Democrats & Liberals: Archives

Paul,

Workers and Businesses both provide to make our society what it is today. Without workers, businesses are nothing. Without businesses, workers would have no place to work.

It’s a yin and yang relationship.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone saying anything bad or derrogatory against workers. I *have* seen bad and derrogatory remarks by you against business, especially what you deem as ‘big buisness.’ You say you are ‘not denigrating business’ but in past posts you have quite often done just that.

So I have to wonder what the real point of your article is?

Paul Siegel

Nice post. I suspect that workers have lost visibility and power in our political life because of the focus on achieving more. The way the media tells it, everyone aspires to be the entrepreneur who makes a billion and retires to the good life. Working 9-5 and raising a family is just not glamorous enough to hold the TV audience’s attention. In a form of self-loathing, the very workers who hold the power are persuaded to vote against their own interests and for the interests of the lucky few who make or inherit a fortune. I can’t help but suspect this is by design, not accident. A couple of years ago a poll showed that over 20% of the US population believed they were in the top 5% economically, and that another 20+% believed they would be some day. And when you get there, you don’t want someone to tax your wealth away and you want to be able to leave it to your heirs. The right wing has cynically capitalized on this touching embrace of the American dream with clever marketing and doublethink like “death tax” and “personal accounts”.

If workers banded together politically they could change the way this country governs for the better. Perhaps you’ve hit on something here that a clever person might put to good use. A new political movement that tapped into the concerns of 85% of American voters would be a powerful one indeed.

I think we should create a new party… CWP (common worker’s party.) I know this has a communist feel to the name, but maybe we can gain points by picking a different mascot - how about a Black Lab? An we can work for worker’s concerns. No worry about abortion or gay marriage - those things can sort themselves out… let’s focus on livable wages and better health care. How about national standards for daycare + assitance to those who want to work but have kids (…for those below 2X poverty…) We can focus on real issues that effect the 85% we represent - and if politicians want to pull us apart by using devisive issues… we will wish them a happy retirement.

OK - I’m dreaming, but hey, it could be a blast… put the elephant and donkey out to pasture.

God bless the dreamer’s of this world.

Thanks…

Hope it helps…

Rhinehold-
Not a day goes by where we don’t hear of layoffs, benefit cuts, pension defaults, insurance problems and other various calamities. Workers are often the first casualties of any cuts, any merger, any failure in the business.

And yet, these folks are expected to consistently manage America’s high standard of living, and pay out their noses as customers to these business, and live with consumer goods that break sooner with fewer guarantees.

We are expected to bend over backwards for the interests of business. For years, though, they couldn’t bother to do anything for the rest of us. We are not theirs to use up and throw away. Nows the time for the tables to turn and for business to start working more for us once again. I have experienced a whole lot of this stuff personally, and although I don’t expect government to be the fix for everything, somebody should be out there looking out for us, instead of just those who already have power.

Peter Drucker, an economics professor, wrote a book about pension fund fairness. He asked why the workers whose pensions make up the huge pension funds that invest in major companies don’t have any control over which corporations are chosen as investments. He said if the workers, who are the true pension fund owners, decided how to invest their money (the pension funds), they could invest in their own interest. GM workers could make sure a share of their fund went to buy GM stock, airline workers could direct pension fund money to their companies stock, etc. Instead, we have very highly compensated pension fund managers investing according to standards which may not have American workers’ interest at heart whatsoever. Managers might invest heavily in companies outsourcing and offshoring lots of jobs, for example.

Druckers book may not have been a top best-seller, but his idea is fabulous.

Rhinehold,

I disagree with your assertion that without business, workers would have nowhere to work. Forgive me for not having the exact figures at my fingertips, but it was less than 100 years ago that a vast majority of people in the US worked for themselves. I’ve heard it was upwards of 80 percent or so. These people ran small mom and pop stores, farms, etc… While it was, perhaps, inevitable that society moved away from that model, I would say that it is evidence that the world was doing just fine long before “Big Business†came to town.

I would say that American Business does not need to say anything bad about the workers… they let the pay, loss of benefits and the sending work to other countries do they talking for them.

Remember the Czar the President appointed to support American workers? He couldn’t be at the announcement with the President because he was in China working on opening a plant that would take away the jobs of the people here.

The Republican Pary has become the equivalent of the fictional welfare mom driving a Caddilac….

They plead poverty as they $millions in salary as they drive their companies into bankruptcy, defraud the shareholders, consumers and American taxpayers and then want a “tax break” so they can “create new jobs.”

Funny, the companies I have seen here in Wisconsin at the signing ceremony for tax breaks were applauding the Governor’s signing the bill. It was broadcast with eveyone agreeing that this would allow these companies to create new jobs.

I wrote the newpaper reporter about why he didn’t follow up and interview some of the company reps there about exactly how they were going to create these new jobs with this increased wealth.

He wrote back and said it was an excellent question but he was not tasked to do it.

The very next week, one of the largest manufacturers that was at the signing, Kimberly-Clark announced the laying off of a bunch of workers… one week before Christmas. Merry Chirstmas American workers and tax payers that just gave that company $millions the week before.

People have rightly demanded accountability for welfare reform and education (I am in education and hold myself to a high standard too, so I am not picking on teachers)…

We need corporate welfare reform. Make them justify the jobs they say they can create. Show us the proposed budget with the money they take from the taxpayer (which we then have to make up).

People love to talk about the jobs being created and the increased tax benefits of the companies increased sales and the employees paying taxes…

This DOES NOT happen when the tax breaks go into executive bonuses and salaries or the jobs created are OVERSEAS!

