Re: Idiot rightards promote their anti-union agenda. Say workers to blame

On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:02:14 -0800, Rita <Rita@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:20:36 -0500, Thumper <jaylsmith@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:57:46 -0800, Rita <Rita@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:37:26 -0500, Thumper <jaylsmith@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:55:05 -0500, "Evelyn" <evelyn.ruut@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Harry, you would have to be living in a cave not to realize that auto
workers are VERY highly paid, and perhaps more highly paid than they really
ought to be. I am all for unions, but I think that particular union has
too much power if there is such a thing.
--

They earn their pay. Don't succumb to the post Reagan idea of
impoverishing workers. Counting overtime (which is forced on them by
the companies) as part of their compensation isn't fair. It's akin to
having a second job. Their real hourly pay is $25 to $31. That
doesn't even buy a starter home in most areas. It is true that much
of the American workforce is under paid so don't use them as a
reference.
Thumper

I would like to see a comparison, adjusted for the cost of living,
between what the workers earned in the 1970s and 1980s compared to
today. Just look at the difference between the cost of buying
a home than and now as one benchmark.


I might have some comparison charts but they would have to be scanned
and My scanner doesn't work. (lack of use)
Yes, the unions will have to make concessions. And the company
management seems reluctant to give up traveling by private corporate
jet.

To me the reason for not just letting this drop and leaving them
all on their own is that millions of jobs could be lost. And that
would leave us all in the soup. Not just them.


People have to start looking at the big picture. Letting the big 3 go
bankrupt would devistate the country. This is after all a LOAN. Not a
bail out. Under normal times they would use the credit market to get
loans but the credit market is virtually frozen.

And you are right, Thumper, that much of the workforce IS underpayed.
One more reason a recession is such a multiplier.


Almost all of our economic problems including the sub-prime market,
originated with Reagan's supply side economics. 3 decades of lowering
people's REAL income (via so called free trade,) while increasing
productivity, has ruined us. It created a situation where the only way
people could that supply was to have the producers throw credit at
consumers. This has happened in the credit card industry as well as
the mortgage industry. Human nature, being what it is, lured
consumers in hook, line, and sinker.

I truly believe we need tariffs to bring back some balance in our
trade and unions to bring back balance between wages (demand) and
productivity (supply). we need to start by increasing the minimum
wage to $10,00.

Here is one excerpt
At $8.25 an hour in 2011, the state?s minimum wage would still have 13
percent less purchasing power than it had at its peak in 1970,
according to a new report released on Thursday by the Fiscal Policy
Institute. The institute said it would prefer to see the minimum wage
raised to $9.50, restoring it to the inflation-adjusted value it had
in 1970. That change would raise the wages of 1.2 million New Yorkers,
the institute estimated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/nyregion/11wages.html

Thumper

I do believe the automaker's current management must go. Until
they do, I don't believe there will be confidence this industry
can be fixed. Perhaps being turned down will give them some
impetus to come back with firm plans to change their ways, but
I doubt it. There seems to be little recognition of their own
failures.

On the other hand we bailed out AIG and the white collar jobs
they offer. And the AIG folks are also arrogant as can be.

We need to find a way to protect workers' jobs -- and Barney
Franks is right when he says blue collar jobs are valued far less
than those of the white collar crowd.


I agree.
Thumper
.

Relevant Pages

  • Work and the Free Society
    ... "It has become an article of the creed of modern morality that all labour is ... worked for a wage or a salary will confirm that. ... factory system meant that capitalism had a means to create vast numbers of jobs ... but at the price of workers surrendering this power and with it, ...
    (sci.med.diseases.hepatitis)
  • Re: OT: This is why there are "denialists"...
    ... When Texas introduced minimum wage legislation - more than ... It turned out that fast food jobs ... Henry Ford ran into the same paradox when he tripled his workers wages ... when he first set up his production line. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: OT: This is why there are "denialists"...
    ... When Texas introduced minimum wage legislation - more than ... It turned out that fast food jobs ... Henry Ford ran into the same paradox when he tripled his workers wages ... when he first set up his production line. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Something for nothing: GM and the unions
    ... idea labor unions can get their members something for nothing. ... Workers themselves increasingly recognize there is no free lunch ... through unionization and increasingly vote to be non-union. ... than, unionized workers for the same jobs, just to be free of red tape ...
    (rec.autos.makers.chrysler)
  • Something for nothing: GM and the unions
    ... idea labor unions can get their members something for nothing. ... Workers themselves increasingly recognize there is no free lunch ... through unionization and increasingly vote to be non-union. ... than, unionized workers for the same jobs, just to be free of red tape ...
    (rec.autos.makers.chrysler)
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