They make such a compelling argument, though. "Unions are bad because THEY MAKE MONEY." Unlike Wal-Mart, the internationally beloved nonprofit cancer charity.

"Unions take money out of your check every week for dues! UNIONS BAD!"

"Don't forget to sign up for our associate stock purchase plan which will take money out of your check every week."

so in picking between (from your view) a greater evil and a lesser evil, you choose the greater evil.

you are so dumb.

I bought a Mazda 3 and then I put my laptop in it on the passenger side seat. When I came back to the car a week later, it was broken into and the laptop was gone. So I've soured on Mazda 3s.

Some unions do better than others, I'll give you that.

But if you like a five-day, 40-hour work week, you owe that to unions. If you like the fact that we even have a minimum wage, that's because of unions. And that pension ... would your dad even have a pension if it weren't for unions? Sure, a lot of what unions once did have moved into the realm of federal law rather than individual contracts, but that just speaks to what unions were capable of back when people supported them.

The other year, when Apple was getting bad press because their Chinese FoxConn plant was working its people to the point of suicide ... and FoxConn's response was to put up nets so they couldn't jump to their deaths any longer. Apple knew about that and still kept working with FoxConn. They'd do the same to US workers if they could get away with it.

So I'll side with the union until they show me they're worse than management ... and that's pretty damn rare.

The unions of today are far more bureaucratic than they were during their heyday in the early-mid 20th century. The men who made great gains for American labor died decades ago and they've been replaced by full-time union officials who don't share the working conditions of the rank-and-file members they're supposed to represent. Their main concern is justifying their position within the union bureaucracy, which means quashing the sort of grass-roots boots-on-the-street labor labor revolts that took place in the past. Every grievance has to be filtered through a hierarchical corporate-political structure and your voice will only be heard if it conforms to the limits of the contractual relationship that the union big wigs have with the employing class.

The ruthlessness of Walmart (and corporate America as a whole) is part of the public record, but leftists tend to have an idealized view of unions that has more to do with what they were than what they turned into. They also aren't aware of the fact that many union pension funds are terminally underfunded. This is a blind spot that needs to be corrected, regardless of the political cost, because it's a looming catastrophe.

Those giant political bureaucracies are largely due to the Landrum-Griffith Act. It protected union employees to some degree from mobster influence, but also made it impossible to create grassroots unions and enabled elites to bargain directly with employers regardless of how members voted.

Taft-Hartley was the coffin, Landrum-Griffith was the nails.

Landrum-Griffin. Bleh.

I'm reading up on Landrum-Griffin, and yeah, it sure as hell seems DESIGNED to keep unions from having to recognize or respect the wishes of union members. Is there any way to look at it as well-intended but poorly-constructed? There's a lot of explicit good in L-G and its weaknesses seem to be in the loopholes, but damn, those are some big loopholes.

What I want to know is how the hell mandatory binding arbitration agreements are fucking legal. How are those not just as bad as yellow dog contracts?

because the supreme court has at least 3 corporate whores on it.

I'm off to start up a modeling agency where all my employees are forced to sign away their right to sue for sexual harassment.

I don't know. That woman's weird cadence and odd facial expressions remind me of those "Prometheus" teasers with the guy pretending to be the android.

I don't think she's pretending, though.

They're called strikes, and unions/people need to grow some balls and actually go on them.

The dock workers shut down shipping on the west coast because management didn't want to cooperate.

Corporations/management actually need the fear of a organized workforce put back into them, rather than the current view of workers being cattle to be managed and problem stock culled.

The problem is that it's not the 20th century anymore. Our dock workers were doing slowdowns ( not even a strike ), and now the chinese no longer dock at our port. Business has dropped 90% (!!!) and the port is effectively closed. The port management doesn't seem to mind this, I suspect because they've wired things such that they ( the managing entity ) isn't materially affected by a closure. The workers, on the other hand, are sucking wind.

It's ironic that the President just swung by to talk up his wonderful new trade deal with the pacific rim, which might actually be of some benefit to us, if we could, you know, trade with them. But we can't. That doesn't show any sign of changing soon, if at all.

The old models are breaking down, Bort and Sol. We can't just pick up the banjo ( for Bort ) and sing a healthy round of "The Internationale" ( for Sol ). What does it even mean to have a union when in 20 or 30 years most of what passes for work these days will be done by machine? That's the kicker. Take our port for example. One might imagine it to be like Marlon Brandon On The Waterfront, but these days it's just a small number of guys and a lot of machinery. It would be _easy_ to cut that number by a factor of 10 again and have bot's doing all the jobs. Now what? I rather suspect that's the long term strategy of the managment for this port. Close it for several years until everyone moves on, then reopen with automation.

I wonder about this new trade deal; as much as the Left loves to scream about how Obama is a corporate tool (let's see you throw out your iPhones hippies), he doesn't leave the public holding the bag in general, so I keep looking for the good in TPP but I keep coming up empty. It will likely be a blessing to workers in the nations we trade with, but here in America, I'm not seeing much direct good for workers or consumers, just corporate profits and trickle-down.

... months later, after the TPP has been released and I've been able to examine the TPP, I see it's got sections that crack down on child labor and involuntary servitude, plus it forces governments to allow labor unions and provide minimum wages. Those are good things. Looks like Obama didn't let me down after all!

And as to the argument that the TPP is going to cost us jobs ... which jobs exactly? I thought we lost all those jobs decades ago to nations that didn't have minimum wages or labor unions. Except now they're going to have minimum wages and labor unions, so does that mean some of the jobs will be coming back? I see the potential.

Haven't you heard about payroll debit cards? They cost less than checks to the employer, and because the low-income scum--I mean, employees, can't afford a bank account with direct deposit, they get these debit cards with their money on them. The bank they get the cards from gets to charge them massive fees just for accessing their money to buy food, gas, or get cash at ATM's, further reducing their actual wages but helping those struggling bankers to keep their third mansions.

http://business.time.com/2013/07/09/nickeled-dimed-and-dollare d-to-death-fee-laden-payroll-cards-forced-on-low-wage-workers/

Holy shit the fucking comments.


TenaciousJim

There are some good payroll and prepaid cards that have little to no fees. MoneyManager, BOA's Cashpay, Regions Now, PNC SmartAccess, GoBank, ADP's payroll cards - all of those have free ATM access and little to no fees.

Unfortunately the media never looks at the better cards maybe out of fear that they won't have anything to write about regarding prepaid and payroll ripoffs.


forbes400at25

.50 to cash out your paycheck and deposit it wherever you want, put the cash in a lock box and use it as a bank... or... Use the card like you would any other bank card (you know, the whole concept).

Would someone come to my rescue if I was told I had to use the same card for when my ,000 bi-monthly check gets deposited? Probably not. So why would I care that someone who is low income cannot figure out how to effectively absorb .50 each paycheck?

The cards are good for helping people manage money - it forces you to be frugal while still allowing you the freedom to spend your money on the things you NEED. You shouldn't be needing to use an ATM to check balances, you should be able to track your spending on your own. You won't be inactive, since you get paid and that counts towards activity. You won't need to use the over-the-counter withdrawal, since you have the cheaper ATM option... Not sure - but the only pain point seems to be over .50 a paycheck... Hell - I get charged to use a Chase ATM as a BOFA customer - but who cares, I'm paying for convenience.

Point is - if you can't financially plan around a few bucks each paycheck - you've got bigger problems than how you're getting paid.