We need to wean America off of the distorted maximumization of profits at ANY cost.

I disagree with your assertion that without business, workers would have nowhere to work. Forgive me for not having the exact figures at my fingertips, but it was less than 100 years ago that a vast majority of people in the US worked for themselves.

Erm, if they run their own business then they are ‘business’ aren’t they?

It is with some trepedation I write this because of the pile of nonsense anti union regurgitations it will no doubt ellicit.Nothing terrifies the right as much as the idea of workers joining together for their own benefit.
There is already in existence such a calaboration of working people with condiderable political clout. Its called the labor movement.It has been in existence for some time. Many of its accomplishments are taken for granted in this country. To list a few: the weekend,the 8 hour day, workmens comp,job safety,unemployment insurance, child labor laws ……………….
It is important to remember that these advances for working people did not happen overnight. The 8 hour day for example was a struggle of many years.10 and 12 hour days, 6days a week was the norm. People died in that struggle. It is also important to know that there are those who want to eliminate these benefits. They are clever,persistent,well funded and work through the Republican Party . Every year they push proposals to eliminate overtime. They have taken to calling it something else like comp time or worker choice etc.and try to tell us how much better off we would be if we only got paid less . And every year (so far) they have been fought back by Democrats backed by the labor movement. Whether you are a union member or not,if you work for wages you owe a dept of gratitude to the labor movement.
Just to innoculate you against some of the diatribe this post will generate;
Union are corrupt: Unions are closely watched by the federal government. Probably more so than any other insitution. They also operate by law democratically . If the members do not like the leadership the leaders get voted out.
Union leaders are just out for themselves: Sure there are some bad apples . Very few and they do not last long. Many also get paid pretty good but not as much as they could make in private industry.I find it amusing that the right vilifies union leaders for making money when in virtually every other field they applaud it.
American workers and unions demand to much pay and that is why jobs are going overseas: American workers can compete heads up with workers anywhere in the world but we cannot compete with slaves. We would be more competitive if we did not have to carry the tremendous overhead af overcompensated CEOs et al. And who is going to buy this stuff if we can’nt get paid decently?
We will probably get 2nd and 3rd hand accounts like”My uncle was in a union and he…..blah,blah ,blah.”
The bottom line is the division of wealth between the owning class and the working class is the fundemental conflict of the century,both here and around the world. Right now it is badly out of balance and getting worse. Unless this is rebalanced more justly there will be great social instability. The only force working for working people in this country is the labor movement. If you are one of those 85% who work for wages they deserve your support.

Who is going to pay the debt in this country? Who historicaly has kept the economy going? The rich? Nope. The poor? Sorry. Its the workers who are now losing their jobs to outsourcing. Its the workers who are now losing their pensions to corrupt failing companies.Its the workers who are paying more for health insurance while the CEOS of their companies rake in huge bonuses and stock options. Its is the workers who used to pay way more than their share of taxes, and are now shopping at WallMart because thats what they can afford, which puts more of their neighbors out of work, which puts more strain on…….OH,OH

The “problem” with glorifying the worker in this country is that the right has equated the “worker” with Marxism, Communism, and Socialism. These are all dirty words in today’s politics. Labor unions are villified regularly, a timely example is the remarks of NYY mayor Bloomberg in describing the transit workers as acting thuggishly. You will never convince the voting public to vote in its own best interest as long as the right continues to use “family values’ and fundamentalist “morality” issues to override sound social and economic policy decisions that would benefit the lower and middle working class.

Bill,
The union movement seems to me to be dying. Membership is declining everywhere except in government jobs.

I’m not going to give you a 3rd party response. I belonged to CWA Local 3204 in Atlanta for more than 18 years and was very active for most that time.

The problem I see with unions now is that they have done such a great job, they now have to search for a cause to keep their recognition and membership alive.

You list a few of the wonderful things that the union is responsible for getting for the american worker and I agree they have done this and a lot more. They also are responsible for some of the worst legislation concerning workers that this country has ever seen. Ever seen some O.S.H.A. regulations?

Will you deny that under just about all union contracts that a worker producing 30% of what other workers produce earns the same as the other workers if they have the same seniority?
Is this fair to the better performing workers?

I think labor unions in this country try to turn their membership against the company as a negotiating tool.

“Unions are for people too week to negotiate for themselves.” I don’t remember who I heard this from, but I can’t dispute it.

Gotta go to work now (non union). I’ll be back to respond and expand if necessary.

Paul,
Your list of workers for societal good is dominated by white collar positions. With the blue collars represented by street sweepers - A virtually non-existent job.

You can do better.

Ever hear of a “Right To Work” State ? I live in one and no union has been able to get me so much as a lunch break in my ten hour a day, six days a week job. Nor do I even earn a min. wage as set by the law. It’s not all milk and honey out there. You might ask why I do it then ? because, if I don’t someone else will… they know that, and my family will suffer not that of “Big business”.

Grant

Forgive me for not having the exact figures at my fingertips, but it was less than 100 years ago that a vast majority of people in the US worked for themselves. I’ve heard it was upwards of 80 percent or so.

That was 100 years ago. As yaall Libs like to say. Things change, get over it.
Today 85% of the work force works for a business of some sort.

Stephen Daugherty
Not a day goes by where we don’t hear of layoffs, benefit cuts, pension defaults, insurance problems and other various calamities. Workers are often the first casualties of any cuts, any merger, any failure in the business.

