Union Threat Could Grow Drastically Under Dems

[NOTTHOR]

online.wsj.com/article/SB120726663082588243.html?mod=todays_columnists

"How bad does Big Labor want this? Consider the desperation. A global economy has meant higher-paying, more flexible jobs, and a U.S. workforce that sees little value in unions. Union membership has been in a free-fall for years, with private-sector membership now at just 7.4% of the labor force. Fights over how to stop this bleeding have fractured the movement. Labor leaders worry that if they don't reverse the trend soon, they'll be out of a job."

Damn that global economy that has helped provide higher paying non-union jobs. Labor leaders are worried they'll be out of a job, damn it! They are spending an estimated cumulative $1 billion on this election so they can help elect a big government labor market distorting anti-free trade liberal whose fiscal agenda falls somewhere between Huey Long and FDR? Shocking, I thought the people in unions were really poor and they needed raises and more pension benefits. Who the hell did they shake down for that $1 billion?

[mattahawk]

I think sometime in January I read an article in the D-rag about the Dems' wanting all Iowans to be a member of a union in some shape or form. They are trying to talk Culver into it. If that happens culver and the Dems can kiss my white ass. Nobody is forcing me to join anything.

[GhostMod 5000]

[ignatiusreilly]

I think most people on here that bitch about unions have barely the slightest clue about unions. They probably have never done a real day's hard labor in their lives.

It's all a bunch of political talking point bullshit... this thread is a perfect example. I couldn't even read this regurgitated republican rant.

"I read an article in the D-rag about the Dems' wanting all Iowans to be a member of a union in some shape or form" -- this is another completely absurd statement.

I swear to God, get out your "How to be a good republican" handbook and find another issue, because this one is out of your league. Or maybe I'm wrong and you can share with us your *REAL*life union experience that helped shape your opinion. And I'm not talking about some conservative op/ed piece you read or the chapter in the handbook or Rush Limbaugh's latest nonsense. Let's hear about that union work you've done.

...

..

I think I'm about to hear crickets.

[mattahawk]

This is not the actual article but an opinion article by David Yepsen ABOUT the original article in the Rag. Ok you fucking douchebag here it is. And by the way before you start implying I don't know what real work is shows what a fucknut you are. Do you know what a driveshaft is? Probably not, but I will say it weighs about 60 pounds or so and for 6 months I lifted those 4 times for every unit 9 units a day by myself because my supervisor was to stupid to give me any help. Your a clueless fucking dirtbag who don't know your ass from a hole in the wall. Get over yourself prick.

Oh, me thinks i'm hearing crickets???


By standing up to some of the labor unions, Gov. Chet Culver may have reassured his 2010 re-election - and beyond.
He's threatening to veto a labor-backed, hurry-up rewrite of the state's public-employee collective-bargaining laws. It takes courage for a Democratic governor to call a halt to something like that, but that's what Culver did.

Some labor folks are furious with him for slowing their Holy Week steamroller, which was trying to shove the measure into law just before Easter, when few people were paying attention.
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Most Iowa voters will approve of the governor's move. They respect a politician who doesn't toady and who's willing to stand up to interest groups, especially his own. Culver's been too willing to do the bidding of the teachers' union, so his newly found backbone is refreshing.

For Culver to defy the unions is akin to when Sen. Charles Grassley voted against the first Persian Gulf war. It enraged his normal constituency groups, but it earned him the respect of his adversaries and many voters in the middle.

There are several problems with gutting Iowa's collective-bargaining laws.

First, Democrats have no mandate to do it. When Iowa voters gave them control of both houses of the Legislature and the governorship in 2006, they were voting for better jobs, health care and education, not more power for unions.

This move comes a year after Democrats failed to muster enough votes to change the right-to-work traditions in Iowa law, which would have allowed bargaining on whether workers who don't belong to a union would be forced to pay union dues for services the union supposedly provides them.

