper during the 50's, 60's and 70's. It was Unions that leveled the playing field during that time.

Now, with that said, I admit Unions go too far at times, and there should be equalibrium. But, you can't or should'nt have a company like Walmart running roughshod over people, being so anti-union it stinks. It's not about money, but, rights in the workplace, being treated fairly.

However, if you're ancestors just got off the boat in the past 30 years, alot of this is foreign to you.

Since you brought him up, I'll take the bait. President Obama's spending has taken our country from the point of talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in deficits under former President Bush to trillions of dollars under President Obama. That is staggering. But I guess that's "change you can believe in."

Your assertion about President Obama somehow including the cost of the wars in the federal budget, and by implication asserting that the former administration did not, doesn't hold water.

My forebears were here in the early 1900's. In fact, my family has been in the United States before the individual states united. We landed in 1638 and have enjoyed the blessings and prosperity that hard work and democracy and capitalism have facilitated. 14 generations and counting of small business owners, military service, public servants, and a whole of lot of working for someone else. We've prospered and failed, but always looked to ourselves first to make good on our ambitions.

The Walmart snipe was enjoyable. The unions spend so much time griping about the supposed plight of the Walmart worker, as if only they would be delivered from their supposed hell if they could carry a union card in their back pocket. Nobody ever seems to question the motives of the unions vying to sign the Walmart workers up by the tens of thousands. You can practically see the potential mandatory dues dollars being spent in the eyes of the union leaders as they pummel Walmart as a great evil. Pathetic.

 

[The HalfBreed]

Pray tell, my friend, exactly what better life will my kids have as they pay back the enormous debt that, to use your description, "Da Man" is piling up a greater pace than any previous administration in the history of our great republic?

Well, let me see now, Bush sent the Deficit from about 5 BILLION, to over 9 BILLION..... talk about deficits ??? Check it out for yourself.

Da Man, Obama now has as part of the Federal Budget things that Bush KEPT OFF of the federal budget, like the Wars in IRAQ and Afghanistan, and other things that was nothing more than "Sleight of Hand Smoke and Mirrors". If your parents/Grandparents/Great Grandparents were here during the early 1900's, I'm sure they experienced the Great Depression, and it was the Auto Industry, GI getting out of the war, into Manufacturing, etc that created the middle class and the lifestyle that let folks prosper during the 50's, 60's and 70's. It was Unions that leveled the playing field during that time.

Now, with that said, I admit Unions go too far at times, and there should be equalibrium. But, you can't or should'nt have a company like Walmart running roughshod over people, being so anti-union it stinks. It's not about money, but, rights in the workplace, being treated fairly.

However, if you're ancestors just got off the boat in the past 30 years, alot of this is foreign to you.

 

[Silverbird]

One thing that Unions offer in the trades are guidelines for Apprentice, Journeyman and Master (and equivalent) ratings. Since the US does NOT offer degrees in trades, this does create some guidance to know if that electrician (for instance) *really*knows what they are doing. It may seem old-fashoined, but look at the "electricians" who worked in Iraq, they were considered out of the usual system since the contracts were not in the U.S.

 

[Viva_La_Migra]

Unions have their place and can be really GOOD or can be really bad if they get too powerful. Many employers will take advantage of the current WEAK UNION situation to mistreat workers in the name of profits. It's always the same, there is a happy medium, but when reached it either goes one way or the other like an act of nature.

Well said! I'm a fairly conservative individual and I can see the value in a unionized workforce. That said, I also see that unions are often obstacles to progress. There needs to be that happy medium where profits and employee protections are in equilibrium. We won't see that for a while, though! One side always seeks to take advantage of the other.

 

[The HalfBreed]

Unions have their place and can be really GOOD or can be really bad if they get too powerful. Many employers will take advantage of the current WEAK UNION situation to mistreat workers in the name of profits. It's always the same, there is a happy medium, but when reached it either goes one way or the other like an act of nature.

Absolutely !!!

 

[nnuut]

Unions have their place and can be really GOOD or can be really bad if they get too powerful. Many employers will take advantage of the current WEAK UNION situation to mistreat workers in the name of profits. It's always the same, there is a happy medium, but when reached it either goes one way or the other like an act of nature.

 

[OBGibby]

Comments like that, I expect from a typical government worker who has no knowledge of the sacrifices their parents and grandparents endured trying to gain a better life for them, and their offspring.