And I reckon you think that this is ALL the fault of business. While mismanagement and greed can be the blame for some of it, you cann’t say that business is responsible for it all. Oh, that’s right, yaall Liberials can. So that makes it gospel truth.
Fact is there are serveral other factors that contribute to this.
1.Not enough business to justify the number of employees currently on the payrole.
2.To low of a profit margin to justify the cost of benifits.
3.UNIONS, These blights on the workforce are the biggest problem for business. They feel it is there job to bankrupt businesses.
4.Insurance companies that keep raising rates and finally get them to high for businesses to afford.
5.Pension funds do fail at times and this usually comes from the failure of businesses to invest responsibly.
Businesses fail for only one reason. NO MONEY! And when they fail yeah, they lay off employees. I reckon you think that they should keep their employees on the payrole even though they don’t have any money.

“And I reckon you think that this is ALL the fault of business. While mismanagement and greed can be the blame for some of it, you cann’t say that business is responsible for it all. Oh, that’s right, yaall Liberials can. So that makes it gospel truth.”

What dag blasted hate filled rock did you crawl out of ? Who do you think raises the Insuance rates ? And why do you think there are not enough business’s to support JOBS? HERE, in this counrty. Low profit margin’s. How about doing a job because the job needs done. Did you ever think of that ? Crawl back under your greedy, hate filled, ignorant rock. We don’t need the likes of you out here.

TomD,

I agree that the relative importance of the union has diminished in the manufactuing sector. Should we not be seeing a decrease in the “evils of the union” also? If they are less influentian then we should see less “evil”.

I do believe though, that as long as their might still be unions there might be the “fear” of them to somewhat keep business in line. Not a lot, but if they jerk the workers around too much… Yah never know.

I remember years ago when a judge was going to appoint a gaurdian over a union until they had elections and got rid of some “elements” in the union.

I was waiting for another judge to do something similar to all of the companies out there that were involved in criminal behavior… didn’t happen. ENRON did happen, but that was many years and many scandals later.

I have seen some OSHA regs… and Cal. had their CALOSHA which was shut down. I chuckeled at this because it was said that it was redundant and not needed. I was, at this time, working on a electonic spot welder that had its foot activated switch sitting in about 3 inches or water. Where did this water come from? From the bathroom in front of the machine. It was backing up out of the bathroom! I objected and the pot smoking supervisor told me not to worry. Yes, he was drinking beer and smoking joints in his car at lunch… then coming in and driving a fork-lift.

When the union came in to organize I bought them all donuts and refused to cross their line. I was there as a temp while going to college.

Everyone
“libs”… such a nice loaded word. With so many connotations which colors the argument with so many subtle shades. If we label a person concerned with the American worker a “liberal” then we can place the whole spectrum of the “liberal” agenda onto the argument. Right? If you support the worker then you also have to support the rest of the “liberal” agenda.

Cute. Clever.

However, if we look to the middle of the political spectrum we might see a lot of the different shades of the middle class spread across both parties. Smack dab in the middle… people who DO GO TO WORK EVERY DAY, not some stereotypical welfare cheats or billionaires. So, the concerns of their jobs is not a “liberal” issue as some wish to make it.

I agree, business needs money. I do have a Business Degree (concentration in Manufacturing and Operations management, but I did take all the accounting and other classes).

Workers are employeed by employers. That is obvious. It should be a mutual, symbiotic relationship where each benefits…

Workers do understand that money is required to pay a person for the work that is done. Please, taking the argument to this level of basics does not promote the discussion. Instead it keeps it at a superficial argument that can justify anything for the sake of the company needing money.

Short term versus long term profit and the methods of rewarding company executives may hold the answer to some of these issues.

I am not talking about people like Jobs, or Bill Gates. They created their own wealth and jobs. I believe they are entitled to all that they make. I am talking about the company executives who are employees of a company.

Yes! Executives and managers are employees of a company, just as the worker pushing a broom on the manufacturing floor. As employees, they should have to justify their pay (and perks) just as someone on the production floor does when they have their yearly review and justify their pay and continued employment.

If an executive (and the others at a high level of management) are evaluated and rewarded based upon a short term metric, such as quarterly earnings, then it becomes very tempting for short cuts that increase the short term profitability of a company at the expense of long term growth and profitability.

Anyone wishing to argue this should have enough knowledge to contemplate it and see what I am talking about.

Many of the jobs that are created by tax breaks to companies… if you look at the cost of the lost revenue to the state or federal government you will see that it might have been cheaper to just give the workers a welfare check to stay home… because the jobs created are not enough to compensate the government from the lost tax revenue they gave up.

Please, I am not talking about taxes, good-bad, more-less. Just the simple arithmetic.

TO ALL UNION HATERS

There is an intesting article on Slate (whether you agree with their political leanings or not it is an interesting article) concerning the plight of the Saturn plant in Georgia.

Here was a group of workers that cast aside the unions. They agreed to do it the way the managers wanted to do it.

Their premise? That if workers would do as management needed to build the cars, the would build the best cars possible. The company would be successful and the workers would be successful! Full employment and job security! The workers agreed and did absolutely everything that they were required to do… and the plant is probably going to close.

Why? Maximization of profit. Short-term goals at the expense of long term planning. More profit from the SUVs. But… now the SUVs are tanking in sales and GM is really screwed.

SUV sales have tanked costing GM millions upon millions… Saturn is talking of closing their doors… but wait??? IF SUVs are tanking why shut to doors? Saturns are perfect for gas mileage conscience consumers!!!!