This collective-bargaining gambit is merely an attempt to do something else to appease labor. If Democrats truly believe these things are necessary, they should take the matter to the voters, just as the road lobby should have taken a gas-tax increase to voters last year.

By mishandling right to work and now collective bargaining, Democrats have energized Republicans and have assured this will now be an issue in the 2008 legislative elections. Republicans will be asking voters: "Want to do away with right to work? Want to give public-employee unions more pay and benefits? Then vote for Democrats for the Legislature. If not, vote for Republicans."

Second, this is simply a bit of the traditional tension between the two branches of government. Culver, the executive, understands that doing favors for labor hurts the management side of every state, city, county and school bargaining table. State legislators could care less.

Third, it's a tax increase. If the government bargaining table is tilted toward the unions, who already control a lot of the elected officials on the other side, the inevitable result will be higher pay and better benefits for a class of workers that is already doing quite well when compared to most other Iowa workers.

Fourth, it's also a test of wills between the governor and Democratic legislative leaders. Just who is boss? Many of these leaders endorsed Mike Blouin in the primary with Culver. So did the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Culver still won comfortably. He doesn't owe these guys anything. Nor does he have to fear their threats. When it comes to delivering on endorsements, these folks are toothless.

Maybe Democrats are getting cocky. Maybe they are so sure they'll win control again in 2008 that they think they can afford to roll over for the unions. Voters may think otherwise. Don't be surprised if Republicans win the Iowa House because Iowans feel they need to check the abuse of power created by one-party rule.

It's happened before in Iowa, in 1966, when voters decided Statehouse Democrats went too far after their 1964 landslide.

DAVID YEPSEN can be reached at [e-mail] or [phone].

[NOTTHOR]

My rant is not based on some Republican talking points sheet, it is based my years of studying economics and observations of unions continued decimation of our country's manufacturing base and massive pension and healthcare liabilities that unions have slapped on all levels of government.

Specifically, the UAW recently had a policy that everybody who set foot on the grounds of a Big Three factory to perform unskilled labor had to be a union member. That meant we had guys making a fully burdened $75 an hour to mow lawns.

Furthermore, the UAW had a get paid to sit on your ass program called the JOBS Bank where the Big Three had to pay people to sit in a cafeteria and not work. Then, to trim the numbers, the automakers have had to pay in excess of $100k a piece to people to get them to quit their job doing nothing.

Finally, I have seen firsthand the dangers posed by union fights against mechanization and unconscionably high withdrawal liability when a company seeks to lay off union workers.

Unions distort the hell out of the labor market and push labor costs to a point where businesses can't hire employees. They exclude people from working. They cause jobs to be offshored. Call me crazy, but I think that if we are better off if four people have decent paying manufacturing jobs in the US than we are if one person has a really high paying manufacturing job and 2 people are working at Wal-Mart for $7.85 schlepping the stuff they used to make in anytown USA and the fourth person is on unemployment/welfare. The unions have really helped price the US out of a lot of unskilled industries and it is a goddamn shame if you ask me. Now they have wised up and are only try to jack up prices of jobs that can't be offshored, like hotel maid, teacher, grocery store clerk, etc. Frankly, if I ran a hotel or a store and the union tried to come in, it would be a cold day in hell before I negotiated with them. I'd close the damn place down first.

[GhostMod 5000]

Hey Mattahawk, he that article wasn't about making all Iowans be a union member, it was about making every state employee (people employed by the State of Iowa). And also, you will notice that a Democrat put a stop to it as well.

Maybe you should try and read the fine print before you go ballistic and start calling guys fucking douchbags.

/not holding my breath for your correction.

[ignatiusreilly]

mattahawk said:

Do you know what a driveshaft is? Probably not, but I will say it weighs about 60 pounds or so and for 6 months I lifted those 4 times for every unit 9 units a day by myself because my supervisor was to stupid to give me any help.

