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As a President of a government union, I can tell you that there is great fear of reprisal against employees for speaking out and there is still a fear to join the union beacause of reprisal. The union provides protection. Go figure!
Thom, the new Satistic on Sociopaths is 1 in 25... came out last year, when they say 1 out of a 100, it's code...they don't want to tell you, because it's so bad.... i was saying for years, that we would be lucky if it's just 1 out of 25, i still think it could be worse... But it explains the World...1 out 25...
Voting by mail would help solve many of our problems
Gingrich Again
{… a limerick …}
Newt is a figure bizarre,
again now a re-rising star
among Trump’s veeps.
Our alarm sounds its beeps: -
- Newt’d be a Cheney-like czar.
========================
As a union member I understand a thing or two about unions. I belong to a union where labor and management work together. We know that we need each other. We both contribute money to training. We train apprentices for 5 years. We train journeymen workers too so they can get additional qualifications and be more desirable employees and be more useful to management. Management does not have to keep any employee they do not want. We have about 15 signatory contractors in our union. The contractors have had the option to leave the union with a 90 day advanced notice before the expiration of a contract for decades but they stay. One contractor left but came back and asked if he could rejoin the union because he could not find trained and highly qualified employees in the non-union sector instead he got employees that were constantly screwing up. Not all unions are the same. Each union is unique just like each person is unique. So if someone says unions do this or that, ask them , "Which unions? " and remind them that not all unions are the same. The so-called anti-abortion, pro-second amendment legislators have been enacting anti-union and anti-worker legislation for years. If people would wake up they could see that anti-abortion and pro-second amendment is code for pro-business owner, pro-CEO, pro-millionaire, and anti-worker, (non-union and especially union worker). It's a matter of pro worker candidates stepping up and running for office and getting elected. If that happened, it would be beneficial for all workers. In the meantime my union, Plumbers Local 17 Memphis Tennessee just keeps on rolling along.
"given it was their idea and workers are just drudges/drones and both easily obtainable and replaceable" queen b said.
I don't know where you live but good employees are very hard to replace. Almost extinct. The reason why Union membership is down is because business owners like me pay the good ones a ton and keep our companies small and profitable. Then the big corporations buy us up and I go golfing.
Upper medium size companies that unionized don't exists anymore. They sell out before the unions take over. Kinda sad but it is what it is.
For sure - and those hypocritically named "right to work" laws are really laws designed to cripple the unions. Employees have the right to work with or without the statutes, only difference is how much money they take home. The Republicans have a penchant for misnaming statutes to make it appear they are for the working class when in fact they are to protect business profits. Do they think no one notices?
Marty
Thom, Today's blog once again resonates so well with my professor husband's play "Our Day Will Come" about Eugene Debs dedication in the early 20th Century to these same political principles. You "should" read it. It is very timely today!! And, by the way (& coincidentally) we are also Hunter School alumni parents thanks to my reading your "Prophet's Way"! Carole
Slave trade agreements have broke the backs of many of our labor unions. Trump sure has benefited from this piggish method of concentrating wealth and power.
We could stop out of control pant loads like Trump by reverting back to tax laws which existed as late as the early 60's. Rates then were over 90% for the top bracket, and guess what?...the economy, along with the middle class, boomed. It was power to the people! We could do that again, but it's doubtful that Hillary and the Dems will move on any tax rate hikes for the billionaires and corpse America......it would be a huge lift for Bernie once he's Senate majority leader, who knows? ....at least he'll fight for us.
BTW, polls are still very favorable for increasing taxes on the rich, but that smells too much like democracy.
Globalization is an inexhorable reality which will only increase momentum with time. Like the technology which enabled it, it can be for good or for evil - it's a nuetral reality in and of itself. It is from the hearts of men from which its potential good or destructive force will prevail. This global era of fast money-driven cycles of greed>fear>greed>fear can only be transformed through courageous and humanistic leadership. Where are those leaders. One by one, we must find them, encourage them, promote them. A single courageous leader - one at a time - can make a difference.
I agree with you 100% Thom. The middle class of America is slowly disappearing. I continually write letters and send e-mails to my congesspeople abot things such as this. Although I admit it gets a bit disenhearting to see so little change. I commend you on your vigilance and commitment to spreading the word of the people.
Lol. How idealistic. Mant companies are started by individuals, and those individuals don't want to be cooperatively owned, given it was their idea and workers are just drudges/drones and both easily obtainable and replaceable.
