MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Labor to Wyden: Which Side Are You On?
Labor unions say they're drawing a line in the sand over support for a public health care option, and Ron Wyden might find himself on
Leave a comment
First labor wants to do away with the secret ballot, now it wants to be able to give its members free health insurance while still collecting millions in membership dues.
Hooray for the Unions.
“now it wants to be able to give its members free health insurance”
Businesses would love it if unions gave their members free health insurance — it would lift a hell of a big cost burden off their shoulders.
You may not be aware of it — if, as I suspect, you get your “news” from Fox and Limbaugh you probably aren’t — but many businesses, including Wal-Mart (not exactly a “socialist” outfit) strongly favor the public option for this very reason. The cost of providing even basic health insurance for their employees is killing them. It’s the insurance companies that are fighting it.
BTW if it wasn’t for unions you’d be working 70 hours a week for a dollar an hour and your kids might be working in a factory or a coal mine. So, yes, hooray for the unions.
H. Bruce Miller says:
Businesses would love it if unions gave their members free health insurance — it would lift a hell of a big cost burden off their shoulders.”
Unions are not the ones that would be giving their members free health insurance. They would just sign them up on the government dole. Would surely save the union a bunch of money.
If the company fails to provide health insurance they would then be required by the new law to pay an 8% tax. This would not apply to the union, and it sure as hell would not help the small business man.
“You may not be aware of it — if, as I suspect, you get your “news” from Fox and Limbaugh you probably aren’t — but many businesses, including Wal-Mart (not exactly a “socialist” outfit) strongly favor the public option for this very reason. The cost of providing even basic health insurance for their employees is killing them. It’s the insurance companies that are fighting it.”
You ignore the small business in your consideration.
I would suggest you take a little time, and do some research on why Wal-Mart is supporting the “public option”. Take your time because it is not out of benevolence that it is doing so, and it is not to help the unions, or its competitors.
“BTW if it wasn’t for unions you’d be working 70 hours a week for a dollar an hour and your kids might be working in a factory or a coal mine. So, yes, hooray for the unions”
And if it was not for the military you would be speaking German, of Japanese, yet you hate the “military complex”.
So, just because the unions did some good long ago we should overlook the fact that it was the unions that, in part, forced American companies to seek cheaper labor in other countries thus causing a loss of our manufacturing base, and jobs; forget the millions that people like Hoffa, and Sweeney, have made off the union dues; forget the thousands of investigations into the unions for misuse of members dues, and other criminal activities; forget the fact that if you don’t have a relative in the ILU you will not get a job in any port in the US, and the same is pretty much true of the Teamsters also; and the list goes on.
While the unions did some good in the early part of its history, if one forgets the violence it perpetrated, it does little good now.
Do you really believe unions would want to give up their gold plated plans for gov’t. rationing and the reality of dealing with SIEU bretheren who would be administering the plan? I thought so.
Make no mistake, the gov’t option will force unions onto the gov’t plan. We’ll be sure to look for the union label when we are on the gurney.
“And if it was not for the military you would be speaking German, of Japanese, yet you hate the “military complex”.”
The “military complex,” or “military-industrial complex” as Eisenhower (hardly a pacifist) called it when he warned correctly that it was taking over the country, is not the same thing as “the military.”
“it was the unions that, in part, forced American companies to seek cheaper labor in other countries thus causing a loss of our manufacturing base”
Oh please … the poor, altruistic, long-suffering companies moved their jobs offshore to China and other Third World countries because the big bad unions FORCED them to do it?!? It’s all about PROFIT, my naive friend — about slashing labor costs to fatten the bottom line. Same reason American companies today are hiring illegal aliens to work here for next to nothing in jobs (such as construction and retail) that can’t be shipped overseas.
It was no coincidence that a Republican president — Richard M. Nixon — finally threw open the diplomatic door to China. He knew exactly what he was doing: Giving corporations access to the world’s biggest pool of cheap labor.
written by H. Bruce Miller , August 20, 2009
The “military complex,” or “military-industrial complex” as Eisenhower (hardly a pacifist) called it when he warned correctly that it was taking over the country, is not the same thing as “the military.””
Can you have a military without an industrial complex? Just wondering.
“Oh please … the poor, altruistic, long-suffering companies moved their jobs offshore to China and other Third World countries because the big bad unions FORCED them to do it?!? It’s all about PROFIT, my naive friend — about slashing labor costs to fatten the bottom line. Same reason American companies today are hiring illegal aliens to work here for next to nothing in jobs (such as construction and retail) that can’t be shipped overseas.”
And what is the major cause for lower profit aside from taxation? Is it not wages? And when a union, such as the Afl-CIO, sets up a situation where the wages of a GM worker are 3 times that of a foreign worker, were do you think the company is going to go? In fact, it was GM that was the first to move a large part of its operation out of the US in the min 80’s to Mexico. It moved 6 of its factories there.