Nope… decisions were made a while ago determing short term profits… it seems like GM executives are always chasing the dollar which means that they are following, reacting!

They are not looking forward which is the job description of an executive. To be strategic in their thinking. Long term. Instead, in the interest of continuing to chase the increased growth of the previous quarterly earnings they are looking to today instead of tomorrow.

Those executives that are clear in their vision and where they want the company to grow (for EVERYONE’S benefit) are the executives that are deserving of the high compensation. All the others are in way over their head and are earning an executives salary for doing a managers job!

UNIONS are not the problem! If they were, then we would see a decreased issue of the problems associated with unions as their influence decreased over the past 20 years or so. I haven’t seen this.

gypsyirishgirl,

Have you been following the Trent Lott show? It is interesting that a person such as Mr. Lott is now hiring a lawyer to sue his insurance company. Stae Farm… “Like a good neighbor!”

Isn’t the almost to perfect???? A person wishing to write a movie like this would be laughed out of Hollywood with something that incredible!

When American business can do no wrong… where the problems with business are the lawyers that increase the rates and costs for everyone… here is Trent Lott smack dab in the middle in real life!!!

Not esoteric, sitting and talking theoreticals… but right smack dab in the middle of the problems we American citizens deal with day in and day out.

I feel sorry for the situation concerning the loss of his house. No one should lose something so precious. Then, to have the insurace company try to weasel out of it!! If they paid ONE person and wrote it off as being cheaper to pay then suffer the publicity, they should have paid him! Hehehehehe.

When I was living in CA I got my car insurace premium and it had gone up! I called the insurance agent and asked why my rates went up… I had not accidents, I was 6 months older than my last premium which should make me 6 months less of a youngster racing his car… same zip code… everything was the same.

She said that because of the Nothridge earthquake the insurance companies were taking a bath… so they were increasing rates to help compensate.

I explained that this was my CAR insurance we were talking about… not homeowners. Insurance is a betting game… I am paying because I am betting on needing it, they are taking the money and betting that I don’t.

As far as the earthquake, they lost their bet and had to pay. I refused to pay for their gamble on home owners insurace with my CAR insurance. She adjusted my rates back down.

Cool!

What dag blasted hate filled rock did you crawl out of

I would say the one a few feet from yours? Have you not read what you’ve written in these comments?

Why? Maximization of profit. Short-term goals at the expense of long term planning.

LOL, what a simplistic view of how businesses work, no wonder you have such a hatred for them.

UNIONS are not the problem! If they were, then we would see a decreased issue of the problems associated with unions as their influence decreased over the past 20 years or so. I haven’t seen this.

They have, but no you haven’t seen it. It would require looking around, having an understanding of the issues involved and having an open mind.

I can understand why you haven’t seen this.

gypsyirishgirl
Why thankyou! That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me ALL week.

Darren7160
Where did you hear that about Saturn? Funny I live in Georgia and haven’t heard that.

Ron Brown,

My bad, Tennessee. I hope that this error is enough to disqualify everything that I said.

http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051202/ZNYT01/512020360/1051/NEWS01

Rhinehold,

Sir,
Much more impressive to someone with as limited intelligence as myself would be specific examples. Humor me.

You say that my statemets are wrong yet cite no argument or example. Why is that?

I understand… it is much much easier to question my intellignce as a means of countering my my argument.

Very well done sir. You are really about ready for your own radio talk show.

Now time for the Rhinehold Radio Hour

Sorry, we would like to continue this conversation, but it is time for a commercial break!

Who let that idiot on the phone get through!!!! Do I have to come in there and do everything for myself????????

Rhinehold,

Since you do bring up intelligence and education (as in knowledge of business) would you care to post your education requirements online next to mine?

Sir, if you say that education does not matter, and you imply that my knowldge is “simplistic” then possibly you could give us a thumbnail sketch as to your qualifications to judge mine.

I will show you my transcripts and grades if you will show my yours.

Neat attempt at deflection about Trent Lott and what I was saying. Poetic Justice? It would be, but I am a “bleeding heart” liberal and I am not allowed to feel bad about the misfortune of others.

Alas.

It’s kind of ironic that most conservatives feel that everyone should be responsible for themselves financially (remember Archie Bunker - “didn’t need no welfare state, everybody pulled his weight”!), but have no problem with jobs being lost to slave wages overseas. You can’t have it both ways. If American corporations were made to pay higher import taxes on goods that are made overseas, it wouldn’t pay for them to send goods away to be made.

Just because you don’t have a college degree doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to find work to support yourself and your family. Not everyone is cut out for college. Most blue collar families in the U.S. have to have both parents working to make ends meet because an $8.00/hour job just doesn’t cut it. If corporations paid American workers a livable wage, I believe you would find less two parent households working. One could stay at home, eliminating the need for daycare (which can easily run to at least $1000.00/month), and be able to parent their children, not leaving it up to daycare centers and teachers.

There would also be less people on welfare and unemployment, thus taking less money out of the average person’s paycheck.

The government could also give incentives for FOREIGN companies to come over here and put Americans to work.

America has the best workers in the world. Why shouldn’t they be paid a decent wage and be able to live comfortably?

The solution is simple and starts with two very easily understood concepts:

1) Ownership - every worker should be given a fairer “base” level of ownership of the pot of profits (base - % of the loss in tough times). This must be carefully setup not to kill incentives to start or innovate in a business.
2) Meritocracy coupled with Democracy - “Industrial” Democracy: everyone’s opinion must be considered, but the verifiable expert opinion on a particular decision should be primary. Determining expertise is beyond the scope of this post.

