The Center for Union Facts is just the latest front group started by slimy lobbyist Rick Berman who got jammed up in one of the many Gingrich/GPAC money scandals a few years ago. He has run similar campaigns against stiffer drunk driving laws, food safety legislation, minimum wage increases and my personal favorite, the American's with Disabilities Act, where he said in effect that making accommodations for people with disabilities was anti-business and anti-American. What a guy.
Among the biggest funders of his operation: Coca-Cola, Wendy's, Tyson Foods, Cargill and Outback Steakhouse.
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely" - Lord Acton.
Yes, it's just as fitting for unions as it is for government, political parties, and corporations. And right now, some unions, politicians, and corporations are using their power in government to stick it to us regular people by transfering our "wealth" to themselves under the auspice of somehow helping us. But at least we don't have Kings to fight against for individual freedom any more. Then again, maybe that would be better than the current situation with untold numbers of freedom taking power mongers.
Being forced to join a union and pay dues just to be able to take a job you want? Now that is about as contrary to the ideas that founded our nation as it gets.
"Being forced to join a union and pay dues just to be able to take a job you want? Now that is about as contrary to the ideas that founded our nation as it gets."
Interesting. I thought "stealing from your co-workers" was about as contrary to the ideas that founded our nation", which is of course what the people are doing when they try and accept union benefits but not pay the union dues.
In the alternative, if you don't pay union dues, you then work in dangerous conditions and at minimum wage?
Everybody who whines about unions should be forced to work one day in conditions that existed prior to unions.
Who is stealing so-called union benefits skeeter? Can you point out one indictment or conviction in the past 40 years? No.
Funny how you are against "stealing from co-workers", but not against Democrat politicians stealing from the taxpayers. And your logic that all current jobs would be dangerous for minimum wage if it weren't for unions is completely laughable.
Sure unions accomplished some essentailly great things prior to 30 years ago but that is absolutely no excuse for some the crap they pull these days. But good ol skeeter believes unions are pure and good and 100% innocent and can do no wrong. Give us a break.
Jeff: 1. Re: Stealing. Taking something that somebody else worked for is stealing. Do you disagree?
2. Please point out where I said unions were "pure good."
3. Read some history. 30 years ago? That puts us in the 1970. That was not exactly the high point for unions.
If you had the slightest clue what you were talking about, you would have referenced the miners fights where management MACHINE-GUNNED union workers. The result was that, until the B-Team took over, mines became much safer and mine workers can make a living wage. The same things (minus the machine gunning) happened in meat packing and other dangerous jobs. No unions = more dead workers.
Look it up. It is true.
Before you post on unions, do some reseach. Otherwise your writing is what I would expect from a "C" high school student.
Finally, it is ironic that you would mention giving you a break. Do you think employers handed those out before unions.
skeeter I grew up in a union home in the 70s and 80s in a union town with jackrocks in driveways, bricks through windows, cars keyed, windows shot out with pellet guns, sugar in gas tanks, flattened tires, threatening phone calls, people getting beat up at restaurants and bars, burnt down houses, and countless other union thug tactics.
Yes, until the 1930's some horrible crap was put down on union members including what I would call mass murder, so I suppose current unions either learned two wrongs make a right or were taken over by immoral former mobsters. Probably a little of both. So yes, the 1970s were hardly the high point for unions because that is when the greed and thugs starting taking over and the unions started going down hill very fast.
Sure taking property/money from someone else is theft, just like what happens to every paycheck of mine that is given to other people who often have more than I do. Why isn't it theft to take my money and give to people with kids when I can't afford to have them, or people for healthcare when I can't afford to have it or artists or horse racing or corporate subsidies or dance theaters or ??? It's the same thing according to your logic, so why the double standard?
Most of the hard fought victories unions have gained up to the first part of last century have been codified into law, especially regarding working conditions. Great for them, they did their job and did it very well. But they weren't satisfied with those victories are starting weilding their power for the sake of greed. Now they mostly argue over who can change a lightbulb or whether or not a union member can be fired for beating the crap out of his boss or a teacher can get fired for yelling racist insults to children. There is very little constructive improvements coming from unions these days, and that's their own fault. There could still be a vital role for unions, but they've been corrupted with too much power.