You lifted 60 pounds 36 times a day?!? Holy sh*t you are a f*cking hulk! I do more than that when I warm up for a workout. LOL.

Maybe if it was a union job you would have been able to do something about that lazy supervisor. Not that you should require union help to handle some petty bullsh*t like that.

Maybe you guys have a problem with the leaders of the unions... and I can see your argument there. I'd guess that union leadership is about as corrupt as catholic church leadership. And by that I mean it's probably corrupt as hell.

weak unions=nobody wants to do sh*t work because it won't pay the bills=illegal alien labor=higher profits for the companies hiring the foreign labor=a formerly all-american profession that no longer helps the economy one iota

The question is, how do we reverse this trend? Strengthening the unions? Maybe, maybe not. They certainly shouldn't be weakened. Wages in a lot of these manufacturing and food industries need to be raised so that middle class Americans can support their families by working these jobs. I know that the rich and the republican don't give a sh*t about the middle class so long as they are paying their own bills, but the middle class makes up a majority of this country and if the middle class is weak, then this country is weak.

But hey, whatever, I know I'm not going to change your minds. I can't compete with the Republican Handbook. Some of this stuff just seems like common sense though.

I don't claim to be a Democrat, because they do work toward some stupid things. But I just think Republicans take the cake in stupidity. The people that vote these guys in are living breathing oxymorons. They preach patriotism, but vote in people who create increases in illegal alien labor while making formerly good American jobs worthless. They preach family values, but it was the Republicans capitalistic tunnel vision that caused most every American family to have both the mother and father working full time to support itself. What great family values Republican politicians instill in the coutnry. F*cking idiots.

[NOTTHOR]

The strength of the middle class won't come from an artifical price wedge between labor and capital that unions push. It will come from people improving skill sets so that they can offer something of value to an employer. A unionized burger flipper at McDonald's adds nothing to the equation but drives the price of burgers up.

The only equation the Dems and union leaders can come up with is: GED+pulse=right to live like a king (see, e.g. Huey Long). I can't susbscribe to that idea. In the modern economy, you better have some specialized skill that you can sell to others if you want to make more than a bare bones living. Why the Dems don't understand this is beyond me.

And as for two earner families, I think women's liberation is generally a good thing and I am glad that women can freely join the workforce. If you disagree, maybe you could move to Saudi Arabia or Iran where women don't enjoy equal rights.

[ignatiusreilly]

I'm not talking about burger flipping which has always been a minimum wage job mostly for students.

I'm talking about manufacturing jobs like cars, textiles, meat processing, etc. At one time these were respectable careers. A guy could do these jobs and raise his family. Now, a bunch of mexicans with freshly forged documents do these jobs for peanuts. You say that workers need to improve their skill sets to offer value to their employers, but If everyone was a doctor a dentist or a CEO, then who is going to make our goods? Oh yeah, mexicans and chinese importers. That's a brilliant idea. And besides, why isn't working in a textile mill or de-boning a ham a valuable skill? Like I said, not everyone is cut out to write software, extract molars, and design skyscrapers. And those people are rewarded for their skills and I'm not saying that a meat packer should make the same money as an architect, but meat packers should at least earn an income above the poverty line because they and their money are important to our economy. All the meat packers in this country contribute a lot more to the economy than all the architects. So to fluff them off because they don't have masters degrees makes no sense.

Also, both parents working isn't a women's liberation thing... it's an economic thing brought about by republican policies in the 80's aka 'Reaganomics'. Has nothing to do with Iran or Saudia Arabia or other 'evil terrorists' and how they view women in their societies. There's nothing wrong with women who *want* to join the workforce, but when they *have* to just to pay the bills and keep food on the table, then there might be a problem. It's not how things were prior to Ron Reagan's presidency. Did it hurt 'family values'? Family values is a stupid political phrase anyway, but I find it funny that Republicans are always touting it as being important, yet they are the ones that helped to do away with the idea of the American family.