Typical Right Wing Rhetoric. Maybe one day, your child will suffer the same cruelties these folks have. Then, you can tell them your story too.
I'm SURE they'll love to hear it when their wages are cut by 40% because China does it cheaper. :notrust:

And the "sacrifices" my parents and grandparents endured (which you have so elequently espoused as if you have any direct knowledge of such sacrifices) have what, exactly, to do with unions? I guess every worker who has ever punched a time card without union organization has toiled under "cruel" conditions and had never been able to "gain a better life." You must pity their poor existence.

Pray tell, my friend, exactly what better life will my kids have as they pay back the enormous debt that, to use your description, "Da Man" is piling up a greater pace than any previous administration in the history of our great republic?

 

[The HalfBreed]

Typical pro-union rhetoric. Of particular enjoyment was how this union propaganda masquerades as some sort of objective journalistic work.

Comments like that, I expect from a typical government worker who has no knowledge of the sacrifices their parents and grandparents endured trying to gain a better life for them, and their offspring.

Typical Right Wing Rhetoric. Maybe one day, your child will suffer the same cruelties these folks have. Then, you can tell them your story too.
I'm SURE they'll love to hear it when their wages are cut by 40% because China does it cheaper. :notrust:

 

[OBGibby]

Typical pro-union rhetoric. Of particular enjoyment was how this union propaganda masquerades as some sort of objective journalistic work.

 

[James48843]

Rite Aid Campaign ‘Poster Child’ for Faltering Employee Free Choice Act

— Jennifer Sargent

Outside the Beltway, union activists are saying that compromises to Employee Free Choice aren't going to restore workers’ freedom to join a union. To support the Rite Aid warehouse campaign, worker and community groups held rallies at Rite Aids nationwide, including this one in San Pedro, California. Photo: Slobodan Dimitrov


As debates behind closed doors in Congress look to compromise the Employee Free Choice Act, attention is turning to a million-square-foot warehouse in California’s Mojave Desert town of Lancaster.

Inside the giant complex, more than 550 employees work shifts around the clock, picking merchandise to ship to several hundred Rite Aid stores throughout six Southwestern states. For many observers, the three-year campaign by workers to join a union—and the employer’s blistering response—has become the poster child for the need to reform federal labor laws and restore workers’ freedom to join a union.

Carlos Rubio was active early in the organizing drive. He had loved his job and later told a reporter, “I put in so many hours my wife thought I was cheating.” But after new management came in, everything changed. “They talked to you like you were a kid,” he said, adding they told workers, “If you don’t like it here, you can work at McDonald’s.”

Pay wasn’t a top issue for most workers—whose pay was better than many low-wage jobs in the high-desert community. But working in the warehouse had other problems that seemed a big step down from fast food. Workers faced triple-digit heat in the summer and freezing temperatures in the winter, a lack of job security, and production demands they considered arbitrary and unsafe.

Management also insisted on mandatory, last-minute overtime that was unmanageable for many families.
In spring 2006, Rite Aid workers contacted the Longshore Workers (ILWU) Local 26 and started organizing. Rite Aid responded with an all-too-familiar heavy hand, threatening, harassing, and firing employees who supported the union.


PENALTIES ARE TOOTHLESS

The National Labor Relations Board was prepared to charge Rite Aid with 49 violations of federal labor laws two years ago. But instead of facing a trial before an NLRB judge, Rite Aid was allowed to settle the charges with a typical slap on the wrist.

Rite Aid was only required to rehire several workers who had been illegally fired or suspended, and had to provide back wages minus any wages the workers had earned to survive in the meantime.

Rite Aid was also required to post a notice in the plant for 60 days, promising not to violate the laws again—a promise they broke almost immediately.

Despite management’s attacks, workers pressed on. Rubio and dozens of his co-workers spent hundreds of hours organizing the union, designing and distributed scores of their own flyers, and putting together events. Their campaign went to a vote in March 2008, and a majority chose “union yes” by a vote of 283-261.

The union victory was the largest organizing victory for warehouse workers wanting to join the ILWU in many years. And as predicted, it brought on the next phase of union-busting: Endless foot-dragging that employers often use to delay a contract for a year, when it becomes legal to decertify the union if a contract is not reached.

Rite Aid has met with the workers’ negotiating committee 30 times, and has agreed to little more than bulletin boards, seniority, and a few minor issues—just enough to claim that they’re “bargaining in good faith.”

Meanwhile, Rite Aid continues to engage a notorious anti-union consulting firm, Oliver J Bell and Associates, which is now guiding a small group of employees and coordinating a decertification petition drive.

Rank-and-file negotiating committee members have organized a petition of their own saying they want the company to reach a union agreement. More than 360 have signed.



More: http://labornotes.org/node/2283