In Peoria, the unions have all but driven out all of the high paying jobs that my generation would have benefitted from because they absolutely refused to recognize the need to co-exist with places like Caterpillar to help ensure those jobs would be there for their kids. I've had plenty of immediate family members in unions at Caterpillar and schools and retail/service and railroad and government. Unions are far, far, far from what they used to be, which I certainly do know my history about union busting tactics until the 1930s and tapering off during WWII. But for the most part, the achievements you are pointing to happened 70 years ago. What have they done for me lately? Not much, except in my experience get in the way of positive working relationships between unions and companies, and I'm no supporter of corporations either. Having to call the right union person to get a light bulb changed is in effect, stealing from both the company and the customers, not to mention government. Unions promote inefficiency, bottlenecking, and a anti-company sentiment that serves no ones long term interests in too many instances these days.
Sure, it's one thing to be greateful for the improvements unions brought to current workers, but they hardly owe those union dues now because of previous efforts. That's like saying the unions owe the people who started the company they work for because they are receiving benefits from the jobs now. No, they don't owe the companies, but they do they owe them gratitude instead of anti-company rhetoric, just life current workers owe the unions gratitude instead of big chunks of their paycheck.
No you didn't outright say unions were pure, but you certainly imply it by failing to admit any of the current problems with unions highlighted in the commercial. Free individuals should never be forced to join a union just to get or keep a job. That's completely ridiculous. I'd love to see unions start taking better care of their members by offering health insurance, retirement plans, family emergency assistance, education savings plans, and on and on. If they don't like what the company is offering, fine, do it themselves and up their dues to cover it since they know how to do it better than the company.
If someone wants to work for $1/hr less than the union contract because their only other alternative for a job is $5/hr less somewhere else, that individual should be free to make that decision for themselves. Turning people into union slaves, killing good paying jobs, driving manufacturing away, and refusing to have healthy relationships with the employers is exactly why unions are declining faster and faster every year. They have no concept of the big picture and want their's now at the expense of their children. Unions are killing themselves with their greed when they should be offering new benefits and services to bring more people in. And government needs to stay out of the unions way if they have a better health or retirement plan that the company does. So keep talking about the slaughters of the 1910s and 1920s all you want, but that is mostly irrelevant these days.
And yes, many, many, many employers handed out benefits before unions, typically the smaller employers that corporate bought Republican politicians and Democrat regulating and taxing politicians have driven out of business. Most people aren't the Rockefellers of early 20th Century hiring Pinckerton assasins and gaining immunity through corporations.
Maybe today's unions ought to be saying thank you to the union job creators instead of the F&*K Y#& they usually say these days, which has mostly hurt their own children by driving jobs out of their communities.
And I was an honor roll high school student with a lot higher ACT score than your hero Blagojevich, along with 90% of the other people who took it. Try again skeeter. It serves no purpose to blindly defend the indefensible when it comes to unions, politicians, and especially most of the Democrats you ote for.
You have this tendency to create positions for me. Are you debating me or are you debating some fantasy version of a liberal Democrat?
Please show me where I have ever made any reference to the intelligence of Blago. Please show me where I have ever claimed that Blago was a hero. For a person who claims to have a high ACT, you sure don't seem to be great at reading comprehension. On that note, I always question the intelligence of anyone who brags about their intelligence.
To the merits:
Interesting you would raise the Peoria example.
What sort of wages were being earned there?
How are those red-staters doing that worked for less, took our jobs, and helped destroy Illinois industry?
They had lower paying jobs for a while, until management found an even better deal and shipped those jobs even further south.
If those red-staters had any self respect, they would have stood up and demanded fair wages. They didn't and the result was that everybody lost.
Look at what happened with the air traffic controllers. Reagan kicked the hell out of that union. Now what do we have? Overworked air traffic controllers and a system that is a massive threat to all of our safety.
Sure unions have excesses. Sure some of the fights can seem petty.
But in what other country can a basically unskilled worker join an apprenticeship program, end up working as a union carpenter, and make enough wages to keep his family fed, put his kids through college, and then have a union retirement? Isn't that the American dream? All courtesy of unions.
And speaking of construction unions, I invite you to go to North Carolina and try and get a competent crew to build a house. Hire an electrician? Good luck. Make sure to get good insurance and check those fire alarms.
But at least those poor electricians don't have to pony up any dues.
"You know what I love? Being hired for 39.5 hours a week so I can't get health care. Don't worry, Medicare will take care of me and my kids!"
"Or when the government tells my company 'it's cool to fire her - having a baby is just like insubordination.'"
"I love it when unions are all lumped in as so-called 'liberals,' even the ones that waste my dues on candidates who will stick it to me in the end! Statesman of the Year, indeed!"
lllinoize is about the free expression of divergent ideas. Opinions expressed on this blog are those of the authors only. Any disputes, factual or otherwise, should be addressed to the bloggers themselves, who are solely responsible for their posts
11 comments:
Surely there are some liberals out there who will take offense!