What dag blasted hate filled rock did you crawl out of

I would say the one a few feet from yours? Have you not read what you’ve written in these comments?

Rhinehold,

Dear sir, While I would agree that this comment was over the top. I have seen you and other regulars on this forum call each other stupid, ignorant, dumb, in need of special-ed etc… You are not checked on each of your remarks. I find it amusing, to say the least, that if I disagree (strongly)or personally insulted, my comments are frownd upon. would you explain this to me. Please, as not all, not even half of my remarks are “over the top”.

Sincerely,
Ya’lls hated “lib”

tko

1) Ownership - every worker should be given a fairer “base†level of ownership of the pot of profits (base - % of the loss in tough times). This must be carefully setup not to kill incentives to start or innovate in a business.

Are you willing to invest your money into the business?

2) Meritocracy coupled with Democracy - “Industrial†Democracy: everyone’s opinion must be considered, but the verifiable expert opinion on a particular decision should be primary. Determining expertise is beyond the scope of this post.

Again, are you willing to invest your money into the business?
I love how everyone thinks they should get the profits from the company they work for and have a say in how it’s run. But they don’t have anything invested.

The key word there is “work” . They have untold hours of work, sweat, sacrifice, “invested”. All to insure that the company they do “work” for is sucessful. Making their employer wealthy. At the very least the worker should earn a worthwhile wage.

gypsyirishgirl
I agree with you. Employees should be paid a living wage.
While I do have benifits for my employees, all I really owe them is their paycheck. The benifits help to attract and keep good employees.
Things are going pretty well at the factory. I contribute the excelent work of my employees for a big part of this. And their benifits package is one of the reasons I have been able to employ such good workers. However if it came down to their benifits or the company going under, I would have to cut their benifits. As much as I’d hate too.
I beleive that most folks would rather keep the jobs they have and lose benifits than keep the benifits and lose their jobs because the company went under.

Einstein once said that a thing should be made as simple as they can be made, but no simpler. In real life, things have a certain built in complexity that makes it difficult for supposedly clear solutions to work as intended. I think the market right now is suffering from what you might call an autistic trance, where it’s gotten into a self-involved loop of behavior that makes sense from the inside more than the outside. As such, these behaviors are such in my opinion:

1)They are too focused on numbers that primarily matter to speculators, not to the health of the company.

2)The system is too top-heavy, built more and more to favor executive compensation and executive interests.

3)The work force is seen more as a liability than as the necessary resource it is.

4)The leadership in business has taken to treating things more as an abstract money game, than a purposeful enterprise within a community. They are treating their profits and income as an entitlement, playing more financial tricks to get ahead, instead of taking risks, taking pride in what their company does, and doing better things for the customers in terms of goods and services.

These are broad brush criticism, so understand there are exceptions, but this is the problem that I see in America: Business has become too abstracted from non-numerical realities in the real world.

In the end, we must realize that these are human endeavors with human results and that these human factors can come back and bite an economy in the ass that doesn’t respect them. Business must recognize that if the workers are neglected enough, this system breaks down, and their profits with it. The current arrangement of things cannot go on forever. They would be well advised to deal with the human realities of the workplace, while there is still time to land on their feet.

Ron-
At some point, if we look at this a little cold-bloodedly, a factory should shut down if it can’t pay it’s employees. In the midst of all this supply-side wage and job cutting, we’ve missed an essential question: does the management not have some role in shaping personnel decisions, hiring too many people to still make the profits they want, or not enough to ensure the productivity they desire?

Is there not some point at which we are letting business owners get something for nothing, and that it’s only fair that the market push things back up?

Last, but not least, is it any coincidence that the places in which they are sending their factories are not the very same places where workers have the least power to force companies to pay them what the market demands?

You cannot support an economy from only one side of the equation. We cannot only run this economy for the sake of the elite, the rich and the executive.

tomd et al
Different unions have different contracts . Often these contracts are quite specific to indivdual companies and sectors. I am in a building trades union. In My industry there are no senoirity provisions. As for OSHA ,it saves lives. I have seen this. I am in heavy construction and we get killed more often than policemen or firefighters. It is still dangerious but safer under OSHA.

Union membership is actully increaseing slightly. As for influence unions just handed our goofy governor a stinging defeat on his business backed propositions in California. We will also send him packing in the next election.

Union membership is actully increaseing slightly. As for influence unions just handed our goofy governor a stinging defeat on his business backed propositions in California. We will also send him packing in the next election.

So no one thinks Peter Drucker’s idea is good: Have the workers control and invest their own pension funds, thus control the stock market, thus control the national (and world) economy. Something is missing here.

First let me say that I hope everyone maintains the policy of “attacking the message and not the messenger” because I like this exchange of views. Being as liberal as I am in Kansas just doesn’t allow for this free of an exchange without the possibility of physical violence.

Now, I appreciated “Gypsy’s” comments re: “right-to-work” state. I was a life long Nebraskan (born and raised) until disability required I move near my oldest son in Kansas. Nebraska is a right to work state.

So who pays me now? You do if you work.

Why? Due to the right-to-work strategy and weak state workmens compensation laws.

Of course it gets somewhat complicated and I can’t go into detail without violating a gag order. I can say that work conditions were quite similar to what “gypsy” described: up to 12 hours straight with no designated breaks, no recognition at all of the Family and Medical Leave Act, an absentee policy that would make any effort at limiting transmission of a virus almost impossible, clear discrimination against women and “some” minorities, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da.