[NOTTHOR]

The amount of skill needed to tighten a bolt on a car or sew a button on a textile is not that much higher than burger flipper. Thus, we have seen jobs for bolt tightening and button sewing leave the country. Sure, there was a golden age of bolt tightening, textile sewing and meat packing, but those days are long gone. Meatpacking jobs have been filled by new immigrants. Not all of the new immigrants are illegal. Textiles and meat packing have storied histories as the shittiest jobs in America, and a golden age where unions fixed the price of labor at a point higher than the market was willing to bear worked for a few decades, but if I was given a choice between a pair of jeans made with union labor that cost $50 or a pair made in Guatemala that cost $40, I'm probably buying the cheaper ones.

What's your infatuation with women working, whether by choice or by necessity? Why does it matter? Clearly you are of the free loader Democrat mindset. My wife isn't going to work outside the home when our kids are very young, but once they go to school, her ass isn't going to sit around and watch Oprah all damn day. It's not like we're living in the '40's where "housewife" really was a full time job. Granted, if a couple wanted to return to a 1940's standard of living without cell phones, computers, washer/dryer, microwave, cable tv, air conditioning, etc., a very limited amount of income could satisfy that lifestyle and would reqire a wife to stay at home all day to do the chores. It's more keeping up with the Joneses and enhancing standard of living measured by material things that "forces" married women to join the workforce.

It's hilarious how Reagan takes the blame for two family incomes in your eyes. I'm sure that in the days of his predecessor families were way better off dealing with gas shortages and 20% interest rates on mortgages.

[ignatiusreilly]

Point is, a lot of these jobs that you deem not worthy of earning a living from are leaving this country every day. And the more of these jobs that go, the less jobs that are available. These lost jobs sure aren't going to get us out of this impending recession. That's all I'm saying. When the day comes that the only decent paying jobs are those that require a college education, that's the day that America is going to be in real big trouble. How long before it's decided that it takes burger-flipping caliber skills to run a backhoe, assemble a window, work a lathe, or be a machinist. These jobs don't require degrees. What do you think, Ralph, should we start training illegals now so that there will be a smooth transition when the wages for these jobs drop?

Also, I have no infatuation with women working. My mom owned a successful business in Ottumwa for more than 20 years doing something she loved. She probably would have done that no matter what our family's financial situation was. My point is that it takes two incomes now to support a family where it used to take only one. You can justify it with computers and cell phones all you want, but that's the point I was trying to make.

And Reagan gets the blame because it happened under his watch and under his policies. Just like Bush will get the blame for the 9,000 sh*tty things that happened during his presidency. Plus I hear so much Reagan loving from Fox news reporters, Republican politicians, and their supporters that I like to point out that just because he was in the right place at the right time when the Soviet Union collapsed, doesn't mean his presidency wasn't without flaws.

[NOTTHOR]

And how will a union rebirth that drives up prices of labor stem the outflow of jobs? I don't get it. Running a backhoe or working a lathe are skilled jobs. They are not as skilled as doctor or architect, but no one is going to turn over the keys to a backhoe or let someone off the street run a freaking lathe. Those are examples of trades that require marketable skills. I have a good buddy who runs a backhoe and he has either 4 or 5 kids - his wife doesn't work, he lives in Urbandale and is getting by. And he's not a union member - he just has a certificate that says he passed a competency test to operate an expensive piece of equipment that can kill or maim innocent bystanders if operated incorrectly.

Being a guy on an assembly line, whether the assembly line is the kitchen at McDonald's, in a textile mill or in a UAW factory, is unskilled. That is the way it is intended. Assembly lines are designed by smart engineers so that a well trained monkey off the street can do any task on them over and over and over with no thought.