The discrimination part I touched upon a little bit on my blog.
Dan Ryan reconstruction issues...
The Center for Union Facts is just the latest front group started by slimy lobbyist Rick Berman who got jammed up in one of the many Gingrich/GPAC money scandals a few years ago. He has run similar campaigns against stiffer drunk driving laws, food safety legislation, minimum wage increases and my personal favorite, the American's with Disabilities Act, where he said in effect that making accommodations for people with disabilities was anti-business and anti-American. What a guy.
Among the biggest funders of his operation: Coca-Cola, Wendy's, Tyson Foods, Cargill and Outback Steakhouse.
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely" - Lord Acton.
Yes, it's just as fitting for unions as it is for government, political parties, and corporations. And right now, some unions, politicians, and corporations are using their power in government to stick it to us regular people by transfering our "wealth" to themselves under the auspice of somehow helping us. But at least we don't have Kings to fight against for individual freedom any more. Then again, maybe that would be better than the current situation with untold numbers of freedom taking power mongers.
Being forced to join a union and pay dues just to be able to take a job you want? Now that is about as contrary to the ideas that founded our nation as it gets.
"Being forced to join a union and pay dues just to be able to take a job you want? Now that is about as contrary to the ideas that founded our nation as it gets."
Interesting.
I thought "stealing from your co-workers" was about as contrary to the ideas that founded our nation", which is of course what the people are doing when they try and accept union benefits but not pay the union dues.
In the alternative, if you don't pay union dues, you then work in dangerous conditions and at minimum wage?
Everybody who whines about unions should be forced to work one day in conditions that existed prior to unions.
Who is stealing so-called union benefits skeeter? Can you point out one indictment or conviction in the past 40 years? No.
Funny how you are against "stealing from co-workers", but not against Democrat politicians stealing from the taxpayers. And your logic that all current jobs would be dangerous for minimum wage if it weren't for unions is completely laughable.
Sure unions accomplished some essentailly great things prior to 30 years ago but that is absolutely no excuse for some the crap they pull these days. But good ol skeeter believes unions are pure and good and 100% innocent and can do no wrong. Give us a break.
Jeff:
1. Re: Stealing. Taking something that somebody else worked for is stealing. Do you disagree?
2. Please point out where I said unions were "pure good."
3. Read some history. 30 years ago? That puts us in the 1970. That was not exactly the high point for unions.
If you had the slightest clue what you were talking about, you would have referenced the miners fights where management MACHINE-GUNNED union workers. The result was that, until the B-Team took over, mines became much safer and mine workers can make a living wage. The same things (minus the machine gunning) happened in meat packing and other dangerous jobs. No unions = more dead workers.
Look it up. It is true.
Before you post on unions, do some reseach. Otherwise your writing is what I would expect from a "C" high school student.
Finally, it is ironic that you would mention giving you a break. Do you think employers handed those out before unions.
You might want to say "thank you."
skeeter I grew up in a union home in the 70s and 80s in a union town with jackrocks in driveways, bricks through windows, cars keyed, windows shot out with pellet guns, sugar in gas tanks, flattened tires, threatening phone calls, people getting beat up at restaurants and bars, burnt down houses, and countless other union thug tactics.
Yes, until the 1930's some horrible crap was put down on union members including what I would call mass murder, so I suppose current unions either learned two wrongs make a right or were taken over by immoral former mobsters. Probably a little of both. So yes, the 1970s were hardly the high point for unions because that is when the greed and thugs starting taking over and the unions started going down hill very fast.
Sure taking property/money from someone else is theft, just like what happens to every paycheck of mine that is given to other people who often have more than I do. Why isn't it theft to take my money and give to people with kids when I can't afford to have them, or people for healthcare when I can't afford to have it or artists or horse racing or corporate subsidies or dance theaters or ??? It's the same thing according to your logic, so why the double standard?
Most of the hard fought victories unions have gained up to the first part of last century have been codified into law, especially regarding working conditions. Great for them, they did their job and did it very well. But they weren't satisfied with those victories are starting weilding their power for the sake of greed. Now they mostly argue over who can change a lightbulb or whether or not a union member can be fired for beating the crap out of his boss or a teacher can get fired for yelling racist insults to children. There is very little constructive improvements coming from unions these days, and that's their own fault. There could still be a vital role for unions, but they've been corrupted with too much power.