But the pay was really good for the area so everyone basically shut the he** up. And I was part of it as a shift supervisor. Well, as they say, you reap what you sew!

But, all else put aside, I see all three of my children struggling harder than I ever did. And the past three or four years things have continually gone from from bad to worse. I truly believe that the current administration (and the Republican congress) are he** bent on taking us back to the early 1900’s both morally and politically.

Suffice it to say I don’t want to live in a county poor farm. Of course the Neo-cons would say us “ne’er do wells” belong there because we fell out of the good graces of God.

KansasDem

Ron Brown,

Bravo for you Sir. It is rare indeed these days to hear of a company that offers both a livable wage and a fair benifits package. May I come work for you ?

Continued prosperity to you and your employee,s. Clearly can not function without the other.

Paul,

You should stop being coy and just declare for Marx. I mean c’mon! By business don’t you mean Capital? Bourgeois? Work without business and cooperation not competition? Isn’t that something like the utopian state promised by Marx, Lenin, and finally Stalin?

Business isn’t standing in your way of doing work without regard to profit. No one is. You can go out and do all the work for the common good you like all day long 360 days a year without regard to whether or not you make a dime. (Hell, it seems as though I’ve been doing it for years.)

You may not be able to eat unless you spend some of that time planting and weeding and harvesting actual food in an actual garden.

For the life of me I cannot understand this religious obsession with profit being the root of all evil. Profit is survival. Profit is what enables us all to live better lives.

There is no way that you can limit the size of business without limiting the quality of life of all of us. The only alternative to having big business is big government, and Big government does not have a good track record in providing the best for everyone. It just doesn’t.

Ron Brown,

If you will not my comments I made above, they were not aimed at personal ownership of a company. I stated that Jobs and Gates deserve all that they can make.

My obection is to the managers and executives who did NOT create the company and somehow believe that it is a blank check. An “old boys” network between the CEO and the board of directors.

Sir, unless a person created the corporation or wons the majority shares… he is an employee. Thus, I would like to see his compensation based on merit as much as the factory floor worker.

My departed sister and her husband owned a company and I do know the hours that they worked and each and every pennt went back into that company. I respected and admired how they ran it and especially the realtionship they had with their employees.

Investment in a company is an excellent thing and many many employees do have an investment through stock options and employee profit sharing.

Some, like ENRON had way too much invested in their own company… and then they were screwed from being able to sell their shares while those in the executive positions were dumping theirs.

I got nailed for this, but I hold it to be true… sort term profit at the expense of long term investment is a problem.

While the employees were checking their stock price each hour at the company I worked at they weren’t getting much done. I was taught that my retirement investments were long term so I couldn’t care less if it fluctuated.

During Gulf War I the stock of TORO dropped to almost $10 from $30. People were crying and pulling their hair… I was trying to tell them that this could be a good thing…

They were in this for the long haul with the company and if they had any spare change laying around… to buy as much TORO stock as they could because it would go up! In the mean time, if the company purchases their employee shares at this rate they will be getting a lot more shares than they would have. I just checked an it is about $44.

What I have seen at Toro were short term actions that caused the stock to increase at the expense of long term growth. This was during the time where the latest buzz on Wall Street was “downsizing” where any company could lay off people or shut down a plant instead of modernizing or investing in it. Why, because the “downsizing” meant that the company was serious and taking a proactive approach to “trimming the fat” and that would case the stock to spike. Read the article one day, watch the stock peek the next.

I saw a national top 10 accounting and consulting firm come in and declate that no one manufactured their own electroncs anymore. Everyone was outsourcing to China. Guess where my job went? Believe me, I had enough connection within the company to know… they did not try to see how we manufcatured and if we were doing it the best we could or not… or if it could be improved… they were looking for formulamatic answers that definitely were “simplistic” as one person used the word.

“I love how everyone thinks they should get the profits from the company they work for and have a say in how it’s run. But they don’t have anything invested.”

I do not know if your company is large enough to offer profit sharing or is a publicly traded company so I cannot comment on this.

What I will say again is that executives who did not create the company are no more entitled to the profits than the worker on the floor. They may earn more, but that should be based on their performance and what they contribute to the company… not a right associate with a job title or a sense of entitlement that comes with the title.

Sir, as a business owner, maybe you will understand the point I was making before…

In a large company, the CEO is not a manager. If your business is small enough to run yourself you may do both, but in a large company the CEO is supposed to be dealing with strategic, long term planning… setting future goals for growth. Managers run the day to day.

There are not enough true strategic CEOs today and too many managers in their positions… It is an entirely different mindset and realization of what should be done.

I really do just wish that people would realize that company executives are employees. Maybe special employees because of some talent or education or experience, but empolyees. Responsible for contributing to the company just as much as a worker on the line.

When you say that workers want a piece of the profits are you saying that they want an “unearned” piece of the profits? If so, then I would say you are right, that this is wrong.

I am not saying this is your opinion… It could be, it may not be.
The typical response I hear is that the motivation for the worker is his paycheck! If he expects anything more, then he is…

This attitude creates a sense of loyality that is good for one paycheck only. From paycheck to paycheck is what the employee is concerned about.

Now, my question is, if a “worker” is to be motivated by his paycheck only, why do executives and managers, who are supposed to be professionals, feel it necessary to have carrots dangled in front of them to perform?

Why the bonuses, the stock options?