In demonstrating your naivete, as most on the left tend to do especially those of the MSNBC, Huffington, DailyKos, mentality, you wish others to ignore that it was the unions that forced GM, and other auto manufacturers, to pay the wages, and health insurance, for workers that were no longer working.Some 35,000 workers were on such a program just because GM, etc., went to robotics, and were going to lay off workers.
“It was no coincidence that a Republican president — Richard M. Nixon — finally threw open the diplomatic door to China. He knew exactly what he was doing: Giving corporations access to the world’s biggest pool of cheap labor.”
And yet it was not till 2000, and the early 2000’s, that the companies moved there? Until NAFTA there was no agreement for companies to even move to Mexico, and it was not till WTO/GATT2, both signed by Clinton (who, BTW, was the first to give China “most favored nation” status, and a chance to enter the WTO which Bush 43 finally allowed) that corporations began in earnest to move to China, and other lower waged countries. Or, is it your belief that countries like India, Malaysia, etc., pay a higher wage?
BTW, can you name the Speaker of the House that tried to get Guam exempt from the federal minimum wage, and her husband, and other friends, own a tuna canning company there?
“Do you really believe unions would want to give up their gold plated plans for gov’t. rationing and the reality of dealing with SIEU bretheren who would be administering the plan?”
So why are the unions supporting the public option? At least TRY to make some sense.
“Can you have a military without an industrial complex? Just wondering.”
Perhaps not. But you don’t need to have a military-industrial complex that plunders the nation like ours does.
“And what is the major cause for lower profit aside from taxation? Is it not wages? And when a union, such as the Afl-CIO, sets up a situation where the wages of a GM worker are 3 times that of a foreign worker, were do you think the company is going to go?”
Aren’t union contracts negotiated? Doesn’t management take part in the negotiations? Doesn’t management have to approve any contracts with the UAW or whatever union they’re dealing with? You try to make it sound like unions extorted their wage and benefit increases at the point of a gun. The management negotiators (presumably) were big boys. If they stupidly agreed to excessively generous contracts, you can’t blame the unions for that.
The fact is (Galbraith talks about this in his book “The Affluent Society”) the automakers thought the world would go on forever the way it was in the 1950s and early ’60s and they would never have serious foreign competition. They never foresaw the day when they wouldn’t be able to afford the wages and benefits they agreed to.
And BTW what is so terrible about an American worker making three times what a worker in China or Thailand makes? Especially when American CEOs get compensation hundreds of times greater than their companies’ workers do, and many times what their counterparts in other nations get.
And I do not hold Democrats blameless in all this by any means. “Globalization” was embraced wholeheartedly by both parties; it supposedly was going to make America even more prosperous because we would shift to a “knowledge-based economy,” or some such bullshit. Well, we’ve seen how that worked out — American workers are making less now, adjusted for inflation, than they were 30 years ago. And even many of the “knowledge-based” jobs are being shipped overseas.
H. Bruce Miller says:
So why are the unions supporting the public option? At least TRY to make some sense.”
Well, it wasn’t my comment, however, the answer is quite simple, and it has to do with why unions support amnesty for illegals.
The cost of health care for current and former members is adds to the cost of the products unions produce, making them less competitive with foreign products. With a global market, and the fact that most competitor nations have universal health care, the union can then pass the cost of health insurance to the government which means products can be made cheaper, exports will go up, and the unions believe this will add additional members to their rolls.
“Perhaps not. But you don’t need to have a military-industrial complex that plunders the nation like ours does.”
Do you think the military is the one plundering the nation, or is it the welfare State being created by government?
“Aren’t union contracts negotiated? Doesn’t management take part in the negotiations? Doesn’t management have to approve any contracts with the UAW or whatever union they’re dealing with? You try to make it sound like unions extorted their wage and benefit increases at the point of a gun. The management negotiators (presumably) were big boys. If they stupidly agreed to excessively generous contracts, you can’t blame the unions for that.”
As you state in your next paragraph, the auto manufacturors did not foresee the future, and the competition from overseas, or the foreign entities building here in the States. Nor did they foresee the current financial crises. So, when the unions threatened them with a strike of all three major companies, and the resulting loss of jobs for the affiliates, car dealers, suppliers, etc., they felt it would be cheaper to agree to the program.
Does not take away from the unions role in driving manufacturing in all sectors from the country though.
“And BTW what is so terrible about an American worker making three times what a worker in China or Thailand makes? Especially when American CEOs get compensation hundreds of times greater than their companies’ workers do, and many times what their counterparts in other nations get.”
Nothing wrong in workers getting so much as long as the countries economy can afford it which it obviously cannot now.
I agree with you on the CEO issue. In Japan the ratio is 14 to 1. In the US it is now 473 to 1.
BTW, just what role do you think the unions have played in the inflationary cycle?
“And even many of the “knowledge-based” jobs are being shipped overseas.”
And many are being shipped here through the HB1, HB2, etc., visas. There are approximately 500,000 IT’s out of work here in the States, and yet each year another 64,000 are brought in from India, etc., with the claim by people like Bill Gates that there are none here in the States. And the politicians refuse to limit immigration just as they have failed to prevent illegal immigration.
Do you think there might just be something foul underfoot for the American people?