In Peoria, the unions have all but driven out all of the high paying jobs that my generation would have benefitted from because they absolutely refused to recognize the need to co-exist with places like Caterpillar to help ensure those jobs would be there for their kids. I've had plenty of immediate family members in unions at Caterpillar and schools and retail/service and railroad and government. Unions are far, far, far from what they used to be, which I certainly do know my history about union busting tactics until the 1930s and tapering off during WWII. But for the most part, the achievements you are pointing to happened 70 years ago. What have they done for me lately? Not much, except in my experience get in the way of positive working relationships between unions and companies, and I'm no supporter of corporations either. Having to call the right union person to get a light bulb changed is in effect, stealing from both the company and the customers, not to mention government. Unions promote inefficiency, bottlenecking, and a anti-company sentiment that serves no ones long term interests in too many instances these days.
Sure, it's one thing to be greateful for the improvements unions brought to current workers, but they hardly owe those union dues now because of previous efforts. That's like saying the unions owe the people who started the company they work for because they are receiving benefits from the jobs now. No, they don't owe the companies, but they do they owe them gratitude instead of anti-company rhetoric, just life current workers owe the unions gratitude instead of big chunks of their paycheck.
No you didn't outright say unions were pure, but you certainly imply it by failing to admit any of the current problems with unions highlighted in the commercial. Free individuals should never be forced to join a union just to get or keep a job. That's completely ridiculous. I'd love to see unions start taking better care of their members by offering health insurance, retirement plans, family emergency assistance, education savings plans, and on and on. If they don't like what the company is offering, fine, do it themselves and up their dues to cover it since they know how to do it better than the company.
If someone wants to work for $1/hr less than the union contract because their only other alternative for a job is $5/hr less somewhere else, that individual should be free to make that decision for themselves. Turning people into union slaves, killing good paying jobs, driving manufacturing away, and refusing to have healthy relationships with the employers is exactly why unions are declining faster and faster every year. They have no concept of the big picture and want their's now at the expense of their children. Unions are killing themselves with their greed when they should be offering new benefits and services to bring more people in. And government needs to stay out of the unions way if they have a better health or retirement plan that the company does. So keep talking about the slaughters of the 1910s and 1920s all you want, but that is mostly irrelevant these days.
And yes, many, many, many employers handed out benefits before unions, typically the smaller employers that corporate bought Republican politicians and Democrat regulating and taxing politicians have driven out of business. Most people aren't the Rockefellers of early 20th Century hiring Pinckerton assasins and gaining immunity through corporations.
Maybe today's unions ought to be saying thank you to the union job creators instead of the F&*K Y#& they usually say these days, which has mostly hurt their own children by driving jobs out of their communities.
And I was an honor roll high school student with a lot higher ACT score than your hero Blagojevich, along with 90% of the other people who took it. Try again skeeter. It serves no purpose to blindly defend the indefensible when it comes to unions, politicians, and especially most of the Democrats you ote for.
Jeff,
You have this tendency to create positions for me. Are you debating me or are you debating some fantasy version of a liberal Democrat?
Please show me where I have ever made any reference to the intelligence of Blago. Please show me where I have ever claimed that Blago was a hero. For a person who claims to have a high ACT, you sure don't seem to be great at reading comprehension. On that note, I always question the intelligence of anyone who brags about their intelligence.
To the merits:
Interesting you would raise the Peoria
example.
What sort of wages were being earned there?
How are those red-staters doing that worked for less, took our jobs, and helped destroy Illinois industry?
They had lower paying jobs for a while, until management found an even better deal and shipped those jobs even further south.
If those red-staters had any self respect, they would have stood up and demanded fair wages. They didn't and the result was that everybody lost.
Look at what happened with the air traffic controllers. Reagan kicked the hell out of that union. Now what do we have? Overworked air traffic controllers and a system that is a massive threat to all of our safety.
Sure unions have excesses. Sure some of the fights can seem petty.
But in what other country can a basically unskilled worker join an apprenticeship program, end up working as a union carpenter, and make enough wages to keep his family fed, put his kids through college, and then have a union retirement? Isn't that the American dream? All courtesy of unions.
And speaking of construction unions, I invite you to go to North Carolina and try and get a competent crew to build a house. Hire an electrician? Good luck. Make sure to get good insurance and check those fire alarms.
But at least those poor electricians don't have to pony up any dues.
Oh please.
"You know what I love? Being hired for 39.5 hours a week so I can't get health care. Don't worry, Medicare will take care of me and my kids!"
"Or when the government tells my company 'it's cool to fire her - having a baby is just like insubordination.'"
"I love it when unions are all lumped in as so-called 'liberals,' even the ones that waste my dues on candidates who will stick it to me in the end! Statesman of the Year, indeed!"
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