My mom worked when Carter was President, so it was clearly Carter's fault that women have to work. His transfer payment schemes weren't enough to keep my mom from having to work. Regardless of what you think, people's standard of living in terms of material stuff that they have has gone up drastically from the days of the Beave. That's a huge driver in why more wommins work. If families didn't "need" a McMansion, a new car every 2 years, cell phones, etc., they could easily get by on a single income, but Americans have demanded more and more crap every year.

When I went to Drake, I lived in an apartment surrounded by a bunch of poors. How many wommins who lived there do you think worked? ZERO. That's why they lived in a shithole by Drake without a washer and dryer, dishwasher, computer, etc. It can be done, it's just that your standard of living will be comparable to a bygone era. It's a choice they make. I had a bunch of shitty jobs while I was in college, and nothing made me get my ass in gear like seeing what happened to people who didn't take the time to learn marketable skills.

But like the good judge from Caddyshack said "Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too."

[Chuck Storm]

ignatiusreilly said:

Plus I hear so much Reagan loving from Fox news reporters, Republican politicians, and their supporters that I like to point out that just because he was in the right place at the right time when the Soviet Union collapsed, doesn't mean his presidency wasn't without flaws.

Oh, give me a break. Of all the preposterous statements you've made in this thread, this has to be the worst. During the entire 1980's, the Blame-America-First Surrender-Monkey Democrats were whining about how Reagan's confrontation of the Soviet Union was going to lead to war and how his massive defense spending (remember Star Wars?) was too expensive.

Reagan directly caused the collapse of the Soviet Union both through political means ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!") and economic means (by creating an arms race the commis couldn't keep up with).

Now, if you're like a large portion of the democratic part, you probably regard the fact that Reagan caused the collapse of the world's best known communist regime as a black mark since all of the marxism classes you took in college are now useless, but to argue that it was "right place, right time" is ridiculous.

[NOTTHOR]

Careful autolykos or we'll have to hear how Algore invented the internet and made the Clinton legacy so strong.

[NotMyKid]

ignatiusreilly said:

They certainly shouldn't be weakened. Wages in a lot of these manufacturing and food industries need to be raised so that middle class Americans can support their families by working these jobs. I know that the rich and the republican don't give a sh*t about the middle class so long as they are paying their own bills, but the middle class makes up a majority of this country and if the middle class is weak, then this country is weak.

OK wait a second here. So unions are needed to increase wages for people working jobs in manufacturing and the food industry?

So what happens to the price of goods that those employees help create.? They go up to pay for the salary of the guy making $100,000 to turn a screwdriver. Look I am all for people making the most money they can and there are plenty of high level managers getting paid way more then they should be, but your example doesn't make sense.

[ignatiusreilly]

I never said anything about $100,000 for turning a screwdriver, you just made that up. Unions are needed for lots of things, not just raising wages. But raising wages or to put it in a better term you guys might find harder to twist around: keeping wages fair, is just one function of a union.

I'm sick of talking about unions. I don't even belong to one. I just know they have their place. In these kind of environments companies are known for cutting costs in any way possible usually at the cost of the safety or benefits of the employees. And now a days (with special thanks to Mr. Right Time, Right Place himself), they can just bring in Mexicans if the US workers don't like it.

Thanks you patriotic Republicans for overrunning this great land (especially the midwest) with illegal mexicans. Way to go you honorable patriots!

Anyways I'm done talking about this, Lycos and Ralph: you guys can respond and refute my beliefs, I wouldn't expect anything less, but I don't want to talk about unions anymore.

btw, Hoffa, Where I work there are a lot of people being paid $100,000+ that do less than turn a screwdriver. One middle eastern guy can hardly speak english and he gets paid that much to "deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to". How we are able to retain those customers is beyond me.

[ignatiusreilly]

bigtimeralph said:

Careful autolykos or we'll have to hear how Algore invented the internet and made the Clinton legacy so strong.

Like I said, I don't consider myself a democrat and I will concede that Clinton was in the right place at the right time with regards to the economy boom during the 90's. The difference is he was able to keep things rolling smoothly unlike our current dipstick.