Your post sounds very communistic. Unfortunately, never go to a restaurant, see the chef serving a meal and decide it is a smorgasbord or buffet...just for you and everyone else whose best contribution are just their appetites.
This is the same blog that tells us climate change will end the world any time now...faced with imminent extinction, I'm thinking unions and wealthy people don't really matter anymore.
If messages are to be taken seriously..have a cause and stick with it.. because when causes contradict each other, it cancels both messages out.
Thom, how can we consider or care about unions and the super wealthy if methane is about to begin the processes of ending our existence? PRIORITIES. PRIORITIES. LOL
The clash between union and management stems from an "us versus them' tribal mind set.
Suggest looking into the many successful examples of worker run and owned cooperatives.
Excellent source of information is at
http://www.democracyatwork.info/
ct
NOtice to Thom from harry ashburn, beach and lieder fan...among others: Thom...please slack-off on the tweets! Beach is threatening to leave the chat room... others, including myself... are also tired of too many tweets! thank you!
Maybe a better idea would be to require labeling that says, "Warning: Contains Monsanto Adulterants/Ingredients".
Or: "Warning: Approved by the US 'Regulatory' System".
Where is the evidence – backed theory that would predict that GMO-modified foods are dangerous?
Who cares? Let's nip this in the bud right now. Do we have a right to know what we're eating or not?
Here we have a states right issue if there ever was one.
Keep the feds away from state laws on food.
Let good ideas spread from state to state.
As for keeping the money out of politics, have heard this song for decades.
Rather than rant, use your time and resources to buy more senators than the food
companies.
If the courts decree money is free speech, then speak more forcefully.
ct
Tom, I am usually in agreement with most of what you say. But I think your position against GMO foods is unfounded. WEBMD reports that those who have studied the field do not believe there is a danger associated with GMO foods. In fact, such foods have been on our store shelves for many years and no clear impacts on human health have been reported.
I am a research psychologist and, as a scientist, I try to go with the science. Where is the evidence – backed theory that would predict that GMO-modified foods are dangerous?
Dr. Dan Johnson
If the DARK act passes, our next step should be to buy only whole, plant based foods at marketers who assure bingo, organic produce..and if we can barter instead of Fiat money.
There are more ways for consumers to prevail..and processed foods are frankenfoods and not good for us anyway.
Our daily 'news'paper this weekend noted in its factcheck column that the City of Austin has a larger budget than the National Park System.
Setting a dress code is both proper and expected when it comes to any kind of party....as the host/hostess it is your obligation to let the guests know the type of reception it is ( your party, so you decide how casual or formal) so they can dress accordingly but remember, it is a suggestion.
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Concerning the accelerated ice melting. That old joke about buying future ocean
front property in Arizona comes to mind sadly. All those warnings from all those
science institutes and they STILL won't listen. Or more likely those various corp-
orations refuse to just acknowledge it period.
Lol. When did I defend slavery? Having a shared and very rich history with my ancestors as slaves, I am part of the demographic well aware of not only slavery but colorism (being that I am one of those darker black people) and not as a theory or standard bearing white guilt movement but as my race's legacy and my everyday reality.
Truth is truth. Look at the dates of the Emancipation proclamation and when war was actually declared.
Freeing the slaves was a ploy, not a position of conscience. Guess that is what is meant by "white washing, eh? There are no haloes from that war.
The civil war did not begin because of slavery or even dialog about slaves. How well revisionist history lessons take and how readily some (like you) adopt and believe the versions that make you feel more comfortable or righteous.
Thankfully, having gone to school prior to PC history lessons, we learned not only about the economic deal between the South and England that caused the North to react, we also know freeing the slaves was not a moral choice for the North or Lincoln but a strategic one that was to preempt England from entering the war on the side of the South.
Like most wars, this was all about money and trade not right or wrong.
Sorry if that offends your sensibilities, but truth is truth. This is also why, when after the war as former slaves relocated znorth, the still got lynched and were segregated into ghettos and there was Jim Crow.
If the North and Lincoln were as moral as you like to believe, why did it take over100 years to end segregation and why are we still waiting for equal treatment? # white privilege, # trayvonmartin, # Ferguson,mo, # Eric garner.
guess you follow that old adage if "if you tell a lie long enough, it replaces the truth. Smh