People can call me any “ism” name they want, but I see it that if a professional needs this carrot motivation to be induced into doing what is best for the company (what he should be doing for his paycheck like everyone else),and they are professionals, then maybe some of that could also “motivate” the workers.

Again, I am not talking here about a person that has created his own company. If that person determines that sharing in the profits ensures that the employees stive to increase the profits then wouldn’t that be Capitalism at its best?

They may not own capital, as in buildings and machines, but their capital is their work… as a true working of profit, if the employee knows that efficiency, better ways to work, a smile on their face that brings a customer back… all these things increases the profits for the company and could increase their life too.

A symbiotic relationship…

But, it is built on mutual trust and respect. I am sure that you are good at yours… but there are some out there that are not.

I just wanted to comment on unions. I for one agree that they are not as great as some people make them out to be. I for example have got to watch my father go up to vote for a better contract on many occasions just so the majority of the union could vote to keep their current contract if the company aggrees to give them 500 measly dollars now. I once read a bumpersticker that read “never underestimate the power of idiates in large numbers” man this slogan applies in so many ways.

Eric-
Republicans have an excessively top-down sense of the world, especially the corporate world.

I think it was Steve Case who said the other day that his former company, AOL Time Warner, should divest itself into several different companies. Reason? Having grown so large, the company’s individual units were seeing their focus and initiative sapped by the interests of the larger company on top of them. This, I feel, is the case with many such companies, especially in the media environments. We Democrats see the drive towards greater consolidation as a drive towards stagnation.

I heard so many stories about downsizing, how the arbitrary cuts forced people to take on multiple jobs at a time, frustrated customer service, and made the company unable to take advantage of rebounds in the economy.

Outsourcing fares little better in the more sophisticated areas. Those shunting programming to India found that the combination of time difference, languaged difference, and cultural differences frustrated things, and ate up profits. Those shunting manufacture to China find that their products are getting knocked off by their factory managers, shared with the rest of the manager’s family.

It’s all too easy for you folks to claim that we just want to make some socialist paradise. Truth is, we want a consumer economy that actually works, and which we can sustain without killing ourselves in the process. You’re so absorbed in demonizing us, that you are blind to the fact that our aims aren’t nearly as utopian as yours or Marx’s.

I believed in NAFTA and I believed it becuase, in the long run, if a company hires people in somewhere like Mexico to build our lower tech commodities, then they eventually become consumers who become consumers which can buy our products.

What I don’t support with free trade and outside the country outsourcing was the incredible exploitation of powerless people.

It has not been a living wage within the lower costs of a different country. It has been exploitation. I know that is a dirty word where people can say that I am a bleeding heart… but the fact remains that I cannot come up with a different word.

This is not based on some “feeling” I have, but on the evidence.

$15 Disney shirts are being made by people that cannot earn enough each day to live in a plywood hut and make ends meet. They get deeper into debt each day… and this is one example.

In the free trade, NAFTA spirit? These people will never become consumers in American products.

Unfortunately, instead of discussing any personal or corporate restraint it does come down to the “isms”.

Stephen Daugherty
I think it’s safe to say that if a company cann’t pay it’s employees that it won’t be in business very much longer. Even if they don’t shut down voluntarily, they won’t have any employees left.
When I bought the factory I was given some very important advice by the man I was buying it from. He told me that even if I don’t pay any other bill, the one that I MUST pay is the weekly payrole. He’s right!
CEOs are nothing more than employees of the company they work for. The problem is they are for the most part paid to save the company money and incsure a good bottom line. A lot of them get bonuses based on the amount of money they save. They also get bonuses base on the bottom line. Both of these combined tend to make them not concider those that REALLY make the money for the company.
The other day I over heard a couple of my office help talking. One of the girls was going to go to lunch with one of the guys on the production floor. The second one said something to the effect that office employees were too important to have lunch with production workers. WHAT A CROCK. Production IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING HERE!

Darren7160
I currently employ 49 at the factory. This includes production and office help. I’ve been looking into an employee stock program for my employees. If I can do this, I feel that yhey will take more intrest in the quality of the product. Not they aren’t doing a good job now. But I’ve noticed that other companies that have a stock program that the employees take more intrest in the company.

Ron,

I think that you would be someone I would enjoy working with. I have worked for Fortune 500 companies and I have worked for a father and his 2 grown sons.

The father and his sons were the best, in my opinion. The sons were incredibly knowldgeable about the business, they made allowances based on the person and not an employee handbook.

When I had accumulate a lot of vacation time I asked if I could cash it in because as a single father with two young children, the money was more imporant to me and my family than the time off. They allowed me too.

They also took care to make sure that the benefits and profit sharing were more than fair. You can believe that they had very loyal employees. It was a pretty technical business, FCC, FAA and Underwriters Lab. complaince testing and engineering… but they had employees that rarely ever left.

I also enjoyed sparing with them over my political view, because each time they thought they had me pegged they were surprised… on things such as gun control and the death penalty.

It is the small and medium business owners that are the major employers. They do not abuse the system that is done by executives of companies that they did not found.

That is my objection to so much of what I see in the “worker” vs. “management” wars.

My grandfather was a union organizer. I believe in the dignity of work, whether it is sweeping a factory floor so it is clean and safe, or creating a company to fullfil a vision and create jobs.

Too often the ones that talk about the greed and the “unfairness” of a worker may not realize that a lot of white collar jobs pay increases are tied into that which the union gets. The business knows that to make their white collar workers happy they cannot give the unions a 5% increase without an equivalent one for the other workers.

Balance. Respect. Examples of abuses in unions are everywhere it seems… but the abuses of some employers can be found too.

Sharing your goal with those that work for you is an admirable trait… one I think is strong in personal ownership and which I would always encourage.

Darren

Darren7160
I’ll let an employee cash in vacation time also. However I do require them to take atleast one week a year. I feel that they need it in order not to burn out. Sense we close the week between Christmas and New Years, I count this as their required week.
I agree that small businesses are the major employers in this country. And most do try to treat their employees fair. The ones that treat employees extra good do attract and keep very good and loyal folks to them.
In the last 3 years I’ve only had 2 employees that left on their own. One left to move to another state because his wife got a promotion that requried her to relocate. The other left to start his own business. So far he seems to be doing ok. He told me the other day that he’s pattering his employee policies after mine. I concider that quite a complament.

Ron Brown
I agree with the vaction being important. I am one of those types that just gets up each morning and goes to work… after awhile I realize that a year has gone by.

It the instance I mentioned I did have the vacation time accumulated but we ended up working through the week of shut down.

The other times I used my vacation piece meal as I needed too because of the baby sitter not being able to watch the children or their school having days when they were not in school.

Ahhhh, the good old days. Though they are wondeful teens, I would rather have them little children again.

Now that I am going into education I am not sure how that will be. I know that a teacher has a lot of latidude within the classroom… but as with so much you learn in college, the more you learn the less you know…

And, of course, the college dealt with so many specifics as to this or that lesson… they didn’t cover the big things.

KansasDem
Unfortuntely a lot of states have weak workmens compensation systems. I believe this for the most part due to the insurance companies. They have the politicians in their pockets. And the politicians aren’t going to do anything that will jepodize their getting campaign contrbutions.
The workmens compensation system need complete overhauling.
I had an employee get hit by a forklift. The accident was completely the fault of the lift driver. He was backing the lift and backed across the yellow line and hit the machine operator who was 6 feet inside the line and had his back turned. He suffered a dislocated disk that required surgery.
However, the insurance company claimed that the machine operator was at fault and they were dening his claim. It took us two years to get the insurance company to pay for his surgery. By that time his back had deteriorated to the point that he cann’t work any longer.
The sad thing is, all this is completely leagal.

We don’t need Workers.

They say Americans lack education. Actually they lack Skills. 100 years ago every small town or village had a baker, butcher, cheesemaker/dairy, a brewery, whatever. Skills were learned locally and practiced locally. People went to school to learn to read and write and do some math. Most of these skills are owned, controlled and operated by huge corporations. It goes straight from the factory to the shelf. Compared to 100 years ago, How many people can still bake a loaf of bread, brew a beer, or make a edamer cheese? A few who do it as a hobby, otherwise like less than 1%???? So, what happens when corporate america gets shut down? Who’s going to feed us?

Americans need to learn skills and gain independence from Corporate America. Education is secondary.

Paul:
You have hit the nail on the head. As owners have all the power and rights the average working person lives in fear of losing his/her income. One of the answers is stronger and HONEST unions. All unions must stick together and support each others goals. Picket lines must not be crossed. We must hit these corporations where it hurts the most. In their pocketbooks. “The working class hero is something to be.”

Darren7160
I put three of my daughters and my baby sister through college. I have one in college.
One of the older girls told me the other day that the one thing college taught her was how much she didn’t know. And still doesn’t.

Republicans have an excessively top-down sense of the world, especially the corporate world.

I think it was Steve Case who said the other day that his former company, AOL Time Warner, should divest itself into several different companies.

I don’t disagree with Steve Case at all. But your first statement about republicans has absolutely no relation to the second about smaller companies. There are many many many liberals and progressives who have a top-down sense of the world regardless of their opinon of business, or even of their industry if they happen to be in management.

It might surprise you to know that many of the ‘richer’ folk are in fact democrats. They live in predominantly blue states like New York.

What does company consilidation have to do with political ideology?

I heard so many stories about downsizing, how the arbitrary cuts forced people to take on multiple jobs at a time, frustrated customer service, and made the company unable to take advantage of rebounds in the economy.

Outsourcing fares little better in the more sophisticated areas.

To me this is not a result of a capitalist conspiracy it is the nature of organization itself. The problem with reality is that it is messy. Organizations are made up of people with varying skills, knowledge, and experience. Any organization, including the government, will have to take necessary actions when necessary. My thought is that we can in no way proscribe single-minded arbitrary solutions by government monopoly than we can proscribe all businesses take or not take certain actions.

It’s all too easy for you folks to claim that we just want to make some socialist paradise. Truth is, we want a consumer economy that actually works, and which we can sustain without killing ourselves in the process. You’re so absorbed in demonizing us, that you are blind to the fact that our aims aren’t nearly as utopian as yours or Marx’s.

I mentioned Marx in the context of the demonization of business. Who’s absorbed with what here?

My point is that if it were so easy to create the perfect consumer economy why don’t you do it? By you, I necessarily mean all those who are unhappy with the work corporate America does do.

Blaming “entrepreneurs, tycoons, financiers, billionaires, CEOs and business owners” for the supposed oppressive hell-hole we call America is rank Marxist propaganda. What are we saying when we see everything through the rose colored glasses of tried and true class struggle?

What are we saying when we demonize what is for what should be, yet do not count the cost for exactly how we are going to eliminate the “entrepreneurs, tycoons, financiers, billionaires, CEOs and business owners” in favor of the ‘workers’?

Let’s hear some specifics about how we should be ‘working for the common good’ as opposed to working for profit.